What is the biggest thing that negativity impacts men’s mental health that a lot of people don’t think about?
What is the biggest thing that negativity impacts men’s mental health that a lot of people don’t think about?
r/AskMen
What is the biggest thing that negativity impacts men’s mental health that a lot of people don’t think about?
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How masculinity stereotypes say that we simply need to push trough tough times and emotions
having too much confidence, then later finding out that its not helping them at all
Lack of support and community.
The internet
A lack of purpose.
So many men have been bombarded with all these ideas of what a man is and most of them are by what he owns or obtains. Yet for thousands years it has been understood those aren’t what makes a man, those are what comes along as a man strives for his purpose.
These men have made acquiring these things the goal and are therefore extremely unhappy when they do or unhappy they haven’t yet acquired them.
It’s not profitable to tell men to find their purpose and everything else will fall into place but that is how a man finds his peace.
Women
Grifters who grift off of misogyny.
When we’re teens, seeing the girls we like swoon over the guys we knew to be assholes, even staying with the guys after the guy’s cheating or manipulation or even abuse was exposed.
I had a crush on a girl throughout middle school. She just wanted to be friends. By Christmas of our freshman year of high school, she was dating a senior who was cheating on her. She found out, and forgave him, and stayed with him. He literally raped her, and she forgave him, and stayed with him. She complained about him every day, had plenty of other guys who would have loved to date her, but she just kept going back to him.
And nice guys like me are just sitting there like, “what the hell?”
Social isolation
Jobs, if society really cared about men, society would make it so that men aren’t required to work to live as they want, like, ¿Would it be too much to give men a 100k USD monthly allowance so we don’t have to work? ¿Is 100k USD a month worth more than a man’s life? As long as we live in a society that considers 100k USD a month to be above what a man deserves for just existing we will never see an improvement in men’s mental health.
Society doesn’t care about us we are disposable at best and loneliness are the two biggest things I see for most men. The impossible standards set by society and women are not helping matters either.
The vast amount of Bullshit they have to grind through every day
“The weight of the world” a lot of men feel a sense of obligation to work enough to provide for their family, get a wife, give their wife a child, have their wife take care of that child rather than work, provide reliable housing for these people, protect them in danger, maintain the car/house/whatever, be good with money so that retirement is taken care of… the reality is most people won’t ever be in a position to do all of those things. A lot of men will beat themselves up over making a bad financial call or not being able to provide a child or a house or not earning enough for wife to stay home or even not being able to find a wife… you’re ok without those things man! You can live a long happy fulfilling life and the other people in your life (partner perhaps) is equally responsible for these things! If you’re on your own then don’t tailor your life to what someone else might want, live for yourself! Get hobbies, go out and be interesting
If you’re having trouble with this, go speak to someone professional about it. Sorting out your priorities and giving yourself goals can really give you a new perspective on what’s realistic for you now and where you want to go.
Loneliness, no really.
I know it’s been all the rage to talk about it in recent years, but I really don’t think people realize how much it fucks up your mental health.
At least we die sooner too so our misery isn’t dragged out too much!
Feeling like they can’t open up fully to their closest friends, family, or significant other
I seek to change that with my friends. You can always get serious and vent or talk about the highs and lows. No judgement. And no, it doesn’t make you less of a man
“Pressure to perform”, whether it’s work, protecting others, physical activities, sex, etc. Basically any situation at all that could potentially get us laughed at or mocked if we don’t perform well enough.
And for the lads and ladies cracking their knuckles, getting ready to demolish me with an essay about my “fragile masculinity” and how I’m just making this up, and how you’ve never experienced anything I’m talking about, I’m just speaking from my experience as a man of black Dominican-Jamaican heritage. At least in my family, the hyper-macho bullshit was all over the place all the damn time. The amount of times my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins (male and female) would berate me growing up for not being able to lift/open something, or sucking at sports. or being awkward and nonconfrontational as a kid. has left me with all sorts of insecurities about how I’m perceived or how I will be if I do or say certain things, even now that I’m a healthy fit self-sufficient working adult right now.
And before I get bombarded with accusations, I don’t follow Andrew Tate nor do I have anything against women. This is purely my lived experiences.
The pervasive belief that all men are inherently evil. It’s the root of everything and why men have little communities, safe spaces, and why men’s mental health isn’t taken seriously.
Living through the collapse of a civilization.
The very sudden realisation that you are not actually the character Keanu Reeves would play in an action film but a random insignificant nobody that walks day by day just getting by that will be forgotten in a generation.
You lot think I’m joking and I mostly am but genuinely a lot of issues are a result of so many not being able to cope with the fact that they’re just not important to that degree at all.
The pressure and expectation to grind and solve problems with little respite. I guess that could be true for both genders though.