I’m not quite 30 yet but I’m almost there (‘96 born), so I was still raised in a time where men are expected to not show any vulnerability, be rational/logical, be calm and cool under pressure, be resilient in the face of any challenge, and be self sufficient/driven enough to be a provider for their friends and families.
Everyone in my life expected this from me, including my parents, so I could never really confide in anyone except my 2 closest friends about my issues and how I was feeling. There were many times when I caught myself feeling hurt/getting emotional/feeling weak and I felt a combination of disgust at myself that I was experiencing those things, and sadness that I couldn’t have an outlet to feel those things.
It’s gotten to the point now where I’ve been self sabotaging in every way because of the void I feel inside of myself that I don’t know how to express my feelings and I also genuinely don’t feel loved by anyone. How have y’all dealt with this and how have y’all healed?
6 comments
Don’t ever count on your parents changing.
Unfortunately, adults are on their own, and this is even more true for men as far as emotional support goes.
It isn’t pleasant to read and I didn’t even enjoy writing that, but the silver lining is that if you can accept that you can apply yourself to finding things that do help.
Perhaps therapy, perhaps putting a significant amount of energy into finding those rare people who will be emotionally supportive, and perhaps finding a ways to settle your emotions, encourage yourself when there is no help to be had.
Therapy, mindfulness, making time to be alone and have a good cry, cultivating a rich inner life, surrounding myself with supportive and open friends, and accepting that the search for meaning and spiritual fulfillment is a lifelong quest that can be its own reward.
It sounds like such an amazing step that you identify that you are sad not to have an outlet. I feel like for boys who are raised not to have an outlet, that sadness shows up as anger—it’s a valid emotion on its own, sure, but when we tap into anger to deal with something that makes us sad, we just get stuck in anger. The anger doesn’t resolve the sadness, and then we get frustrated that we’re still sad, and then we get even more angry, then we get angry at ourselves for getting more angry… you see where this is going.
Lean into the sadness. Make space to be sad, and be grateful for it, because the sadness comes from your capacity to love: loving yourself and those around you (which you can’t do, if you don’t love yourself). And once you accept the sadness and the space it occupies, you realize that there’s room for other things, too.
Like, being kind to yourself can start with recognizing that you need someone to be kind to you, and sadness is a way to get there.
The other thing is that sadness and vulnerability are not incompatible with resilience and self-sufficiency. I mean, if resilience means bouncing back up, that means at some point you have to be down, right? So embrace the sadness, allow yourself to experience it, and allow yourself to get back up from it.
Find people to help you with this. A qualified mental health professional is a good starting point.
Therapy my friend..and time
No healing. I moved on though.
Therapy
I’d recommend therapy