Grief Doesn't Always Look Like Sadness

When most people picture grief, they picture someone crying.

For a lot of men, it doesn't look like that at all.

It looks like a guy who snaps at his kids over nothing. A guy who's at the office until nine every night. A guy who used to have one beer and now has three, every night, "just to take the edge off." A guy who says "I'm fine" so often he almost believes it.

None of those men would tell you they're grieving. Most of them haven't put that word on it. But that's what it is.

Grief wears a disguise

I've sat with a lot of men in a lot of hard places: hospital rooms, prison cells, funeral homes, kitchen tables late at night. Over and over, I've seen the same thing. When grief doesn't have a way out, it finds another way out.

Here are a few of the disguises it wears most often:

• The short fuse. Little things set you off, and you don't know why. The anger is real, but it usually isn't about the thing in front of you.
• The 70-hour week. Work is the one place grief can't catch you. As long as you're busy, you don't have to feel it.
• The drink that turns into three. Alcohol numbs it for a few hours. Then it comes back, and you need a little more.
• Going quiet. You pull back from your wife, your kids, your friends. You're in the room, but you're not really there.
• "I'm fine." The most common one of all.

If you saw yourself in that list, you're not broken. You're carrying something heavy, and you've been carrying it alone.

It's not just death

Men grieve more than funerals. A divorce. A job that ended after twenty years. A son who stopped calling. A body that can't do what it used to. The life you thought you'd have by now.

Nobody sends flowers for those losses. So most men just keep moving and act like nothing happened. But it happened. And it counts.

What to do with it

You don't have to fix this today. Start smaller than that.

Name it. Take a piece of paper and finish two sentences: I lost _____. I had hoped _____. That's it. Get it out of your head and onto something you can see.

Notice it. For one day, pay attention. When you snap at someone or reach for a drink, ask yourself: Is this about what's in front of me, or about what I lost?

Tell one man. Not a crowd. One guy you trust. You don't have to sit across a table and stare at each other. Take a drive. Go for a walk. Men talk better shoulder to shoulder.

I couldn't talk about losing my dad for a long time. When I finally did, other men started telling me about their losses too. Again and again, I heard the same sentence: "I've never told anybody that."

You don't have to be the next guy who never tells anybody.

If you're ready to stop carrying it alone, that's what the Seven Mile Brotherhood is for: a small group of men walking side by side through real loss, with a coach in your corner. Or just book a conversation with me. No pressure.

Coaching is not a substitute for counseling or medical care. If you're in crisis or having thoughts of ending your life, call or text 988, any time.