When boys don’t cry, they sometimes kill

Only thing was, he wasn’t just “like any one of us�?. Tzokovitch was a member of the Quebec Order of Psychologists and an accredited member of the Canadian Counselling Association. Trained to help others, why wasn’t he able to help himself? Shouldn’t he have seen the danger signs and sought assistance to quiet the voices that urged him to kill his wife, two young daughters and try and put an end to his own life? Yet, somehow, he didn’t.

Unthinkable tragedy? Yes. Out of the

ordinary? Sadly, no. I had barely finished typing this up, when I heard of another domestic violence incident in N.D.G. Again! Why does violence seem to be the final solution in so many cases of troubled families?

Even when the perpetrator, like Tzokovitch, was trained to heal troubled minds and hearts. Even when the perpetrator was skilled in detecting the signs. It scares me to think that, if those trained to help others can’t seem to be able to heed their own counsel, what chance do those with no tools have?

Why is psychotherapy, even today, seen

suspiciously by so many people; particularly men, who are hesitant to discuss their feelings, show vulnerability and expose their weaknesses? The stigma associated with therapy is no longer as strong, but it still persists in a society that values self-reliance and emotional strength. Seeking help is sometimes seen as tantamount to admitting defeat and this world doesn’t like quitters.

In “Crossing the No Cry Zone: Psychotherapy With Men�?, Fredric E. Rabinovitch, Ph.D. states: “Because the traditional male role requires men to hide more vulnerable emotions, they often have few outlets for emotional expression. In comparison to women, higher rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, and successful suicide suggest that many men act out rather than verbally share their emotional pain.�?

In other words, “boys are not supposed to cry�?. Is this still so ingrained in our society that a man experiencing well-documented and long-standing marital problems would refrain from seeking the very same help he provided and championed as a psychologist by profession? How can that be?

“They were a family that appeared to have it all�? said the Gazette article describing the Tzokovitch family, which, until this past weekend, included 40-year-old Mila Voynova,

17-year-old Iva and 10-year-old Alice. All three were brutally murdered while they were

sleeping. The patriarch of that family, a family that no longer exists, clings to life in a hospital bed.

I don’t know the inner workings and underlying problems that led this man to believe that his situation was hopeless and beyond repair, but this was, undeniably, a family destroyed by an unwillingness to reach out for help; by someone who felt that he absolutely had no recourse, even when he knew he did. But being strong means sometimes having the strength to admit powerlessness and reaching out for help. You owe it to yourself and to the people who love you to sometimes be that “weak�?.