Healing through trauma: the importance of emotional expression for SA men

THE day Sizwe Gumede died in my car changed me forever.

- PREVIN VEDAN

In July 2021, during the "July unrest", Sizwe, my administrator and confidant, died of a severe asthma attack. We were racing to RK Khan Hospital, less than two minutes away.

He had been refused a R1 prednisone tablet earlier that day. I turned to check on him, saw his fingers flicker, then felt him collapse, dead weight, against me.

At the hospital, doctors declared him dead. I insisted they try again. How could someone who minutes ago was arranging a meeting, now be gone?

My hands stayed on the steering wheel. I could not cry. As a South African man, I had been taught to soldier on, swallow pain, bury trauma, and always be strong for others.

Minutes later, I chaired the meeting Sizwe had prepared, focused on preventing violence and easing tensions, the same tensions that led to the pharmacist refusing him service.

Then I arranged his memorial and began building a movement so that his life and death would not be forgotten.

I did not mourn that day. Instead, I learnt how deadly silence can be.

Years earlier, after the 2019 KZN floods, I was thigh-deep in mud digging out the bodies of a mother and her child. Their faces still haunt me.

In many Indian and black families, survival shaped every lesson, leaving little room for emotional expression. Boys are taught to "toughen up" before they understand what softness means.

We carried fear like invisible armour. We hid pain behind humour, overwork or avoidance. We were never taught the language of vulnerability.

The consequences are fatal. Suicide claims around 14 000 lives annually in South Africa - 75% are men. It's the second leading cause of death among those aged 15 to 29. Why? Because we were never taught how to heal. Silence buries men.