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Everyone Is Going Through Something

Kevin Love wrote an article about his experience with mental health issues and toxic masculinity. He details having a panic attack during a basketball game that made him realize he knew little about mental health. Love discusses how toxic masculinity promotes the idea that men should stay silent about problems and emotions. He saw a therapist who helped him process grief and overcome his barriers to discussing his mental health. Love wants to change the culture around mental health for men and help others feel comfortable speaking out.

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Andreas Hertz
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62 views2 pages

Everyone Is Going Through Something

Kevin Love wrote an article about his experience with mental health issues and toxic masculinity. He details having a panic attack during a basketball game that made him realize he knew little about mental health. Love discusses how toxic masculinity promotes the idea that men should stay silent about problems and emotions. He saw a therapist who helped him process grief and overcome his barriers to discussing his mental health. Love wants to change the culture around mental health for men and help others feel comfortable speaking out.

Uploaded by

Andreas Hertz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Everyone Is Going Through Something

Toxic masculinity and mental health, are two issues that are often overlooked in our society.
One promotes a culture that encourages men to become increasingly more rotten and grow
distant from their friends and family. The other is often thrown away like a myth. Kevin
Love, a basketball player from the United States of America, writes about this issue in an
article published on The Player’s Tribune in March 2018. In the article, Love writes about his
personal experience with mental health deficiencies and toxic masculinity. Why are so many
people fixated on not allowing men to talk about what fills up their brains? What effect does
this have on athletes and other professionals?

For Kevin Love, it all started at a basketball game on November 5th. This panic attack
seemingly came out of nowhere for him. He had not previously had any experience with
mental health disorders or any complications related to mental health. “didn’t even know if
they were real. But it was real - as real as a broken hand or a sprained ankle.” (p. 1 l. 2-3).
At this point in his life, he still believed the old trope that says, that men are not feely animals
nor are they allowed to grieve and feel sad. It was at this moment he recognized the lack of
education he had received about this subject. Love had always been told to stay silent about
his issues and carry on. This is in turn what creates toxic masculinity and spreads it to more
people. Many people who encourage toxic masculinity may not actively do it, but rather think
it is the best thing to do for the people around them. Helping people stand up for themselves
is a great way to improve their confidence and their enjoyment of life, but sometimes it can
go overboard and instead of helping the victims, and in time it makes them enclosed. Love
decided to go to a therapist who helped him process the loss of his grandmother and also
helped him get past his initial barriers. His minds self-defence. The reason he had a hard time
overcoming the toxic masculinity of his past, is because everything is more difficult when
you are the only one doing it. “I’d never heard of any pro athlete talking about mental
health, and I didn’t want to be the only one.” (p. 2-3 l. 64-65) Changing culture, and
embracing change is not something you can do yourself. If your surroundings and your
culture is weighing you down, you can’t just change the attitude of it all. You have to show
everyone how easy it is, but just like being the first to break the ice at a party, it is very panic-
inducing. In terms, Love wants to change the culture, but it is very difficult to ask everyone to
change themself.

In the essay, Love engages the reader in several different ways. He starts the entire article in a
very chaotic manner, writing in very short lines and small paragraphs. He uses these rapid
changes to engage the reader, causing them to maintain their attention throughout the article.
In these small paragraphs, he uses small repetitive sentences. “I want to end with something
I'm trying to remind myself about these days: Everyone is going through something that we
can/t see.
l want to write that again: Everyone is going through something that we can't see. [...]” (p. 3
l. 99-101). This repetition encourages the reader to become more aware of his intentions. This
is not the first time he is trying to make the reader pay more attention to his intention. His
intention is to educate the reader on the problems of damaged mental health. While educating
the reader, Love also makes his story more relatable to the reader. Even though it is a sports
magazine for athletes, he talks about it not only being a problem for professional athletes but
for all people. By making it a general argument, and not just a personal one, Love makes his
readers feel included in the article. Many, if not all, of us, have felt depressed, stressed or
grieved at some point in our life. Love uses pathos to appeal to this side of us, using ethos to
talk about him experiencing it and saying we should believe it because he went through it
himself.

In lines 32 - 42, the style of writing is very relaxed and feels like an everyday conversation.
“After halftime, it all hit the fan.” (p. 2 l. 32). This line is a common phrase used by
Americans in their day to day language, to say when things have gone wrong. In the
following lines, Love becomes more descriptive in his style of writing. The description of his
experience is not how the air felt or anything which would usually be associated with
descriptive writing. “Really l was just hoping my heart would stop racing. It was like my
body was trying to say to me, ‘You're about to die” (p. 2 l. 40-41). In those lines, Love
describes how he felt at that moment, and what he was thinking in the situation. This is
recurring within those lines, he was in a state of pandemonium at that moment. He describes
the panic attack well, with him being able to walk, talk and live normally. But even though he
was functioning rather normally, he was also thinking he would die at any moment. This is
how most people say they experience a panic attack. Then as they panic, it becomes more
difficult to breathe, and as it gets more difficult to breathe, they get more afraid they will die,
then comes more panic.

In conclusion, this article is a well-formulated example of spreading the word about mental
health, toxic masculinity and how the world deals with this problem. Love talks about his
own experience and describes what it feels like to have a panic attack. Love also engages the
reader and uses both pathos and ethos to make this work. He is repetitive in his lines, and this
helps us better understand his intention. He embraces us into his story and encourages us to
read more by repeating the important parts. Love talks about not being a man for talking
about mental health issues, however, he becomes more of a man in the process.

Now I would focus on something, but since I didn’t get any feedback from the last
assignment, I cannot. So I have only focused on my grammatical errors and the style of
writing which is required for the assignment.

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