Father of three, Orlando Grant has come across many Jamaican men who are bleeding behind their smiles and have no outlet to hide their pain.
“Many are high-functioning but emotionally numb,” said Grant who is the author of the book, Beyond the Masks: Unspoken Struggles of Jamaican Men in Relationships.
In conducting research for the book, Grant made a few surprising and heartbreaking discoveries, one of which was the number of men silently suffering. He noted that there were just too many – across age, class, and even religion. Among the things he discovered, was, “how common it is for men to equate vulnerability with weakness because that’s what we’ve been conditioned to believe.”
“Another shocking realisation was how women also carry their own silent frustrations, trying to love men who are emotionally unavailable, not because they don’t care, but because they were never taught how to feel or express,” Grant shared in an interview with Freedom Come Rain.
Grant said the inspiration to write the book came straight from lived experiences and observations.
“As a Jamaican man, I’ve walked through silence, pain, expectations, and the pressure to always ‘man up’, no matter what I’m feeling inside. I was tired of seeing men breaking silently. I wanted to unearth the truth and give voice to what many are afraid to say,” he stated.
The moment he became a father, Grant said he knew he had to change something for the next generation. Hence the desire to break generational curses, redefine masculinity, and start the healing that’s long overdue.
On a more personal level, Grant shared an incident that has stayed with him for years and which inspired the book. It happened when he was about nine or 10.
His mother died, and his father, due to what he surmised was either pride, fear of crying, or the belief that men shouldn’t show emotion, refused to take him to her funeral.
“He said if he came, he would cry, and he couldn’t bear to be seen like that. So in his attempt to “be a man”, he deprived me of saying goodbye to my mother,” he recalled.
Thankfully, his grandmother stepped in and took him. That moment planted a seed in him. It taught him that as men, they are often not allowed to grieve properly, and that is a wound that follows them into adulthood. He realised that something was deeply wrong with how masculinity was defined, and years later, that seed became this book.
Grant hopes that women will be better able to understand the emotional world in which many men are hiding. He also hopes that young people will be equipped to break the cycle before it continues.
Grant was born and raised in the heart of downtown Kingston, but is now living in Ocho Rios, St Ann. He was raised mostly by his grandmother, before moving on to live with his stepmother and then father.
“Life wasn’t easy; it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine. The men around me taught me to suppress emotion. If I cried, I was told to “stop bawling like a gyal.” That was the culture, and that became my prison for a while,” he reminisced.
The Tivoli Gardens High School past student did odd jobs and became a countertop fabricator before enlisting in the Jamaica National Reserves. He later entered the security field, starting as an unarmed officer, and later worked his way up to becoming a K9 handler, supervisor, and duty officer. He moved on to work as a loss prevention supervisor at Jamaica Inn Resort, and just six months later, he was promoted to night manager, his current role.
The husband and father of three beautiful children is deeply family-oriented. He is also passionate about helping people and is known for being motivational and impactful.
“People often turn to me for advice, and that trust means everything to me. I would love to be part of changing the narrative around what it means to be a man. The script society gave us is outdated. Men are not machines. We hurt, we cry, we break, and that doesn’t make us weak; it makes us human. I want to see spaces created where men can be open, expressive, and emotionally intelligent without judgement. I want the silence around men’s mental health to end. It’s time,” he said.
“I am open and available for school speeches, church events, community talks, and men’s mental health forums. My goal is to reach as many as I can with this message: It only takes one person to see the good in someone to change a life,” he concluded.