I started listening to The Find Out Podcast this week and came across this gem in the second episode.
“I mean, I think one of the other things that’s interesting about it too is like, in this day and age, women respond to men who are able to tap into how they feel. And I think that’s a huge epicenter of how this is all being framed is like, the alpha men of the right are dudes that don’t want to talk about that stuff, right? They just want to get as far away from it as possible.”
I hate that this happened to me. I grew up in a high-control religion, A.K.A. a cult, and between the expected right-leaning political expectations, the undertones of toxic masculinity, the heavy hand of Patriarchy, and the fake happy presentation of everything, I reached a point where I was unable to feel any of my feelings. Growing up with undiagnosed ADHD only exacerbated the intensity of those feelings that I had to hide away, making the need for this mask all the more necessary.
My specific brand of “not feeling my feelings” was to ”work through” them in the most logical way possible, at least by the time I reached adulthood and “emotional maturity. Also, I mean logical as in
- “Why am I experiencing this emotion?”
- “What triggers am I experiencing right now?”
- “What in my past may have lead me to react in this way?”
Not “the most logical way”, like just feeling them and allowing them to pass naturally. Instead, I acted as my own therapist. The problem with this is obviously that I am not a licensed professional, and I wasn’t seeing one either. In the moments of big feelings, I was either by myself or with my life partner, my wife. The accidental result of this approach was that I would just end up not actually needing to feel them. The questions and “self work” I thought I was doing ended up burying those feelings deeper. I didn’t have to think about them. I didn’t have to feel the uncomfortable pains of anger, sadness, guilt, and regret. I had my mental processes that distracted me from them, and they would go away. I suppose on a technical level, this is better than lashing out in rage or drinking my problems away, but the result is still the same. The feeling were buried, hidden, never actually processes, and in the end, they all came back out anyways.
After getting married, my wife started understanding better the depths of my depression and anger. I would punch walls, I punched our car or the steering wheel, I would hurt myself, I would lock up into a ball on the bed and completely shut down, unable to express anything. Many of these feelings are all too familiar, I’m sure, to most men in the United States, and they felt all too familiar to my wife, who’s father also has dealt with depression for his entire adult life. More critically, he never accepted those feelings, never admitted to himself or tried to work through any of it. Instead he worked and took out his anger on his wife and children for the smallest of things.
In the podcast, they continue to talk about masculinity, their relationships to the definitions, how those definitions have shifted over the course of the last couple decades. I’d add to that conversation that we don’t have many good examples of masculinity that is able to work through their emotions. I saw my dad get angry sometimes. I saw him yell. I also did see him apologize. I also saw him keep his cool when I totaled my car as when I was sixteen with the self admitting attitude of “I did stupid shit too.” I was lucky to have parents who tried their best to teach me how to manage my emotions. I was lucky to have a dad who didn’t beat me with belt.
I was not quite lucky enough to have media representation or a society that showed what “masculine” can look like without it being tied to violence, shows of dominance, or overpowering your enemy. One example to the contrary would include characters like Kuzco from The Emperor’s New Groove, which served as an example of how to overcome your biases and consider other perspectives and learn empathy. I’d argue that another example to the contrary includes Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars Prequel trilogy. While he shows us an example of a person who allows himself to feel, I read it as either a warning of what it looks like to feel too much, thus seemingly promoting Stoicism, or serve as a warning to watch out for a person who feels the wrong way, thus leading them down dark paths. Neither of these reads aids us in our quest to find an example of someone who is able to feel what they need to feel and move through it in a healthy way.
Another prime example of a bad way to feel your feelings is actually the “Women in refrigerators” trope, where the hero goes off on their quest (for revenge or to save the world) because some important person in their life has been killed. Instead of giving them the chance to grieve the loss of their loved ones, they are expected to pick up and find justice, asserting their dominance over the thing that took from them what they love. (Note, there is a whole other conversation that can be had about masculinity on just this topic alone, but that’s for another article.)
I actually remember feeling exactly this when some of my grandparents passed away while I was in collage. First, my Maternal Grandmother, who was well over 90. I remember her passing, but with the logical understanding that she had cancer, she had lived a full life, she was ready to go and be with her late husband, I took her death in stride and didn’t think (or feel) anything of it.
A few years later, my Paternal Grandfather died. I found out early one week that he had gone to the hospital for something related to his lungs - I think I was told pneumonia - but had left the following day. A bit of a scare, but nothing else. Half a week later, a Thursday morning, I get the news from my parents that he had gone back to the hospital and died overnight. I figured I’d take it more or less like I did with my grandmother. I went on to school, took my classes, and tried to work my job, but my the middle of the day, I was unable to focus, unable to work. I was feeling something, but I don’t even remember if I could describe it to you. Luckily, I had my wife by that point in time, who rightly suggested that I take the day to feel everything and morn. I don’t know that I’d say I had the closest relationship to him, but he was still my family. I have so many fond memories of going to beaches, lakes, and rivers with him, fishing in every one of them. I remember many summer days and nights at his house, swimming in his pool, catching lightning bugs in his back yard.
I lost something with his death.
But I only gave myself the day to grieve. I only allowed myself to feel it for the rest of the day and I was “fine” the following day. I returned to classes, and homework, and work on campus, and being a new husband. I never gave any of this a second thought until right now, writing out these words, where all these feelings of pain and loss are flooding into me. I only just now realize that I didn’t morn his loss. I likely convinced myself that everything was fine, that I should just go on with classes, that I was actually happy enough with my life, that I would see him in the afterlife. But he’s gone, at least for this life. I only got about 25 years with him. Apparently, deep down inside, I still miss him in a way that feels painful to actually think or write about.
And the whole point of the problem is that I didn’t know that until just now. I don’t know how to feel my feelings. Between my overly analytical brain and years of conditioning and messaging about what a “real man” is, I’ve reached a point where I don’t feel things when I should. I have to wait seven and a half years, have many realizations about who I am, rediscover what I want to be, and listen a podcast made by 6 white guys, and write a fucking blog post before I actually feel the loss of my grandfather. I want to learn how to feel this when it happens. The current world has already taken enough away from me. I won’t let me take my ability to have healthy emotions as well.
Also, go listen to The Find Out Podcast. Seems like it’s gonna be some good shit.