Does anxiety and life struggles make a man ''weak'' ?

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chris1989
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03 Sep 2024, 2:14 pm

I seem to think it annoys me when some people seem to perceive that a man is ''weak'' because he maybe struggling with issues in life like anxiety, depression and so on and discussing it with other people and also it being perceived as ''feminine trait'' as though its not what a ''man'' should be doing. I feel we talk about these things a lot more now than maybe people would have done decades ago but I still feel its frowned upon by some people. I remember hearing from a guy who was told to ''man up'' by his partner because he was going through depression and other things in his life. I seem to sometimes feel bad as though I'm not ''ruthless'' enough as though that is what being a ''man'' is all about. As I may have said before in another thread, I just don't feel like I've got that kind of streak in me, as I may have said before I can get angry and I've expressed it sometimes by stomping or throwing or kicking something when I know that doing that is maybe not helpful and just makes things worse. Will becoming ruthless and firm but fair make them a better person than when they were kinder, polite and more emotional ?



funeralxempire
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03 Sep 2024, 5:22 pm

Struggling isn't weakness, it takes strength to overcome one's struggles.

Flinching from struggle, submitting without struggling and refusing to struggle are much more 'weak' than struggling.


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Fnord
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03 Sep 2024, 6:48 pm

Surviving and overcoming one's struggles shows strength.

Submitting to, and being a victim of one's struggles shows weakness.

Are you a survivor or a victim?


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Jayo
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03 Sep 2024, 7:01 pm

Hey man, I don't believe that crap at all, about a man being "weak" because he has psychological struggles, demons, etc., to overcome... nobody is perfectly "Okay", except for the narcissist - and you don't want to be IT (I refuse to dignify that phenotype with a pronoun).

I think a good deal of that mentality comes from one's cultural milieu: think of the Southern U.S. or Latin America, where there's more machismo and yeah, you've gotta "man up" or they'll think you're weak or soft or whatever. But from where you say you're from (in your profile, in Kent, England), I don't think it's quite so intense there. Here in Canada we don't tend to have that macho manly man mentality in most places, just a few ethnic enclaves perhaps.

But it was certainly more prevalent like back in the 1950s, or even more recently like the 70s. We can probably think of some of those archetypal "70s tough guys" from the movies.

Don't take it so hard, and there's no need to be "ruthless"...those people are using hyperbole, like only a toxic alpha male king a-hole is the one who matters (yeah, right, eye roll) - like Kevin Spacey's character in Horrible Bosses. :) :P



funeralxempire
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03 Sep 2024, 7:05 pm

Jayo wrote:
Here in Canada we don't tend to have that macho manly man mentality in most places, just a few ethnic enclaves perhaps.


This makes it sound like you've never encountered any rednecks in Canada. We abso-fuckin-lutely have that mentality in more places than just 'a few ethnic enclaves'.


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"Many of us like to ask ourselves, What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now." —Former U.S. Airman (Air Force) Aaron Bushnell