Nearly one in six adult men in Bangladesh lives with a mental health condition. Yet more than 90% receive no treatment.
At first glance, this appears to be a healthcare crisis.
But beneath the statistics lies something deeper and more difficult to diagnose: a culture that teaches men to endure suffering rather than speak about it.
Every day, men sit in offices, ride buses, attend family gatherings and return home carrying burdens nobody can see.
They go to work, pay bills, fulfill responsibilities and continue functioning. From the outside, they appear fine.
Many are not.
Globally, men die by suicide at significantly higher rates than women.
In some regions, the rate is four times higher. Bangladesh reflects the same troubling pattern.
Between 2020 and 2024, 73,597 people died by suicide in the country -- an average of around 40 deaths every day.
Yet experts believe the true number may be even higher.
According to Mohammad Sohel Shamim, assistant coordinator of the Mental Health Project at icddr,b, police records suggest suicides are often underreported because of stigma, family pressure and the fact that attempted suicide remains a criminal offence under Bangladeshi law.
That reality points to a question more important than any statistic: “Why does asking for help feel harder than suffering in silence?”
Part of the answer lies in how society defines masculinity.
For generations, boys have been taught that a “real man” absorbs pressure rather than expresses it.
He earns, provides and remains strong regardless of circumstance.
Vulnerability is often interpreted as weakness.
Emotional struggle becomes something to hide rather than discuss.
“Traditionally, men have been less likely to seek support for mental health issues,” says Dr Natasha Bijlani, consultant psychiatrist at Priory Hospital Roehampton in London.
Stigma and the enduring expectation that men should always be strong continue to discourage many from seeking help.
As a result, psychological distress often appears in ways that are easily overlooked.
Anxiety becomes irritability. Depression becomes withdrawal. Emotional exhaustion becomes overwork.
Rather than recognizing these as mental health symptoms, many men simply describe them as part of everyday life.
Research reflects that silence.
A survey by a mental health care provider, the Priory Group, found that 77% of men had experienced symptoms of anxiety, stress or depression.
Yet 40% had never spoken to anyone about it. Not a friend. Not a partner. Not a doctor.
In Bangladesh, the silence is reinforced by stigma surrounding mental illness itself.
People with mental health conditions are often labelled, misunderstood or socially isolated.
For men already conditioned to view help-seeking as failure, the barriers become even harder to overcome.
The healthcare system offers little relief. Bangladesh has only around 260 psychiatrists for a population exceeding 170 million, while mental health receives less than half a percent of the national health budget.
Most services remain concentrated in Dhaka, leaving large parts of the country with little or no access to care.
Yet research also offers a hopeful insight.
Studies show that qualities often associated with masculinity -- responsibility, protection and commitment to family -- can become reasons to seek help rather than avoid it.
A man may ignore his own suffering, but he may act when he realizes it affects his children, spouse or loved ones.
Mental health professionals increasingly use this approach to encourage treatment, and it works.
June is Men’s Mental Health Month.
The men struggling in silence are not difficult to find.
They are colleagues, fathers, brothers, husbands and friends.
They are often the people who seem most capable of carrying life’s burdens.
The challenge is that many have spent years learning how not to talk about those burdens.
Perhaps that is why one of the most important questions remains one of the simplest:
“How are you, really?”
For someone carrying pain alone, the answer may be difficult to give.
But asking the question could be the first step toward saving a life.
Fahima Hossain Muna is a health‑content writer and researcher
