If you can’t handle your s**t, can’t keep it together, then you aren’t a real man….right?
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Most of our parents, if you are a Gen X’er or a Boomer, grew up with the idea that manhood meant having your shit together. Real men managed their shit, they didn’t let their shit get to them. If their shit got to them, they sure as shit didn’t show it. When shit got real, they dug deep and found the strength to persevere. Being a man was being stoic, non emotional, strict and above all else composed. Good men kept all that shit under wraps. Shit may have been real but they never bent under its pressure. Shit was not allowed to get to them.
We often look at history through the rosiest of lenses. We can’t help it. Leave it to Beaver and The Andy Griffith Show remind us of a simpler time when life lessons were easily learned and internalized. Being a man then just meant doing the right thing. Life was easy if you just swallowed the distasteful and had time to sit in front of the television and relax for a few minutes. Retire to your study or office, light your pipe and reflect.
We’re like a boy in a batting cage, the pitching machine turned way up and the intervals too close.
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For most of us, life has never been that simple. We can’t just turn it off. We don’t have time to sit and reflect. The reality of life today is vastly different than our expectations. We’re like a boy in a batting cage, the pitching machine turned way up and the intervals too close. We don’t have time to reset before the next ball comes screaming towards us. Most of the time it’s all we can do to make contact let alone get a productive hit. We end up with a ton of foul tips and rarely hit the solid contact long ball.
The world is more interconnected and moving more quickly than ever before. I spent some time with a close friend last night, both of us struggling with man of the same issues. The thing that bothered us the most wasn’t that we were struggling. It’s not the panic attacks, feelings of worthlessness or fear of failure.
What’s killing us is the shame we feel for admitting that we can’t handle it. Somewhere along the way we were conditioned to believe that we should never need help. Suck it up, buttercup. Real men aren’t broken. Hell, real men don’t even bend let alone break! We’re supposed to be the rock everyone clings to during the storm. How can you be the rock if you can’t hold your own?
The happiness is gone, replaced by stress and anxiety we can’t show lest we’re judged as incompetent, too needy and immasculine.
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The world has changed and attitudes have begun to adjust with them, but we are a generation of men lost in between. We can’t cope and we can’t ask for help. The happiness is gone, replaced by stress and anxiety we can’t show lest we’re judged as incompetent, too needy and immasculine. We’re caught between what worked for generations past and what will save the generations ahead.
How does a man, a father, husband and son navigate through a life he doesn’t understand without the tools to comprehend and cope? How does that same man show his sons and daughters that it is not just OK to ask for help but a necessary part of life if he is unable to do it himself?
We self medicate. We seek escape. We close our eyes to the damage we do to our lives, convincing ourselves we’re still Good Men, still living up to an outdated and harmful ideal. We do things we know are mistakes and still somehow find ourselves powerless to stop them. We can’t ask for help even as we drown in a sea of our own misdeeds. Guilt feeds into regret that feeds into a hopelessness that feeds into a further need for an alternate to the painful reality we face every day.
It isn’t enough to tell them asking for help isn’t shameful while retreating to our fantasy worlds, vodka and nights crying ourselves to sleep.
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The answer, like Schrodingers cat, is both there and not there. All we have to do is ask for help, admit that we can’t manage. We can’t though. We can’t just allow that level of vulnerability without letting down everyone who relies on us. The horrible and inescapable reality though is that without asking for help we are guaranteed to fail those we love the most. It’s a horrible quandary to face daily.
I don’t know what the answer is, but we have to do better for our children and grandchildren. We have to model the behavior we expect. It isn’t enough to tell them asking for help isn’t shameful while retreating to our fantasy worlds, vodka and nights crying ourselves to sleep. We need to stand up and finally reach out for the help that can save us. It’s not just a matter of life and love. It’s a matter of survival. Sometimes, we really can’t keep our shit together. When that happens, we need to admit it and be open to help.
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Also by Shawn Henfling
Inside The Prison Of My Mind | I Refuse To Babysit My Children | I Think Of Suicide Like You Think Of Changing Jobs | The Suicide Note I Never Left |
Photo Credit: Milos Milosevic/flickr
Love the quote: “We can’t just turn it off. We don’t have time to sit and reflect. … We’re like a boy in a batting cage, the pitching machine turned way up and the intervals too close. We don’t have time to reset before the next ball comes screaming towards us.” I suspect this is why divorce rates are so high now. Men don’t have their s**t together, can’t hide their stress, and can’t pretend for their families that they are failing. How can women trust us and feel safe when our world is exploding all around us. Thus the… Read more »
This may be the first time here that I have nothing to add Does not matter to me which side of the discussion you come down on, but that we are discussing our own needs, our own fate and not leaving that to be discussed for us. It is the impetus, right here, of something far greater to come…something long overdue.
Carry on.
My wife and I are older Gen X parents and we spend a lot of time with couples who are about a decade younger than us. We walk out of dinner parties in utter disbelief how wives speak to their husbands today. Not in private, but in full view of their guests. Wives treat their husbands like children, and in some cases men are just that. Grown children. If you need help, you ask for help, but that doesn’t mean you throw everything else away. I’ll take Andy Griffith, Father Knows Best, and Leave it Beaver over worshiping guys like… Read more »
Men do need to speak up if they need help. Hopefully the feminist movement is inspiring them to do this, more and more. If people don’t speak up, then no one knows what they want or need.
It’s feminists who block the creation of men’s centers on college campuses some started by men who’ve contemplated suicide in the past. It’s not like there’s no stigma attached to a man trying to access services from the women’s center or anything like that.
Do you really think the feminist movement is inspiring men to speak up? How many times, on this very site, have comments threads about men’s issues been derailed by women explaining to the men why they are wrong about their own lives, and dismissing their concerns as insensitive navel-gazing? How often are men’s issues derided, and groups of men gathering to discuss the mocked, or protested?
What people choose to do with their life is on their shoulders.
This was well a very well written article and I am glad that I had to opportunity to read it. Thank you Shawn. While I am a millennial, I can tell you that a lot of these parallels still exist. Me personally, I am on the sensitive side, I share my feelings and emotions just as my father taught me to do. To this my father (now in his 60’s) is still very affectionate and still does not shut down but rather speak his mind and his emotions. Sometimes he doesn’t have the words for it. I was raised by… Read more »
Thank you for this, Tom. I have a “strong” dad, and a son and boyfriend who like to express their feelings, but you showed me that there might be, under the surface, the need to be “strong” in them too. <3
The other comment I would like to make concerning the Family Place was that when the controversy came out, there was push back from feminists. Instead of embracing the concept that The Family Place should reach out to men some feminists like Ampersand at Alas actually started fund raisers to help defray the potential loss of federal funds. Feminists actually raised money to close shelters to men.
Yup …. Not too long ago … “Earl Silverman was found hanging in the garage of his own home in northeast Calgary, where he had run the Men’s Alternative Safe House (MASH). He had just sold the property because he could no longer afford to operate the shelter, The National Post reports.
He had paid for the shelter out of his own pocket, but could not raise enough money from either government or private donations, reports The Calgary Herald. The shelter accommodated about 20 men and some children while it was open.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/04/29/earl-silverman-dead-suicide_n_3179850.html
FYI there’s been a change in “outreach” strategies which recognize men’s unique social pressures. Here is an example from education. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/03/10/study_finds_value_in_coaching_college_students_on_academic_and_life_issues It impacted males more than females in part because the help could be accessed through e-mail / phones so it provided more anonymity The theory is replicated in Brotalk for young men / boys. http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/brotalk-1.3263565. The theory is being tested as a suicide prevention tool. http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2015/03/targeting-male-suicide-massachusetts I had spoken with a volunteer at a DV shelter. She mentioned that she felt bad that men didn’t come in for help and the few that did were sent to hotels and… Read more »
Shawn, Thanks for your article. We need more people to share their personal experiences. Some of the responses seem to illustrate what you’re saying. We often pay a price for being vulnerable and letting others know that we “don’t have our shit together:” I mean come on, man, you should get all our arguments in order and logically presented, before you submit the article, right? Life is never so simple and logical. It seems to me that releasing ourselves from the fear and shame is being willing to put it out there and know that some will resonate with it… Read more »
“We need more people to share their personal experiences” Sorry Jed, but I’m gonna call you out on this and it ‘s nothing personal against you. ” I have more GREAT life’s experiences then I can count but sadly, in today’s society, if I don’y frame those experiences in a secular setting, I’m doomed. And God forbid my experiences relate to my “Catholic faith.” The secular society has built many walls for men, especially men of faith or men who have a faith foundation but have in many ways been shamed into hiding. Yet in countless cases it’s been men… Read more »
Well, Tom Brechlin, I don’t see a lot of the religious societies helping out men when they were kids in developing their full range of emotions particularly now that we are finding about the abuse of boys and girls in the Catholic faith throughout the world. If secular society is too judgement, that is because we allowed it to happen in the first place.
Shawn. “close minded” means noticing the premise of an article–many articles–is false. PTSD’s definition has expanded substantially. My father–an Infantry officer fighting in Europe–was bothered by a number of things all his life. But he was a terrific father and husband. Until my mother got sick, people on the block would call him before the cops if there was a problem. He coached kid athletics, did Boy Scouts, helped friends, took care of my mother when she was losing it. A friend of ours visited him when he was in assisted living, once. When she rose to leave, he struggled… Read more »
I’ve struggled much as you described. As a follower of Jesus, I have found the answer. To know, truly know, my identity. I’m working on it. I’m the one who’s in the way.
My late teens and early twenties. 200-400 guys a week dead in Viet Nam. We had conscription. Ever wonder what those little carats were on the old AM dials? 640 and 1240. Chem teacher showing us how to make a radiation detector out of stuff around the kitchen. Couple of social conventions. Picture of a young man in uniform on the mantel means he’s dead. WW I, WW II, Korea, Viet Nam. If your uncle was killed in an auto accident in Italy, you said, “My uncle was killed in an auto accident in Italy.’ If you said, “My uncle… Read more »
I watch your comments daily Richard and I’m struck not only by how closed minded they are but by how insensitive they are. And what you are describing? It’s PTSD and it kills vets every single moment of every single day. They need help too, is it also insensitive for them to ask?
Shawn, you don’t understand what Richard is saying because you didn’t serve others first in the military. The fact is, you are insensitive. The term is Post Traumatic Stress (PTS). It is not a “disorder.” PTS is a problem that impacts anyone who has suffered trauma or been exposed to traumatic events (rape victims, car accidents, domestic abuse, etc.). Visit any American Legion Post or better yet, join an organization like Team Red White and Blue or Team Rubicon. Millennial Warriors (yes, that is what they are) are continuing to serve others, while finding the help they need from their… Read more »
Every generation has it tougher than the last. Sure. What people referring to Leave it To Beaver, Andy Griffith, the older Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet shows miss, and miss really, really big….. Is that those were escapist fantasies. We wanted to live in those worlds, at least for half an hour a week. Maybe to give the strength to continue in the real world. What do you think things were like in big cities before the Salk vaccine, just to pick one? Thing is, if you can’t handle your shit, somebody else, who may not be doing… Read more »
It goes back go the countless wrong stereotypes of the past. Just as most men didn’t have an office job, most men worked in labor and busted their behinds but that wasn’t what surfaced in the late 50 and 60’s. Those TV shows, as you said were escapes, fantasies just as the countless TV shows on TV today.
Will get back to this later, heading to mass.
Hey Shawn, Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I don’t understand your point though? Is it that it’s OK for a man to ask for help? Is it that men are expected to NOT ask for help? You’re references to “Leave it to Beaver” and “Andy Griffith” are understood as I watched those shows when I was a kid but they’re absolutely irrelevant today. In my opinion your opening 2 paragraphs show nothing but confusion in how you’re personally defining what a man is (I’m not for a second saying this to insult you, as I believe self reflection is a… Read more »
Life is shit – none of us get out alive. Nearly everything you have been told growing up was a lie wrapped in a pleasant package of hope, prosperity, family and community for the purpose of sales or domesticating and indoctrinating a herd. Pure pandering social justice sheeple wrangling. As for why we are here – I don’t care much; the universe doesn’t care back – the thoughts about it in my head, from the media, from government, from religion, from old generations – mean nothing. Within 60 years – I will be dead. I will leave nothing behind –… Read more »
Well…I choose to matter.
I got none of that from this article. The whole beginning is about struggles men used to face. Those ways were passed on to most men in my generation and we’re only starting to break free as a gender. The author is simply telling us what women have known for years, showing your real emotions and speaking out about them can be great therapy to overcome. The author isn’t labeling all men, just speaking to the struggles many of us face.