TINAH Talks | Mental Health and Wellbeing Podcast

45. Breaking the Silence: Male Sexual Abuse and Men's Mental Health

• TINAH • Season 2 • Episode 45

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This week on the TINAH Talks podcast we are joined by guest Tom Garber, a courageous survivor of sexual abuse, to delve into the critical issues surrounding men's mental health and trauma recovery.

Tom is the founder of Hope for Men, a mental health platform dedicated to providing a safe space for men to embrace healthy masculinity, offering support and alternatives to traditional therapy, recognizing that not all men find conventional methods effective.

Tom candidly shares his personal journey, shedding light on the societal expectations that often hinder men from expressing their feelings and seeking help, plus highlights the importance of creating safe spaces for men to talk about their experiences and the need for mental health resources tailored to male survivors.

The conversation emphasizes resilience, emotional awareness, and the power of supportive relationships in overcoming mental health struggles.

🤳Connect with Hope For Me:

https://www.instagram.com/hope_for_men/

🎙️Listen to Tom's Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/what-happened-to-me/id1741509308

🙏Hope For Men Free Resources:

https://www.hopeformen.org/

https://www.hopeformen.org/resources

#MensMentalHealth #MensMentalHealthAwareness #SexualAbuse #Trauma #MensMentalHealthStatistics #MensMentalHealthSupport #MensMentalHealthIssues #MensMentalHealthHelp #MensMentalHealthResources #MensMentalHealthStigma #Therapy #Support #Resilience #HopeForMen #MentalHealthResources #SocietalExpectations #PersonalStories #MentalHealth #TraumaRecovery #MensSupport #HealingJourney #EmotionalAwareness #CommunitySupport #ConsentEducation

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Kelsey (00:00.978)
Welcome back to another episode of Tina Talks. I'm your host Kelsey, and this is our guest Tom Garber. He is one of the founders of Hope for Men. And today we are really trying to break the silence. We're talking about men's mental health and sexual abuse. And so this episode is really for men who have been.

struggling with mental health but unsure where to start, survivors of sexual abuse seeking validation and support, then friends and partners and allies who really want to support the men in their lives. So welcome to the episode. Tom, how are you doing?

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (00:23.392)
So, I'm going to stop the presentation here.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (00:31.118)
So.

Good, thank you for having me here.

Kelsey (00:38.448)
Yeah, of course. We'd love to know a little bit about you. If you could just, you let us know where you're at and what it is that you do with Hope for Met.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (00:47.918)
Sure. I live in Berlin. I'm in Berlin, Germany. I was not born here. I was born to a German family, but I moved here about 12 years ago. I used to be a filmmaker for many years, a screenwriter, producer, director, did all these things. And when I moved here, I did a career shift a few years ago and I went to study UX design. And that's where Hopeful Men was born. And I've been working

seriously on this project for past two and half years. I my co-founder two years ago, we met online and we shared the same mission. And yeah, we work on better mental health for men because I know personally how hard it is for men. And my co-founder, he had two sons and he wants them to have a safe space to deal with their issues if they ever have any issues.

Kelsey (01:47.228)
Yeah, no, I think that's amazing. And I mean, you must have, I mean, I know we've talked a little bit, but your own experiences and your own passion, if this is what you decided to do with UX UI design stuff that you wanted to get into. Would love to know a little bit more. I mean, we'll talk more about how Hope for Men dives into helping men and what resources are available and everything. But I'd be really curious to like how you took that leap from

Okay, I'm doing UI UX design and now this is what I'm gonna do with it. Why did you choose to go this specific route? I mean, I can tell that it's important to you.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (02:27.118)
Yeah, I was abused as a kid, sexually abused as a kid. I was also neglected as a kid from my parents. I'm not here to criticize my parents. I'm just saying this is a fact. They're dealing with their own mental health issues. And for many, many years, I struggled with my mental health. And I know that it started from the sexual trauma.

And whenever I tried to reach out for help and support, I couldn't find it either from society or organizations. was one organization in my home country that I reached out to them and it took them a year to call me back. And they called me back while I was in the supermarket doing my groceries. And I told them, I cannot really speak now. doing my groceries. And they told me, if you're not going to do it now, we'll have to call you in a year.

So I stood in the supermarket with my groceries and shared my most like different secrets and like my pain and only to find out at the end of the call that it's going to take them a year to find me a therapist to work with. And at that point I was like, okay, so I'm not going to do that. And I moved to Germany because I knew that I can find a mental health professional here to work with. It took me a few months after I moved here and

I found a therapist that we worked for 12 years together. And I know how hard it is for men because a lot of therapists don't know how to work with men. Therapists are human beings. Not all of them are good. I believe that most of them come from good intentions, but they don't always know how to treat men. met a who, for just an example, man who went to a therapist to deal with his trauma. He was...

raped by an older gay man. He was a straight man and he was raped, drugged and raped by this man. And when he went to therapy, the therapist told him, oh no, you're homophobic, that's your issue. And he was like, I don't have any problems with gay, just have the gays who tried to drug and rape me. So of course he didn't go up, go to therapy again. But that's the kind of stories I keep hearing over and over again that a lot of therapists don't know how to work with men.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (04:45.058)
and that's of training and education in the mental health industry. I believe that the mental health industry was constructed to kind of control females in a way, know, that the men sent their wife to therapy and then they had a discussion with the therapist to kind of control them and they focused more on the research.

Kelsey (05:08.667)
hysteria back in the day. where it was like you go for your the woman is hysterical hysteria and then

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (05:16.598)
Yeah, and we as a society, we tend to look at females as just as victims or weak people. And I don't see it like that, but that's how it is. Society looks at it. So a lot of men just don't go to therapy. Or if they do go to therapy, they don't find the right therapist to work with. So they just give up. And also therapy is not the right tool for everyone.

Some people just don't need therapy. Maybe they just need to find a friend or to better their relationship with their people in their lives and to move or do some sports and things like that. Therapy is not always the answer. And this is part of what we try to do at Hopeful Man to give you more than just one option. Yeah, that's what we do at Hopeful Man. That's how it was born. It's my personal mission. It's very, very hard. I've been doing it for two and a half years.

It affects my mental health, but it's a mission that I will never stop doing. So that's what I do.

Kelsey (06:20.295)
Well, fuck Tom. But first off, thank you so much for sharing and being very open and vulnerable on this episode. We really appreciate it. That's why we have Tina Talks. So I really appreciate you sharing. There's so many things that I wanna touch on. I'm just curious though, real quick, you said you're home country. So where was it initially that you really struggled to get access to like therapy and services?

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (06:47.96)
Which country was it? I was born in Israel.

Kelsey (06:52.507)
In Israel, okay, so in Israel, it was really hard. my, I'm in the US, my business partner with Tina, she's in the UK. And the same thing with like a little bit different in the US because we have a lot more privatized things and it's usually through work and stuff like that. But like, if you are doing the like national health in the UK, it's up to like eight months to speak to someone. So very similar story. Like Sophie really struggled to get.

Resources and help when she was looking for something. So that's was just curious about curious about where where that was and I mean, I think you touch on so many different aspects here that Right, like I myself i've been sexually assaulted in my life It wasn't sexual abuse when I was a child or younger anything like that. I know that my dad who has passed he for those who haven't listened episodes before he died from end stage liver failure from alcoholism and he pretty much he drank himself to death and

very firm believer that he was really depressed and he was also struggling with other mental health aspects that were never truly diagnosed and he never got support for any of that. He was left on his own and I'm pretty sure you know what I've heard through the great find of family stories and things like that that he had had abuse and sexual abuse experiences when he was younger and he never received the support from it. I know that at that time especially like with my grandparents generation

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (07:58.238)
I know.

Kelsey (08:19.589)
I think it was brought to their attention and it was just like, no, nothing's wrong, it's fine. And then you just like sweep it under the rug kind of thing. So I think many people can probably relate to this kind of journey in this story, which is really, really unfortunate. And I think that on top of it, right, men are expected to be, you're expected to be strong. Like men don't cry. You're supposed to just deal with it and shut up and move on.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (08:30.894)
We were willing to do a two-day time zone, or even a four-day time zone, when I can tell you that we lot people that in the middle of the pandemic. So, we're to do I don't know if you've done this, but I'm sure you've seen a lot.

Kelsey (08:47.927)
And I think the way that we have societal expectations along with the barriers of therapy of itself, getting access to therapy, finding the right therapist, like I've had some good therapists, but it's hard to find someone right to work with kind of thing. And so, you know, I think when we talk about men's mental health, what do you commonly see in terms of men? I know...

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (09:05.966)
So, you know, just want to talk about how many times the relationship between friends and family has been And think that's a interesting question. Obviously, have lot of relationships that have been And think that's a question.

Kelsey (09:15.407)
has can have depression, anxiety, but I find that like men tend to it manifests differently in them, right? What do you typically see in terms of manifestation where it's like, there's something going on with them. They're struggling with their mental health for whatever reason, whether it's sexual abuse or trauma or anything like that.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (09:35.073)
Sex addiction or any kind of addiction, drugs addiction. Men are more vulnerable to become homeless person. People used to say or keep saying men don't speak or men don't open up. my mission is to change this narrative because it's not true because men do speak. It's us as a society don't listen to them.

Maybe we speak differently, we use different words, we use different actions, but we do speak. And actually, when you spoke about the UK, there was actually a study in the UK that out of a thousand men who committed suicide, 91 % of them went to get help and they didn't get the help they needed. And that's why when people tell me not to speak, I always show this statistic because it's not true. We do try to speak and then people tell us, don't speak.

And that's the message of you also tell young boys, you're not supposed to have feelings. That's by the way, the environment that I grew up in, again, I'm not putting blame on anyone. I grew up in a household with a mother and two sisters. And the only messages that I've heard are, men are cheaters, men don't have feelings, you shouldn't trust them. And I was a man growing in this and I was so confused.

I'm none of these things. I know how to love, I know how to care, and I never cheated on anyone. I'm a good friend. And it was very, very confusing to me growing up because I couldn't find myself in this. And also, we shouldn't look at men as just one unit. Like, we shouldn't look at females just as one unit. We are all human beings with different forms.

My mom, for example, never wanted to speak about her mental health. She never wanted to go to therapy. She wasn't an easy person. So it doesn't really fit how we talk about females or... Yeah, I look at everyone as a human being, not just by your gender or something like that.

Kelsey (11:46.94)
Yeah. No, and I 100 % agree with that. mean, like, I think mental health in general is stigmatized for everybody, right? And I also understand where you're coming from. Like, my parents, I was on my own at 16. My parents did the best they could with what they had at the time, and they were struggling with their own mental health issues. This is what I believe. I mean, I've had to come to a lot of these conclusions, you know, through therapy and acceptance and all these things.

I don't hold anything against them, but like it's not going, and I'm not here to, you know, shit on them or, you know, be angry at them. It's more so of like, this is, these are the patterns of behaviors and experiences that have happened that have led to this situation. And we can all collectively do better. And the way that we do that is by having the open conversations. I know, you know, I used to work in inpatient psychiatry. was a behavioral specialist and right, men and women,

What we I did notice is that men and women tend to present a little bit different in certain ways I know that sometimes men can be appear more angry or have more aggression or withdrawal when they are Experiencing severe mental health issues, but that can also happen for women as well I know it's really common like physical symptoms come with it like chronic pain fatigue gut issues and I think we tend to see and I think this I

I would see this more and you can totally correct me if I'm wrong or if you don't see this, but men tend to like throw themselves into things more, right? Like there's the addictions, but then there's like workaholism where they just like throw themselves into work and anything to do to numb and distract from the experiences, the narratives that they're carrying around with them that no one will listen to and that they can't find support for. That's kind of what I saw with working on.

the unit and working with people who were severely struggling at that time. And have you seen similar kind of behaviors for men when they're struggling?

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (13:49.454)
Yeah, and that's what I meant, but we do speak, but maybe in different words or different actions. That's what I meant by that. Speaking is not just using your words, but there are signs that you can see. And another thing that I like to say is, don't ask why, if someone committed suicide, don't ask why didn't you say anything. Ask yourself, why didn't I ask? What is your response? Of course, you're not responsible for someone who taking their own life.

Kelsey (13:53.755)
Yeah.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (14:19.486)
have you been there for this person or did you give up? Yesterday I went to this talk, a webinar, and there was this person talking and so like I'm taking myself whenever I see someone who's negative I'm taking myself out of the situation and I wanted to say I didn't say of course like why aren't you not there to support this person? Maybe this person depressed you can support this person ask how can I help?

instead of just saving yourself.

Kelsey (14:52.817)
Yeah, I would, you know, when I was younger and I was going through a lot of the stuff with like, I there's a lot of trauma in the household and all of that. I tribute a lot of my resilience and I, and there's a period of time I studied psychology in university where I got heavy into resilience research. And one of the things that they say like builds resilience, one of the strongest factors is having that outside perspective and outside support.

So right when I look back at when I was a kid dealing with stuff at home, I had to see a school counselor for a period of time because the school knew my parents were getting divorced or were divorced. And so I think it was a requirement by the school. And I would get pulled out of class once a week by this school psychologist. And bless her heart, she had a tiny closet, little office. But what I remember of that, I don't even remember what I talked about, but what I remember is that

It was me with an adult where I got to speak and share things. I wasn't being told to shut up. I wasn't being yelled at. I wasn't being hit. And it was an adult that was actually just asking me questions and letting me speak and share my feelings and my thoughts and whatever it was. And then at the end of it, I got a cool pencil eraser every time I left or a piece of candy or something that has stuck with me. And I, and I have had other experiences in my life where people have

offered me some sort of support or care or they've just held space for me. And I think it's those moments that like made me feel like, there is something else out there. is, there are caring people outside of what I know in my core unit family or my bubble of my life. And I think that makes a huge difference. And I think people are scared of like, if someone's severely dealing with something, I'm not a professional. I don't know how to deal with it.

But I think what you're saying is, it's just a matter of saying, hey man, what's going on? I see you're having, and this is not how you put it, but like, I see you're having some big feelings. Do you wanna talk about it? You wanna, like, I'm happy to hold some space for you right now, like, judgment free, and we can like grab a beer over it, or you know, grab a margarita, or grab a juice, whatever, it doesn't matter, a coffee. I think we're such, we're egotistical beings.

Kelsey (17:18.653)
So we're always thinking about ourselves and then we all have our own stuff going on. We have our own problems. We have our own experiences. And so having to manage that in and of itself and then just worrying about us ourselves and our own wellbeing, we can get consumed by that. And then when this is not, when you don't feel like you can open up and talk to other people about it, you're not gonna feel like holding space for other people to do the same, I think.

which kind of comes full circle to why we're having conversations like this on Tina, you know?

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (17:49.558)
Yeah. And ask more than once. Because think about yourself. If someone asks you, are you okay? And I guess most people automatically will say, yeah, I'm okay. And then the other person can see that you're not okay. Ask again. Or find ways or just say, okay, I understand that maybe you don't want to share it now, but know that I'm here for you. When you want me to help you, I'll be here for you.

Kelsey (17:54.066)
Yeah.

Kelsey (18:01.114)
Bye.

Kelsey (18:05.117)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (18:18.296)
So ask more than once.

Kelsey (18:20.155)
Yeah, and you can always, I mean, you can always just point out what you see. can say, I see that like you look like you're distressed. You look like you're upset or frustrated or angry. I'm not sure what, but I can see that something is not okay. And so do you wanna talk about it? Like, I'm happy to talk about it, right? And they like frame it a couple of different ways. You're not calling them out in a negative way. You're not saying they've done something wrong. You're just presenting that.

I'm curious to know what was the breaking point, like the moment where you found some relief or you found someone to talk to or to like find a little bit of support and space for yourself in dealing with what you've experienced and the abuse that you've had.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (19:13.582)
Like I said, I worked with my therapist for 12 years. I just finished therapy a week ago. Not in good terms, I have to say. She was good for me for, I guess, eight years. And then I stayed there because maybe I was lazy or I didn't want to meet another therapist and start a relationship all over. It ended because I decided that I want to discover other things, other options for myself, other...

of therapy or to do yoga for trauma or EMBL or any other kind of therapy because I felt this does like talk therapy didn't work for me anymore and I wanted to discover other things. Yeah, I think I felt seen by my therapist but we also don't come from the same background. We did therapy in English which is not my native tongue and

It's not Paris. I'm Jewish, she's German, so there's always this in between. So yeah, it helped me a lot to get to a better point so could start taking care of myself. And that was the important side. I haven't had relationship with my family for many years. And the work that I did with her helped me to rebuild my...

relationship with my family and like I spoke about my mom for many years, my mom saw me as another man who hurts her because that was her experience in life. And I couldn't deal with that anymore. And I said like, I'm not interested in having any relationship with you because I cannot be the person who hurts you all the time, even though I don't want to. And it could only change when I change something in me. Okay, so I'm going to show her a different kind of man, someone who cares about her.

doesn't judge her and just loves her. And that was the best years that we ever had. That's how therapy helped me to get to a better place, to see her as a person and not just look at myself as a victim.

Kelsey (21:19.762)
Yeah.

Kelsey (21:25.981)
Yeah, I think you kind of, touch on a really important point here for people who are not familiar with the resources that are what is available, even though it's still sometimes a barrier to get to. There is talk therapy, which I'm a firm believer talk therapy is great for starting the conversation, starting the conversation and opening up awareness, awareness about yourself.

in your own thoughts, feelings and behaviors and awareness about others and being able to see people in different perspectives and light and being able to experiences or interactions in the world from multiple angles, right? Not to say that you want to diminish your experience in any way and start to say, you know, it's fine what happened, but to be able to, right, for me to be able to say, and I experienced physical abuse direct from

my father, right? I love him deeply and I know he did the best he could with what he had. Did he go about it in a really fucked up way? Yeah. But I recognize he was his own individual person struggling with his own demons and things that he had, he never got support for. And I am a really, and this is part of why I'm so passionate about mental health like you is that I think that if we were taught from a young age how to process our thoughts.

how to feel our feelings and then to appropriately communicate them and have boundaries that were around and have the safe space to do that, the world would be a much better place. People would be more resilient and they would be able to manage the things that come up with life because there's always gonna be things that happen. But I digress. So I think.

Right? Like there's talk therapy where that's a great starting point for that awareness and for starting the conversation. But there are other options, like you said, for addressing, mental health. And there are somatic based practices like breath work and yoga and all these different things with other types of therapy from EMDR and cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy. That's not just where you're going and you're talking to a therapist, but you're actually learning your

Kelsey (23:45.066)
using your either your body or your nervous system to kind of reset different things or you're learning tools and skills to challenge the way you're thinking and to help you better process your emotions and then learn how to communicate and express them. Does Hope for Men provide services like that give a mix of all these things or?

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (24:08.828)
We just launched about two months ago, we're just in our beginning. We didn't get any funding, so everything is slower for us. At the moment, we offer therapy sessions. You connect with therapists who understand mental health. In the future, we plan to have other resources for men. We do have articles now that mostly I write them. We did have some content team that helped me write some of it.

but it's mostly on me, which is okay because it helped me to learn as well and educate myself. But in the future we plan to have men circles, healthy men circles, because it can go to a really bad way as well. And other ways to build friendships, mentoring men to one another. I think what I understood from a talk with another man who was also...

survivor of the Sadovichek abuse. His name is Gregory David. He wrote a book, a trauma recovery manual. It's a really good book. And one of the things he told me like, there is not one answer. You need to figure out maybe now therapy is good for you and do that. Or maybe you want to go to a group of men and start speaking about it.

But maybe this specific group is not good for you. Try another group and maybe it will be good for a few months and then you don't want to have it anymore. Just try to discover every time what works for you. And about therapy, I believe that it's most... Of course the therapist needs to be professional and know what they're doing, but it's all about the chemistry. If you don't trust your therapist, therapy would never work. It can be the most amazing therapist in the world, but if they don't really connect with you...

then it's never gonna work.

Kelsey (25:59.208)
Yeah, yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. Healing, right? There's that whole saying, trauma is not your responsibility, but healing is. And healing is a journey. It is not a one and done thing. You don't take a pill and then boom, you're great. You don't go to a couple therapy sessions, boom, you're great. It really is a lifelong journey. And I think the way that I describe it to people and...

I'm gonna use my hands and my nose for reference here just for those who are just listening. But so on one side, on the left side we have, we are surviving, we are struggling, we are still in the midst of traumatic experiences that are really, you know, going either are currently affecting our mental health or will continue to affect our mental health down the road. And then on the right hand side we have where we're mentally thriving, where...

You know, we are feeling great. We're in a place of fulfillment in life and we're feeling positive. We have positive relationships, positive experiences, all these things. And we recognize what has happened to us in the past. It's acknowledged and we've worked through and processed those things. And then in the middle, which is my nose, is square one, square zero. So I think what a lot of people don't realize is that you can go from that dark place of surviving to square one, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're yet.

thriving and you have to do work to get to that other side. The irony is, is that the things that you do in each capacity are almost the same, right? It's like where you're doing the work of going to therapy or trying to figure out how you can build healthier relationships or taking care of your body and your nervous system and figuring out how you can better process your emotions and communicate them and whatever.

that you take with that, it's a journey. It's not a one and done thing at all. One thing I know we were kind of talking about like the recovery of things. I did want to talk a little bit more about, you know, why men other than right, doesn't, right, like society, right, there's this fear of being disbelieved.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (27:53.919)
Yeah.

Kelsey (28:11.261)
I guess we did kind of talk about this. I was gonna say, know, men, there's a fear of being disinclined. There's a style of misconceptions that men can't be victims and that there's a lack of male centered trauma support. In your development of hope for men, how has it been finding like therapists and support that wanna be involved with this? If being that this is the case, like this is the barrier that men are experiencing in general.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (28:37.006)
How did we find the therapies? That's the question.

Kelsey (28:40.025)
Yeah, kind of like, how is it, how has the process been trying to develop more resources or finding people who want to be involved in this way because they see that this is an issue as well?

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (28:52.75)
Talking about it and going out and putting myself out sharing my story that you need to build trust with people, also with therapists. I'm not a therapist myself, so it's harder to, sorry, to trust me as a professional. I had to build this trust and talking with therapists and for them to see that I'm doing something that is meaningful for me. So in the beginning, when I reached out to therapists, I had a call with each one of them to see

First of all, that they know what they're doing because I didn't want to just have therapists joining us. And then not giving the support that I want to give men because they will just redo everything that I don't want them to do. So yeah, it's about building trust. And now they find us. Like every day we get requests from therapists. I do have to reject some of them. Maybe they have been working for a year or two or they don't have a lot of experience in working with men.

So I have to reject them and tell them that I need people who understand because unlike, I guess, other platforms for mental health, it's not about how many therapists that we have. It's about the quality of these therapists. That's what I care about.

Kelsey (30:07.505)
Yeah, yeah. So it sounds like you have some requirements, right? Like they have to have experience working with men more than a certain number of years. Are there any other aspects that you're looking for? Like for them to say certain things or a certain mindset about it?

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (30:22.158)
For them to understand, we also offer, we did it in the beginning, we did webinars, so we asked them to join to our webinars to learn from our experts. Not more than that at the moment, but later when we do get the funding, they'll have to go through to training on men's mental health before they can offer therapy on our platform, which is something that we're building now.

Kelsey (30:45.659)
love that. Yeah, that's amazing. I get it like, funding is a hard thing to get. Even with Tina, we've, you know, we're trying to get funding. It's hard. It's hard out there, man, to have like a mental health kind of startup. It's very hard. Okay, so I think

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (31:01.56)
Which is harder for men by the way, which I had interesting conversations with investors. don't at the moment, we don't look actively for funding at the moment. But when I started having conversations with investors, it was so interesting. Most of them were white older men. They kept telling me men don't deal with mental health issues, men don't experience sexual trauma.

Kelsey (31:05.617)
I can imagine.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (31:28.782)
And then because I always share my story, I was open about everything. It always comes to at the end of the call, they tell me, you know, something like that had happened to me when I was a kid. And they can tell me that like there are 60, 60 something year old man, and then they remember everything. And then I tell them, like, how can you say that it's not a traumatic event for you? If you remember exactly how it was, and it was just so many years ago.

I think they just don't want to deal with that. They don't want people to ask them these questions. But in general, like I had an investor telling me it's a very small market. It's funny because half of the population are men. And I had an investor who told me there's a small market, but then I've seen him going to invest in and I don't want it to sound like I don't support it because I do. This person invested in a mental health app for transgender people, which is

in my belief, is more the population than men. So it's very hard when you try to speak about it. It's very triggering for people to care about men.

Kelsey (32:39.025)
Yeah, I can see that. And I think like, it's a vicious cycle, right? Because part of the thing is that you have to be vocal about it. Like, so there needs to be some rallying behind it. right, you know, there's the women's movement in, you know, the 60s and 70s, we're pushing for women's rights and things like this. And I think as of recent LGBTQ communities have been the loudest in terms of

you know, we're here, we exist, we need to be seen and treated differently and we need access to resources and things. And so I think because when you're louder and you have a community of people who they themselves are like, this is happening, we want support, that helps to push that and I don't want to call it an agenda, but for just the lack of a word here, that agenda along. And I think that when men are so, especially older men, so numbed out,

and repressing their experiences because they didn't have the support, no one held the space for them, they didn't have the resources, and they still somewhat are inaccessible. There's like, what's the point in digging up the past or what's the point in dealing with this? I'd rather continue numb out and just not deal with it and focus elsewhere or continue on in life. And some people are able to really compartmentalize and then

other people not so much where it severely affects their mental health and their ability to function on a day-to-day basis and in society. And I think when you're at that point, it's then you're just another, I don't wanna say like, you're just a victim in the wheel, basically, someone who experienced these things, but you're already at a place of feeling hopeless and shameful. And it's really, really hard to then speak out and say, hey, I'm here, please help me.

and then to have like a community and support behind that. And so am I making sense like that? It's kind of this vicious cycle. Like there is no support. And then to push for support, people have to be unnumbing and be willing to be vulnerable and talk about things before it gets to a point where they're totally hopeless and shameful. And right. And then it just kind of feeds into one another with the lack of resources and support to help.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (34:58.537)
I think that

People tend to think that, but I also know from our followers or people who are engaging with our platform, there are mostly over 45 men become much more sensitive when we get older. And we, because it's kind of like, okay, I don't care anymore. I'm just going to say whatever I want to. So they don't have the pressure. They don't have to take care of a family anymore because they're older.

Kelsey (35:09.437)
Amazing.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (35:25.986)
But there is also the younger generation that are much more open to speak about mental health, especially in the US. It's different from different countries. yeah, people tend to think that older men don't speak. But it's actually the opposite. We become much more sensitive when we get older.

Kelsey (35:45.5)
Yeah, know maturity wise, right? I mean, like, I think the statistic is that like, around the age of 40, early 40s is when men finally like hit an emotional maturity that like women hit in their like mid to late 20s kind of thing. And so it's a little bit of a longer journey. That makes me happy to hear that the people that you are having engaged in the community so far are

are 45 and up because I think, needs to start somewhere. It starts from the top. From the older generations, they're the ones that, so to speak, I don't wanna say control things, but when you have money, you're working, you're a little more established, you're not just some teenager that's still experiencing the world. I feel like you can make more progress and adjustments. Imagine if we all came together in every generation and all that.

I guess so this brings me before we like wrap up and everything, I really wanna talk about, know, right, I'm not a man. And like I said, I mean, I have a boyfriend, but my dad has passed. I don't have any male siblings or anything like that. And so I would love to talk about how men, how we can better support men, right? Like how can we better support their mental health? And...

Aside from asking, are you okay? And like, I'm here to listen. Is there anything else that we can do to really like hold space or really help kind of push to get more resources and support for that?

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (37:13.454)
Find resources. We have them on our platform if you want to find some resources. And maybe don't just, if you're the man in your life that you see that they need help and you don't know how to help them, you can reach out yourself to a mental health professional or some organization.

and ask them how can you help for specifically this situation. There is no one solution, but it can also affect your life. Maybe you're married or you have a kid, a boy that are dealing with that and you don't have the answers. You can reach out as well to take care of yourself and also to ask how can I help this man in your life.

Kelsey (38:07.953)
Yeah, I love that. I think that hits home. think, right, when I think about having children, I don't have kids right now, but I want to, you know, and it's not even just boys, but girls, like if I'm upset and I'm having a hard time and I'm crying, I don't want to hide that from my children. I want them to be able to see that it's okay to not be strong all the time and to really help them figure out like you're having a feeling.

like how are you feeling right now? Let's like label what it is that you're feeling and let's breathe through it together kind of thing. And I think you can do that with adults as well. I think it feels a little bit weird if you're not used to doing it. It's easier with like a kid because you're teaching them. But I think again, these are skills that everybody, everybody can benefit from being able to label your emotions, being able to feel it through your body and then to like healthfully step out of it.

And I know in the US there are resources in terms of like male-led groups and things like that. Like you said, I know there's like men circles and it really depends what type of circle it is. So you have to be tentative and careful and make sure that it is led by, I would recommend that's led by a professional, someone who understands the dynamics of so-called group therapy because it can,

It's an example of a microcosm and it can lead to a toxic environment if men are feeding in things without, whoever's in the group can feed things in without clear direction and skills to process through things, if that makes sense.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (39:50.966)
Yeah, yeah. I did meet some men who are doing these men's circles and they're not mental health professionals and I joined to see how it goes for them. It's not always going to the toxic place like one of them is like a young father who just wanted to meet other fathers like him and I'm part of the WhatsApp group and I can see how they go and it's all like positive and they're there to support each other.

and there is nothing toxic about it. And I also wanted to say, if you do have kids, don't teach your daughters that they can only be victims. When you talk to them about consent, tell them that they need to ask consent as well, because men can also be, like in the UK, for example, legally, men cannot be raped by females. It's like, yeah, because rape, it's only penetration.

Kelsey (40:22.002)
Yeah.

Kelsey (40:32.093)
Mm.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (40:48.11)
And a female cannot technically penetrate a man. So it will never be rape, just legally. So teach your boys as well to ask for consent, to respect the other partner. Maybe your boy is gay and you also need to ask consentfully for the other guy. But don't touch, just teach kids.

Kelsey (40:48.765)
Okay.

Kelsey (40:57.565)
Wow.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (41:14.114)
that females are victims and men are predators because we are all human being and can be everything that we are. That's the most important.

Kelsey (41:20.701)
Yeah, mean, yeah, and I've mentioned before, like, I've had experiences with sexual assault and, my belief is, I ask, like, I would like to kiss you, can I kiss you? Like, I, right, treat others as you want to be treated, I think is, like, the basic concepts that we should really lean into more. So I'm really happy that you said that and I appreciate that you did. I do think that...

just for reference for people, there are online communities, there's helplines, there's books, there's podcasts on male trauma recovery. So if you're not ready to jump deep into therapy approaches, you can do that. And if you're ready for talk therapy, there are things like CBT and EMDR, which are a little bit more practical skills-based. And just know that if you can find people in your community, you can have conversations with, like you said, sometimes it's a matter of just finding a friend.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (41:57.034)
Okay.

Kelsey (42:16.579)
and it is, it does require a little bit of vulnerability and putting yourself out there. So before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to say, Tau?

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (42:26.654)
Just be strong. See a man as human being. I know that it's a very sensitive topic and we're not going to open it now, but if you're young or just not any age, white men doesn't mean that you are evil.

and you're a bad person because that's the biggest message that you hear today that if you're white and male, you're probably evil. So don't listen to these people. I'm not saying that they're not evil people, that they're evil people in any race and any gender, but just don't listen to these messages and find positive and supportive environment that don't spread hate to anyone, including yourself.

Kelsey (43:11.025)
I love that. I think that's amazing. And I think, right, remember, like, all mental health matters, but, you know, men, you know, suffering in silence isn't a strength. Male survivors of sexual abuse deserve to be heard, supported, and believed, and healing is possible. And like we said, there's resources available. So I really appreciate you, Tom, coming on. We're going to put the hope for men information in the show notes. So if anyone is interested, they can take a look at that.

and get in touch with the resources there. But just remember guys, you are not alone. Your experiences are valid and healing is possible. So keep going. And thank you so much for coming on, Tom.

Tom Garber - Hope For Men (43:52.737)
Thank you for having me.