Why men don't express sadness or go to the doctor?

theskepticalidealist · 2012-11-19T22:55:09+00:00

Its simple really. If men are sad in any other way other than the stoic stiff upper lip sense, then they are considered weak because that is not a masculine trait. Weakness is not considered attractive. Women often claim they want men to open up and get in touch with their sensitive side, but it turns out when men actually do that most women then find them less attractive.

Disillusi0n · 2012-11-19T23:04:09+00:00

[permanently deleted]

hillbilly_hubble · 2012-11-20T02:49:12+00:00

I think that sort of shit is psychologically abusive manipulation:

You never tell me what bothers you!

Okay, here's what's bothering me.

God, why are you complaining?

Because you asked me to?

Oh, so everything is my fault now?

What?

EDIT: There was actually a study which showed men to be far more emotional than women, and thus more likely to avoid emotions because the power they hold would get in the way of getting shit done. Women readily express emotion because it will lead to a man getting shit done.

CORNDOGCOMMANDO · 2012-11-20T04:37:52+00:00

brain washing that's why, from an early age you are raised to keep that shit to yourself and deal with the pain. growing up it was always look we need to deal with other things right now but we will deal with your pain in a bit you're a big boy you can take it.

don't even bother with feelings, no one talks about that since what you feel causes you pain and what have you been taught about pain, you keep that shit to yourself unless you are dying. i remember having a real bad ear infection once and the attitude was we will take you to a doctor if it doesn't get better after a week i just retreated to an area under the coffee table and cried silently for a fucking week.

when my mother and sister found out it was non stop, it's not that painful stop acting like it hurts and grow up already. the pain was excruciating, finally after a week i was taken to the doctor who found that i had a real bad ear infection.

yup being a boy all i hear when i tried to express my pain or feelings was grow up, it's not that bad, stop exaggerating, stop acting like it hurts for attention. that instills a mind set of my pain is irrelevant to everyone but me, no one cares about my pain so why bother voicing it. you keep that shit inside till you cant take it anymore and you put a bullet through your head to stop the pain.

men succeed killing themselves because there is no mentality of things will get better, you do the job right and end it because there is no help. if family wouldn't help you when your problems weren't that bad would they help you now that the pain has reached a boiling point and is way worse now.

society programs males to keep their pain and suffering to themselves, now that they are programmed like that they cant even help each other like women do. they suffer till they cant take it then set out to kill themselves and after, people ask why didn't he ask for help? why didn't we notice the signs. well they were told not to bother others with their pain and men are never shown how to seek help or take care of our mental health.

one last thing is male health, i really wish it was talked about more as a child and as a young adult. i remember public service announcements on womens health and how they need to take care of themselves, i remember the signs at school and in gym class. even now as an adult i see signs at the doctors office and the tv's are set to womens health. there are list of free services for woman and information pamphlets.

i don't remember ever seeing anything on mens health.

johnmarkley · 2012-11-20T01:52:34+00:00

Like, they think we hold back for kicks or something. They grew up in a world where they are used to things being resolved by them crying or talking to others about their problems.

This, exactly. Most women who say men should be more emotionally open (or criticize or mock men for failing to be) seem to be operating under the assumption that certain female privileges are actually universal. It's like a rich kid who doesn't understand why poor people in a crime-ridden slum don't just move somewhere nice.

wagesj45 · 2012-11-20T00:05:07+00:00

Most of the time, they don't really respect it.

The truth is getting thick in here. Better get out my truth boots.

thetrollking · 2012-11-20T04:38:54+00:00

It is nothing more than a social filter. It is a shit test, to put it in PUA terms.

If you comply with these sorts of demands then it shows that you are either equal to her or lower than her, in her eyes, which means that you are only good for manipulating and nothing else.

2012-11-20T03:44:16+00:00

When you think "manly", a bunch of images probably come to your head, and I would think vikings would be high on that list. Well you know what? They cried, quite a bit. They showed their sorrow without much reserve. I think you're a bigger man if you can show your feelings openly than if you try to stifle it (which is rather cowardly if you think about it). Be a viking.

javastripped · 2012-11-20T07:23:52+00:00

Same here... it was very negatively enforce for me too.

My dad would flat out HIT me if I cried.

A few years ago I was dating a woman and we would fight all the time.

I noticed that as SOON as she started crying that I would try to resolve it.

But if I was upset she would do NOTHING to sympathize with me.. it was like she couldn't feel my emotions.

Then I had an epiphany - it was because I wasn't crying.

So I stopped fighting back. It took a couple days but the tears came. It felt weird at first but IT WORKED!!!!

It really did work well! If she did something that I didn't like and I would cry about it - she would run RIGHT over and help me through it.

These were usually serious relationship issues. Not trivial issues.

And she didn't look down on me either.

luxury_banana · 2012-11-20T10:02:42+00:00

Maybe because as a rule the "mental health" field is poisoned by ideology and anti-male bias, so a man is unlikely to receive any real help.

Paul Elam wrote about this.

drinkthebleach · 2012-11-19T23:39:34+00:00

I was always taught that crying fixes nothing and made me seem like a weakling. I had a friend just last week who broke his foot, not injured, broke, shattered. And he limped home because he didn't want to seem like a pussy. He's been limping around on it, barely moving, and now it's healed wrong and it hurts when he walks.

ItzFish · 2012-11-20T04:15:40+00:00

I went to the doctor for a depression test a few weeks ago.

NWOslave · 2012-11-19T22:56:12+00:00

Men and women express sadness or despair differently. The problem of couse is that men are erroneously told that expressing themselves like women will solve the problem, when in reality it only exasperates the problem. Since feminism is the prervailing doctrine for all therapy mens suicide should have dropped over the past fourty years, yet it is four times higher. Obviously everything men are told is the exact opposite of reality. Men and women are psychologically different. Treating a mans anxiety "womens way" is a death sentence.

Tom_from_Accounting · 2012-11-20T00:14:56+00:00

The weakness of men is the facade of strength

The strength of women is their facade of weakness

cool_username_ · 2012-11-20T06:09:05+00:00

We have been socialized to be that way. I honestly can't even cry most of the time even if I want to, its physiologically and psychologically difficult for it to even happen for me. Even then I'm far more likely to cry out of empathy for someone or out of joy than I am for feeling bad myself.

stricknacco · 2012-11-20T07:31:46+00:00

I'd like to point out that this type of gender policing (calling guys fags for feeling emotions, in general discouraging men from feeling/showing emotions, discouraging men from doing anything at all deemed "unmany," etc. etc.) is absolutely something that feminists fight against.

I know OP wasn't even talking about feminism at all, but this subreddit often paints feminism this big thing that has nothing good about it whatsoever, so I like to point out when people here get upset about things that feminists are also upset about. They do overlap. More than I think some people realize.

2012-11-20T21:13:00+00:00

It is very dangerous to go see a psychologist/psychiatrist. Lots of them have been taught some horrible (and misandrist) ideas. If they uncritically accepted what they were taught you might be better off by yourself.

Funcuz · 2012-11-20T05:18:55+00:00

I got this "talk about your problems" bullshit all through my time in school . Men don't usually want to just sit around and "talk" about their problems ... they want to do something about them .

After trying really hard to pretend I was heartbroken about something I really didn't care that much about in the first place , I finally just gave up pretending .
I don't want to sit around talking about my problems . I don't need a fucking hug . I don't need somebody to hold my hand and watch me cry . When I need those things , I'll bloody well ask for them . What I usually need is for everybody to just fuck off so that I can go about actually SOLVING the bloody problem .

THAT'S why I don't "express sadness" . Men express sadness all the time but since nobody cares in the first place , we learn pretty quickly that wallowing in self-pity gets us exactly nowhere .
Frankly , if this is a cultural thing , I'm thankful for it . I'm trained (as a man) to not waste time blubbering into my hands every time I see a sad movie . Instead , I get on with my life , learn from whatever bothered me , and am better able to handle it if it comes up again .

Why the fuck would I want to sit around getting hugs from all my best buds ? We're not women .

I don't care how many downvotes I get for saying any of this either . I'm not a woman , I'm not interested in acting like one , and I'm not going to define masculinity through tired cliches like "it's okay to cry" that were obviously meant for women in the first place .

darkgatherer · 2012-11-20T02:56:50+00:00

We're expected to just shut up and go die in a corner somewhere and not bother anyone with our meaningless pain.

Aerithia1 · 2012-11-19T22:51:43+00:00

I just think men don't express themselves that way because it's not natural to us.

If a man is in a really tight spot he'll sit down with his friend and say 'hey man, this shit sucks.'

We still like to get things off of our chests, but afterward we pick up our emotional baggage and go right on to work, or school, or back to our families. We are raised so that we won't break down under hard-ship, and women aren't raised that way. I'm fine with that divide being there.

Being a man means to keep the stiff upper lip, keep your head down and keep on going.

inkall · 2012-11-20T07:31:11+00:00

Also if a woman is a very private person, keeps their emotions to themselves, and those women do exist for a variety of reasons, there isn't much in the way of negative connotations linked to it.

ClaudeKenni · 2012-11-20T12:43:30+00:00

I think some of the replies here show quite clearly what the problem is. Even within the MRM many make the same mistake of thinking that there is a way that these problems 'should' be expressed. Yes, men and women are different, and that means that they can have different ways of expressing things. But while feminism often disparages the 'manly' way of dealing with things, we have to be careful to be more open minded, however a man wants to deal with things. It's ok to cry, and to talk, it's ok to be quiet about it, to deal with it internally, it's ok to go out in to the world and do something about it. It's just not ok to say that any one method is 'right' for men.

2012-11-20T13:14:44+00:00

I know this doesn't exactly contribute, but I just feel like venting. I got into an argument with some feminists recently about this, and they claimed that it's because weakness and feelings are associated with women and men don't want to act like women because of misogynistic attitudes that women's traits are inferior.

It truly amazes me how feminists can twist and contort any possible situation into being an example of how women are oppressed, and with no evidence whatsoever, but they will assert it without letting anyone get a word in edgewise.

elebrin · 2012-11-20T00:06:34+00:00

When I get sad like that I tend to just yell at people to leave me alone and have myself a little private time. Instead of expressing my sadness through crying, I tend to write about it and try to get to the root of why I feel the way I do, or try to understand my own situation better.

ispq · 2012-11-20T04:59:59+00:00

I avoid the going to the doctor because as someone without health insurance I can't afford to.

pokepat460 · 2012-11-20T09:19:59+00:00

I think it is incorrect to say men don't express themselves. Some men do, and many of those men do so for poor reasons, but not all men.

Volcris · 2012-11-20T15:12:51+00:00

Because victim blaming is A-OK as long as the injured is a useless male who isn't fulfilling his role as an appliance to women.

Tetrahedroid · 2012-11-20T00:06:12+00:00

Women don't want you to tell your problems. If you do, they lose the power of saying 'man up'.

rightsbot · 2012-11-19T22:24:19+00:00

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MechPlasma · 2012-11-20T00:29:41+00:00

It's... the problem is that it's a very vague line between "needing to talk about an actual problem" and "just wanting validation". As in, everyone thinks that if you have a serious problem you should talk about it, but if you have a really minor problem where you pretty much just want your back patted, then you're really just acting a victim and you should get over it yourself. And, to be fair, that's largely true - I've seen those people who cry over smaller things, I've seen how quickly they are to get over-emotional when they really shouldn't, and I've seen how hideously they react when people don't give them sympathy.

Or, at least, that's the way I see it.

As for crying itself, that's a little different. Like I was saying, there is a point where someone can be over-emotional, and that's usually when they start being an actual hindrance - for example, where you have to be careful of what you say or they might take it badly, or where they break down in sadness when they really need to be doing something. Outside of just a particularly showy emotional response, crying should really be kept to more of a minimum when around other people. Should only be done in times of absolute desperation, when you need someone to take you seriously.

...although I sense that I might be wrong about that one.

And finally, there's the good ol' fact that men typically express their depression in the form of anger, not sadness. And a heckuva lotta people really hate when someone's showing anger.

realyfckingsarcastic · 2012-11-20T07:07:49+00:00

Do you REALLY want to live in a world where men act exactly like women? I fucking don't.

Shibariboy · 2012-11-20T04:22:32+00:00

How is this the fault of women? Men do it to themselves and other men more often than women due via greater same-sex interactions.

Noel_S_Jytemotiv · 2012-11-20T01:56:44+00:00

Troll.

Title	Why men don't express sadness or go to the doctor?
Author	Ass_Hull
Upvotes	85
Comments	69
Date	November 19, 2012 10:22 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/13h2db/why_men_dont_express_sadness_or_go_to_the_doctor/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/why-men-dont-express-sadness-or-go-to-the-doctor.1008818 https://theredarchive.com/post/1008818

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