What Telling Men To “Man Up” Does To Them

People of the UK and Ireland, if you are coming to see me on tour, I want to hear from you. I want to know what problems you're dealing with, your worst first date, and any questions that you've got for me. And I will be bringing some of you up on stage to talk about it. So, if you're coming to see me on tour this October, go to chris williamson.live/stories, submit them, and I might see you with a mic in front of your face very soon. Chris Williamson. Does RSD look different in men? Um, you want a weird answer for that? >> Sure. >> Okay. [laughter] I, this is my soap box for this. I think that looking at just, you know, being a psychiatrist and seeing mental health just in general and seeing the progression of mental health, especially as we've talked about it a little bit more, you start to notice patterns. And as you look at male mental health, I think that we have done a huge disservice to men in terms of we don't educate men and help cultivate with men a lot of information about emotional sensitivity. And as a result, for a lot of men, they know how to target a couple emotions and one of them being anger. Y >> so I think for a lot of men you see men that have you know they've been told you know just man up this is not that big of a deal don't cry about it don't like they have been forced to suppress emotions but the only socially acceptable emotion they're allowed to express is anger I would say that some of that is probably misdirected or confusing signals of maybe emotional sensitivity >> what happens when emotionally sensitive boys are told to man up >> I mean that you get really angry dudes And I mean it's just such a like I think as a parent who um has a son. Um it's weird because and maybe it's this is like the mom son thing [laughter] that I'm so protective over him. Um, but you know, you see in other settings and you you start to really zoom in and you look at how other people are are bringing up their their sixyear-olds, their six-year-old boys. And even from a young age in the kindergarten class, you know, the way that the girls are treated in the class versus the boys are treated in the class and not by the teacher, but like the parents. You look at it in birthday parties. You know, a a girl will fall down, they're scooped up, they're they're coddled, they're told, you know, everything's okay. a boy will fall down and it's like, "Oh, that's not that big of a deal." You know, let's let's move on from this. And it's it just it doesn't seem like it's like from Genesis. There's not like a huge spot where they can start to explore and really navigate emotional sensitivity. Well, >> yeah. I think emotionally sensitive women seem to have a bit more latitude and forgiveness to explore that kind of sensitivity than men do, especially as they get into adulthood. Like I, you think you're right that >> it's weird. Anger is such an antisocial emotion. >> Yeah. >> Right. It's dangerous. It can be destructive. It's often not wanted by the people that are experiencing it and they don't want the impact of it to happen. Yeah. But anger's for many men more socially acceptable than sadness. And when you think about how antisocial anger is as an emotion, it really goes to show sort of how unaccepted sadness can be. But yeah, you know, we talk a lot online about the importance of getting men to open up. I had a conversation, two conversations this week talking about male suicide. And in both of them, there is this I just wish that this guy had reached out. I wish that he'd talked. in over 90% of cases where a man takes his own life in the UK, he's already gone to some form of mental health counseling. So, it's not just the talking about it thing. It's actually allowing like giving room for men to be able to feel their feelings. >> And I think that to be honest, like a lot of the >> blame, a lot of the work, not blame, a lot of the work here can be laid at other men's feet because everyone says they want their friend to open up. if you're having a bad time that I really need you to to talk to me. And this is all easy to say after the fact, especially if something really dangerous or or devastating's happened, but how many guys are supportive of another man on the internet that's opening up about how much he's struggling like not not to the Overton emotional Overton window of acceptability, which is, you know, things are hard, but I'm getting back in the gym and I'm going to put some muscle on or whatever. Like really broken down and I don't know what to do. I'm alone. I'm broken. I'm I'm lost. I'm devastated. Uh a guy that's crying is aversive to a lot of men. >> Yeah. >> Uh and women, too. But I'm like, you don't get to say male suicide's a big problem. We need to do more of more for this. Society needs to care more >> and then take the piss out of a guy who is opening up about his emotions online. >> Yeah. Yeah, I had this idea of man points which is guys need to accumulate sufficient kind of surplus masculinity in areas like muscularity or strength or success or money or notoriety or women or whatever. And if they've got this bank account reserve of masculinity, they can kind of withdraw from that and then talk about emotions. It's like this special video game unlock that only happens once you've reached a particular level of being a man. Mhm. >> Basically, people have a big ick. Most of society has a big ick with men talking about deep emotions, especially difficult emotions, >> but they have far fewer if it comes from a place of prestige >> than one of poverty. uh a guy who's already down on his luck and might not have much going for him talking about how much things are are hurting doesn't get the same kind of sympathy that Chris Bumstead, six time Olympia world champion, one of the most muscular guys on the planet that he gets. He can cry and talk about how he broke down in his girlfriend's arms 6 weeks before he was about to win the world championship because he's got all of these trappings and trimmings of masculinity that make it seem like it's not coming from a place of weakness. It's coming from a place of strength. But again, >> Chris doesn't need the same kind of support because he's already got a community around him of a supportive wife and all of these successes that are continuing to move him down the track. The people that really need it are the guys that kind of don't have anything going for them and they're presumably going to be the biggest risk as well. But yeah, that's my that's my soap box as well to just I really wish that there was more latitude. Like speaking as a guy that feels feelings, I just I did a a full week retreat working exclusively on emotions, 12 hours a day for seven days in Northern California last year. Two weeks ago, I just did a Janna meditation retreat which is exclusively working on conductivity of emotions, a silent meditation retreat for seven days, like sitting on the cushion for I don't know six or eight hours a day. So that was like both of those things for me and me trying to get below the neck, me trying to >> move away from a lot of the judge, not not even judgment, like uh felt scrutiny and um existing patterns of how is this going to show up in the world? Can I operate this way inside of my business? Is this something that I can do that's publicly acceptable? It's like it doesn't you can go and work on this thing in isolation and then come back. But yeah, I I I know what it's like to be a really sensitive kid growing up that didn't have anywhere to put it because you're in a working-class bluecollar environment or the people around you don't notice or don't have the tools to be able to help. And it can drive you to do really amazing things, but it also creates a bunch of coping mechanisms that mean, huh, I had this weird gift. Like, I had this depth of connection that I could have had with the world and I contorted it, alchemized it, you could say, cuz it went from something that was a challenge to something that you've turned into something good. >> Yeah. >> But it is kind of a denial of a bit of yourself as well at the same time. So that's been this has been a it's one of the reasons I was excited to speak to you because it's a a very personal like super interesting topic. I I think it's fascinating what >> a lot of emotionally sensitive people also they go through life and they hide that part of them because there is so much internalized shame about like you're not supposed to be sensitive. You're supposed to be strong. You're supposed to be able to handle stuff. if you're I mean male and females like I mean this is something that as a human condition people are are celebrated for like you were able to get on the other side of that adversity like you did so well you didn't complain you didn't do and so like you from a young age you just kind of learn to shut down that part of yourself or become really embarrassed I remember being like a kid and you know my mom something would happen and it would like hit my ear the wrong way and I' I would think that oh my god like I'm so embarrassed or something and I would like go and hide. I would like hide under a table or I would hide in a closet or I would because I was just like embarrassed and sad and everything happening all at once. And eventually I was like this is young like eight. I was like this is not conducive for me moving forward and not functioning well. >> Yeah. This is I can't do that when I'm grown up. And so then you just start hiding it. So if you're emotional or if you're having a hard day, you lie about it. You are like, "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. It's not a big deal. I don't want to talk about it." Or and sometimes I would be like, "I don't want to talk about it with other people because I'll cry and that'll prove that I'm emotionally sensitive." And so I I hear that story a lot as well. >> The insight that suppression isn't the same thing as strength. >> Yeah. >> Is I know kind of kind of world changing. That what you're doing if you're an emotionally sensitive person. That's swallowing them down is you're performing the role of somebody who's got composure. >> Yeah. >> But that's not the same as having composure. That's not the same or you're performing the role of somebody that hasn't felt the thing. But that's not the same as >> no >> not feeling the thing. >> No. >> And you've got this line, the real challenge lies in not feeling deeply, but in living in a world that doesn't always know how to support that sensitivity. >> That's a good quote. [laughter] >> It's a great it's it's a great line. It really is. The real challenge lies not in feeling deeply, but in living in a world that doesn't always know how to support that sensitivity. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. Yeah. The world feels very spiky. Every time I come back from retreat, I always feel like everything is so tender. >> I know. And then what you get to see is how operating in a world that's incredibly intense, very chaotic, fast moving, you have to create these strange patterns and coping mechanisms and wall yourself off and guard yourself just so that you can move through the day. And that's fine, right? You don't want to be a a whimpering blob on the floor. >> I don't want to be a puddle. I don't want to be a puddle of emotions. I want to be able to show up. But then also, there are bits of your experience that you're denying yourself. And there are strengths that you can have that come along for this. That's a question. What are the strengths of highly sensitive people? What are the strengths of people with rejection sensitive dysphoria? >> Yeah, I think being able again I think that there is a direct pipeline between being highly emotionally sensitive and being highly emotionally intelligent. And I think that's just how you deal with that sensitivity. And so some of the strengths that can come with that emotional sensitivity are number one, you have a deep deep deep understanding of other people's emotional insides. And I think that's part of, you know, what led me into psychiatry in the first place. That's part of why I've continued to enjoy it as much as I have because I think that you can intimately understand when people are talking about their experience or like you can even understand you know sometimes I'll have a patient come into my office and you start asking them questions and you know their answer is like I don't know like okay so c can you tell me anything in the past two months that has really made you upset I don't know like and so then it's for a lot of people that's like a stonewall. You don't really know where to go from there. But for some people who are highly emotionally sensitive, you're picking up like, okay, I'm picking up from like previous body cues that they were giving me when they were talking about their family or when they were answering in certain ways. >> You're just like, okay, well, there's some tension there. And so, you start asking about other questions. So, you're picking up stuff that you might not even have clocked as it was happening at the time, but you've amalgamated and you know exactly what direction to go. I think that's an incredibly um wonderful thing to have. Um and I think that yeah that outside of just psychiatry, I think that does make you a good friend. It makes you a good partner. It makes you a good parent. I think it's so helpful with parenting. >> Um so I I think it's just that huge scope of understanding that emotional condition. >> Does emotional sensitivity have an impact on people's self-esteem? Um, yes, [laughter] but sometimes it can be negative. You know, if if you're highly emotionally sensitive, I think, and you're used to reading emotional data negatively, sometimes that can start to impact your self-esteem and you're you're walking into a room and, you know, self-worth and self-confidence are different, but you walk into a room and you start to feel like, okay, maybe I'm not wanted here and things like that. and and you're reading emotional information and and possibly attaching a narrative on there that doesn't actually exist >> that can impact your self-esteem for sure. >> Um, but there are other times like for example in the work that I do as a psychiatrist because of that emotional sensitivity. I'm celebrated for that. And I think it's a really unique field to be in as an emotionally sensitive person >> because that's one of the areas where I get the most validation cuz people feel like they have been understood for the first time. 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