Like, why is it so widespread, what causes it, what solutions are available, etc. I don’t really know how to ask this question so I hope I’m making sense
Toxic gender norms hurt everyone.
I think this is exacerbated by certain people online who want to capitalize on the issue and scapegoat others (see the manosphere and how they talk about feminism) instead of actually addressing the problem
Edit: a little plug for https://lemmy.ca/c/mensliberation
Could not agree more feminism is just human rights by another name and human rights is not achieved by anyone till every gender , race , sexual orientation, religion or lack of, ability or disability are equal.
You dont have to agree even. That’s just the definition of feminism.
That word is egalitarianism. Ftfy.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/egalitarianism
Feminism is egalitarianism just as Black Lives Matter is egalitarianism.
Both recognize disparities for a specific marginalized group, and work to establish egalitarianism.
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Btw, It’s a lot more pronounced here on the internet. Since it’s a filter bubble. If you dive into the real world, you’ll find a lot of males also have healthy lives, a lot of hobbies, they’re going out with friends, playing football once a week etc. I mean it’s certainly there, and a big issue in society. All I want to say is, don’t just look at some social media and draw conclusions from that. The perspective here is heavily skewed and making it look more desperate than it is.
I think there is a lot of wisdom here. I’m old, many of my meaningful relationships were formed before three was an internet. Now I use online tools to stay in touch with friends who are friends I have interacted with face-to-face, not people know solely online.
That’s not to say meaningful relationships cannot be owned online. I have met a number of people IRL who I originally met playing Football Manager or on XBox Live.
But online relationships are not a substitute for real face-to-face interactions.
I tell people that making friends needs to be intentional. It takes work and commitment.
I’m not sure how useful the term “male loneliness” is. There’s a crisis of loneliness in every sex and gender, it’s a side effect of capitalism.
EDIT: spelling error.
Commodification of human interaction, enshitification of social spaces, environmental degradation. Stagnant wage growth vs record profits and increasing cost of living. Yeah that’s the profit motive at work. The unwillingness of most to see it, that’s the propaganda in service of the profit motive.
Ahhh yes the default answer to the cause of all struggles of life: Capitalism
Because it, at the very least, contributes to them.
You’re absolutely delusional if you think the system around which we structure our lives doesn’t affect us.
It may contribute a little, but last time i checked, poor social skills and anxiety weren’t caused by capitalism
Why are you saying this in jest? Late-stage capitalism is a civilization ending event, like an aggressive cancer upon our collective reality. It will consume everything we have to give it and demand more in the pursuit of infinite growth.
Capitalism is responsible for loneliness now??
No, loneliness is a side effect of being human. You think there aren’t lonely people living under socialism? Under communism? Or any other types of governments and socioeconomic systems?
For fuck’s sake. When people blame everything on capitalism, it dilutes the water of any real argument you may eventually have.
Capitalism absolutely contributes to the loneliness crisis. Firstly, it creates a culture of individualism, making it all about “every person for themselves” rather than fostering a sense of community or collective well-being. Stable, long-term jobs that used to provide social connections are being replaced by gig work and precarious employment, leaving people isolated and too burned out to build meaningful relationships outside work.
On top of that, capitalism pushes this idea that happiness comes from products instead of building connections. Social experiences are even commodified now—like dating apps and paid meetups—so relationships feel more like transactions. Cities, designed for profit, don’t help either. You’ve got people crammed into apartments, commuting for hours, all in their individual cars or with their headphones on, and barely interacting with their neighbours. Public spaces that encourage connection are underfunded or replaced with malls and shopping centres.
And then there’s the way capitalism shapes cultural perception of mental health. Capitalism treats loneliness and isolation as individual problems, with solutions like therapy apps and self-help books (ie. profitable industries) rather than addressing the systemic issues that cause them. Even social media, which could foster connection, is driven by algorithms that push engagement over genuine interaction, leaving people feeling more disconnected after hours of scrolling.
At the end of the day, capitalism is profit over people. It’s no surprise that in a world focused on production, consumption, and competition, we’re all feeling so alone. The link between capitalism and alienation is well studied in social science.
Except for the fact that loneliness has existed long before capitalism and will continue to do so after its disbandment 🤦
Capitalism exacerbates a lot of problems. You should try learning how and why rather than just going “nah those problems existed before” (Completely ignoring that they are far worse now than they were before, so fucking obviously something changed)
Lmao of course you’d say they were worse before😂 even though feudalism was probably the most oppressive system we had as a society. Loneliness rates would’ve been through the roof. Sounds like you’re the one who needs to learn a little bit more
I don’t know how to reapond other than to say that just like, isn’t correct
Ok. Enjoy your capitalism-hate circlejerk then👍
Our western culture of individualism is older than capitalism. Much older. It stems from our agricultural and pastoral modes of production. Grains like wheat as well as livestock like sheep, goats, and cattle are highly amenable to work by an individual farmer or shepherd or rancher. Wheat is sown in ploughed fields that have been worked by oxen or horses.
Compare with a different grain like rice which must be transplanted into flooded fields by large groups of people or crops like potatoes or yams which must be planted and dug up individually by mass labour.
The structure of individualism or collectivism is in the roots of our cultures going back thousands of years. So rather than capitalism giving rise to individualism I think the opposite is the case.
You can only think that way if you stop at the most superifical point of discussion and perception.
One way capitalism increases loneliness is with the job economy. We work too much, to blindly increase “profits” for someone who doesn’t care about us. We are restless and tired when we get home, going out costs too much (because of the same corporations pushing the economy and legislation that makes life always the more expensive) so we don’t go out the same.
Obviously capitalism is but one of the factors of modern loneliness, but it is heavily intertwined with a political will of weakening our resolve and hope and companionship.
When things go a certain way, you need only follow who benefits the most from it, and you will almost surely find the cause for that ill
Rofl! Yeah… I’m done.
Without a single coherent thought expressed!
And ad hominem is?
Used too much brain for a day?
Not at all! I am just able to recognize a futile argument against ignorance before it happens. And as a rule, I don’t exercise futility. It’s a thing that comes with age.
I explained my point, you ignored it as an “excersize in futility”, you’re just lazy and don’t want to actually read beyond the first lines
You’re absolutely right that I ignored it. Because it’s an absurd take and therefore I dismissed it.
I’ve said it already- but I guess it did’t sink in:
Loneliness is a part of being human and exists within ALL cultures, races, governments, wealth brackets, employment statuses, genders, and ages.
End of story.
You have to admit the “leftist” ideologies tend to be about working together and supporting each other, and the “right wing” ideologies about encouraging individual accomplishments, though?
Male loneliness is likely partially due to the same reason we are all here; this online outlet for social endorphins is why you were not building up a deficit over the last week and felt the motivation to finally call that person you were thinking about this whole time. That person was a passing thought, and the endorphins hit you might have received is ultimately less than you got from the austere but consistent dose you get from social engagement online.
The only problem is that you are not creating a meaningful personal social network in real life. When you really need such a network in practice, you face the reality of no one to turn to, or less depth and meaning to such connections. Real people are also complex and you must face the reality that no one fits your echo chamber bubble like a place like this. If you act like a down vote or stupid hot take comes across here to people in the real world… you find yourself back here with less options in the future.
People online can be fun and can’t hurt you
Don’t get disabled and have a place like this as your only outlet to connect with other humans. Anonymous and mob like negativity, especially from misunderstandings, can be hurtful when sharing some part of yourself or the only time you’ve said anything to anyone in a day or more from within a prison of loneliness you cannot escape.
Ah, I guess I’ll need to tell my teenage friend who never made it to adulthood after feeling trapped and ruined when an older man started an online relationship that isolated her from her family to… fucking grow a pair or something?
Healthy mature people can exist online in a positive manner. Not everyone is an adult and not every adult is mature. The internet can be a dangerous place and it’s unhelpful to try and dismiss that.
Valid. Fair point.
This is so true. We are living in the novel “Brave New World”
Male loneliness is as much a symptom of the “suck it up” toxic masculinity that pervades your comment as it is the content of your comment.
Men are taught to be stoic, to rely only on themselves, to suck it up and get on with it, and for some, they’re trying desperately to conform to something that seems frighteningly easy for others. They’re expending all their energy on that unnatural - for them - attempt to conform rather than being able to simply exist as they might otherwise be.
Your instinct might be to attack me for pointing this out. That’s toxicity at play. Look at yourself.
But I haven’t made my main point yet. It’s this same toxicity and trying to “be a man” that turns men into the monsters that women fear, and so it becomes a vicious cycle of negativity breeding loneliness and on and on.
My advice would be “Do better. And if you can’t do better, do your best. And whatever you do, minimise harm.”
I choose to abstract and never attack anyone, while you insult, and make assumptions about my disposition going as far as assigning them an ideology and framework that seems repugnant and baseless to me. I see and feel lots of projection and bias, but if causing a disabled person in social isolation harm makes you feel better, I’m glad you had a better day. The comments seem so randomly unrelated it feels like you are possibly a misinformation agent of some sort.
Yeah I agree that response was uncalled-for.
I’m genuinely confused how my advice to minimise harm has itself caused harm. And sometimes, someone’s “best” isn’t much at all. That’d be me most days.
I should probably have put a conditional on “Look at yourself” to tie it in with the “might” in the lead sentence, though, that’s on me.
I do think the loneliness epidemic affects men more than women, and would argue it’s sexism harming men. On average, women are more likely to reach out, talk to people and family will check in on them if they are alone. Like, my husband (who is more outgoing than me and better at keeping up with friends) will call his mom or go up to see her, but leaves his dad alone unless he literally asks for something. Because men are taught it’s shameful to not be self sufficient, but women are taught to look for help if we need it.
Obviously this is not a straight gender split but on average it still plays out that way.
Patriarchy hurts everyone
Men have been taught not to approach women in public unless it’s online in a dating app. Women have always been taught not to approach men.
So no one is having relationships except for a very small portion of people who are disproportionately physically attractive.
Pair that with the hypergamy that women are doing where they only chase men out of their league now for the most part and it makes things that used to be normal and taken for granted like getting married and having a family exceptional jewels that are hard to come by.
I was about to write this exact thing and you’re already getting downvotes for it. People refuse to except reality.
There is an extremely large portion of men that are scared to put themselves out there because they are ostracized as creeps and fear the consequences of social shaming. “The worst she can say is no” is no longer true. The worst she can do is take a video of you while she publicly shames you for being a creep and trying to rape her.
Met my wife online during the pandemic.
Dated a fair few women before her, meeting online and in real life.
I’m not super attractive, and pretty awkward, but I always make the effort to be polite and actually listen instead of waiting to talk, you’d be amazed how far that actually gets you.
This is an anecdote, also having good social skills was always a clever way to make up for looks.
Most people have not been properly socialized since childhood. They need to level up but it is one of them things kinda like being poor, you are starting behind and you need to work 2x to get to mid.
If you don’t have good looks, that’s one thing, you can’t really change that.
But then if you don’t look good and you can’t try to hold a conversation, that’s your problem.
Learn to speak, it’s not hard. go talk to people and gain some confidence. All this talk about poor socialization or being unattractive and creepy just demoralizes people that I’m sure could actually make friends and meet spouses if they didn’t preemptively pull themselves out of the situation before they gave themselves the chance
I think the reason for down votes is that the comment suggests that issues with dating are the reason for male loneliness, when most people in the thread would argue that believing that ‘a romantic partner is the only acceptable source of meaningful emotional connection available to men’ is a big part of male loneliness.
Interesting that you took this post to be entirely about romantic/sexual relationships, especially since a partner should not be solely responsible for assuaging your lonliness.
Even if everyone had a partner/spouse male loneliness would still be a massive issue because men aren’t socialized in a way that equips them to have emotionally intimate platonic friendships. If my wife was my ONLY friend, I’d still be very lonely. Furthermore, even if I wasn’t in a relationship, I wouldn’t be lonely because of the friends I have.
This isn’t true. This is what right wing loser podcasters claim to further the idea of women or libruls as the problem, and themselves as the solution. It’s a much deeper problem than that.
If you actually spend time around women you’ll find that looks are a way lower priority for them than for men. You’ll find that they value things like being understanding, doing interesting things, being trustworthy, and for physical things as long as you’re hygienic and have a semblance of style they really don’t care much even if you’re heavier. And guess what? These are ALL things you can work on to improve yourself.
Want to have more women like you? Work on yourself first. Women aren’t attracted to men who complain online about “I’m not allowed to go talk to them in public”
At least in my experience, women tend to care about looks just about the exact same amount as men, that is to say some care almost exclusively about looks and some not at all, and everywhere in between, and at about the same rates from what I’ve seen. Anecdotal tho, and the general gist of what you said still applies, I’m just being pedantic lol
If you actually spend time around women you’ll find that looks are a way lower priority for them than for men. You’ll find that they value things like being understanding, doing interesting things, being trustworthy, and for physical things as long as you’re hygienic and have a semblance of style they really don’t care much even if you’re heavier.
Oddly class and status is missing from this list… I wonder why
Because that also isn’t a big deal to most women. If you’re going out trying to meet women at bars or clubs sure those are the women you’ll meet.
Gender division and masculinity is trained into us from the second our genitals are identified be it sonogram or at birth. From the colors, toys, media, to early childhood social pressures were pushed into one of two molds. If a boy interacts with a girl it’s labelled as boyfriend girlfriend even if there’s no romantic intent (because why would children have that?). But the point is that masculinity [and femininity] is programmed throughout the core development of the brain. Unless there’s a motivation to question it that developed neuron architecture only gets reinforced. By the time you’re able to question it you’re so set in the concrete it takes years or decades of struggle to unlearn the worst traits. When you unlearn them it’s a threat to people who haven’t had to question it.
When you’re emotionally isolated from yourself, and surrounded by others who are also emotionally isolated, you’re not motivated to be around them since they won’t fulfill your needs. Then, you realize you’re also not comfortable enough to bridge the divide to people who are in touch with their own emotions. So all this hard work and you’re only a few steps down the path to connection. Usually with little sense of where to go from there.
When you finally get to the point of diving in and expressing emotionally outward, it’s easy to get wrapped with anxiety. You expect others to push you away, not because they will, most people respond well, but because you’re even less oriented and more vulnerable than ever. Though i would argue less fragile.
Lots of other posts discussing things like whether other people in the age group are socially available, and lack of third spaces.
But the point is that masculinity [and femininity] is programmed throughout the core development of the brain. Unless there’s a motivation to question it that developed neuron architecture only gets reinforced. By the time you’re able to question it you’re so set in the concrete it takes years or decades of struggle to unlearn the worst traits. When you unlearn them it’s a threat to people who haven’t had to question it.
Except for children with autism, I’d say. My mom couldn’t get me to be girly or feminine while I was growing up, I just did what made sense, sometimes that was a girly or feminine thing and other times not.
Maybe the patriarchy is an allistic people problem lol.
Asking the big questions over here. You’ll be rich if you find the answer.
This is a video about it, which I think takes a very sobering approach to it. Her humor tends to be very dark, but if you look at the comment section, she seems to be hitting it head on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQv8VuLpKN4
Now for solutions, I don’t know anyone who talks about it beyond the basics of “listen to men” and “give them a healthier and less judgy space to develop social skills”. But that’s probably because this is such a complex issue and there seems to be no simple solution.
Man I had to scroll far down for this. I know her appearance and character is a bit hard to take seriously but she makes great points in this video.
We’re meant to be alone.
We aren’t though. That’s just something we’re told.
I need the most cynical take you have…
…nooooh, that’s too cynical.
Humans are social animals
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What i really want to see is how the rise of ai companions will affect all this. Nomi, replika, and the others are already doing good, and i forsee that it will keep growing as the technology improves, for better or for worse
They are not doing good. People are becoming dependent on chatbots produced by for-profit companies to get their fix of human socialisation. That’s absolutely awful, very unfortunate, and most assuredly unhealthy.
What i meant by good was financially, not as “good for society”. Maybe i should have made that clear
I think you meant “doing well” 🙃
Oh, I see. Yeah, they’ve definitely taken advantage of the situation.
This is one thing i have wanted to point out. But it good to see how sensitive the whole issue is. That -10 downvote on the original comment tells me people are really sensitive to the whole phenomenon
People simply just don’t like men
There ain’t never a shortage of dick!
Society has always put premium on women due to biology. Yeah it results in some weird externalities for men. Women got their own bags though.
One thing that helps loneliness is communities, especially those that meet IRL. I believe there has been a significant decline in club membership and social groups in the past decades. I think there are several factors behind this, including financial stress (and the resulting scarcity of free time).
One action that people can take is to join communities and participate in them! Even just online groups with similar interests if not IRL groups can help to make friends and feel connected. HTH
As is echoed a lot in this entire post of replies: therapy isn’t really mentioned here. And that might be a key when it comes to male mental and emotional health.
I think therapy helps as a remediation, but it’s not preventive nor does it fully solve the problem because ultimately it’s transactional and paying someone to listen is fully different from finding someone who listens to you that you also want to listen to.
That’s the thing though: if you’re having trouble finding someone who wants to listen to you, the problem might possibly be you. let’s just say it’s not out of the realm of possibility. But if you are happy to sit there refusing therapy with circular logic: you’re your own problem and all this is is you’ve found a way to self sustain that cover and you’ve convinced yourself. Fair enough. That’s your decision,
therapy is really for those who are ready to admit they are unhappy with how things are(and willing to realize they play a part in their unhappiness) and more open to tearing down those old toxic behaviours to build something more engaging that might do better at relationships .
If you don’t see yourself in that description, then you’re right. Therapy would do nothing for you.
So paying for a “friend” by the hour?
Someone’s never been to therapy!
Explain to me in actual words what a therapist is going to accomplish.
“Doctor doctor you’ve got to do something! Third spaces don’t exist, there’s no loitering signs everywhere you’ll be arrested for standing around talking, everyone my age had kids and their lives fell off, bars charge $9.50 for an ounce of bourbon and expect a tip and they play Nickelback loud enough to be heard from the moon so I’ve just been sitting at home alone drinking diet soda and playing Subnautica over and over again and while I utterly love this game it’s getting a little stale and Below Zero isn’t…good at all? So I guess I’m a little bored.”
“…Here’s a prescription for an SSRI, that’ll be $900.”
As someone who works in mental health I’m actually with you but first I need to clarify that therapists don’t prescribe meds, psychiatrists do. Therapists usually have at least a bachelor’s usually a masters in one of a couple non-medical (or better stated, medical-adjacent) fields. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who completed full medical school and a residency specializing in psychiatry. Even a doctorate in psychology is not a medical doctor. A therapist is going to talk to you and provide one of two basic functions: allowing you to vent / express your emotions to a completely supportive person, and teach social skills and emotional intelligence. Psychology = talking, psychiatry = drugs. This is an important distinction because while talk therapy is often more helpful than medications for certain disorders, it’s a lot more expensive to pay for an hour human emotional presence than having a doctor (even with their more specialized knowledge) listen for fifteen minutes then decide which neurotransmitters are maybe involved the most and picking a chemical from a list to throw at the problem and see what sticks.
Now even with therapy being more helpful for certain things, I don’t think it’s actually a good solution (or again, better-stated, a good long term solution). It’s definitely going to help with this kind of problem because the core issue is largely behavioral, not neurochemical, but first of all it’s putting our emotional wellness in the hands of capitalism which is… terrible. I cannot express how much that idea terrifies me. But second of all, as someone who’s actually had 300h of therapy for a personality disorder, it starts to lose efficacy over time due to a lack of true emotional intimacy.
Once you know the DBT manual front to back plus 100h of general psycheducation on pavlov and maslow, they’re not really doing skills teaching anymore, they’re just listening to you bitch. And listening to you bitch is… fine, especially if you wouldn’t have a safe place to do that at all otherwise. But even that starts to lose efficacy when you start feeling like they have no idea what you’re actually talking about. I realized this recently when I had an extremely stressful experience at work and the therapist was like,“yeah that sucks” but my work friends were all like,“oh yeah she was waaay out of line you did exactly the right thing” because my therapist knew my account, but my coworkers knew more sides of the story and still sided with me and that just… meant a lot more. Bitching also never actually solves the core issue if there is one, a bigger part of that situation was some underlying problems with my workload that my boss was refusing to address, and at a certain point even my coworkers listening to me bitch wasn’t cutting it either because whether they listened or not I knew I was going to get my head shoved right back under the water the second I walked back out on my unit and until that issue is actually fixed nothing will ever truly even touch the dread that is constantly hovering over you.
And finally the other core issue is that true emotional connection, the kind humans truly crave, is reciprocal. A therapist has boundaries to maintain that are actually pretty critical to the function of the therapeutic process. The relationship being a completely one-sided support is the whole point. It prevents the abuse of the relationship by someone who knows both more about the person and more about human behavior in general to a person who is emotionally vulnerable for one reason or another. Having those boundaries preserves what therapy does the most good for. But that also means it’s going to feel hollow after a while because in the long term what people truly need is reciprocity so they can feel the satisfaction of also helping the other person (in more ways than a monetary transaction). Therapy can help you learn more about how to build those relationships, but it can’t replace those relationships, not in the long term anyway. I even see this in my own patients, I’m having to constantly reinforce boundaries that they’re pushing not out of malice but just because they’re instinctually craving a deeper connection than I can safely offer for either of our sakes.
As a tangential note, another problem we run into in men’s mental health in particular, is the lack of men working in mental health. I’m kinda sorta trans but I was raised female which means I often lack the life experience to truly speak to a lot of men’s issues. We really need a lot more men who have successfully navigated some of these problems to take the lead towards better men’s mental health because they know what really needs to happen and what skills need to be taught. I got into my field in an effort to improve care for personality disorders because I saw what was lacking and felt it was important to provide my inside perspective on a poorly understood issue and something similar needs to happen for men. Another problem with that though is that men’s difficulty connecting with other men can often keep them from seeking support from a male professional. I’ve had lots of men say they’re more comfortable opening up to me but then they start asking about romantic and sexual topics which a) can be a huuuge boundary issue and b) I often just don’t have the information they REALLY need on the topic, which is how to approach the issues specifically as a man. But a lot of that could also (again) be alleviated by having more men working in mental health to increase the odds that someone will happen to create the necessary rapport (/professionally vibe with) with the patient.
Anyway I think you’re right, especially about the thirdspaces, but I do worry that people will be somewhat negatively reactive to the way you’ve expressed it here. When I’ve stated as much with this little background, even stating that my perspective is informed by extensive personal AND professional experience, I’ve had pretty much every layperson getting out their pitchforks.
Let’s put it another way:
“Why aren’t men using electrical appliances anymore?”
“Well, since the Republicans shut down Underwriter’s Labs 40 years ago they’re just too dangerous. A poll conducted by Pew Research in 2062 found only 30% of men between the ages of 20 and 40 have attempted to use a kitchen appliance and of those 30% none polled did so without being shocked, burned or lacerated. Of the men polled, none of them reported cooking indoors more than twice a year; they either exclusively seek food that requires no preparation or those who have access to the outdoors cook over wood fires. One in ten report eating canned or frozen food cold on at least a weekly basis.”
“There’s just nothing you can do to get men to seek mental health services, is there?”
How is individual talk therapy supposed to fix industry deregulation due to crony capitalism?
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I live in a town that is mostly a suburb of a military base. They’ve been cutting down as much forest as they can to cram in oversized McMansions to accomodate the influx of people moving out of the cities. Deer and raccoons have been running rampant in my neighborhood because their habitats out in the woods are being destroyed for subdivisions and shopping centers. The county recently failed to get the general assembly to budge on water restrictions on the two rivers the county government is authorized to pull water from, so they’re starting to pressure my town (which has its own waterworks that pulls from a different river than the county) to share ours. None of the people coming into the area are joining a community; none exists here. People here build tall opaque fences on their property lines and watch Netflix alone. There is no community, only a crowd.
And then a therapist is going to ask a stupid and unhelpful question like “How does that make you feel?”
My car doesn’t start most of the time and when it does it doesn’t run for very long, I’ve missed work three times last week alone because of car troubles, he’s threatening to fire me if I don’t get it right but I don’t have the money for a mechanic. “How does that make you feel?”
Feelings are the raw ore from which bad decisions are forged. How I fell is wrong and irrelevant. What am I supposed to DO?
I don’t think therapy can help everyone. I think it can help those who are (either knowingly or subconsciously) looking inward for solutions. For those of us that are fairly comfortable in our own skins and are frustrated by externalities, I don’t think therapy would be very productive. That said, at a personal level with the goal of self improvement I probably could be a little more introspective about some things but I’m not bothered enough to go to a therapist for it.
I’m reminded of Joe Shea. The one who was senior chief manager of something or other at NASA during the Apollo program. You can tell Joe was a good man from how he took the Apollo 1 fire: He wanted to kill himself. He struggled to live with the idea that three of his close friends, people who trusted him and his engineers, burned to death in a machine he had some responsibility for. The man who isn’t fucked up in that position doesn’t need to be in that position.
My understanding of history is he was sent to see some psychologists, and their remarks was “Joe is very smart.” I’ve been in the aviation industry myself and I’ve danced around issues of mental health. FAR 67 has some things to say about what mental health is and isn’t a federal offense to let your doctor to tell Oklahoma City. HAHAHAHAHA. Fuck.
That’s the peak of manliness right there; that’s a man who takes his responsibilities seriously, they guy who is completely wrecked by those three little words “They trusted me.” Or more to the point, the chore of adding the letters “ed” to “they trust me.” If the effort of lifting that suffix into place wouldn’t bend your soul, kindly get the fuck out of my aerospace industry.
This was in the mid 1960’s, the stigma of seeing a shrink was even louder back then. I’m not sure how it actually played out but in the docudrama From The Earth To The Moon, Joe Shea didn’t take the suggestion from Deke Slayton that he see a psychiatrist gently. According to Wikipedia he “outsmarted” them, giving the answers he knew they’d want to hear.
From my perspective it’s a perfectly good suggestion. If you’re in the shop running a tool and it throws a blue chip in your eye, you go see the ophthalmologist to get your eye fixed. If you have a heart attack you go to the cardiologist to get your heart fixed. The thing us technician types struggle with is medicine is a squishier science than we’re used to, and psychology is the squishiest among them, especially given the FAA’s idea of “Oh he’s not perfect? Kill his career forever.” HAHAHAHAHAAAAA. Fuck. “Hey, let’s make it illegal for pilots to receive treatment or be on medication for mental disorders.” “You mean let’s make it illegal to be a pilot while mentally ill?” “What’s the difference?” “Well the way you phrased it incentivizes pilots who think they have a problem to keep it to themselves and go untreated.” “pssh I guess but when is that ever going to happen.” HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA. Fuck.
I think the point I’m trauma dumping around is Joe Shea had suffered actual mental and emotional trauma and did need the attention of mental health professionals. That’s an appropriate use of therapy. And that it may be more productive to frame it as “injury” rather than “illness” in cases like this.
The average male member of the public right now, on the other hand, hasn’t had his psyche pushed in by the deaths of his friends that he’s at least partially responsible for. The average 20 something guy gained sentience in a world that said to him “We hate you, now pay for everything or else.” And to quote Rodney Dangerfield, “Fuck me? FUCK YOU!”
Explain to me in actual words what a therapist is going to accomplish.
Lots of men aren’t taught emotional intelligence and therapy is helpful for better identifying your emotions so your choices can actually have impactbon them.
I take it you didn’t read and process the rest of my comment?
I’m very aware of the strawman, you specifically asked for an answer. Those are real issues, but you asked how a therapist could help.
I was a pilot one or two careers ago, so I’m going to put it this way:
Feelings are liabilities, not assets. You launch an Airbus out of Newark and a few hundred feet up you hit more geese than your engines can take leaving you out of thrust, low on altitude and low on options, the emotional decision is to curl up on the floor and snot cry because you’re now in more danger than nature designed you to handle.
On occasion you’ll find cases where pilots do lock up like that. The kindest thing anyone will ever say about those pilots is “The primary cause of the accident was pilot error.”
Now listen to how they talk about Captain Sully. “He’s so calm. There’s no emotion in his voice, he just started working the problem.” Stopping to identify exactly which crayola crayon color exactly matched his emotional state in that moment wasn’t going to lengthen any lives; starting the APU and configuring the airplane for best glide did though. You stay in your feelings, you start doing stupid irrational things, you’re gonna die for sure. You push all of that down to your ass where it can be safely clenched out of the way and you THINK.
Having feelings is how you fuck up when your decisions matter the most. Getting rid of them is the useful skill, not giving each one a Baskin Robbins 31 flavors marketing name.
You repress your feelings and wonder why you’re lonely. You don’t realize how much they impact your life until you know how to recognize them, I myself went through that too. It wasn’t until I learned more about my emotions that I truly felt happy, wanted. Repressing feelings doesn’t work, not in a social setting, because you repress all your emotions, even the positive ones.
