I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
A bestseller for over 20 years, I Don’t Want to Talk About It is a groundbreaking and hopeful guide to understanding and destigmatizing male depression, essential not only for men who may be suffering but for the people who love them.
Twenty years of experience treating men and their families has convinced psychotherapist Terrence Real that depression is a silent epidemic in men—that men hide their condition from family, friends, and themselves to avoid the stigma of depression’s “un-manliness.” Problems that we think of as typically male—difficulty with intimacy, workaholism, alcoholism, abusive behavior, and rage—are really attempts to escape depression. And these escape attempts only hurt the people men love and pass their condition on to their children.
This groundbreaking book is the “pathway out of darkness” that these men and their families seek. Real reveals how men can unearth their pain, heal themselves, restore relationships, and break the legacy of abuse. He mixes penetrating analysis with compelling tales of his patients and even his own experiences with depression as the son of a violent, depressed father and the father of two young sons.
I Don’t Want to Talk About It by Terrence Real is a bestselling guide that tackles male depression, aiming to reduce the stigma around men’s mental health. With over two decades of experience, Real explains how men often mask depression with behaviors like workaholism, substance abuse, rage, and difficulty with intimacy—efforts to avoid the stigma of depression and its association with “un-manliness.” These behaviors harm their loved ones and can pass depression down to future generations. Through personal stories and case studies, Real offers men and their families a pathway to confront pain, heal relationships, and break cycles of abuse.