A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.
“Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.
As long as the AI doesn’t suggests violence.
AI is what cracked my egg shell, fucking wild…
Part of me is ok with this in that any avenue to get mental health resources can be better than nothing. What worries me is that people will use ChatGPT for this sort of thing and these models will not be good help.
AI will reinforce delusional thinking. This is definitely not good.
Honestly of they could program a halfway decent AI therapist then art least it could take some of the load off our already insufficient mental health professionals by dealing with the lighter-weight cases, leaving the psychotherapists free to deal with the especially sick people.
The real problem becomes when bad or non scientific advice gets regurgitated to people over and over.
So… AI.
I’ll admit I tried talking to a local deepseek about a minor mental health issue one night when I just didn’t want to wake up/bother my friends. Broke the AI within about 6 prompts where no matter what I said it would repeat the same answer word-for-word about going for walks and eating better. Honestly, breaking the AI and laughing at it did more for my mental health than anything anyone could have said, but I’m an AI hater. I wouldn’t recommend anyone in real need use AI for mental health advice.
Just a note to say that the very first chat bot, Eliza, created in the 1960’s was a Rogerian therapist. I’m sure I remember a quote that the author was surprised that people opened up to it. I doubt anyone working in AI or chat technology would not know about Eliza so probably not a surprise to the industry… but maybe I am that old. [edits: facts/spelling etc]
Like… yeah?
Tried to open to a girlfriend about a sensitive topic - she got the ick.
Tried to make an appointment with a psychiatrist - got a very hateful rejection because of my place of birth.
Damn, even when I try to uplift a friend, I use phrases like ‘you got this before, you’ll get it now’.
I don’t know how to be a man, mentally
Become a rich jacked sociopath.
That’s most manly thing you can do apparently.
Getting rejection because of place of birth is worth getting that doctors license revoked, find out which body governs doctors in your location and file a complaint
Haha, not every place is in the US. Hopefully, I won’t face this kind of treatment as I do not live in that shit hole of a country
Morons, giving all their personal information and insecurities to companies.
I’m totally against what companies are calling “AI”, but I mean many men still have a negative feel on therapy inherited from society, their family, their friends, and the people around them. Now add that with the fact that therapy sessions cost a kidney, I don’t blame them. Even mental health has to be monetized in capitalism, and the capitalists (more specifically liberals) are still wondering why suicide rate is so high, I wonder 🤔
You should blame them because the AI is not a solution to their problems, it will only create more problems and worsen their current ones.
Ok, so the solution to men feeling too scared to open up about their mental health enough to rely on something as unreliable as ChatGPT is for you to victim blame them?
If some men thought the solution to loneliness was fucking a toaster I’d think less of them too, yeah. At least find a tool that suits the purpose, talking to the AI is just self harm.
Again, so you think the solution to someone that self harms is to blame them for performing the act. You’re a genius, you know that?
Ironically, i am feeling attacked right now…
If you gave all your personal details and vulnerabilities to a corporation’s chatbot then you fucking should feel attacked rn. You know these AI have been in the news for telling people to commit suicide for a while now, right? Either get real professional help or go browse some public discord/matrix channels about your interests to find somebody to voice chat to, fr.
I can kinda understand the appeal. An AI isn’t gonna judge you, an AI isn’t gonna leave a mean comment or tell you to get over it and man up. It’s giving an unnerving amount of personal information to corporations, but I can sympathise with the thoughts these men are having.
Well those sound like people who aren’t good to open up to.
I do sympathize though, I pretended to be a guy for several decades, and my wife put exactly the same kind of duality on me that men put on women.
I was expected to be sympathetic and nurturing in some contexts and aggressive, jealous, and demanding in others, and I was just supposed to know when to switch.
And there was an amount of vulnerability I was able to display, but beyond that I’d get told to suck it up.
I think somebody needs to come up with an ad campaign that’s Therapy For Men. Big sweaty hairy guys with thick beards looking after each other’s mental health like BROs. It worked to get men to use soap.
(Seriously, I think counseling is too female-coded for a lot of men to be comfortable with it unless they’re fucking the person, or they start to want to fuck the person because they’re unused to talking about things).
My mental image the solution of your last paragraph is a guy and their counsoler just chatting outside chopping firewood or other simple/quiet lawn work.
“I need a therapist, and a lumberjack”
I dealt with the same thing in all my relationships. Nothing got my gfs hotter than when I acted like a complete asshole towards other people. They got off the duality of me being shit to people and the being this ‘sweet man’ to them. And they’d get super jealous and bitter if I was kind towards anyone else other than them. It was Toxic AF. It made me hate myself and made me depressed. To know that i had to be a shithead to get my girlfriends to like me.
I’m so much happier single. I’d rather not get laid then have to be a POS asshole like they wanted me to be. Soooo many people get off on anti-social behaviors. I’m also so glad I never got married or had children with these ladies who have such a horrible Zero Sum way of thinking about the world.
They wanted me to be vulnerable, but only in the sense that I was some heroic figure overcoming the odds. If i said I was sad when my dog died or my dad died, then I was a giant pussy to them.
When shitty people only validate your shitty emotions… well that’s why so many women only date shitty men. Because they are turned off sexually by men who are more complex or behave outside of their per-determiend ‘what a man should be’ image. Especially when you reject them for sex… holy shit. Way to see what a lady really thinks of a men when a man turns her down for sex.
In my many years single now, I do a lot of volunteer work. Giving back here and there w/ kids and adults and community building. I’ve never met or a dated lady who thought it was cool. They all think it’s weird to be kind to strangers and/or I’m secretly homosexual if I do so. If it comes up they always get ‘suspicious’.
You’ve met some shitty women. There are some of us out there fighting against sexism in all ways. Not for females but for all people. Sexism hurts everyone :(
I don’t think the open internet is a great place to open up about your mental health either. Trusted family, friends, and medical/mental health professionals are the best resources. Entrusting something as precious as your mental health to AI or the internet is a profoundly bad idea.
AI might also be giving them better advice than anyone else in their life.
Growing up I certainly had no role models in my entire community. I never found anyone who was remotely helpful until I went to an expensive college that had lots of resources and they were freely accessible to me. Mental, physical, and academic.
A lot of people fail to realize these resources simple do not exist in large swaths of the country/economic bracket. They are mostly concentrated in wealthy and educated areas and given to wealth educated people who live there. If a farmer in Nebraska needs therapy, they will have to drive to multiple hours to Omaha or another urban area to have a decent shot at getting any assistance. Not everyone lives in a major coastal city that have the bulk of these resources.
I dunno about advice, but LLMs are very good at re-stating my meandering thoughts in a concise way that’s easy to communicate to others.
Funny, I was just reading comments in another thread about people with mental health problems proclaiming how terrific it is. Especially concerning is how they had found value in the recommendations LLMs make and “trying those out.” One of the commenters described themselves as “neuro diverse” and was acting upon “advice” from generated LLM responses.
And for something like depression, this is deeply bad advice. I feel somewhat qualified to weigh in on it as somebody who has struggled severely with depression and managed to get through it with the support of a very capable therapist. There’s a tremendous amount of depth and context to somebody’s mental condition that involves more deliberate probing to understand than stringing together words until it forms sentences that mimic human interactions.
Let’s not forget that an LLM will not be able to raise alarm bells, read medical records, write prescriptions or work with other medical professionals. Another thing people often forget is that LLMs have maximum token lengths and cannot, by definition, keep a detailed “memory” of everything that’s been discussed.
It’s is effectively self-treatment with more steps.
LLM will not be able to raise alarm bells
this is like the “benefit” of what LLM-therapy would provide if it worked. The reality is that, it doesn’t but it serves as a proof of concept that there is a need for anonymous therapy. Therapy in the USA is only for people with socially acceptable illnesses. People rightfully live in fear of getting labeled as untreatable, a danger to self and others, and then at best dropped from therapy and at worst institutionalized.
I can’t find the story for the life of me right now but I’m pretty sure there was one a few months back where someone was talking with an LLM about their depression and suicide and the LLM essentially said “yeah you should probably do it.” because to the LLM, that was the best solution to the problem.
It’s is effectively self-treatment with more steps.
And for many people it’s better than nothing and likely the best they can do. Waiting lists for a basic therapist in my area are months long. Shorter if you pay out of pocket, but that isn’t affordable to average people because it’s like 300-400 for a one hour session.
I get it, but I’m not sure that “something is better than nothing” in this case. I don’t judge any individual for using it, but the risks are huge, as others have documented. And the benefits are questionable.
Also worth noting that:
1. AI is arguably a surveillance technology that’s built on decades of our patterns
3. Large AI companies like OpenAI are signing contracts with the Department of defense
If I were a US citizen, I would be avoiding discussing my personal life with AI like the plague.
Of course men will go to an AI for their problems, they can’t fathom going to a woman for honest advice.
And as a result, they gaslight themselves with a worse version of ELIZA.
Of course men will go to an AI for their problems, they can’t fathom going to a woman for honest advice.
This seems a bit far-fetched, don’t you think? There could be so many reasons as to why someone would rather use AI than going to another person for advice (this is not just about women).
Honestly, as someone who actually went to therapy and yes, my therapist was a woman. It’s was quite tough to open up and be vulnerable.
I think for some people using AI, they might feel as if they’re not that vulnerable because it is not a person. However, they don’t realize that there’s data is being gathered.
And as a result, they gaslight themselves with a worse version of ELIZA.
With this, I can’t figure out whether you’re serious, trolling or just writing randomly.
This comment section is nuts.
Men #1 issue is lack of empathy, TOWARDS women. Not each other.
There’s your solution.
You seem to lack empathy.
Sure buddy keep hating women or whatever the point of your comment was.
You really can’t read, can you? My comment is simple enough it would take a cock-up of epic proportions to not get my point.
You’re being a bozo. I’m arguing to be empathetic to women, you’re calling that unempathetic. You don’t deserve a serious reply so you didn’t get one.
Try reading from the start again, and maybe you’d finally be able to grasp some form of understanding. Good luck.
“I’m the one who’s correct, everyone else here is wrong.” – You
Everyone else is blaming women for how men act. You disagree?
One guy said women raise boys, so it’s their fault.
Another said therapy only works for women and suggested women aren’t under any social pressure.
You think those are intelligent, well thought arguments? Because they’re stupid.
Empathy does not treat clinical depression.
I disagree. I had depression pretty bad, I didn’t leave my house for two years.
Empathy is definitely what made me feel different, not 100% better but different and different is the first step out of depression I think.
“The way I do things is how everyone should do things, because what works for me will unquestionably work for everyone else.” – You
Imagine arguing being a nicer person is a bad thing?
Naturally. We were beaten up and ostracized if we showed weakness when we were kids. You CAN’T be sharing your feelings like that to another human.
a lot of therapists and psychs are also useless for helping men. because they are women and they are basically only trained to deal with women’s issues and only see women’s emotional processes and processing as ‘valid’. there is this default bias that men’s emotional processing is ‘flawed’.
imo with mental health professionals all my ‘issues’ were blow way out of proportion. i only had one therapist who actaully helped me was a man and that person helped me understand that ‘not everything is your fault’. when all the other therapists/friends/family always 100% told me everything that happens to me is entirely my fault. they also told me it was normal/healthy to vent my feelings by doing productive things (like writing, exercising, relaxing), rather than viewing that as ‘not addressing the problem’.
the issue with so much of this crap is that not only does nobody want to talk to men, it’s that they don’t want to listen and/or the tell us we are ‘talking wrong’. even when we do talk to people, there is only a tiny window of acceptable things we an talk about and way we can talk about them.
a woman can burst into tears over any little thing and everyone wants to help her. a man bursts into tears over his father dying of cancer and all the sudden everyone wants to tell him his reaction is too intense and he should be thinking of how he is making other people feel.
Nonsense. The idea that all psychological issues are defined by gender is just the perspective of someone who’s never made any meaningful progress through therapy and/or counseling. Mental health is not a gendered issue and the repetition of this misconception just leads more people to give up without even trying. Yes, the lens of sexual identity comes into play, mainly in terms of cultural gender roles experienced in your part of the world. But, a well trained, experienced therapist will have these considerations while exploring issues you present with. I would argue, that psychiatrists (which is a much more male dominated field) are much more of an issue, because their objective is not to help you come to conclusions about yourself. It is to medicate your symptoms away to allow you to function. I am sorry you did not have a good experience yourself, but that is not reflective of therapy, or counseling as a whole and your characterisation of men vs women in therapy is sexist and sounds more like male influencer talking points than lived experience.
how many well trained therapists are there out there who are totally objective, compared to poorly trained ones who will often perpetual their harmful biases?
does anyone know? how do we even measure that? do we just assume people who have a certain degree from a certain program are inherently ‘objective’?
Therapy is just littered with bad therapists, that do more harm than good and give the practice a bad name.
For every 1 good therapist, there are probably 10+ bad ones.
It can be a fucking ordeal to navigate, financially and emotionally, to try and find the one good one.
My worst experience was a therapist which charged me 300 dollars a session to do nothing but talk about how amazing they were, and that I need to just suck it up and be amazing like they are, afterall, it was so easy for them.
Therapy is just littered with bad therapists, that do more harm than good and give the practice a bad name.
This has long been my experience. Although I believe that great therapists are out there, I have yet to encounter someone who didn’t blame me for the problems and cause me to feel rejected. The last person I went to looked over the intake testing and told me that nobody would want me as a client. No joke. I convinced him to let me stay but nothing happened and I burned out after 3 months or so and stopped going.
I’m sorry, you don’t deserve that.
If you have the mental energy/space, there are usually state therapists boards of some kind that you can call and report that behavior too… Too few people do that, though (and I’m including myself on that list), because a lot of people who seek out therapists are in a bad, vulnerable state and just don’t have the mental space to go through with reporting these assholes like they deserved.
I am on my fifth therapist. The first one I was seeing I kinda stopped going and then he retired, then I had a GF cheat on me and that was super brutal so I started going again.
First therapist was the stereotypical “feelings are okay!” kind of therapist, second one she just automatically assumed it was my fault and was basically telling me that cause I’m a man I should have done better, and the third just immediately jumped to medication like halfway through my first session.
Ended up with my current therapist and she’s great. I really like her because she regularly tells me that I’m just straight up being stupid or ridiculous and just need to handle my shit. Which works amazing for me.
Amen.
There is a boatload of bad therapists and bad therapy out there. And sadly it gets a lot more traction and popularity because well… it’s simplistic and easy. It’s the fast food of therapy.
Good therapy is hard and long and complex. And most people simple don’t want to deal with that. They want the diet pill version of therapy. Just make the bad feelings go away, and give me more good feelings.
I don’t think enough analogies are drawn between physical vs mental health. Anyone knows that legit physical health is a long and boring process that takes a lot of discipline and time. Mental health and wellness really isn’t any different. Therapists should also be more like physical trainers… you need to have a specific goal in mind and work towards that goal and really and the endgame should be to no longer need the physical trainer/therapist
Sadly in our economic system the incentive for a lot of people is the opposite and many bad therapist/trainers just want to generate dependency of their clients on themselves and as such they will indulge their clients worse habits to keep them hooked.
Yeah.
and there needs to be more oversight and punishment for objectively bad therapists. and I dont mean bad as in their program didnt work for you, i mean bad, like ones that spend an entire session fellating themselves over how awesome they are, or tell you that they arent here to listen to you bitch and moan about your problems (someone I knew had a therapist say that to them) or whatever other objectively awful things bad therapists too.
and there needs to be more education about therapy, and how there are many different styles and approaches… and not all work for everyone, The system should incentivize people being able to tell their therapist they appreciate their time, but it doesnt feel like their approach is working, and get refered to a different one with a different approach without drama, extra cost, extra paperwork, or headache.
yes, there is an incredibly amount of ignorance, and a lack of oversight about the entire thing.
and so many internet jackasses who think they are experts about it, constantly pushing endless misinformation about every aspect of the process. esp the armchair diagnosing.
‘oh you had a bad day at work? you must have autism/adhd/depression/personality disorder’. or the fact anyone who was ever mean to you once in your life is a ‘narcissist’ or ‘gas lighting’ you.
the bias confirmation is out of hand. even in this very comment thread… soooo many people just banging on their bias confirmation drum and screaming ‘no no no no, men are bad and should just go away and solve their own problems without bothering anyone at all ever!’ as if that attitude isn’t the biggest reason men, especially young men, feel so trapped about their lives.
From the commenter above talking about negative experiences with talking to women and female therapists, I think the real solution is that men need to be proactive about supporting each other. Ranting and raving about how women are terrible and don’t know how to help men with an undercurrent of expectations that women (especially a romantic partner) should fix everything is simply not a tenable mindset.
As a woman who works in the medical field, I am keenly aware of my limitations when it comes to helping men with mental health issues. I think the real, effective solution is for men to start opening up to each other and supporting each other the way that women tend to do among themselves. I don’t mean this as “oh, men are terrible and they need to fuck off somewhere else with their problems”, I mean it as a sincere belief that the best people to help a man through emotional or psychological problems are probably other men given the shared socialization and perspective.
we need more male therapists and teachers. that’s what we need.
we have systematically removed male teachers from the school system due to the pedophilia panic.
This is pretty sexist.
Coping skills are not gender specific. How they help is different for each individual.
Women have their emotions unsupported just as much as men I know my mom didn’t have anyone caring about how she felt. Pretty sure that’s the stereotype of most American moms, they work all day come home cook and clean too.
I’ve never seen a man cry and be told to stop by anyone other than their own father. I’ve seen countless women be mocked for being emotional.
Sorry bro your comment is far too one sided to be taken seriously by me. Society is hard on everyone.
Type anything to show you’ve never been to therapy: ^ this post
Literally in therapy but okay. Continue to reject my perspective and unsupport a fellow dude. Hypocrites.
dude people here just want to dunk on men because it makes them feel good about themselves. it’s that sad, and that simple. they don’t care about having empathy for men, men are not ‘people’. they are ‘others’.
they don’t really give a shit about… the issue at hand or the issues in the therapy industry/society that systematically disenfranchise many men.
unironically they want men to ‘man up’ and ‘fix’ the problems and never acknowledge them. Because that is inconvenient for them and their viewpoints.
because to them everything is a weird power struggle for their particular disenfranchised group, and they see anyone else acknowledging anything else struggles as a detriment to their cause. they lack the big brain thought that maybe lots of people suffer in lots of different ways and that it’s not some zero-sum game about ‘who suffers the most’.
as if men’s issue with the mental health care system… don’t also apply to to various other groups. of which any one person can belong to multiples of those groups.
Who is “they” because the “they” is other men.
So why are we like mad at women in the comments it’s nonsense. Why disparage healthcare and therapy it’s nonsense.
The issue at hand is one demographic struggles to extend empathy and therefore doesn’t get it in return. Make the first step, be empathetic in your life and I swear if you respond saying you are I’m gonna laugh because no, reading your responses you’re not, you’re very “you” focused.
There’s no power struggle, and any you sense is disenfranchised groups trying to get power back from, guess who?
Who said I am a dude?
Dude is nongendered everyone is a dude, nice try tho trying to pull this though
I don’t agree
Yes they are. The genders are massivenly different in a lot of ways, and failure to acknowledge that is sexist.
But keep screaming that anything that disagrees with your particular narrative that women are great and perpetual victims of men and men are always bad, I guess? Because that’s not sexist, at all. lol
it couldn’t be that both men and women are people and both suffer from the same bullshit that they themselves perpetuate? nah.
But keep screaming that anything that disagrees with your particular narrative that women are great and perpetual victims of men and men are always bad, I guess?
Incel talk
read the whole comment
The genders are massivenly different in a lot of ways
and even if you think that the psychology of genders isn’t different, society treats genders differently and this either from the therapist who reacts differently to different genders, or from the patient who expects difference the point is the same: the construct of gender forces artificial difference, even if it’s not based in real “our brains are the same” science (which they aren’t - same as our biology isn’t quite the same)
equity is different to equality, and equity is actually what is needed
and even if you think that the psychology of genders isn’t different, society treats genders differently and this either from the therapist who reacts differently to different genders, or from the patient who expects difference the point is the same: the construct of gender forces artificial difference, even if it’s not based in real “our brains are the same” science (which they aren’t - same as our biology isn’t quite the same)
amen. brother, sister, or whatever preferred identity you want to be.
more treating people as individuals, less as treating them as stereotypes
Again. Coping skills are not gender specific they’re individual specific.
Nobody is screaming. And yes women are victims of men, have you spoken to any of them about it? Because it’s rather helpful to have those conversations.
Your comment is just very one sided and that’s the side that has the most power on the planet and as a member of that side I have just as much perspective of you and I’m here to say – nah to most of what you said.
Men’s #1 issue is lack of empathy towards women, they isolate half the planet from supporting them. There’s your solution.
Men’s inability to open up is a trained behavior, and is reinforced the most by the group doing the most child care: women. Everytime a boy that cries gets told to “man up” that stereotype is repeated to them. This produces an echo that reverbs through most of society, and especially children, who then mock peers that express emotions.
Women are training their own oppressors. There is enough blame around for all genders.
No that’s ridiculous and hilarious to say. I’d agree there is enough to blame everyone but you’re not, you’re blaming women.
I’ve never been told to man up by a woman, only men. Ridiculous to say that.
Is it really that ridiculous? Biologically seen, men’s properties are mostly due to genetic selection by women over thousands of years, if they are conscious about it or not. Men that are more attractive to women are preferred partners, and the selection pressure is mostly on men, since women have a much higher biological cost in pregnancy, therefore they are much more “picky”. That is pretty proven science, and this pressure is also found in culture: men have the attributes that women want them to have to give them an advantage.
It would only take 2-3 generations of women AND men doing child care to fix those issues by reinforcing openness and acceptance, but that takes education, esp in the human sciences, and education for the masses in the US has been dismantled long ago even before the current razing.
Your comment is just very one sided and that’s the side that has the most power on the planet and as a member of that side I have just as much perspective of you and I’m here to say – nah to most of what you said.
The only ‘side’ that has power is the wealthy. But keep banging your gender war drum, it probably gives you meaning and purpose in life to collectively blame 'me’n for all the worlds ills as if anyone who has a penis or wants a penis is entirely the same.
Drink that kool aid. yum yum. Donald Trump and his buddies thank you for your vote.
This is why you sucked in therapy and found it unhelpful. You’re pissy, jaded and uncomfortable with the concept of being wrong. Classic men shit.
Empathy would fix that, show that you don’t have to be so insecure because nobody else is that secure.
I thought it wasn’t gender specific? This is very sexist of you. wags finger
See how unhelpful that is to the conversation
The only ‘side’ that has power is the wealthy.
Pivot to wealth inequality because?
But keep banging your gender war drum, it probably gives you meaning and purpose in life to collectively blame 'me’n for all the worlds ills as if anyone who has a penis or wants a penis is entirely the same.
You are the one who made the issue about differences in sex and/or gender.
No wonder you made no progress in therapy. You’re completely obtuse.
i pivot to wealth inequality because the wealthy have all the resources and the rest of us don’t have enough.
that includes access to medical care and mental care. easiest way to get healthcare and therapy is to be rich so you can pay out of pocket and skip the limits/lines imposed by insurance companies.
a lot of people’s mental and health problems would also simple be alleviated by being able to have better food and a better work-life balance, both which are privileges of the wealthy that the less economically fortunate do not have access to.
these are straight facts, but i’m sure you’ll go into denial mode about how the poor and mentally unwell should just become their own therapists or something.
The amount of sexism in this comment section is…unnerving. Does a community exist for male identifying people to talk and share their troubles in a non hostile space?
Would you mind giving the community a name where it can easily be found? Such as /c/mental-health-men or sth.
Ah well, unfortunately the community name is set, there’s no changing it after it’s created. Maybe I should’ve made it more searchable but hopefully we can spread it by word of mouth enough where it’ll take off. Also I kinda wanted it less intimidating clinical sterile sounding and more just a homey place where people can feel safe to talk openly, just a li’l reprieve from the outside world.
I fail to see malicious sexism. Do you mind quoting them?
i’d like to be very clear here… a lot of discussion about men’s spaces is thinly veiled sexism by incels… that doesn’t mean there’s not a problem, it just means that incels are attracted to “it’s not my fault”
that said, there’s a comment up thread that captures it pretty well
… mental health professionals all my ‘issues’ were blow way out of proportion … always 100% told me everything that happens to me is entirely my fault. they also told me it was normal/healthy to vent my feelings by doing productive things (like writing, exercising, relaxing), rather than viewing that as ‘not addressing the problem’.
the issue with so much of this crap is that not only does nobody want to talk to men, it’s that they don’t want to listen and/or the tell us we are ‘talking wrong’. even when we do talk to people, there is only a tiny window of acceptable things we an talk about and way we can talk about them or how selfish it is of him to vent/indulge his legitimate emotions.
… a man bursts into tears over his father dying of cancer and all the sudden everyone wants to tell him his reaction is too intense … someone in his life try to get him to ‘open up’ and then we he does he’s met with nothing but hostility, disappointment, and eventually rejection
it’s a meme (not in a “haha” joke way: in the actual meaning of the world; a thing that is repeated often) these days that there are horrible men who tell women (re sexism) “you must have misunderstood”… and the point of that is that men don’t have the life experience as a minority to be able to understand sexism, transphobia, etc (people treat them differently, and even if they see it they often can’t identify it because they’re not accustomed to listening for it 24/7)
that same situation exists for men too… men are certainly not a minority, but nobody is allowed to say that someone’s experience is invalid… there’s a lot of people dismissing these experiences in this thread, and if it were reversed: a woman complaining about a man making a sexist comment, a gay man (of which i’m one) complaining about homophobia, there wouldn’t be any pushback at all because we’ve come to agree that this shit happens
we know that toxic masculinity exists, we know that societal expectations of men are sky high (the suicide rate for men in particular is HUGE)… we’re clearly doing something wrong, as a society, dealing with male mental health… when people come out and tell us their experiences, it absolutely is sexist to write off those experiences as invalid: “i don’t think that kind of thing happens because i haven’t seen it”, is absolutely (anything)-ist language
I expected you to mean people exhibiting toxicity and not reporting about it. I was surprised because the comments seemed civil at large. Thank you.
yeah id say it’s not overt, but that’s kinda the problem… it’s almost difficult to identify, so when it comes to mental health for men a lot of the time society, therapists, etc almost gaslights us into thinking our problems aren’t problems
if it were overt it’d be easy to identify… the fact what it’s not, the fact that men are the majority, and are the problem in a lot of cases pushes people to certain conclusions (including ourselves about our own problems)
mental health is complex af
incels are people. their problems are legitimate problems.
why society can’t acknowledge this is beyond me. I guess because it’s socially unpalatable.
incels or any extremist thing (terfs, religions extremists, etc) … is a product of the same issues. but people just want those people to ‘go away’ and not address the issues that would actaully make them go away… because that is hard.
their problems are legitimate problems sure, but in a lot of cases problems with a lot of those groups can be summed up with a couple of things:
- it’s different to my world view and i don’t like it
- i think i deserve something and am not getting it
those are different kinds of problems to acknowledging your own feelings, or people are using me and trampling over me… both are deserving of help, but incels, terfs, extremists in general are harming others with their problems
you’re free to swing your arms until they come into contact with my body
these classes of people are harmful to others - i don’t think anyone thinks they aren’t deserving of help, but they are dangerous in a completely different way
so are we going to help them, or are we going to wash our hands of them and let the problem fester and grow?
incels need positive reinforcement to loop them out of their cognitive loop. not shame and harassment that further entrenches it.
the easiest way to get someone who is hateful about some group or thing… is to introduce them to it in a positive manner.
The amount of sexism in this comment section is…unnerving. Does a community exist for male identifying people to talk and share their troubles in a non hostile space? If it doesn’t I’ll make one.
No. Because if it it did it would be shut down as being hostile and offensive to women and a space for proto-rapists to hang out.
Probably the closest space any guy could get is AA or NA meetings.
what do these abbreviations stand for?
alcoholics anonymous and narcotics anonymous
AA = Alcoholics Anonymous
NA = Narcotics Anonymous
Both are treatment programs for their respective addictions.
Alcoholic Anonymous
Narcotics Anonymous
Sorta agree. Men only spaces make me, a dude, uncomfortable because y’all are weird about women
Yeeah agreed. So this is specifically not gonna be about that and if I see any of that shit it’s getting nixed… I just want all these guys who have no where to turn to to…well, have somewhere to turn to. Each other.
that’s what the manosphere is dude.
and i bet you don’t like that either. right?
because that’s what you get when everyone shuns men. these men go to other men who accept them, and well you get the results we are getting. the manosphere is the only place many people can find any acceptance or advice.
Well if you give up before you start just because the existing options are shitty then that makes you part of the problem, doesn’t it?
dude, you are the problem.
that’s what you refuse to acknowledge. the problem is people like you, claiming that it’s not your problem, and those awful men looking for help and advice should just ‘go away’. because they upset you.
this is precisely how rich people feel about the homeless. ‘just go away, we don’t like you, but we refuse to help you and your very existence is an offensive to us.’
Where is he saying it’s not his problem? He’s literally doing the exact opposite and making it his problem.
Too bad for them I made one
