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It’s not that I don’t feel emotions necessarily I just don’t know what to do with them. I was raised in a rural setting and so “be a man don’t cry” etc was much of my up bringing. I feel emotions I just don’t know where to put them other than shoving them down to be cut out with the cancer later or to blow up at the most inconvenient time possible.
It sucks. And I’m in therapy for this lol it’s supposed to be better! but a lot of it does come from this mindset that we don’t have emotions or are incapable of sharing them in a meaningful way. I’ve explained it a thousand times to people and only other guys have gotten it most of the time.
I feel this in my soul. I'm currently at the point in my therapy where I understand what should be happening, but what is happening is completely different.
I think for me it’s just I’ve done it so long, I’m semi successful, so my brain is like “why change? Look at what you’ve done if you change now, what if it all goes away?” And rationally I know that won’t happened but that’s that mid-west upbringing biting me in the ass.
I’m fortunate to have a lot of very supportive male friends and we all tell each other this as often as we can: you only fail if you stop trying. So long as you get up and attempt the work, you’re not failing, you’re learning. I’m hopeful I can keep that mindset and keep trying, and hope you can as well.
As a trans masculine person I got the opposite problem. My anger was never treated as a valid response so after basically being treated as though my anger was funny, stupid or cute but ultimately unacceptable I lost my ability to feel it for a long while. I couldn't pick it out of the slurry of internal emotions. Functionally anger is a means to not just feel injustices but motive to externalize the source and feel empowered to do something. To fight on your own behalf. Not living without anger meant everything was turned around. I couldn't fight for myself . When something bad happened to me I would find ways to make it my fault. When I eventually snapped and tried to hurt someone, when I became temporarily physically frightening for short spell to another person, it was so far beyond a conscious process because if I was in the headspace of my conditioning I should have been rendered powerless.
Separating anger out of the mass of just negative emotional mass and being able to not just feel it, but to indulge it and express it took me decades to manage. For a long while I couldn't help but feel whenever I was angry I was transgressing. I was doing something that was illogical and isolating. I also wasn't very good at it. I also couldn't meet resistance without just feeling powerless or like I was in the wrong.
My anger still isn't treated seriously by other people. I envy cis men their ability to have their anger actually taken seriously at the same time I recognize that a full range of expressions of powerlessness and weakness were always allowed for me and denied them. Not just allowed... but rewarded with sympathy.
I lost a job a year ago for a fairly tame expression of anger. The sort anyone more comfortably coded as a man would be excused for just for feeling his feelings. My cis male coworkers around me validated that anger as perfectly rational and my reaction as fairly analogous to stuff they had done and easily gotten away with in the past...but it was treated as an unforgivable sin in my case because I was held to a different standard of emotional control. I know that when it comes to interfacing with other am never supposed to act on my feelings of anger directly. I am culturally supposed to seek concensus and sympathy from other people by at best talking about it or outwardly displaying helplessness at the injustice. People who recognize and treat me as a man will acknowledge my anger better because they recognize that aspect of them in me. Those that code me as female generally however don't really don't recognize my anger as valid and treat me as though I have lost my mind. I recognize there are missing tools in my social kit that were stolen from me and it sucks absolute donkey nuts.
Gendering emotions cause real harm and internal disregulation. Being culturally frozen out of your feelings regardless of the targeted feeling is awful. I really hope it gets better for you. Being stuck with half a kit is excruciating.
My wife says my brain is broken - because I’ve always treated everyone exactly the same. I wouldn’t say something to a guy I couldn’t say to a gal, it’s just not who I am. With that, I believe and understand that we all have the same emotions and should be free (within reason, don’t stab people) to express those feelings. Hopefully in a constructive way but sometimes you just gotta let shit out or vent.
I don’t believe it’s fair to treat someone different because “well x gender shouldn’t act like that.” Shut up you don’t know, none of us know for sure this jello we have in our skulls or how it’s going to interpret the information we receive or how that might make us feel until it happens. And even then, depending on the situation, it could be something we’ve experienced before and we feel a different way about it this one time.
I have a daughter, I don’t want people telling her how to feel or “you have to be pretty so you can get a boyfriend”. Be yourself, have fun, come work on cars with me and go fishing, go with your mom when she gets her nails done, be you. And anyone who isn’t ok with you being you can come talk to me. Gendering the way we feel or how we should react is just stupid. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
It's done unthinkingly a lot of the time. My folks did their best to encourage me to not be cowed by gendered expectations but you as a parent have to contend with other kids, other parents and adults who bring their own baggage.
I think young boys need to be given those freedoms more - to go and get nails done with Mum or not categorically reject pastimes not historically coded for them but that's not the be all and end all. It's just the start. We got to recognize ourselves in each other. I am particularly vulnerable to this stuff because women feel like a completely different tribe from me so being treated like one stings extra and not all men accept or see me as one of them which means my behaviour is often policed due to different standards than people I see as my group.
A lot of misogyny when it's directed at you feels like being treated like a child which when you know you aren't going to "grow up" in a recognizable way to those people until basically you start looking wrinkly will fuck you up. Conversely I have to make sure my partner isn't locking his feelings up too hard because despite his parents trying to avoid forcing that masculine coding on him he still picked it up.
I remember a lot from school where my peers did that as well - something they learned from somewhere obviously, we were all children.
My son is given that freedom - he gets to experience the same life my daughter does, be you and don’t apologize. His room is painted purple because that’s the color he wanted, he’s got longer hair than his mom, he gets to feel things and express them in a safe space with understanding. But I can’t control what others do, as much as I accept him for who he is does not mean others will. So I try to teach him that if he is happy with himself, that’s all that matters. Be true to you kind of deal. Because I definitely didn’t get that.
Hi. I went through a lot of therapy, and currently am not and am stable. The healthiest I've been in ages. Please don't be discouraged, you're digging up emotional corpses, so it's going to be painful and stinky. Feeling things that were painful originally will be super painful, but the only way out is through. Facing those feelings, untangling endless snarls takes a long time. It does feel worse and frustrating and horrific, for a time. With diligence, persistence and lots of self-compassion and unconditional love, it does get better, with decent therapy. After you get through the most horrific and scary parts, I encourage you to do shadow work. Due to financial and transportation issues, I was forced out of therapy before it was appropriate. I foundered for some months, then told "friends" stop coming over, stop bringing cigarettes, weed, alcohol, sweets, anything, if I wanted it, I'd ask. And I sat alone with myself and learned to see myself in every single person that harmed me, in some fashion or form, or how I could see me, if I thought this or it could come across in various ways than I'd meant certain things I did or said, after I dealt with and stopped justifying wrongs I did and said.
I'm so much more stable now. And I'm stuck on two different wounds, but one I think is largely irrelevant, because that parent and I have been nc for so so long, I seldom think of them anymore, and when I do, it's with understanding to an extent, and compassion. The other one in still in contact with and an able to maintain compassion, as long as they're not pick pick picking, when I can't remove myself immediately. I'm working with nonreactivity, returning to compassion for self, immediately after removing myself, and returning to compassion, for them, after regaining my composure. I will say, ignoring attempted triggers outwardly, acknowledging inwardly and also acknowledging I can't change them and how full of self-loathing and shame someone must be to have to project, hate and gaslight so many, for the greater part of a century must be so awful. Especially when it stems from being horrifically abused as a child and growing up and young adulting didn't have psychotherapy available to regular people, and celebrities were shamed for it.
You can do this. I've got all confidence in your ability to not only handle it, but genuinely heal.
I’m very stubborn so I don’t quit things I start. I’ll keep trying - thank you for sharing your story with me and for your support. It means a ton.
You are welcome, and thank you for telling me that. It looks like many of us here support you. Please come converse with us, when IRL support is lacking.
People forget all the time that life is a collective experience. We don’t just do this ourselves - as many times as I’ve lost my shit there are plenty of others out there that have done the same.
I believe if we lift each other up every opportunity we get we will all be better for it. Within reason, don’t elect sociopaths, but as humans we all evolved by helping each other. I love people. COVID fucked that up for me for a long time but I still love people. It’s just… say hi once in a while that weirdo might be a nice person you can talk to.
I like this very much. I agree and wish more people did.