Or the inverse, that instead of just listening they made it something bigger than it had to be, trying to “fix it” when all he really needed was someone to listen for a few minutes, maybe a lap to lay on, but instead he got a “solution” he never asked for
lol I love that show, and homelander has some serious mommy issues, but I’m unsure if you’re suggesting that laying your head on your partner’s lap is strange or some sort of weakness
Or maybe just what OC said... Or sometimes, there's just no one to "listen" to. Or no "lap to lay on". Or the laps that exist are so fragile that they would collapse at the weight of just your words. Or sometimes, there's really something that needs fixing...
"Nobody would listen" yet people (not just men) don't go to therapy where someone's not only PAID to listen, but to help you challenge those cognitive distortions and apply the skills gained to heal with people that do want to listen without the payment. There's 8 billion people in the world. It's simply not true "nobody would listen or care."
if you are about to kill yourself or others, your therapist HAS to get outside help - he can't just let it happen. Please note that there is a difference (and it's not even subtle) between discussing thoughts of suicide and murder vs. you are about to do the same. Calmly talking with your therapist about those thoughts will not be an issue; being severely agitated and shouting about who has it coming surely is. The specific wording is that there must be imminent or inevitable risk and that a specific victim can be identified - to be fair, if i were to be in such a state, i'd prefer a mental hospital stay over hurting someone anyway.
They also have a duty to report if you tell them you are about to commit a crime (please note that this does not include stuff in the past), and they have a duty to report in the case of a minor telling them that they are in an abusive home situation. That's the gist of it. There are some state laws like in California where, should you be in the situation where the prosecution wants to give you a death sentence, they can call your therapist as a witness; or when you admit to viewing CSAM. You can read up details here.
I've discussed suicidal thoughts, murderous thoughts, psychiatric episodes, past abuse i've experienced (passive AND active - people who get abused tend to do the same to others, especially as a child, which still haunted me nearly 30 years later), situations where i hurt others in my past (real and imagined), illegal substance abuse and addiction, theft, and a lot of other shit that happened in my life with my therapist.
Hmm. Honestly? I'm unsure if promoting that sort of withholding would be moral, despite it seeming wise to be aware of. Generally, anything said pro is required to report on, but that's merely a technicality and in no way implies a suggestion to hide truth from the law. Ahem.
As long as you don't show disclose intent to harm yourself or others then you're fine. Note that ideation is not intent but where exactly that line lies will depend on the therapist.
Generally speaking, saying that you have thoughts of suicide is fine, but saying that you went out and bought a tank of inert gas, some hoses, and a big plastic bag, will get you put on a psych hold.
I know this at least doesn't include if you're discussing child abuse and don't intend on harming anyone yourself. But I'm more worried about the stuff I don't know about. And to be perfectly honest, the situation in my country is so bad that I don't think every desire to harm others is necessarily unwell.
And to be perfectly honest, the situation in my country is so bad that I don't think every desire to harm others is necessarily unwell.
It's definitely not. But once again the line is between stating desire and stating intent. You won't get put on a hold for saying you want someone dead. You will get put on a hold for saying you are going to kill someone and have a plan to do so. Somewhere between those two points is the threshhold where some mental health professionals will report you and some won't.
Always frame your suicidal thoughts as ideation. I don't even have to say I feel suicidal anymore, I just tell my therapist I have had ideation a lot lately, and she knows what I mean.
I've had the same therapist for four years (I must be ongoing for my situation). She was my 5th therapist attempt in two years. I hired her for my son initially, he didn't take to her, but we just clicked, and now been with her a very long time.
Everything remains confidential unless you tell them you are going to hurt yourself or someone else, they will ask if you have a plan if you say you intend to hurt yourself or others.
Finding someone you trust is key, someone who gets you. I like that my therapist has shared with me, she herself, has ADHD and understands a lot of the struggles I go through.
If you want more information, look into what being a "mandated reporter" involves. They are mandated reporters.
Noting here, for the first time in my life, if we take away the stress of current events, my depression is technically in remission for the first time in my life. No meds, just good ole coping and love within my circle :)
Therapy is not about talking to people, it's about helping you be best version of yourself. About helping you help yourself. Instead of continue doing whatever you think you're doing, with isolation and self harm and constant loathing.
I dont understand how a therapist could help me be a better version of myself? They dont know me and they likely arent any better of a person themselves. I can only imagine its generic self help advice parroted to for hundreds of dollars as hour.
Therapy is only useful for people that need help working through a disorder.
I don't know what's up with the therapists in the US, but i can report that my therapy sessions consist of a lot more than just mirroring people, and shit like violating confidentiality doesn't fly because it would mean for the therapist to lose his license. My experience were multiple phases - the first is to build up trust, because without it there is no reason to continue. It also contains analytical approaches: what are the stressors in your life, what were the defining experiences of your life and how did you cope with it.
Later on you slowly start modifying the path your train of thought takes. That's slow, hard work, and often it can be that you realize that you were at this exact point in the discussion before, but you took another way there - that's sometimes frustrating, but on one hand it shows how interconnected some seemingly different issues are, and OTOH you come to realize that it took your whole life to build those (sometimes faulty) pathways of thinking; of course it will take quite some time to form new pathways in your mind.
And during the whole time you try to find practical and healthy ways to cope with current or recurring issues.
I am blessed with a pretty good therapist, which gave me a lot of stability and healthier ways to deal with my emotions.
Where are those agencies? How do you find them? How can we get motivated to look for them with zero experience in the field, when we can't even get out of bed in the morning? Take care.
I might gonna get downvoted to oblivion again for saying this, but I used chatgpt to search for them. I saw your other comment about 7cups, and I hear you it's not ideal. I used it to find a listener just to hang out with while going through the list emailing and calling agencies, though.
Lol I do worry about some aspects of it — the energy usage, risks of feeding delusions and other mental illnesses, stealing content, and who knows what might happen to data we give it, etc. Makes me think of like how the inventor of dynamite had good intentions wanting to speed up the process of clearing paths in mines or whatever, only to have it picked up as technology for weapons
Look, it was exhausting explaining a similar situation in the past and we just don't feel like going through the explanation phase right after dealing with the bad thing.
I kind of want to try it. Especially once we get closer to winter. I could test my ability to still work on some planned indoor tech projects while Factorio is installed on my computer.
I bet I'd pass that test.
... unless preying on such hubris is how the factory gets you! Maybe the real test is knowing the only way to win is to not play at all!
I never could quite understand how to describe the experience of "clicking" or "meshing" with someone. Now I realize its got to do with the mutual ability to differentiate between communication from an emotional thought and that from a logical thought.
When I'm not clicking with someone they're probably regularly misattributing and applying the opposed source of communication and acting on it. When someone assigns an emotional thought to the logic bin it feels like backstabbing, like the thought is weaponized against me while I was being vulnerable.
Anyways, that's why i talk to you as little as possible Steve.
Yeah. Those advocates for gender norms who says girls can be anything too will immediately tell you to "man up" at the first sign of weakness. How about we knock out gender norms both ways?
Guess what im doing with my problems now? And im also not sharing my solutions to said problems after theyre resolved because itll be a "why didnt you handle that sooner?" Or some other bullshit about how you could have prevented it from even starting
Boo fucking hoo. Be unmanly. What has being manly ever gotten you? If you weren't so concerned about appearing manly, you wouldn't give a shit about that. That's your toxic masculinity as much as it is whomever is shaming you.
Went on an epic solo kayak trip. No white water, merely a flat Florida creek. Came out shell shocked, could not speak of it. Who would give a shit? Who would understand? You weren't there. No one was there.
:::spoiler If anyone cares to read it. No editing, only what I wrote when I got home. Because I had to write something to get it out. "It" being so close to death so many times, or worse, some sort of surrender to nature. Not going out like that, not if I still got breath.
Went to conquer the West Branch of Big Cold Creek. Bucket list thing.
Got my neighbor to extract me at the Adventures Unlimited landing. LOL, the plan was to get all the way back to Carpenter's Park in Milton. Nope.
Couldn't talk to him, sat quietly on the ride, shocked to be out of there.
We get back to my car, young rednecks hanging out under the bridge, jammin' tunes and drinking beer. Young girl comes running up:
"Oh my god, is that your car?!"
"Yeah, that's me."
"This is gonna sound so weird but can I give you a hug?"
"Um."
SQUEEZE
in a rush of words
"Oh my god we saw you take off yesterday AND YOU NEVER CAME BACK and we were talking about who to call for rescue and we thought you might be dead and we didn't know who to call and oh my god I'm glad you're OK!"
SQUEEZE
Nobody goes down that creek. Nobody. Even the guys at Adventures Unlimited didn't know about West Cold Creek. And they WORK on Big Cold Creek!
2-miles of non-stop deadfalls, downed trees blocking the way every 50', 3 jams in 30' was the bonus prize.
Humped my kayak and gear over-and-under and through dozens. Logs; slippery, mossy, underwater, rotten, floating, covered in spiky branches. Over one and the current slams you into the next, on the wrong side. It gets worse the farther you go.
7 hours, 7 o’clock, 1.8 miles, no strength left, can’t make the main creek. 3 more impasses in sight. Soaked and submerged in West COLD Creek, over and over, for hours. Thinking hypothermia might in the works (sometimes one can't tell because adrenaline, people die in summer temps), went to strike camp.
South side; solid creeper thorns, impassable, looked North across the creek. No lie, a patch of sunlight (weird in these thick woods) shining on a flat, elevated position. Barely bigger than my tent. Like God himself pointing His enormous finger, “No you idiot, there!”
Dragged my gear up a 45º incline, tied the boat to a tree, pitched camp. Nearly everything in the hull soaked, dry-bags too loose. Clothes and linens dry! Splatted gear all about, got in the tent with dry clothes, warmed, rested, took stock, took a beer. Got gear squared away, hung a clothesline. Like it's gonna dry. So wet a road flare couldn't start pine needles. I have created smoke!
Next morning, laid on my bedroll for hours, too sore to move. Heard day trippers, tubers and canoers, yelling on the main creek. People that close. Just gotta get off this tributary. No matter what I can pull the life-vest ripcord, float to a sand bank, await rescue.
OK; Tylenol, cold espresso, trail mix. 1 hour and I’m home free.
3 more hours to until I saw Salvation Beach.
Wasn't supposed to storm but I spent an hour or more hiding when it got bad, 3 storm bands, hanging on tree limbs under banks. Nowhere to safely get on shore, 20sq/ft of any land was a godsend and deserved a stop.
Oh, and bailing the kayak with a dish rag after I lost my sponge. “Always carry a towel” is sound advice (Bugblatter Beasts aside), a big yellow sponge is a necessity.
So tired I flipped the kayak for the first time (and that was after I hit the easy creek). Lost my weapon, new and old phones, GPS, monocular, ecig, knife, don't know what all. One bag but it was the good stuff. Still had survival gear.
I was extraordinarily cautious; one accident could strand/kill me. No getting out without a chopper and sling. Sometimes I wanted to quit, give up and fire a pair of flares at the next helicopter or plane.
“How am I going to lever this @^%*! boat over this !#@%$ log with 10 gallons of water in the hull and taking on more!?” In a storm, flooding my boat from top and bottom.
One time I grabbed the T-handle on the front and bailed into the swirling green. Don’t care what’s down there, this yak is going over this log. Promptly run over by my own boat. Came up laughing! Beat that one!
4 miles down the main creek I landed at Adventures Unlimited (local outfitter), borrowed the office phone to call for extraction. Looked rough climbing out of there, rain top shredded down the back, covered in bruises and lacerations. Workers at the landing were shooting the bull with me until one guy really got a look, "Do you need help man?" "Yeah, I do. Not with you guys this weekend but I need to call for a ride. Mind if I walk up to the church or cemetery, see if I can get a signal?"
I'm faithful about only testing one bit of gear at a time, way too much new stuff on unfamiliar turf. Many lessons learned. LIFE STRAWS WORK! (Ask me, I could be a spokesman.)
16 Band-Aids/patches on my hands alone. I'm black and blue all over but from the knees down it's frightful. Thought my legs were tanned and dirty, nope, bruising so solid it’s an even color.
Did I mention the non-stop boat full of spiders? And the big yellow sponge? Fun fact: You can flick banana spiders out with a big yellow sponge. Otherwise grab their leg and yeet 'em.
I'm going back in.
:::
And nothing I wrote there expresses the fear and uncertainty I felt. I'll only add, I'm experienced and that trip was planned.
Anyway, got another solo coming up! But I never brave that fucking creek again.
Did a similar trip. Missed the high water by a few days and ended portaging a fully loaded canoe through mud for most of it. Saw gar big enough to tip the boat. Went through what I thought was rain, but was actually a mosquito swarm. Went over and under felled trees and saw spiders as big as my hand. Saw a moccasin get ripped in half by something… When the river finally opened up, I ended up paddling on pure adrenaline and screaming Tenacious D songs for motivation until the landing appeared. I was only out two days.
The over and under trees was what mostly kicked my ass. I was standing on one, 6' above the water line, thinking, "There is no way in hell I can drag this gear straight up and over." Sat there for 15 minutes looking around and thinking. Only option? Under the trunk there was a tiny triangle clear, 10" at the high point. I stomped the kayak under until it popped up the other side. Win!
The idea that women can't be just as emotionally unavailable and fucked up as men is laughable. Women are simply forced to pass and simulate the acceptable emotions you want them to have.
This post describes me down to the letter. Friends have issues with it but over time they've come to understand it's just how I am. In men, its stoic. In women, you're a cold bitch.
My point is that when women are withdrawn and emotionally unavailable, they are more likely to have been conditioned to present (and perhaps are more capable of presenting) a false face so that those around them are not aware in the first place. And yes, it's known to be incredibly fatiguing, sometimes to the point where you can't really do anything else.
Long before my time, my WW2 veteran grandfather checked himself into the psych ward at the local hospital, spent several weeks there, then discharged himself voluntarily and never spoke of it again. The mental health stigma was real.
Not suicide. But one time, I ate something so bad I diarrhea'd nonstop. Practically ghosted my friend for a whole week because I was quietly dying from pooping my insides. Oh, and the SMELL.
Anyways, when I saw them again, the thought did cross my mind. Easier to tell them suicide rather than explain that I couldn't stop projectile shitting everywhere.
Would you rather me tell you about the tank of helium and the bag and hoses I bought and then returned, or do you just want to go back to playing cards and getting on with things?
I don't know if it was strength or not. I fell in love. Went to visit a friend I have known for 20 years but never met in person. Intended for it to be a goodbye. Plan was to go see him, get back home, mail the letters, drive to the ocean, and watch the sea as it happened. Even bought clear bags to make sure I could see it.
Fell in love with him while I was there. Not sure if that'll work out or not, but it gave me a reason to live. And if it doesn't work out, it means there might be other reasons to live still out there. I had only ever had the one reason, it was an honest to surprise to find out there could be another.
The key is that you persist. I call it survival or I like to say, despite whatever is going on, "yet I still persist". Finding new and different reasons to help you maintain this persistence are also very important. Stay here don't leave. That's it.
When killing yourself the right thing to do is to set it up some piano wire in such a way that you're able to sever your own head, AFTER supergluing your hands to the side of your head.
Its crucial that you have a friend that's in on it so that they can remove the piano wire when they "stumble" on to your dead body, and the investigators struggle to figure out how and why your ripped your own head off.
The real problem is that when they do ask, the answer invariably leads to the person leaving for good. Yeah, I get it. I'm not fucking perfect, and I can't even protect myself most of the time. Doesn't mean that I should lose everyone that supposedly cares about me because I cracked for a few minutes.
When I have asked I get the, "Yeah dude, totally, I'll be there for you, you just say the word, you say the time."
So I say the word and I say the time and they're like, "Oh man, that's real bad. I've got this thing, and there's like this thing that's going on, and like, it's just not a good time for me."
So I say, "Okay, so how about this time instead?"
And it's like, "Oh man, oh no, I feel like such an ass, but that time doesn't work for me either!"
Then I go into problem-solving mode, "Well okay, so why don't you pick a time, and I'll work around your schedule? "
And they're like, "I don't know man, I'm just being here for you. You tell me when."
And so I pick a third time and they're like, "Ah geez, ah, oh no, oh man."
And you can tell me that I've got bad friends, and you can tell me that I have done a poor job in accumulating friendships and people who are there for me and who love me, and you can blame me for the fact that I cannot get help all you want to.
That's not going to keep the bullet out of my fucking head.
I feel like this person is talking about a coworker who didn't come to work for a few days and doesn't wanna talk about why. I've been this coworker before, so maybe I'm just projecting.
Maybe not days, but hours? That's not really all that weird. Depending on the context, of course. But needing a few hours alone to process something is pretty reasonable imo.
I've done it. When I'm emotional I just want to be alone. Being around people doesn't help at all. Hell I've taken a week of PTO just to stay home by myself and not have to talk to anyone.
When I was younger, I worked second shift. I used to get off work at midnight and drive 5 hours north to watch the sun rise on the beach.
Didn't matter the weather or time of year, If I was stressing and didn't want to go home to my empty lonely apartment, I'd take a short road trip as far as I could go. I miss doing it tbh.
Women are obsessed with their own and each other's safety in a way that men just aren't. I mean, the girl I was dating when I was 25, her mother still forbade her from driving on certain sections of busy highways. I had full run of the US highway system at 17.
Women will get pretty close with their roommates, exchange contact info, and will tell each other detailed plans on where they're going, memorize what they're wearing, fill out missing persons forms in advance, etc. When I went back to college in my late 20's, I got a room with three other guys, and if you asked me the day I moved out what their names were I think I would have struggled to tell you. They didn't involve me in their lives and I didn't them.
The times I stayed overnight with a girl? Weekends visiting my parents? That time I wandered off into the Uwharries for three days? They probably didn't notice I was gone. I passed one of my roommates in the hall one day and he mentioned he had just gotten back from Nigeria. I didn't notice he had left the country for two weeks.
Ive got the opposite problem of a lot of the comments here. When I go away alone for some time to think about things. When I come back I people genuinely care more than I do.
When people try and ask whats going on i dont want to share anything with them because ive already thought it through and I dont want to think about it anymore and return to my daily routine.
I dont know why this is but whenever i do something that isnt being happy or relaxed or whenever i share any thoughts or feelings that are slightly sad or negative people react like I just told them I'm considering killing myself. Then they get upset and I have to spend time and energy comforting them and reassuring them that I'm fine. So far all my partners have been like this and I'm really hoping this isnt normal because it makes me not want to find another relationship.
I mean, sure, some men totally might do that. But I get the impression that you're just being condescending to invalidate someone else's experience, which may be more of a you problem than a "men" problem. I'd rather be the man engaged with his own simple life than the person who sees it as less-than for being simple, personally.
Whenever men's emotions come up on the internet the comments turn into the edgiest im14andthisisdeep takes. "We bottle it up because nobody cares anyway" like dude if that's genuinely true for you then it's still your responsibility to find less shitty friends. If you decide you don't need that much consolation then that's ok too but you can be self-reliant without being bitter about it all day. Idk maybe I'm too harsh but it seems infantile to me. If you have that much built up grief you gotta work through that instead of hiding away a bottomless pit of sorrow that immediately takes center stage whenever you try to open up.
"Trend" would imply that it's ever been different. Also my intention wasn't to mock anyone. I'm just saying I'm 100% convinced it's not gonna change so the best approach is to adapt. I would tell women the same thing.
Men are frustrated because of a common double standard.
I fully acknowledge that there's a double standard. But at the same time I think it would be short sighted to draw the conclusion that women have it easier. It's different, yes. But there's other issues associated with being labeled as "more emotional".
But my main point is that being frustrated about how society works instead of either taking action (like joining a free support group that meets irl or via zoom, seeking therapy, team sport or whatever else) or even just accepting that things work the way they do has never done anything except make the person who dwells on it even sadder.
I'm not trying to make it about women. I'm a guy myself btw. To me the frustration with that double standard kinda implied the feeling of having it harder. Thinking about it it probably doesn't. It wasnt malice, I genuinely have a hard time understanding this mindset.
I'm curious how an individual is supposed to make things better by slamming their head against a double standard. The frustration comes from attempting something and being repeatedly shut down.
From personal experience, speaking with a therapist doesn't keep people in general from negatively reacting to me trying to solicit support. "Don't be frustrated" isn't a solution. Best case is coming to grips with a shitty double standard, which helps people who are actually self destructive because of it, sure.
But a lot of us are just sick of it and want to have the existence ofnthe double standard acknowledged without being told how women have it worse. Both (all) genders suffer from double standards!
Hi AntiBullyRanger! So since I'm not disabled can you please talk me through the necessary mental gymnastics in order to apply the definition of digressive victimhood to what I wrote?
Since you're declaring yourself cognitively sane, it’s also the responsibility of friends to not be shitty. Shitty behavior is a two way street, you can't be shitty to men because society was already shitty to them. So be responsible for once, and stop being shitty completely.
Yes, the bullshit runs deep, but I'm 54 and plenty sociable, still, not much in the way of friends or family. Our Western societies are becoming more and more isolated, and it scares the shit out of me.
I feel ya, neighbor. Deeply. It's one-day-at-a-time over here (sometimes hour, if I'm being honest), and if it weren't for the boundless, unflappable love of my dog here, I'm not sure where I'd be at all in this relentless shitscape.
I'm only 29 so I'm not sure how well this holds true but I feel like up until the early 2000s friendships were often a lot more superficial. You used to be good friends with one or two people and the rest were what would now at best be considered acquaintances. These days, at least in my generation, you're expected to be a lot more comfortable with other people's intimate details. But for many people deep down learning about everybodys political beliefs, sex life, spirituality, childhood trauma and what have you is pretty overwhelming so they distance themselves.
It's like we're numb to the joy of just existing together for a while. Nobody seems to like small talk anymore because it's not intense enough or whatever, everybody calls themselves socially awkward but refuses to practice their social game in low-stress environments.
So yeah to a degree things have gotten more isolated but for me it's more about small gestures like talking about the weather with the bus driver or silly banter at work. Without those small things it's almost impossible to meet new people anyway and they regulate the desire for social connections too. The contents of the conversation might be trivial but you're still hearing another human's voice being raised just for you, that's far from meaningless.
Maybe this explains my strong initial reaction. I think other people's attention is not something to ever take for granted. It's something you need to work for hard in times where attention has become the most valuable thing to give.
If I don't know how to identify or deal with my own feelings, how can I support my bros? I bottle things up because if I can not care about my problems, nobody else will have to either. But I'm at the point now where I don't even know that I have problems before things get to panic attack levels, or I find that an innocuous sentence might bring me to tears every few years. I feel like Data when he gets random hits from the emotion chip.
Maybe because nobody would listen, or care about what he went through.
Or the inverse, that instead of just listening they made it something bigger than it had to be, trying to “fix it” when all he really needed was someone to listen for a few minutes, maybe a lap to lay on, but instead he got a “solution” he never asked for
Couldn't find the exact right GIF, but The Boys came to mind.
lol I love that show, and homelander has some serious mommy issues, but I’m unsure if you’re suggesting that laying your head on your partner’s lap is strange or some sort of weakness
No, I'm saying it made me think of that scene.
Or maybe just what OC said... Or sometimes, there's just no one to "listen" to. Or no "lap to lay on". Or the laps that exist are so fragile that they would collapse at the weight of just your words. Or sometimes, there's really something that needs fixing...
"Nobody would listen" yet people (not just men) don't go to therapy where someone's not only PAID to listen, but to help you challenge those cognitive distortions and apply the skills gained to heal with people that do want to listen without the payment. There's 8 billion people in the world. It's simply not true "nobody would listen or care."
Edit: 7cups.com is free.
Sure. I gotta pay just to talk to people. Love this society. I think I will just isolate for a bit like the meme says.
This.
Who can afford to have an expert misunderstand them, hour after expensive hour, and all the while risk being labeled instead of helped?
Nah. Now that Medicaid/care is dead, the US is about to see a whole lotta deaths as a result. (Neglect, escapism, etc.)
Fuck these Nazis (in the face with a brick, preferably)
Is there a handy cheat sheet of topics you can't bring up with your therapist if you want them to maintain confidentiality?
if you are about to kill yourself or others, your therapist HAS to get outside help - he can't just let it happen. Please note that there is a difference (and it's not even subtle) between discussing thoughts of suicide and murder vs. you are about to do the same. Calmly talking with your therapist about those thoughts will not be an issue; being severely agitated and shouting about who has it coming surely is. The specific wording is that there must be imminent or inevitable risk and that a specific victim can be identified - to be fair, if i were to be in such a state, i'd prefer a mental hospital stay over hurting someone anyway.
They also have a duty to report if you tell them you are about to commit a crime (please note that this does not include stuff in the past), and they have a duty to report in the case of a minor telling them that they are in an abusive home situation. That's the gist of it. There are some state laws like in California where, should you be in the situation where the prosecution wants to give you a death sentence, they can call your therapist as a witness; or when you admit to viewing CSAM. You can read up details here.
I've discussed suicidal thoughts, murderous thoughts, psychiatric episodes, past abuse i've experienced (passive AND active - people who get abused tend to do the same to others, especially as a child, which still haunted me nearly 30 years later), situations where i hurt others in my past (real and imagined), illegal substance abuse and addiction, theft, and a lot of other shit that happened in my life with my therapist.
Hmm. Honestly? I'm unsure if promoting that sort of withholding would be moral, despite it seeming wise to be aware of. Generally, anything said pro is required to report on, but that's merely a technicality and in no way implies a suggestion to hide truth from the law. Ahem.
As long as you don't show disclose intent to harm yourself or others then you're fine. Note that ideation is not intent but where exactly that line lies will depend on the therapist.
Generally speaking, saying that you have thoughts of suicide is fine, but saying that you went out and bought a tank of inert gas, some hoses, and a big plastic bag, will get you put on a psych hold.
I know this at least doesn't include if you're discussing child abuse and don't intend on harming anyone yourself. But I'm more worried about the stuff I don't know about. And to be perfectly honest, the situation in my country is so bad that I don't think every desire to harm others is necessarily unwell.
It's definitely not. But once again the line is between stating desire and stating intent. You won't get put on a hold for saying you want someone dead. You will get put on a hold for saying you are going to kill someone and have a plan to do so. Somewhere between those two points is the threshhold where some mental health professionals will report you and some won't.
Always frame your suicidal thoughts as ideation. I don't even have to say I feel suicidal anymore, I just tell my therapist I have had ideation a lot lately, and she knows what I mean.
I've had the same therapist for four years (I must be ongoing for my situation). She was my 5th therapist attempt in two years. I hired her for my son initially, he didn't take to her, but we just clicked, and now been with her a very long time.
Everything remains confidential unless you tell them you are going to hurt yourself or someone else, they will ask if you have a plan if you say you intend to hurt yourself or others.
Finding someone you trust is key, someone who gets you. I like that my therapist has shared with me, she herself, has ADHD and understands a lot of the struggles I go through.
If you want more information, look into what being a "mandated reporter" involves. They are mandated reporters.
Noting here, for the first time in my life, if we take away the stress of current events, my depression is technically in remission for the first time in my life. No meds, just good ole coping and love within my circle :)
Therapy is not about talking to people, it's about helping you be best version of yourself. About helping you help yourself. Instead of continue doing whatever you think you're doing, with isolation and self harm and constant loathing.
You can also punch yourself in the nuts completely for free, but why would you do any of that, it's the opposite of helping
You've never been to one, you've never even saw one at work, you only saw some weird representation at a bad tv show.
I dont understand how a therapist could help me be a better version of myself? They dont know me and they likely arent any better of a person themselves. I can only imagine its generic self help advice parroted to for hundreds of dollars as hour.
Therapy is only useful for people that need help working through a disorder.
I don't know what's up with the therapists in the US, but i can report that my therapy sessions consist of a lot more than just mirroring people, and shit like violating confidentiality doesn't fly because it would mean for the therapist to lose his license. My experience were multiple phases - the first is to build up trust, because without it there is no reason to continue. It also contains analytical approaches: what are the stressors in your life, what were the defining experiences of your life and how did you cope with it.
Later on you slowly start modifying the path your train of thought takes. That's slow, hard work, and often it can be that you realize that you were at this exact point in the discussion before, but you took another way there - that's sometimes frustrating, but on one hand it shows how interconnected some seemingly different issues are, and OTOH you come to realize that it took your whole life to build those (sometimes faulty) pathways of thinking; of course it will take quite some time to form new pathways in your mind.
And during the whole time you try to find practical and healthy ways to cope with current or recurring issues.
I am blessed with a pretty good therapist, which gave me a lot of stability and healthier ways to deal with my emotions.
Thank you for writing this amongst the vast number of negative responses here.
Your steps listed are pretty on par with my experience with therapy too.
But people with your attitude is exactly what I’m talking about.
There are sliding scale agencies, some taking on clients for free. Take care.
Where are those agencies? How do you find them? How can we get motivated to look for them with zero experience in the field, when we can't even get out of bed in the morning? Take care.
I might gonna get downvoted to oblivion again for saying this, but I used chatgpt to search for them. I saw your other comment about 7cups, and I hear you it's not ideal. I used it to find a listener just to hang out with while going through the list emailing and calling agencies, though.
People who shit on ChatGPT are too stupid to use it.
"I was looking for my high school yearbook photo and Google Image didn't have it! Google Image search doesn't work and no one should use it!"
"I was trying to find a voicemail message from my late father on Spotify and I couldn't find it! Spotify is useless!"
"I went to the dollar store to shop for low cost health care coverage and they didn't have any! The dollar store is bad and no one should use it!"
Lol I do worry about some aspects of it — the energy usage, risks of feeding delusions and other mental illnesses, stealing content, and who knows what might happen to data we give it, etc. Makes me think of like how the inventor of dynamite had good intentions wanting to speed up the process of clearing paths in mines or whatever, only to have it picked up as technology for weapons
Nobody of the 3 who would listen for free would care
Aaand of course you are not a man.
Can you simply accept that you may not know what other people go through?
You don't have to be a man to understand the male experience. We're very vocal about it.
Right?? It's like a Canadian having an opinion on the USA. Sometimes people can see things in yourself that you cannot.
Besides, the vast, impassible gulf that exists between all sentient minds dwarfs whatever trivial difference gender introduces.
I am a man
Not all men are the same. All humans vary in life.
I tried 7cups and it was like Paid Premium Ad Vendor Popup Email Signup Money Time Listen Service Exclusive bullshit scheme.
Volunteering armchair psychologist in
.world?Who really wants to know of something someone went through without it being beneficial for the victim? Are you going to commit to a gofundme?
Don't publish in a vacuum, praxis mental care, for those that really consent.
Brii Ash, wasn't doing so in insta.
I'm sorry, what?
Therapy is a two way street. The respondent already proved they prefer to hand the hurt & sick to extortionists.
In english, please?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3RlalRV4S8
Y'all made me regret it last time I told you, so...
Confessing your problems to a self-proclaimed mentally unstable redhead seems like a good way to make them worse.
Hey. Hol'up. That's surprisingly specific. Are you me? That's been one of my main mistakes throughout the last, oh, say 30 years? 😅🤔
Account name on OP's meme 🙂
Ohhh. Phew. I mean, it's one thing to have conversations with internal yous, but external anonymous ones? Heh. Probably not healthy? 🤣
Look, it was exhausting explaining a similar situation in the past and we just don't feel like going through the explanation phase right after dealing with the bad thing.
And their Steam profile is like: Factorio 832 hours played 117 hours in the last two weeks
The games are probably a necessary distraction from the bad thing
The bad thing was a different Factorio save-file taking a really dark turn.
832 hours... What is this kindergarten?
If you don't have 5,000 hours in factorio, can you even call yourself an engineer?
What if you're an engineer who knows about Factorio and also knows a few things about your own psyche, and therefore have 0.0 hours played?
Then you're a smarter person than I, my friend.
This is why I warn my friends not to play factorio. I'm not strong enough to lead by example, but I can definitely live as a warning.
I kind of want to try it. Especially once we get closer to winter. I could test my ability to still work on some planned indoor tech projects while Factorio is installed on my computer.
I bet I'd pass that test.
... unless preying on such hubris is how the factory gets you! Maybe the real test is knowing the only way to win is to not play at all!
I'm assuming satisfactory also applies. Any game you might whip out spreadsheets tbh.
THE FACTORY MIST GROW DEPRESSION BE DAMNED
I don't tell people things because they weaponize it against me later. Not handing you knives to stab me with no matter how you frame it.
I think you might need better mates. Unless the things you're doing is kicking dogs.
Also dog kicker better watch out who he shares that info with before he accidentally makes friends with John Wick.
if they're gonna do that why are you hanging out with these people
I left a new friendship real fast because he said, "I take pleasure in mocking my friends."
And I told him, "I'm not interested in that level of immaturity" and he texts me every few months with random YouTube videos left on seen.
I'm too old for this shit.
this is the way
I never could quite understand how to describe the experience of "clicking" or "meshing" with someone. Now I realize its got to do with the mutual ability to differentiate between communication from an emotional thought and that from a logical thought.
When I'm not clicking with someone they're probably regularly misattributing and applying the opposed source of communication and acting on it. When someone assigns an emotional thought to the logic bin it feels like backstabbing, like the thought is weaponized against me while I was being vulnerable.
Anyways, that's why i talk to you as little as possible Steve.
Translation: "Something happened in the part of my life I don't tell you about, but I handled it."
Walter?
Put your dick away waltuh
"Wh-why do you gotta b-be such a, a bitch all the time?!"
Because nobody cares. And if he does start talking about it, he's unmanly. Yes, to women too.
I've had no less than 3 women dump me directly after crying in front of them. Married one that has no issue with that, but still...
Yeah. Those advocates for gender norms who says girls can be anything too will immediately tell you to "man up" at the first sign of weakness. How about we knock out gender norms both ways?
Guess what im doing with my problems now? And im also not sharing my solutions to said problems after theyre resolved because itll be a "why didnt you handle that sooner?" Or some other bullshit about how you could have prevented it from even starting
Boo fucking hoo. Be unmanly. What has being manly ever gotten you? If you weren't so concerned about appearing manly, you wouldn't give a shit about that. That's your toxic masculinity as much as it is whomever is shaming you.
Ah yes, their support network refusing to support them if they dont fit the mold someone else has instilled upon them. Definitely self inflicted.
Went on an epic solo kayak trip. No white water, merely a flat Florida creek. Came out shell shocked, could not speak of it. Who would give a shit? Who would understand? You weren't there. No one was there.
:::spoiler If anyone cares to read it. No editing, only what I wrote when I got home. Because I had to write something to get it out. "It" being so close to death so many times, or worse, some sort of surrender to nature. Not going out like that, not if I still got breath.
Went to conquer the West Branch of Big Cold Creek. Bucket list thing.
Got my neighbor to extract me at the Adventures Unlimited landing. LOL, the plan was to get all the way back to Carpenter's Park in Milton. Nope.
Couldn't talk to him, sat quietly on the ride, shocked to be out of there.
We get back to my car, young rednecks hanging out under the bridge, jammin' tunes and drinking beer. Young girl comes running up:
"Oh my god, is that your car?!"
"Yeah, that's me."
"This is gonna sound so weird but can I give you a hug?"
"Um."
SQUEEZE
in a rush of words
"Oh my god we saw you take off yesterday AND YOU NEVER CAME BACK and we were talking about who to call for rescue and we thought you might be dead and we didn't know who to call and oh my god I'm glad you're OK!"
SQUEEZE
Nobody goes down that creek. Nobody. Even the guys at Adventures Unlimited didn't know about West Cold Creek. And they WORK on Big Cold Creek!
2-miles of non-stop deadfalls, downed trees blocking the way every 50', 3 jams in 30' was the bonus prize.
Humped my kayak and gear over-and-under and through dozens. Logs; slippery, mossy, underwater, rotten, floating, covered in spiky branches. Over one and the current slams you into the next, on the wrong side. It gets worse the farther you go.
7 hours, 7 o’clock, 1.8 miles, no strength left, can’t make the main creek. 3 more impasses in sight. Soaked and submerged in West COLD Creek, over and over, for hours. Thinking hypothermia might in the works (sometimes one can't tell because adrenaline, people die in summer temps), went to strike camp.
South side; solid creeper thorns, impassable, looked North across the creek. No lie, a patch of sunlight (weird in these thick woods) shining on a flat, elevated position. Barely bigger than my tent. Like God himself pointing His enormous finger, “No you idiot, there!”
Dragged my gear up a 45º incline, tied the boat to a tree, pitched camp. Nearly everything in the hull soaked, dry-bags too loose. Clothes and linens dry! Splatted gear all about, got in the tent with dry clothes, warmed, rested, took stock, took a beer. Got gear squared away, hung a clothesline. Like it's gonna dry. So wet a road flare couldn't start pine needles. I have created smoke!
Next morning, laid on my bedroll for hours, too sore to move. Heard day trippers, tubers and canoers, yelling on the main creek. People that close. Just gotta get off this tributary. No matter what I can pull the life-vest ripcord, float to a sand bank, await rescue.
OK; Tylenol, cold espresso, trail mix. 1 hour and I’m home free.
3 more hours to until I saw Salvation Beach.
Wasn't supposed to storm but I spent an hour or more hiding when it got bad, 3 storm bands, hanging on tree limbs under banks. Nowhere to safely get on shore, 20sq/ft of any land was a godsend and deserved a stop.
Oh, and bailing the kayak with a dish rag after I lost my sponge. “Always carry a towel” is sound advice (Bugblatter Beasts aside), a big yellow sponge is a necessity.
So tired I flipped the kayak for the first time (and that was after I hit the easy creek). Lost my weapon, new and old phones, GPS, monocular, ecig, knife, don't know what all. One bag but it was the good stuff. Still had survival gear.
I was extraordinarily cautious; one accident could strand/kill me. No getting out without a chopper and sling. Sometimes I wanted to quit, give up and fire a pair of flares at the next helicopter or plane.
“How am I going to lever this @^%*! boat over this !#@%$ log with 10 gallons of water in the hull and taking on more!?” In a storm, flooding my boat from top and bottom.
One time I grabbed the T-handle on the front and bailed into the swirling green. Don’t care what’s down there, this yak is going over this log. Promptly run over by my own boat. Came up laughing! Beat that one!
4 miles down the main creek I landed at Adventures Unlimited (local outfitter), borrowed the office phone to call for extraction. Looked rough climbing out of there, rain top shredded down the back, covered in bruises and lacerations. Workers at the landing were shooting the bull with me until one guy really got a look, "Do you need help man?" "Yeah, I do. Not with you guys this weekend but I need to call for a ride. Mind if I walk up to the church or cemetery, see if I can get a signal?"
I'm faithful about only testing one bit of gear at a time, way too much new stuff on unfamiliar turf. Many lessons learned. LIFE STRAWS WORK! (Ask me, I could be a spokesman.)
16 Band-Aids/patches on my hands alone. I'm black and blue all over but from the knees down it's frightful. Thought my legs were tanned and dirty, nope, bruising so solid it’s an even color.
Did I mention the non-stop boat full of spiders? And the big yellow sponge? Fun fact: You can flick banana spiders out with a big yellow sponge. Otherwise grab their leg and yeet 'em.
I'm going back in. :::
And nothing I wrote there expresses the fear and uncertainty I felt. I'll only add, I'm experienced and that trip was planned.
Anyway, got another solo coming up! But I never brave that fucking creek again.
That sounds like a nightmare and I kind of want to go.
Reading that satisfied my need for adventures, now I can just stay home
the duality of man
Did a similar trip. Missed the high water by a few days and ended portaging a fully loaded canoe through mud for most of it. Saw gar big enough to tip the boat. Went through what I thought was rain, but was actually a mosquito swarm. Went over and under felled trees and saw spiders as big as my hand. Saw a moccasin get ripped in half by something… When the river finally opened up, I ended up paddling on pure adrenaline and screaming Tenacious D songs for motivation until the landing appeared. I was only out two days.
One of my fondest memories.
The over and under trees was what mostly kicked my ass. I was standing on one, 6' above the water line, thinking, "There is no way in hell I can drag this gear straight up and over." Sat there for 15 minutes looking around and thinking. Only option? Under the trunk there was a tiny triangle clear, 10" at the high point. I stomped the kayak under until it popped up the other side. Win!
Sounds like some "Type 3" fun. Great story.
I have new words! Damn, apparently I do a lot of Type 3 adventures. My wife and kids do not appreciate such "fun".
Holy shit thats a hell of an adventure. Getting into bed safe at home that night must have felt amazing.
Sitting in this very chair, all alone, warm and quiet, that was quite a thing. I don't have words for it.
At the time I was thinking, "I will never do that crazy shit again. Ever."
After writing it out, getting the shock out of my system, "Ya know, I could do much better if I..."
The idea that women can't be just as emotionally unavailable and fucked up as men is laughable. Women are simply forced to pass and simulate the acceptable emotions you want them to have.
This post describes me down to the letter. Friends have issues with it but over time they've come to understand it's just how I am. In men, its stoic. In women, you're a cold bitch.
Or one can always smile, always laugh, always demure, always dissemble, always hide, always mask, always be emotionally removed.
That sounds tiring, doesn't wearing that heavy of a mask constantly start itching the soul?
My point is that when women are withdrawn and emotionally unavailable, they are more likely to have been conditioned to present (and perhaps are more capable of presenting) a false face so that those around them are not aware in the first place. And yes, it's known to be incredibly fatiguing, sometimes to the point where you can't really do anything else.
Long before my time, my WW2 veteran grandfather checked himself into the psych ward at the local hospital, spent several weeks there, then discharged himself voluntarily and never spoke of it again. The mental health stigma was real.
They were Isekaid and turned into a slime that had sex with everything that moved.
But they returned now and don't want to talk about the orgies. They miss em.
r u me?
Why limit yourself?
Have you been reading Slaughterhouse 5? Perhaps you have become unstuck in time?
Some Farscape type of adventure. I could definitely see that happening at the end
It's fine. We're fine.
Look if I tell you about my impending suicide it's going to make everything worse for both of us
Not suicide. But one time, I ate something so bad I diarrhea'd nonstop. Practically ghosted my friend for a whole week because I was quietly dying from pooping my insides. Oh, and the SMELL.
Anyways, when I saw them again, the thought did cross my mind. Easier to tell them suicide rather than explain that I couldn't stop projectile shitting everywhere.
We do the same shit:
Would you rather me tell you about the tank of helium and the bag and hoses I bought and then returned, or do you just want to go back to playing cards and getting on with things?
Made the right choice BTW, stay strong.
I don't know if it was strength or not. I fell in love. Went to visit a friend I have known for 20 years but never met in person. Intended for it to be a goodbye. Plan was to go see him, get back home, mail the letters, drive to the ocean, and watch the sea as it happened. Even bought clear bags to make sure I could see it.
Fell in love with him while I was there. Not sure if that'll work out or not, but it gave me a reason to live. And if it doesn't work out, it means there might be other reasons to live still out there. I had only ever had the one reason, it was an honest to surprise to find out there could be another.
The key is that you persist. I call it survival or I like to say, despite whatever is going on, "yet I still persist". Finding new and different reasons to help you maintain this persistence are also very important. Stay here don't leave. That's it.
I hope you continue to find new reasons.
Exactly. I couldn't agree more.
When killing yourself the right thing to do is to set it up some piano wire in such a way that you're able to sever your own head, AFTER supergluing your hands to the side of your head.
Its crucial that you have a friend that's in on it so that they can remove the piano wire when they "stumble" on to your dead body, and the investigators struggle to figure out how and why your ripped your own head off.
Bash.org
Do me a favor and practice what you preach.
i thought i was the only one who thought of that...
<3
Diarrhea
Not the fun type neither
There's other types?
oh dude, wait until your first colonoscopy. there's types
kinda types
ftfy
3D2Ymaybe you should ask
The real problem is that when they do ask, the answer invariably leads to the person leaving for good. Yeah, I get it. I'm not fucking perfect, and I can't even protect myself most of the time. Doesn't mean that I should lose everyone that supposedly cares about me because I cracked for a few minutes.
When I have asked I get the, "Yeah dude, totally, I'll be there for you, you just say the word, you say the time."
So I say the word and I say the time and they're like, "Oh man, that's real bad. I've got this thing, and there's like this thing that's going on, and like, it's just not a good time for me."
So I say, "Okay, so how about this time instead?"
And it's like, "Oh man, oh no, I feel like such an ass, but that time doesn't work for me either!"
Then I go into problem-solving mode, "Well okay, so why don't you pick a time, and I'll work around your schedule? "
And they're like, "I don't know man, I'm just being here for you. You tell me when."
And so I pick a third time and they're like, "Ah geez, ah, oh no, oh man."
And you can tell me that I've got bad friends, and you can tell me that I have done a poor job in accumulating friendships and people who are there for me and who love me, and you can blame me for the fact that I cannot get help all you want to.
That's not going to keep the bullet out of my fucking head.
"Ah geez, ah, oh no, oh man"
I never heard of any man who will go away for hours or days? This is honestly messed up. But the way people talk about this sounds like it's normal.
I feel like this person is talking about a coworker who didn't come to work for a few days and doesn't wanna talk about why. I've been this coworker before, so maybe I'm just projecting.
I'm just here for a paycheck, not to share my trauma with coworkers I barely know.
But, but, we're family here at insert business.
PRODUCTOCORP loves you!
“And you love PRODUCTOCORP! That’s why you are willing to be underpaid.”
Oh I understand now.
I was confused by the post because it made it sound like men do this at home.
Maybe not days, but hours? That's not really all that weird. Depending on the context, of course. But needing a few hours alone to process something is pretty reasonable imo.
I've done it. When I'm emotional I just want to be alone. Being around people doesn't help at all. Hell I've taken a week of PTO just to stay home by myself and not have to talk to anyone.
When I was younger, I worked second shift. I used to get off work at midnight and drive 5 hours north to watch the sun rise on the beach.
Didn't matter the weather or time of year, If I was stressing and didn't want to go home to my empty lonely apartment, I'd take a short road trip as far as I could go. I miss doing it tbh.
I never told anyone about it, no one ever asked.
My friendships are the kind where we won't see eachother for six months then hang out like not a day has passed.
Pretty much. See each other 15 times in a decade. Easily best pal over there.
Yeah it's pretty normal bachelor stuff.
Women are obsessed with their own and each other's safety in a way that men just aren't. I mean, the girl I was dating when I was 25, her mother still forbade her from driving on certain sections of busy highways. I had full run of the US highway system at 17.
Women will get pretty close with their roommates, exchange contact info, and will tell each other detailed plans on where they're going, memorize what they're wearing, fill out missing persons forms in advance, etc. When I went back to college in my late 20's, I got a room with three other guys, and if you asked me the day I moved out what their names were I think I would have struggled to tell you. They didn't involve me in their lives and I didn't them.
The times I stayed overnight with a girl? Weekends visiting my parents? That time I wandered off into the Uwharries for three days? They probably didn't notice I was gone. I passed one of my roommates in the hall one day and he mentioned he had just gotten back from Nigeria. I didn't notice he had left the country for two weeks.
My mom was a man?
Good for... Them?
Yes. Yes, we do.
Yes. Not a gender exclusive behavior though.
What even is society for, other than lumping people together with those who would gladly see them dead.
Ive got the opposite problem of a lot of the comments here. When I go away alone for some time to think about things. When I come back I people genuinely care more than I do.
When people try and ask whats going on i dont want to share anything with them because ive already thought it through and I dont want to think about it anymore and return to my daily routine.
I dont know why this is but whenever i do something that isnt being happy or relaxed or whenever i share any thoughts or feelings that are slightly sad or negative people react like I just told them I'm considering killing myself. Then they get upset and I have to spend time and energy comforting them and reassuring them that I'm fine. So far all my partners have been like this and I'm really hoping this isnt normal because it makes me not want to find another relationship.
If it helps at all, I was in this situation in my former long term relationship and my current partner isn't like that in the slightest.
That is reassuring. I'll have to do something to filter those people out like cry on the first date lol.
That is likely to scare away even people that would be fine with it 2 months in. Most people are not trying to become your therapist on day 1.
Its been 2 months for this one but I'm sure I'll be back lmao
What am I supposed to say, that I was abducted and probed and got to hang out with big foot and Michael Jackson before being dropped off in Iowa?
You deserved better, Lewis. But I’m happy you came back.
We meet with our inner Enkidus, to fight our inner Ḫumbabas.
https://youtu.be/281M3Fhbrlk is why
I feel like if most husbands or dads did this they would have some splaining to do. I’m not sure who’s doing this but it sounds sus
Men that are not dads or husbands. They exist.
I don't believe you
Now I'm angry, I need to punch someone
Not my experience. Men hurt their little toe, act like they are about to die and then tell their heroic tale of survival for 10 years
You live either a blithe or privileged life if that's accurate, or both.
I pity you in this myopic, projected, infantile perspective; and those around you that you're unwittingly impacting with it.
Get better. 🖖🏼
I mean, sure, some men totally might do that. But I get the impression that you're just being condescending to invalidate someone else's experience, which may be more of a you problem than a "men" problem. I'd rather be the man engaged with his own simple life than the person who sees it as less-than for being simple, personally.
Whenever men's emotions come up on the internet the comments turn into the edgiest im14andthisisdeep takes. "We bottle it up because nobody cares anyway" like dude if that's genuinely true for you then it's still your responsibility to find less shitty friends. If you decide you don't need that much consolation then that's ok too but you can be self-reliant without being bitter about it all day. Idk maybe I'm too harsh but it seems infantile to me. If you have that much built up grief you gotta work through that instead of hiding away a bottomless pit of sorrow that immediately takes center stage whenever you try to open up.
Often encounters men opening up about nobody listening to them when they open up.
Proceeds not to listen, mock them and blame it on them.
Sure is strange, why this trend continues, right?
"Trend" would imply that it's ever been different. Also my intention wasn't to mock anyone. I'm just saying I'm 100% convinced it's not gonna change so the best approach is to adapt. I would tell women the same thing.
Then you would be scolded for trying to fix the problem instead of just listening.
Men are frustrated because of a common double standard.
I fully acknowledge that there's a double standard. But at the same time I think it would be short sighted to draw the conclusion that women have it easier. It's different, yes. But there's other issues associated with being labeled as "more emotional".
But my main point is that being frustrated about how society works instead of either taking action (like joining a free support group that meets irl or via zoom, seeking therapy, team sport or whatever else) or even just accepting that things work the way they do has never done anything except make the person who dwells on it even sadder.
I never said that and didn't see any comments like that at the time I commented.
But good job swooping into a discussion about men's challenges and making it about women!
I'm not trying to make it about women. I'm a guy myself btw. To me the frustration with that double standard kinda implied the feeling of having it harder. Thinking about it it probably doesn't. It wasnt malice, I genuinely have a hard time understanding this mindset.
I'm curious how an individual is supposed to make things better by slamming their head against a double standard. The frustration comes from attempting something and being repeatedly shut down.
From personal experience, speaking with a therapist doesn't keep people in general from negatively reacting to me trying to solicit support. "Don't be frustrated" isn't a solution. Best case is coming to grips with a shitty double standard, which helps people who are actually self destructive because of it, sure.
But a lot of us are just sick of it and want to have the existence ofnthe double standard acknowledged without being told how women have it worse. Both (all) genders suffer from double standards!
I'm a man myself and so are many of my friends.
Another digressive victim in lemmy, or genuinely retarded?
¿Por que no los dos?
Hi AntiBullyRanger! So since I'm not disabled can you please talk me through the necessary mental gymnastics in order to apply the definition of digressive victimhood to what I wrote?
Since you're declaring yourself cognitively sane, it’s also the responsibility of friends to not be shitty. Shitty behavior is a two way street, you can't be shitty to men because society was already shitty to them. So be responsible for once, and stop being shitty completely.
Yes, the bullshit runs deep, but I'm 54 and plenty sociable, still, not much in the way of friends or family. Our Western societies are becoming more and more isolated, and it scares the shit out of me.
I feel ya, neighbor. Deeply. It's one-day-at-a-time over here (sometimes hour, if I'm being honest), and if it weren't for the boundless, unflappable love of my dog here, I'm not sure where I'd be at all in this relentless shitscape.
I'm only 29 so I'm not sure how well this holds true but I feel like up until the early 2000s friendships were often a lot more superficial. You used to be good friends with one or two people and the rest were what would now at best be considered acquaintances. These days, at least in my generation, you're expected to be a lot more comfortable with other people's intimate details. But for many people deep down learning about everybodys political beliefs, sex life, spirituality, childhood trauma and what have you is pretty overwhelming so they distance themselves.
It's like we're numb to the joy of just existing together for a while. Nobody seems to like small talk anymore because it's not intense enough or whatever, everybody calls themselves socially awkward but refuses to practice their social game in low-stress environments.
So yeah to a degree things have gotten more isolated but for me it's more about small gestures like talking about the weather with the bus driver or silly banter at work. Without those small things it's almost impossible to meet new people anyway and they regulate the desire for social connections too. The contents of the conversation might be trivial but you're still hearing another human's voice being raised just for you, that's far from meaningless.
Maybe this explains my strong initial reaction. I think other people's attention is not something to ever take for granted. It's something you need to work for hard in times where attention has become the most valuable thing to give.
until the early 2000s? you were 4. that's how friendships work at that age.
That assessment wasn't really based on my personal experience.
If I don't know how to identify or deal with my own feelings, how can I support my bros? I bottle things up because if I can not care about my problems, nobody else will have to either. But I'm at the point now where I don't even know that I have problems before things get to panic attack levels, or I find that an innocuous sentence might bring me to tears every few years. I feel like Data when he gets random hits from the emotion chip.