a man asking other men why do we hide our emotions and let it boil until we explode?

25 comments

1. It feels like nobody cares until then.

   As men, we’re very isolated and lonely. A lot of times many men before in their life felt like they gave an actual effort to talk to people about things before it got really bad. And because it wasn’t already really bad, it felt like it wasn’t given the seriousness that it deserves. So guys shut up, and don’t talk about things.

   Until it reaches a tipping point, and it has to come out. You see that people always cared, but there’s seemingly that idea that, unless it’s really really really bad, you gotta just tough it out and get over it.

2. Some people are immature and don’t know themselves well enough to gauge how something makes them feel, let alone communicate it sufficiently and be vulnerable with others about it.

3. He made his choice.

   Your premise is bullshit. That pop psychology garbage isn’t how shit works. No one bottles shit up until they explode. No amount of talking from you would have solved anything either. You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.

4. “We” don’t. Some of us learned to share our feelings from an early age and don’t hide things inside where they can fester and rot.

5. Because properly coping with emotions is mistaken for not feeling them at all regarding what is “manly”. Some men view everything as a power struggle and won’t do anything to appear weak in front of others.

6. Oh, because people pretend to care and then use your vulnerability against you at a later date… or they go from “you can open up to me” to “that’s nothing compared to what I’ve been through”. Nobody cares about men’s mental health until it kills us… unless we pay a therapist to pretend to care for an hour.

7. Because no one really cares, they just want you to shut up about whatever so we can go back and talk about their problems.

   We have to deal with our shit on our own. You can and should ask for help with stuff, that’s good, people can help. But nobody cares how you feel…

8. Emotional immaturity.

   It’s not that hard to express your feelings. If nobody around you cares, start hanging out with people that do.

9. Because if men don’t, they don’t get the women and will get conquered by men who have better control of their emotions.

   Emotional men are more dangerous to society if you think about… so society tries to reinforce and rewards emotionally tougher men because dangerous psychopaths are out there.

10. It’s an evolutionary thing, men can’t express vulnerability easily. I read somewhere that FtM’s struggle to cry after they take testosterone, maybe related to this.

11. Nobody cares bro. And we ourselves think that I’m a man I can’t appear to be weak, if I just stay tough this one time then everything will become perfect but if I appear weak and show my weakness it’ll be worse so until the last breaking point we keep quiet, try to make it work but sometimes it’s better to just give up.

12. Because 1) nobody cares and 2) when they do care, they just seem to find it repulsive and it pushes people away.

13. Yeah I understand this. Tho I usually open up to women more than men. Honestly tho I’d rather not tell anyone. Don’t wanna seem weak or get told my problems are not valid.

14. It is enforced by our environment and society that we don’t show our emotions.

    Is it healthy to do that? No.

    However, the more emotional we are, the easier it is to BECOME emotional in times of stress. Meaning, the almighty logical part of the male brain, shuts down the more you tap into emotions.

    You find healthy ways of dealing with things and expressing the emotions in productive or better ways than exploding.

    Your emotions are not the problem; expressing them correctly and around trustworthy people, is the way the do it. Also, not around your SO, as much it shouldn’t be true, woman (no MATTER what they say) will respect you less the more emotional you are. There are studies to confirm this; feel free to look them up.

    Also, from one dude to another, go get some support from friends, my guy. Him doing that is not your fault; it is NEVER your fault. He needed help and didn’t seek it out. Go and take care of yourself.

15. Maybe that’s what you are doing but me and my friends work trough them without talking out every bit of it. Maybe that is something to aim at. And we consult each other when we find we need a different perspective or a solution we cant figure out ourselvey.

    But feeling better by talking about it? Usually ended up for us as the opposite.

16. Because unless we have the proper circle of friends, most people will dismiss anything we open up about. As men people don’t really care about giving us support for various reasons. Pretty much anything we open up about gets compared to what women go through and stuff like that. There’s not much to gain from supporting us, or at least it’s too much work or a commitment for most people.

17. I hide my emotions because it’s a protective mechanism, maybe a part of me thinks it’s stoic to never display emotion, but the other part knows I should let loose more often and enjoy the little things.

    But I never let my emotions boil, I prefer to just let it flow right through me, accept the pain/hardship, take a deep breath and move on.

18. Because no one cares.

    I had one person who I could talk to freely about what bothered me and he did not think less of me. It was my dad.

    I noticed immediately that after my dad died, no one knew how to react when I was upset during the grieving process. Maybe they cared, but they didn’t know how to show it.

    Instead of conveying my sadness, I just hide it because everyone else has their own problems. I see someone about it and I can talk to my mom, but at the end of the day, I realize that I am alone in dealing with my emotions.

    It sucks but it is life. Men aren’t expected to feel emotion because it ruins the guise of toughness. I’m sure there are some people who read this and think less of me as man for revealing my opinions. That is just how society is.

    I let anger bottle up but I never unleashed it on anyone. My mom’s ex-boyfriend is very much the opposite. He bottles stuff in and then he tries to attack people. Like how he tried to attack me twice. At least my method is self-destructive and only harms me, not anyone else.

19. 1. Nobody actually cares about your problems. They are yours to solve.

    2. A lot of men have shared and had that information weaponized against them. How many times do you put your hand in boiling water before you learn not to?

20. When a guys wants to end it he’s gonna do it and there’s no amount of talking that lol fix that so don’t put blame on yourself. For me if I can’t fix the problem there’s no point of talking about it, and if I can fix the problem there’s no point of talking about it.

21. Because nobody cares until we actually one day make good on what we say we’re going to do. “Why didn’t he speak up, why didn’t he tell me?” FUCKERS, THEY TRIED! A million times! Of course we’re fucking “fine” because people don’t give a shit about us as long as: we have monetary value, we have ambition to take jobs that just stress us out even more, we hide our emotions. Think about it.

    Men have to: provide, be a family man, work hard, help at home (even when he’s the sole monetary earner), be the perfect husband, be the perfect father, can never let his temper get the best of him, navigate a world where “why did you chase me, don’t you want me” and “no means no” exist simultaneously, have to worry about what people say about us when we take our kids out, sometimes asking our children if they “know this man,” get told that we’re “giving Mommy a break,” when all we’re doing is being a father, be constantly portrayed as clueless buffoons IRL AND in media, deal with the fact that we get lumped in with rapists, and watch people tweet #killallmen…

    …and if any of us have a problem with ANY of those things, we’re considered fragile. No wonder sometimes the barrel of a gun tastes so good.

22. If you’re a man. Wouldn’t you already have the answer?

23. I’m sorry man. I don’t know how to help with that.

    How are you doing ?

24. Because no one cares until it’s too late.

25. There’s a lot of social conditioning that leads men towards stoicism. From the way so-called great men are portrayed in media and literature, to the way we are raised to tough it out, there is a lot more reinforcement of internalization of our suffering than encouragement to open up. Even when we are encouraged to vent, it’s often still some indirect method of relief. Take it out on a punching bag, drink your sorrows away, or some adrenaline rush to get your mind off of it. Anything other than actually verbally working through your pain and showing any vulnerability.

    By the time you’re an adult, it’s simply much harder to escape something this deeply engrained. Not to mention countless examples of men attempting to open up, only to have it blow up in their face. Even by the people closest to them.

    When you are already closed off, and the usual reaction you get to opening up is dismissal or ridicule, it’s instinctual to avoid going through it again.

    But that just let’s whatever is bothering you fester like an open wound, until you can’t ignore the pain anymore and you either snap or collapse.

    It’s a horrible mindset to be in, but it’s a nearly inescapable reality for many men. Much more needs to be done in terms of teaching boys to explore and express their emotions, so they can grow up to be emotionally aware. But it’s also very important to educate others on how to react when a boy or man opens up or calls for help.