I've had a lot of things on my mind lately that seem too... maybe uncomfortable, to bring up.
I've wondered who else is thinking things I'm thinking, so that can be a thing to be concerned about... not knowing a safe place to camp out for a night, you know?
I don't want to set this up much but please read it with a clear mind, not trying to project your own ideas. Or maybe read it multiple times from a variety of angles... not sure... not really sure how its all about to come out either... but i hope if you're a man reading this, it opens up an idea or thought or avenue to communicate. If you're a female, I hope it offers even a little insight and maybe an avenue to ask different questions or know when to say when.. sorry if it gets abstract, I'll try not to
so here goes...
I've had this thing on my mind and men are super weird about diving into it but I can see it all over their body language. I hear it in the timing in between the words. I hear it in the exhale. I see it in the posture, even if you think your chest and chin are up. It's in the silence. The extra long eye contact where there are some words sitting in there, but you wont say them until I reach in and grab them.
I know this because I have them too.
Here's some bullshit... Men aren't supposed to have anxiety. Men don't get depressed. Suck it up, man up, move on. Deal w it. Get tough already. You can't sit in a room and not talk, people think you're weird. What do you have to deal with? Boys don't cry.
A "friend," text me once a few years ago, said he knew I was "off." I said "thanks man, just dealing with some depression..." Response: "suck it up, lets go." I don't blame him, he doesn't/didn't know, but I never engaged in a conversation like that again. I responded, "all good, I'm on it." If you know what I know, you don't respond "suck it up," you respond "lets meet up... when are you free next?" and you don't let go of that until you do.
Layer by layer, people slowly cover themselves up w mask after mask until they find one that fits well enough to keep moving forward without anyone detecting the truth. Someone can ask and the mask will answer first to protect the root layer of truth. Me and my friend talked about this a lot during sessions, but his mask was good, so layered, I didn't see what he was really showing me. And I tried to put math on it and say "he has kids, great jobs, money, attractive, people love him... he's good," until he's not good.
Those masks don't come off easy, they explode off.
The mask wants to hide the truth and show how tough you are. "Look how tough I am! I wont cry at my moms funeral!" and bullshit like that because you think it's important to show some sort of "strength," for your daughters, because it's something special to show. the mask lies.
The masks mean well. It thinks it's protecting you by creating a false persona for survival. But like everything else, there's a price to pay, especially when you lie. Lie knowingly to yourself and its magnified.
I believe this is the root cause of most depression and anxiety near us. Lying knowingly is one thing, lie knowingly to yourself and the price you pay will be magnified. It will slowly dissect your energy, piece by piece, until you are actually unrecognizable. Enough lies to yourself and you will no longer be the person you were before the lying. Once you're in, digging out of this is one hell of a situation because you've created an entirely new reality, all based on lies you told yourself. Getting out, is going back out the way you came and it's not easy. It takes a lot of work.
Don't let this happen. Don't let this happen to yourself or anyone near you. Do not compromise your actual being for what you perceive to be a need from an outside energy. What I mean is in the funeral example above. I thought I needed to show a character for the people that were looking at me, figurately and literally. Don't do that. My daughter Olivia didn't see me cry on that until this past year. That was long overdo and not real. People need real, not characters.
Take the masks off and be truthful.
If you need a few days to hide away, do it.
You need balance.
Men need a sense of tribal attachment and brotherhood.
Don't let your husband or boyfriend or brother or any of them wear the mask around you. Ask questions, disarm it, enjoy time, peel it off. Dissolve it.
---stop trying to be so cool and just write---
I was standing w a friend, just me and him. We were just bullshitting about work and such, but I knew what was sitting there. I said "make sure you're taking time for yourself." He didn't even look at me. He looked down and nodded several times, "yeah." I continued, "I'm serious, I can feel what you didn't say." His eyes watered, he nodded again, "yeah." I persisted, "dont let this fade.... your kids need your energy to be right... it might feel forced but start going through the motions of things you know you like to do even if you don't feel like doing them. do them anyway, let the energy come back, i'll go with you."
I was sitting with another friend who went through a rough spell of depression and made some changes. Chicken or the egg, was it the life that created the depression or the depression that created the life? you don't know what you don't know. I know it was the lies he told himself that started to drown him. The mask couldn't keep up the act and it ate him away. So as we sat, I reassured him of his decisions but to not continue the lies. "If you want to get back to good, you have to be genuine and truthful in all ways..." even if they think you're weird.
When you see him quitting things he loves, when you see anxiety silence him, when he tells you he's exhausted, sit. You don't have to talk. There doesn't have to be an answer or a fix or a thing to discuss at all times. Silence in comfort works well.
Sometimes we just need to turn the world off for a little while.
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Just reread some a few days after writing... I think I lost my way briefly, but hope it helps. I think this topic is a much better discussion to record for a podcast vs blog. Interested?
