It’s Men’s Health Awareness Month, and I’m going to do the most South Asian male thing possible – I’m going to invent my own mental health treatment plan. 

It’ll be a heady cocktail: A quarter cup of  “I don’t have a problem,” a splash of “do exercise,” a shot of “watch cricket,” with a twist of Johnny Walker. 

You may find this a caricature, but it’s true. A study that interviewed over 50 South Asian men found they adopted a practice of ‘self-management’ for their mental health, and that stigmatised behaviours like seeking care and drinking to excess converged. South Asians were so disengaged by the health system they invented hitherto unheard-of hair tonic cures to many of the mental health woes we face, and drank too much. 

In our cultural communities, we have to combat a dismissive and reductionist view of the reality of mental health, a reality where eight men kill themselves in Australia each day. Where loneliness is on the rise, especially among men, and where we bottle up feelings until we explode, harming women, children, other men, or ourselves. 

The reason we do this? Another study found Indian-Australians carry the strong idea that revealing you have depression has a high social cost, meaning disclosure carries a stigma for future interactions within our community. This is in contrast with Anglo-Australians, who believed there was a workplace cost of disclosing depression but no impact for their standing in the community. 

Do we believe in the fiction of social signalling more strongly than reality? 

We’ll say this directly: it’s a lie that owning up to your mental health will place you in a bad light in your community forever. 

It may be hard to combat the lack of support and awareness about mental health, but in the long run, challenging community attitudes to men’s mental health is the most efficient pathway to wellbeing.

Yes, your parents will worry to death about you and try to keep things hush-hush. But you’re not alone. In my previous career as a lawyer, I felt alone with my mental health challenges, but when I spoke out about what I experienced, I found that I wasn’t. 

Even Virat Kohli recently spoke out. And with the Cricket World Cup Final over and Australia's victory over India leaving a bat-shaped hole in the life of South Asian men, perhaps the pub is a now a chance to show your mate that it’s okay to tell you, or to tell a professional, exactly how they are really feeling.

Because, men, having you here and healthy is more important than having you fear the shame that could be attached to naming the problem or the perceived ‘weakness’ of getting treatment.

Our team at SAARI noticed there’s a serious lack of writing about South Asian men’s mental health, especially in Australia. Research shows we need to change the norms of masculinity, and boys and men need to act as change agents in their own communities. We’re in desperate need of more stories, role models, culturally-specific programs, and normalisation. A younger generation is taking steps to spark change, but like all meaningful movements, it’s slow.

That makes us ask: what will it take for our brothers, dads, friends and Uncles to seek support? What more can we do? 

As a starting point, we encourage you to support the good work. Be a mo’bro or mo'sis for Movember – after all, South Asians win on moustache game. Tell Lisa Singh, Beyond Blue’s newest board member, and other community leaders and advocates that we need more research, programs and resources for South Asian men. On an individual level, help others see it’s okay to not be okay. Nudge them to stop spending more money on astrology and number plates that say ‘S1NGHK1NG’ than therapy. 

Tell or solicit a story. Our stories and emotions are powerful, and we so desperately need more of them. But then elevate your actions to connect into existing partnerships. Partnerships between researchers and grassroots organisations go much further in tackling stigma than universal mass media public education approaches. 

If you’re building these partnerships now, let us know. Because now is the time, and we want to help. Now is the moment we must seize to build a healthy model of conscious manhood that can support and save our South Asian men.

This story originally appeared in the SAARI Newsletter. For fresh South Asian Australianness in your inbox, and a ton of great jobs and opportunities and community updates, sign up here. 

Sandeep Varma is the Founder and CEO of SAARI Collective.