This content was created by Tim Arrigo. This content was uploaded by Tim Arrigo. This is a YouTube video titled "The opposite of depression is not happiness….#mindset #mentalhealth #mensmentalhealth" (published Aug 16, 2023) featuring a monologue by Tim Arrigo. In the clip he discusses men’s mental health and masculinity—arguing that suppressing emotions leads to depression, anger, and destructive behaviors—and urges men (and women) to express vulnerability, seek connection, and join supportive communities (he mentions the Beyond Driven Facebook group) as a path to healing.
Chapters
There's an old Irish proverb that says, "Niamh mian ar an mian mian." Never trust a warrior who cannot cry. For so many years of my life, I held in so much pain and so much sadness. And I felt like I had to measure up to what I believed a man should be. And in my mind, a man should be someone who's stoic and strong. And not able to be weak, not able to be fatigued, and not able to be vulnerable. And this, my, my misconstrued idea of what masculinity was, led me to a place where I just buried so much of my pain. I buried so much of the things that, that hurt me deep down on the inside. And that's why so many men nowadays are so depressed, right? Men are depressed nowadays because they're pushing down their emotions. What's the opposite of depression? It's not happiness. The opposite of depression is expression. And so men— and this message is for women as well— we have to develop an understanding that all emotions are universal. For a lot of years of my life, I never felt comfortable expressing my vulnerability. Expressing, right, where I was really at. And so I buried it and I depressed it. I pushed it down. And when we depress our emotions, what happens is we can become a very volatile person, right? Like if, if our cup is all the way full, how can we tolerate anything else? I can't take on any more stress from my day-to-day life if I have all this pent-up emotion. And a lot of times the only emotion that that I was comfortable showing was anger, right? Anger, anger was permitted, right? It was okay to show anger, but it wasn't okay to show sadness in my mind. And so what did I do? All of my emotions got turned to anger. And a lot of times that anger got me in a lot of trouble, caused me to do things I would later regret. I mean, how many times have you reacted out of anger and that's ended with an outcome that you wanted? Ever? Ever once. So this message, right, is to say that, hey, if we want to know why so many of our men are depressed, it's because there's a culture that doesn't support men being three-dimensional. Three-dimensional in the fact that they can be strong, they can be stoic, but yet equally emotional. Emotions are universal. Women and men experience the same emotions. God designed us this way. So we have to create an outlet for, for men where men can begin to express to one another what's going on with them in their lives and understand, right, there's connection in that, there's camaraderie, there's unity in that, and there's healing in that. For so many years of my life, I hung around other men who did the same thing I did, which was what? Suppress their emotions. And when we suppress our emotions, right, we're more likely to turn towards drugs, anger, violence, hostility, rage, resentment, and engaging in behaviors that really help us blow off steam, right? That help us let out those emotions or serve as a way to cover up those emotions even further. And so my message is for everybody But for the men out there today, find another man that you can talk to. Find another man that you feel comfortable being open and honest with, right? It wasn't until I started to do that work with other men, right? And find the healing in being transparent with another man that I began to finally unpack and unload a lot of the trauma that I had in my life. A lot of my own insecurities that I had in my life. A lot of, uh, my own pain that I had suppressed for so many years and learning that it's not okay to walk around with a facade. It's not okay to walk around with the mask of masculinity, the bravado mask, right? It's not okay to walk around with the everything's okay mask, right? These are, these are mechanisms that we use to cover up how we feel. So find somebody else who you can talk to, right? This is why we've created Beyond Driven. Within our community of Beyond Driven, right, we have other individuals who are obviously talking about what's going on with them. You know, vulnerability is the portal to healing. So as we talk and as we communicate, right, with one another, there's immense amounts of power in that. There's connection in that. There's transformation in that. There's healing in that. So know and understand that we're always here to support you. If you ever want to jump on our— in our community, right, we got a free group on Facebook. If you ever just want to become a part of something bigger than you in terms of, you know, finding the right people to talk to, because that's also a part of it. The opposite of depression is not happiness. The opposite of depression is expression. Express your feelings today to somebody and stop bottling up what's going on with you. That's never a solution. It's always a way that we try to escape and avoid. Things that either we believe we can't deal with or we believe we shouldn't feel.
