The phrase "Be a man", hurts me in a way I can't describe to anyone else, atleast a lot of people don't understand why I get so upset about it.

Recently I was talking to my mom, it was an alright conversation about life and about some of the things I struggle with, eventually she told me to "be a man", this hurt me a lot and pissed me off so incredibly much, I told her angrily to never ever say that shit to me again and if she did say it again that I would never wanna talk to her again about my struggles in life.

Today, I was watching Hoarders: Burried Alive on TLC with my girlfriend, the hoarder was a man with PTSD, this man had a lot of trauma and was definitely struggling with depression, his Ex-wife told him to "be a man" and again I got hurt and got incredibly angry at this woman, saying things like "fuck this awful excuse for a human being" "she deserves to have a bullet in her head", my girlfriend got very upset at me for saying these things. Which in hindsight I do sort of understand. I tried to explain to her how much that sentence can hurt a man, especially someone who is mentally unstable, she didn't really seem to understand.

I don't really know myself why it does what it does to me, I never felt like I was a "standard man", boys in my class liked footbal, sex, cars etc, while I just liked talking with girls about books and other things, I did have guy friends and feel like I set aside my preferences just to be able to fit in with them most of the time.

I was struggling with depression from 18 to like 23 (I'm 25 now), in my depression I have heard the phrase being said to me as well, which did nothing for me apart from letting me feel like I belonged no where at all, because I didn't feel like I was a "standard man".

Welp long story short, does anyone here go through the same thing or experiences something similar, does anyone know how to deal with this? Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.