According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only eight percent of men in the U.S. seek counseling or therapy. Experts say reasons can vary from societal pressures and fear of vulnerability to shame and religious barriers.
Former Green Bay Packer turned mental health therapist Jay Barnett is pushing back against that narrative. For Barnett, playing football became his identity. When his NFL career ended, depression set in and he tried to take his own life.
“When football fell apart, when I got sent home I fell apart. And that was when I attempted – I had my first attempt,” he recalled.
Like many African American men, Barnett struggled growing up without a father. He also endured abuse at the hands of his stepfather, hiding that pain for years out of fear of appearing weak.
“The way we’re socialized as men, the way in which we have been developed to not really focus on our emotional and our mental elements of our development, we are taught to focus on the physicality, right?” Barnett said during an interview on CBN’s Prayerlink.
“Getting in the gym, building muscles, becoming faster, all of those different things. And no one is really helping us
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