You are Not Broken but You Need a New Way to Look At Your Mental Health

Sigma Bros, Therapy Culture, and the Soul's Rebellion

By Owen Gent

A person struggling with their mental health nowadays is met with three unhelpful and even harmful approaches:

-The Sigma Mega G approach

-The "You're broken" approach

-The Pampering approach

I want to discuss them because a fourth approach is not only possible but necessary if one wants to develop fully as the unique human being that he or she is. I also want to talk about them because the first two approaches almost killed me, and the fourth one saved my soul and my life.

These three approaches didn't emerge in isolation. Each one is responding to and creating the need for the others, while all of them together are byproducts of deeper cultural shifts around individualism, the medicalization of human experience, and the rise of social media culture.

Before analyzing the three unhelpful approaches and proposing a fourth one, let's establish a common understanding of the term "mental health." For better or worse, we use that term widely and loosely, so it is good to try to avoid confusion.

When I say "struggling with mental health" or "mental health problems," I'm not talking about clinical diagnosis but about a subjective feeling of internal struggle. Furthermore, I belong to the camp of people who think that “psycho-spiritual” is way more accurate label than “mental.” However, for the sake of mutual understanding, let's use the term we're all familiar with.

The Sigma Mega G approach

"Depression isn't real," said the great modern philosopher and the head of the church of Sigma Mega Giga masculinity, Mr. Top G, also known as Andrew Tate.

Luckily for humanity, around half the population is spared of this approach as it is directed mainly at men. The philosophy is simple: If you are a real man, you are supposed to be in complete control of all your internal states. Whenever an intrusive thought creeps up, or an internal conflict starts manifesting itself through psychological and emotional distress, you just turn them off and get on with your life. It's like if Stoicism was interpreted by a retarded person.

Alfred Adler, one of the greatest psychologists of the 20th century, explained 100 years ago that this type of thinking is a reflection of psychological weakness and insecurity. An insecure mind cannot deal with the complexity of life and human nature, so it protects itself by splitting everything into opposites. In this case, the Sigma bro has to divide the human experience into being emotionless like a stone versus crying all the time. They lack the strength to embrace the complexity and full spectrum of human emotions and their expression.

But this approach inevitably leads to a deeper and more intense inner conflict. It's not anymore just the anxiety, depression, or a lack of vitality that's the problem. The main problem becomes the shame and despair you feel for not being able to simply flip a switch in your mind and stop experiencing these symptoms.

Let’s imagine a 25-year-old man experiencing intense anxiety for the first time. He then discovers a disturbingly large corner of the internet telling him that he should be able to simply turn off any uncomfortable thoughts or feelings. He tries to suppress his anxiety and tells himself that real men don't have mental breakdowns. The anxiety intensifies, but now he's added another layer of suffering—shame because of not being able to control his mind. The only conclusion is that he is weaker than all those guys he’s been listening to online.

However, this approach became so popular only because it was responding to a need for the feeling of agency. The helplessness embedded in the following two approaches is primarily to blame for why so many men turned to Top Gs of the online world for mental health advice. The "just don't think about it" was a response and an overcorrection to "think about this all the time, forever."

The "You're broken" approach

"I have used the words ‘therapy,’ ‘psycho­therapy,’ and ‘patient.’ Actually, I hate all these words, and I hate the medical model that they imply because the medical model suggests that the person who comes to the counselor is a sick person, beset by disease and illness, seeking a cure. Actually, of course, we hope that the counselor will be the one who helps to foster the self-actualization of people, rather than the one who helps to cure a disease." -Abraham Maslow

"if ‘health and illness’ on the medical model are seen as obsolete, so also must the medical concepts of ‘treatment’ and ‘cure’ and the authoritative doctor be discarded and replaced." -Abraham Maslow

What follows is not a critique of therapy as a whole or an irresponsible rant against seeking professional help.

However, while therapy has helped millions of people and many individual therapists try to make their work more human(ist), the institutional structure of mental healthcare still primarily operates from this "you are broken and in need of fixing" premise.

The medical model of mental health was criticized not only by Maslow but by almost all the greatest psychologists of the 20th century. Still, it’s a model that dominated psychology and psychiatry in their time and heavily influences mental health space today.

The medical model treats mental health problems like physical diseases. It assumes most internal struggles are disorders and pathologies that can and should be diagnosed, classified, and treated. Then, the therapist's job is to cure, that is, fix the patient. No room is left for seeking and seeing deeper meaning in one’s suffering. All symptoms are problems to be eliminated.

Let’s go back to the example of a 25-year-old, in this case, woman or man. They have graduated and are facing the transition to adulthood. They are feeling overwhelmed by the career choices they have to make. Maybe they have a couple of equally interesting options, but all require them to different parts of the country. There is even one option to move abroad. As a perfectly human and normal response to facing the unknown and the responsibility of making a choice, they start experiencing anxiety.

Unsure of what’s going on and not falling for the Sigma Mega G approach, they seek professional help. However, instead of receiving a message that their inner tension is an all-too-human struggle for a meaningful life, they get diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. “Something is wrong with me” becomes a part of their inner narrative.

The Pampering approach

Still pathologizing the human experience but with more compassion, the pampering approach teaches people that they will never be able to face life and engage in real-world challenges because they’re different.

This approach emerged as a result of several cultural shifts. We now live in what could be called a "therapy culture." Phrases like "That's triggering," "I'm processing this," and "emotional labor" have become part of daily vocabulary. Anything and everything can be called “trauma” and “toxic.”

Social media platforms have played a crucial role here.

As someone who's been sharing his experience with anxiety, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts, I know firsthand the benefits of having a chance to relate to other humans going through similar experiences. The value of openly discussing your struggles is undeniable. But what I find problematic is when it creates an echo chamber for people to wallow in their helplessness and compete over who has the most diagnoses.

We've gone through another overcorrection: mental health diagnoses haven’t just moved from stigma to normalized. They went from stigma to status. Having anxiety, depression, ADHD, or trauma isn't something to overcome anymore—it's become an identity, a way to signal your depth.

Let’s go back to that 25-year-old who was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Initially, they find comfort in online mental health communities that use the pampering approach. The connection helps—they're not alone. But gradually, they notice that most people in the community have no intention of growing and improving. Any mention of facing fears or pushing comfort zones is labeled "toxic positivity." Anyone who shares progress or recovery is accused of not understanding "real" mental illness. The community that was supposed to offer support becomes a prison of shared helplessness.

That's why I said The Sigma Mega G approach gained popularity as a response to the pampering approach. Many people don’t want to celebrate helplessness. They don’t want to spend their days talking either about how their parents messed them up or how they're not capable of performing daily tasks because of their sensitivity. Many people simply want someone to tell them it's possible to live their lives despite their inner struggles. And, as it usually goes with humans, we had an overcorrection in the form of denying the complexity of human experience.

This creates a vicious cycle: the medical model tells people they're broken, leading to learned helplessness and identity fusion with diagnoses. The pampering approach reinforces this helplessness while adding a layer of pride in being unable to function. Those who reject this narrative often swing to the opposite extreme, denying the reality of psychological struggle altogether. Each approach creates the problems the others claim to solve, trapping people in an endless loop of unhelpful solutions.

The Fourth Approach

You are not broken. You are not sick. Your soul is still healthy enough to send you warnings that something needs changing in your life. These warnings come in the form of inner distress we’re used to calling mental health problems or disorders.

What needs changing, and how to change it? That's the adventure, not only of getting better but also of becoming who you truly are.

The wisdom of the greatest psychological thinkers points to this truth:

"I am not altogether pessimistic about neurosis. In many cases, we have to say: 'Thank heaven he could make up his mind to be neurotic.' Neurosis is really an attempt at self-cure… It is an attempt of the self-regulating psychic system to restore the balance." -Carl Jung

"The so-called psychopathological symptoms– delusions, anxiety, phobias, depression, feelings of strangeness to oneself, emotional overexcitability, etc. – should not be generally or superficially classified as symptoms of mental disorder and disease since the further development of individuals manifesting them will often prove their positive role in development." - Kazimierz Dąbrowski

“Using the label "psychological illness" puts neurosis into the same universe of discourse as ulcers, bacterial invasions, broken bones, or tumors. But by now, we have learned very well that it is better to consider neurosis as rather related to spiritual disorders, to loss of meaning, to doubt about the goals of life, to grief and anger over a lost love, to seeing life in a different way, to loss of courage or of hope, to despair over the future, to dislike for oneself, to recognition that one's life is being wasted…” -Abraham Maslow

These insights aren't merely theoretical for me. I lived through them.

When I was at my lowest point—consumed by panic attacks, falling into despair, and contemplating ending my life—neither denial of my inner states nor pathologizing of them offered a constructive solution and moving forward. What saved me was realizing there was a meaning and a challenge behind my suffering.

What I was experiencing wasn’t merely a biochemical process since we are more than just a bag of meat and neurons. It was a calling, my soul's attempt to redirect my life toward fullness and authenticity.

This fourth approach doesn't promise quick fixes or symptom elimination. It offers something far more valuable: genuine human growth toward the feeling that you are living the life you were always supposed to live.

I would like to offer a deeper exploration of the fourth approach, its practical implications, and my experience with it in a separate essay, as this one is already longer than planned.

However, I won’t leave you empty-handed. Here are some things to consider and maybe journal on.

The question isn’t “Why am I broken?” but “What is life asking of me?”

The question isn’t “How can I stop feeling this inner tension” but “What decision in my life, about my life, have I been leaving unaddressed?”

The question isn’t “Will I ever be back to normal?” (because you’re already normal) but “How can I live this day to feel like I am honoring myself more than I usually do?”

Thank you for reading.

P.S. If you are an ambitious but anxious overthinker who has many ideas but struggles to take consistent action on them because you lack structure and have self-sabotaging tendencies - book a 1-1 call with me to see how I can help you. Click here to book.