Dr. K and Aba Atlas on Men's Issues

today's talk is really about masculinity but more importantly it's also like digging into how we form our views of masculinity and where our opinions come from and a lot of the opinions that we have and feelings we have around gender roles are actually deeply rooted in personal experiences that have shaped the way that we think and so i want people to understand that like if you really want to start to feel more comfortable with gender related issues whether they be societal or the ones that you sit with exploring your own personal story is a wonderful way to kind of get a handle on how you see the world yeah so how you been man i've been pretty good i um i've i've been actually pretty good i uh for the most part have just been focused on working this pandemic obviously being isolated has its own set of issues but overall mental health and physical health have been pretty great so can't complain and remind me last time we talked a little bit about um was it your dad and and grief and stuff yeah yeah so we talked about uh loved ones dying how to process and handle that and uh how best to to manage the um loss of somebody close to you and was that did that help at all or i mean you know i sort of feel like i'm fishing for a yes there but i'm just genuinely curious like yeah yeah well i mean i think any opportunity to discuss something that you normally don't discuss is always a good thing uh it's always strange to discuss something that's very like intimate difficult on a very public platform because everyone wants to chime in with their opinions which is a bit of a strange thing for something you feel so personal uh but beyond that in terms of like how i feel on the inside much better yeah when you say everyone wants to chime in with their feelings who are you talking about uh you know i i honestly like i i feel this way every time i i generally dislike being uh in a vulnerable state on the internet it uh sure understands it's not it's not uh it's not generally my thing um so as a result i think when people give me their feedback or they stop me it's kind of weird to have a stranger being like man that moment about you and your dad really touched me i'm just like but i don't know you you know it's kind of a weird feeling to have somebody because it feels like someone saw me naked and i don't know who they are you know you know but you're the one doing the touching apparently yes yes yes but it's just it feels very voyeuristic in a way not it's consensual but it's still strange because yeah i feel it's that parasocial relationship that people talk about a lot where people feel like they know you and they come up to you and they say all these like things about themselves i have no idea who you are but you know this intimate part of my life so that's a strange part about it yeah but i'm also kind of hearing that apparently people benefited from your nakedness uh yes i would i would i would agree agree with that notion i think that's weird man yeah definitely definitely so yeah so that was that was everyone's experience and i think it was great to hear that um folks had a a very positive um experience listening to that so i'm happy about that portion of it for sure yeah and and just you know it's interesting um and what do you go by again uh i go by abba normally that's yeah that's the thing so abby you know just hearing you now i'm sort of remembering how um protective you are of other people it's kind of interesting like you know you you kind of you're it's subtle but like the way that you're kind of saying you know i appreciate that other people are getting helped but i'm also kind of acknowledging that underneath that is sort of the i was still naked and it feels really awkward for me yes yeah yeah that that feeling i don't think any ever really goes away from me uh because i'm still a fairly private person even though i do online stuff you know normally like pictures of my family or things like that that's going on my life i don't really share with the whole world so to share that sure i think it was something that was good for folks but i think for me it's always trying to find that good line between how much sharing is too much can you hold on just one second i'm getting a call from my producer no worries go ahead thank you very much i appreciate it i might be peeking or something like that i i only got uh filters on my stream so so so abba let me ask you guys this may sound like a kind of a weird question because i get that we're you know having this conversation now but um how do you feel about coming back and maybe talking about something else and and kind of being once again vulnerable in front of you know um i think i do things that matter to me and so i think for me it's fun to do them provided there's a purpose to them i i wouldn't do this gratuitously so i think as long as there's a there's a end goal in mind and there's something you know i think the conversation is beneficial i think it's something that people could gain from then i'm fine with having it on this kind of platform okay okay so i'm really hearing that there's sort of a greater good to be served here yeah yeah yeah yeah definitely i think there's a lot of people who identify with some of the issues that i've mentioned in the email so you know it's something i've discussed on my platform before so i think having your take on it and a bit of a back and forth would benefit a lot of people so you're doing this for other people uh partially i think it's also good for me uh it's interesting i feel like with this issue specifically i mean the one regarding to to to some of men's issues i think i think i'm i'm okay with things in a sense that i don't need a sense of catharsis like i think i've gotten mine per se um but i see you know it's weird because a lot of men you know hit me up and they're like you're my mentor and i'm like i didn't sign up for all that but i think it's because i identify with some of the stuff that we talk about and it it's like it's on the first time for a lot of them that they've heard it so i recognize some folks do do need it yeah um yeah you're so precise with your language and your thought you know it's it's it's interesting it you know yeah well uh thank you i appreciate that i mean just kind of like when you say yeah i mean it i appreciate it a lot um and i'm also noticing abba maybe this isn't really what we kind of signed up for today and so we don't have to talk about it but i'm hearing also like a theme of like people um you know like here you are mentoring people that you've never heard of and and you know opening people's eyes to things and you know having them feel like touched and they're growing and then you're you're kind of like bewildered and and i'm just a little bit curious about um you know what kind of expectation or pressure or like how do you you know how do you deal with that um and i know it's kind of separate from maybe what we're going to be talking about today but it's just it's so interesting because i'm hearing that theme kind of pop up over and over like what are you to people and and how do you sit with what you are for other people yeah well you know i definitely get a sense of imposter syndrome mostly because i don't think i've really had proper mentors most of my life and so the idea of being a mentor to somebody else is definitely a little intimidating at times um and and it doesn't feel consensual in some ways this sets that up i didn't choose this i didn't accept anything but you you have these expectations and i think i'm managing it by by reminding myself that i matter and that my well-being matters so if it ever becomes too much to take time and to embrace that and i think i also manage it by accepting that i i've i've in a sense already been doing it with the things that i'm doing so i just need to keep doing that you know and i don't have to pile on myself a large amount of extra work because i think what i've been doing is enough for a lot of tricks well said really well said and once again well thought out nuanced you know that you're okay doing this and then there are certain boundaries that you're going to maintain and respect and that you know cool so what did you want to talk about in terms of men's issues today um i sent a video that i kind of summarized that had you had an opportunity to watch it by any chance no so i actually purposely go into this stuff blind blind okay yeah the other reason is because um sometimes i hate the idea of feeling redundant with some of the stuff but i guess it is good to explain it for folks who haven't seen it um well if it's short we could also just watch it together if you want no no it's about 10 minutes so probably best for me to just explain it but um but my pet peeve with with these kinds of discussions is also feels like when they're had uh if you talk about it too often people will start to be like oh here he goes again on this topic and uh you know i never want to seem whiny because in my day-to-day life i don't think this is something i necessarily talk about that often but when i'm on the internet it seems to come up a lot um yeah so are you familiar with the with the red pill community uh yeah at least in terms of the dating sense yeah um and so some people would like sent me links and they they asked for my critique of it and how toxic some of it may be what not and um essentially the the rebuttal i had was that i think for a long time men haven't had spaces on any kind of platforms or media to see their issues and their problems reflected in any kind of form and they also oftentimes haven't had too many opportunities for guidance on how to approach women on how to date effectively on you know especially when you're expected to make the first step and to kind of put yourself out there and a lot of the times like it's not that much guidance for uh young men and i know it's an issue that i dealt with for a long time and so i say that uh essentially even though um i think the community has issues and some of the rhetoric isn't always good i think there is no alternative for a lot of men or they feel like there isn't one and therefore until something is presented i think the idea of taking down the one space where men see these topics reflected uh wouldn't be a good idea that's the gist of it can you just um help me understand or just help with people who don't understand what red pill is can you just explain explain it yes yeah yeah yeah so it's born from the matrix and the idea of the red pill versus the blue pills like neo the main character gets a choice between choosing to see the world for what it is the truth with the red pill or blue pill which is to stay in this kind of virtual reality fiction type world and so the term uh had a political meaning for some time just for people who want to see the truth in life in general but over the last like i would say seven or eight years um in a dating sense a lot of men go there for pickup artist stuff you know seeing the world for what it is in the sense uh like how women are doing really well and men are failing so that's some of the ideas that would be common in the red pill dating yeah yeah so i i'm really um i'm really excited for this conversation because this is actually one of my favorite things to think about and my favorite things to talk about okay why is that i you know it's it's it's interesting i'm not quite sure but about two years ago i sent an email to like a group of like close friends of mine just trying to figure out like what's like i felt like something is happening with men and it for me it started actually in a really bizarre way i was doing um i was working in a prison and i was uh you know doing therapy with something like an inmate and i was talking to him and he was in in prison for dealing drugs um and so as we kind of like started talking and i started getting to know him so it turned out that he had three older sisters and his older sisters kind of said to him that you know like it's your job as like the man of the family to like provide and so here he is at like 16 and he's expected to provide for you know three older sisters or they're they're sort of telling him that and so he's not really kind of sure like how to go about doing that feels kind of overwhelmed but there is like one opportunity within his community so he's like low a socioeconomic status um also like an ethnic minority and and so started you know dealing and then kind of got caught you know had a couple of infractions i was meeting him when he was like 24 or 23 yeah and so we kind of talked about it and then he sort of like felt this big big burden like his biggest issue like when he was talking about being depressed is like i have to provide and it's like my responsibility to provide and the really bizarre thing is that a few months later i was working with um you know like a middle-aged investment banker and like the same words were coming out of his mouth yeah and it just struck me as like bizarre that these two people from so different backgrounds actually oddly enough the investment banker's background was actually not very different from these kids which is interesting um so also grew up like poor and and things like that and and just so interesting that that like these two people from such different walks of like life like different ethnicities um you know somewhat different backgrounds very different you know day-to-day experiences of life we're essentially like suffering from a common problem and that just struck me as very strange and and it caused me to really like stop and think a little bit about like you know how um with all the discussions of privilege and stuff like that that you could kind of say like how can you even compare those but just you can certainly say that these people aren't similar at all but just as a therapist you know part of what i try to do is like see the person behind all of the labels and skip color of their skin and things like that and what really shocked me was that you know if i closed my eye if i made a transcript of each session and i went back and read them i would not know which person i was talking to just based on the transcript of their words yeah and so something about that i realized like something is going on here like i don't know what but there's like a bizarre like it's so and and i realize that the further apart that these people appear to be the bigger the issue is because it's gotta it's gotta you know bridge the gap of these vastly different experiences um and so i started to just kind of talk to people and sort of explore and things like that and and it's been just really fascinating to sort of try to figure out you know for essentially a privileged class like why do men suffer so much why why is the suicide rate you know why do four out of three or four three out of four or four out of five people who kill themselves or men um and so you know what like i feel like we're missing something here and that there's something going on that there's actually a lot of like evidence for but that people don't talk about yeah well i think i think it's an oversimplification of the issue in the sense that we love to look at things as hierarchies that are very clear-cut in the sense like we got a pyramid we got we got men at the top and then we got women right below and then we got people who are minorities and then we got people are disabled right but the truth is uh i think when people internalize these issues and people won't live these issues they don't necessarily live on a macro scale things happen on a micro skills and so you know even when i try to have these discussions for example and you say the problem seems very vast and complex i think it's a lot more simple in the sense that as a whole men deal with certain issues but because they're perceived as the privileged class a lot of that is underserved and it's rarely discussed in a sense so you know when i talk about this stuff and people are like well women suffer more i'm like i don't disagree that women may have more problems inciting that means but when i'm dealing with problems and they're very real whether it be depression or my friends killing themselves or things like that i internalize things on a micro scale i internalize things on an individual basis i can't think of like men as a whole i'm thinking about man people around me are dying my male friends are dying that's what i see and so you can understand concepts on a macro level but i think seeing the folks as individuals is important this because it makes you realize that even though a perceived class can can have these advantages and they're quite real on an individual scale the suffering can be just as heavy if that makes sense you know and i think that's important and to me what you said about like the investment banker and the dues on the drugs like it's not surprising you know as my income level has changed and as i've spent time from the military to civilian life and stuff i'm like it's the same problems it's really not that drastically different i see a lot of the same patterns in regards to that idea of male responsibility um and feeling the need to provide even though i'm a middle child and i got older sisters you know i have that exact same responsibility but i'm supposed to take care of my mom i'm supposed to take care of my siblings you know and they haven't didn't even have to explicitly say i just feel like that is my response that is my burden to bear um and so i think a lot of this stuff is just understood on the side of the level for all men irrespective of income level yeah so what what do you think is the problem abba help me understand your understanding of the situation and i think i think men are expected to do these things we're just often ill-equipped and not given any guidance on how to do them do what whether uh from everything from making the first move and being a leader like you know the whole idea of leading even within a small like just within a relationship like that expectation is definitely imposed on us through dating standards through media imagery um and then even if you take it from a work standpoint you know meeting a certain level of income the idea of what success for a man looks like is to defeat others in a way uh and to be better and when you consider all these expectations it's like okay i'm 18 i just finished high school i don't know how to approach we're going to be good at it i don't know how to make money i get anxiety about the idea of like how am i going to take care of the people around me i got to take care of a wife and a girlfriend and kids um and so those are the girlfriend wow i know imagine both at the same time depending on culture right um yeah so those expectations are are quite the cross to bear when there's no resources on how to do it that's what i think okay so what what are the expectations that you feel so i'm also hearing kind of a threat you talked about red pill and you know red pill is a i still remember when i was back in college like a couple of my friends got into the pickup artist scene yeah and and so it's it's been interesting to see the evolution of like pickup artists into red pill into i think in cell like i think that there's a lot of common sort of threats there and uh so so what are the expectations that you feel like you've been placed upon your shoulders without insufficient i mean without sufficient guidance um the the two things that come to mind right away are one two to to lead to uh kind of be the trailblazer to be the one who is going to take charge of a situation you know uh that's one and the second thing would be just in a romantic sense um just the idea of knowing how to court somebody you know because i think a lot of us are often starved for affection or do want that kind of like reciprocity in terms of love and things like that but speaking to most men i know they don't know how to do it they don't know how to start that initiative and they get so much anxiety and nervousness about it it's like like what do you know and they know nothing and i'm like i'm not surprised because i knew nothing at 18 or 19 or 20. and yeah so those would be like two prime examples i can think of on top of my head and so can you tell us a little bit about um uh can you tell us just a little bit about your kind of sense of what not knowing how to court someone at 18 sort of felt like and kind of where you are now and what that journey has been like oh man oh man so you talk about the pick up fire stuff i i picked up on that you know i the one thing i had in the sense was like thankfully for me and my case like a rejection didn't like murder my self-esteem uh but uh back in the day before like a lot of the tinder stuff really got really popular uh we just had to go up to to women and try to be like hi i think you're gorgeous right or whatever and um i remember what my first couple rejections felt like just just just being like oh man oh i just brutal brutal brutal brutal stuff i remember one time i um i asked this girl at my gym and she accepted she's like yeah you know i get off on friday at five so you can just come meet me there and i was like cool and uh and friday came along and i text her in the morning but she didn't respond but i'm like it's okay we already agreed on the spot so i'll just go there and i came around when her shift ended which is like 5 p.m and waited outside and uh texted up like hey i'm outside she still didn't respond i just remember her walking out with another dude and get in the car and leaving anywhere he got in the cabin i remember jumping into the bushes to hide just brutal stuff man um just the idea of being in a club you know and going up to a girl and and be like hey and just very very mildly and you know they they they snap and and to be clear i just want to say this i i don't get mad at um some people who take will reject very aggressively because i understand sometimes during the night you might get approached 100 times and it can be very taxing to have to say no to people who constantly want something from me but as a dude to try to approach very kindly just to hear that just be like no and it's like yelled in a way that everyone else can hear it's just you just slunk and i've seen it happen so many people around me so um yeah yeah even if i look back on it i just sometimes i still cringe yeah i'm curious what did it what did it feel like when you know you saw her walk out of the gym with another dude uh shame embarrassment uh inadequacy those are like a couple of words that come to mind yeah yeah yeah yeah did you ask yourself did you actually hide oh yeah yeah i hit because uh the way it works is they got a loop around in the cab to come by and i was standing right beside the bushes and so i was far enough to see them and i'm oh man yeah i don't want it brutal i jumped in those bushes yeah because i felt so embarrassed you know what i mean i was like here i am for a date she's leaving some other dude you know so i uh so yeah i remember being 19 of that happening i'll never forget that there's always one of those stories i'm like yeah i i have a fair number of cringe stories myself um and and so then what you know so how did you being such a thoughtful guy how did you like think about you know what how did you approach that so like you clearly saw like there's a problem here right like and and what did you understand was the problem at 19. i just felt like i had no idea what i was doing like i i didn't i felt like i had no game plan i didn't feel it sounds like yeah yeah yeah that's really what it was i had no game one thing i had going in my favor was like even if i took a huge l like that i i would be fine with going back the next day and trying again with somebody different you know sure um so i think that's what but i know dudes who get that once and it was over and my problem was i just didn't have any skill set to understand because i feel like now where i'm at i can understand way more variables than what i could then i couldn't read the social cues i didn't understand what it looked like when someone was interested or what they weren't little signs that i could pick up on to better handle the situation uh and at 19 i just didn't have that skill set so i would go in blind and i would leave blind and just with a bunch of things i saw and i can't make sense of so that was my issue at the time and how did you think about approaching it like you know what did you think about what were you going to do about it like you're like okay i'm blind yeah i'm going to look for for guidance i'm going to look for for for instructions you know i come from a gamer background when you can't figure something out you look for a walk-through you know yeah absolutely so it was the same idea i just i needed some advice and you know i'm sure folks google this on all ends how do i make someone like me or how do i do this right we all looking for answers to find acceptance for somebody and that's what i did and did you feel like uh you kind of alluded to the fact that maybe you didn't have sort of personal guidance or kind of mentorship sort of growing up so did you feel like you there wasn't anyone you could kind of talk to in your personal life that could maybe guide you like yeah i think it's twofold i think i didn't have that and secondly i think i would have felt shame to ask someone directly that i'm like i feel inadequate approaching women you know yeah i think it's those two things because it's kind of it sounds pathetic like man i don't know how to approach ghosts to somebody you know yeah it doesn't sound great yeah so i think a lot of people look for those resources but don't want to admit that they're looking for them so so i think that too uh if you know just what i'm hearing there is there's actually like a really subtle expectation there yeah that it is oddly enough everyone's ignorant and it's completely unacceptable to be ignorant even amongst men that would be shameful to another dude it would be like so pathetic if you're like hey man how do you pick up chicks like i don't know how to pick up chicks yeah yeah and then they'd look at you and they'd be like you're a loser yeah and even worse than that i've watched guys go up to folks in clubs right and and just go very kindly it's like hey can i get you a drinking girl says no and i understand that but sometimes i would hear the girls afterwards like i was such a [ __ ] creep and and and the guy would be with an earshot to hear it but i was just like oh he just doesn't know what he's doing and and i and i think oftentimes women don't know how much we don't know what we're doing and sometimes a lack of skills is seen as predatory or somehow like very gross and disgusting when it's just like man i feel bad for the hobie like he's he's 21 this is his first time inside a club he doesn't know so yeah yeah i feel bad i feel oh yeah i feel bad yeah i can see it i can see there's something you know you're really resonating with something there because that was me so i know what he's thinking you know i know what he's feeling right now that when you when you get rejected the the the the dejection that you feel afterwards and i'm not talking about when someone says no to you on tinder because you know even that's manageable you're in the privacy of your own home i think that's why a lot of people actually don't you know go up to folks in person as much anymore is because they have they can better preserve themselves by doing things online but when i used to watch it all the time it was very difficult to watch at times yeah i think tinder has its own set of you know toxicity but what i'm really hearing from you is that there's sort of this expectation of competence from both your male peers and from the women that you approach that like you should know how to do this better like yeah even looking at the idea like men have to be the leaders of the household and that's like a common thing that people still hold on to despite the fact that women are extremely successful in terms of like i think they're outpacing men for degrees now and and out earning men coming straight out of university and college so there's still that idea that men still got to do all this stuff even though they seem to be failing perpetually and gradually getting worse in some regards and so even just that expectation is daunting for a lot of men yeah you know this is kind of i don't want to charge the discussion but one thing that i've noticed is really interesting is that you know sometimes being a psychiatrist i get the opportunity to ask men and women sort of personal questions about their you know who they would date and things like that it's a common concern and i'm really surprised by um the you know the high high percentage of women that uh really feel like if a man is not financially successful that they're not an acceptable like partner um and and the interesting thing is that when i talk you know so i feel like oftentimes i hear keep in mind this isn't data or anything that's just anecdotal could have a lot to do with the selection bias and the you know the people who wind up in my office um but that it's kind of completely acceptable to a lot of my male patients that they have a partner that doesn't earn money and that a homemaker is like a laudable position but women that that i have as patients don't really feel the same way they're actually very few um but some of them you know are okay with that yeah yeah so that's good that's been my experience and and um i don't think it's necessarily wrong or evil i i'm this is not a critique of a woman or anything like that to me it just speaks to the expectation that's placed on men to live up to a certain role um and and and yeah if you look at the hierarchy of needs uh like within data but if you don't want to go there we don't have to it's like yeah there is that expectation on much of a societal level even in like a as progressive as countries as you can imagine there's still a lot of those uh same roles uh being existing you know the interesting thing just to toss this out speaking of anecdotal experiences when i talk to women about who they're accepted who they're willing to date the interesting thing is that half of their hesitation doesn't come from a personal standard and actually now that i think about it comes from a societal standard yeah so it's it's more about like you know what are my parents gonna think kind of thing yeah um and anyway yeah it's interesting yeah um so and then what what did you do about it so it sounds like you googled how do i get someone to like you and what else did you do about you know learning how to do this thing i had nobody i felt like i could talk to about this kind of stuff because of the shame so i think i went on to online forums and internet because one it gave me anonymity and two it reflected my lived experience so with those two things i was like okay i'm not alone in this which is already a great feeling other people feel super inadequate like me and we could talk it out and kind of share ideas and then the third thing is then afterwards i was led to some resources um i don't know if you've ever heard of the show there's a show that used to be called keys to the vip lasted i think three seasons it was a show where you know two guys would be sent to a nightclub and they would you know be asked to you know try to pick up women and try to do so in creative ways and i would watch every episode just so i'm like oh okay i'm i'm i'm learning you know uh and it got cancelled uh obviously because some people felt the show was unacceptable in that regards even though these guys weren't being pigs or anything weird um what kind of stuff were they doing ah they go up and then sometimes they would pretend that they were deaf and they did like can i get they'd have to write on a cute car to see if they could talk to the person they would basically handicap themselves they would handicap themselves to see like see how i can do it how easy it is so um it would be stuff like that and a lot of times i would just be out there laughing um and so yeah it was just that would be the kind of stuff that they were doing and um i think i think the idea of picking up women is just revolting to people you know like learning skills we're expected to be confident but learning skills to do it is seen as gross or trying too hard that's like the the weird dichotomy i see yeah so i think some of that has to do with what the implication of picking up women is you know i think that there's there's sort of an implication in the pickup artist community in the red pill community that most relationships should be like relatively temporary and and be especially in the red pill community it seems like there's sort of a it's a zero-sum game so the more you get out of the relationship the more she loses um and vice versa right like in the red pill community there's a winner and a loser and either you're the loser in the relationship or you're the winner in the relationship um but but i i think that you know picking up women sort of has a certain connotation to it which i think evokes i i i mean when you say picking up women i don't hear i don't assume that that means you're looking for a girlfriend what do you think i think if you use that term no yeah you know to me to me just strikes me as like bad branding in this sense because if you think about all those dudes who did most of that pick up our stuff they're all married with kids or they've all had to settle down um and well a lot of the ones that i used to follow often times too and even people i follow within the red pill community advocate for the ideas of relationships and stuff like that though i can't understand that connotation and there's definitely been you know bad examples and in bad representation that regards i would argue that the idea of being in a relationship and being married is definitely wanted by most men even within those communities it's just uh i don't think it's necessarily put to the forefront or prioritized or it's not nearly as appealing in terms of the brochure for why you would apply do you know what i mean yeah absolutely i think the brochure i mean there's i have a lot of thoughts um we're actually hopefully coming out with a research paper on some of the stuff in the next couple months um but i so let's just i'm just a little bit curious about your personal journey so like what happened next yeah um you know i think as i started being more bold and started just trying different things i would once again still fail a tremendous amount but i started to feel like i was the affection or interest i would show towards women would be reciprocated more often so i was like oh this stuff is working uh and you know i think as you get more involved with that stuff um then you start to to fall on some pit traps uh i i would say that i got to a point where it's like it's like when you're when you want something for so long and you're starved for it and then you get it you don't know how to hold the floodgate so i think i just started dating way too often i was doing too much and i was too engrossed in the idea of of wanting to be liked um so i think that became something that i was really involved i was dating all the time i was going out i was on tinder so um yeah i was like oh i can do this now i can do what a lot of dudes can't do so i'm not going to stop and uh yeah so i'm going to kind of ask you i have a this is a sort of a hypothesis-driven question but so when you say it it was working or it worked what do you think was working what do you think was responsible for your change in fortune like it sounds like you were able to date a lot you know was it the pickup artist kind of like was it watching this tv show or like how did you learn to get better um repetition i'm going to be honest it was repetition and um coming more into myself and being able to share more of myself with folks uh that was it because i feel like when you have all this anxiety and you're constantly nervous and you're getting in your own way they don't get to see you they just see confusion and i and i think i just felt much more calm in circumstances uh when i had conversations it wasn't necessarily somebody i was trying to date or be sleep with it was i'm just talking to a person and i think as i got to that sense of comfort then it was fine yeah so i i that was sort of what i was imagining yeah that's been sort of you know in a sense my experience although it's very limited and really like observing other people's experiences right um is that there isn't sort of a magic trick it really is about kind of being your best self um and you know the more that you can just be your best self like people will be you know that's going to be attractive to hopefully some people usually some people yeah but it's getting there it's getting there that's the problem it's getting there it's a problem and when you feel an adequate you know it's like you first it's like this even with artistic approaches to to like singing or dancing you you start off by imitating others and then as you do so through that process you start to find your own voice and i felt like dating is like that too like you know or like approaching and me you know breaking that ice that tension that awkwardness it's very difficult at first if you have nothing to lean on that's what i found yeah and and so then what happened it sounded like you were dating quite successfully yeah you'd become you you'd become the chad of your dreams yeah yeah we didn't have that terminology back then but yeah yeah i suppose so and then how did you what was that like for you it was just a lot of excess it was just too much of of of something that's not the best way i could describe it what do you mean by that can you help us understand a little bit uh yeah it's just too much time too much energy um it's like i got lost in the sauce you know i my day would be spent and the day would pass by i'm like what did i do today okay and i just and a lot of it was meaningless like which not everything has to be meaningful but i think i value my time and as i discovered other things that i was passionate about interested in i started to realize my priorities weren't in the right place i um yeah i was too busy chasing a high if you will i think that's yeah i felt it was the the mark of a true chat is to be like oh i'm dating too much yeah yeah yeah yeah i know i know and i have this conversation all the time because like people who who haven't been there are like yeah you're just saying that i'm like it's hard for me to tell them that the grass is not green on the other side if they haven't been there uh because their whole life they've been told this is the ideal thing to go for so yeah yeah and and what i'm hearing is that you know you got to the other side you thought the grass was greener and you're like actually this isn't yeah yeah same thing happened to all my friends too all my friends had the same experience and that experience was dating a lot and dating intensively and yeah yeah they were starved for for females attention and then afterwards once they got it and they they started being very gratuitous with it they realized like oh this is not that great and i was like i know we had this conversation but sometimes you got to experience it to understand it so i try not to be too preachy about it and then what happened um okay so i think i need to go backwards a little bit as you start to enter the red pill environment you know one idea is like you see the truth of what it is you're not supposed to go up to a girl just like here's some flowers you know like there's a way you can come with some confidence and things like that to garner that affection but then that also trickles into more political uh discussions about you know what are men's struggles and why you're struggling and why is the city society is built this way and what your burden and responsibility are and how women really are so you'd hear that kind of rhetoric a lot and that would be engrossed into some of the um pickup artist ideas that you would hear about often so as i would hear that it began to i would i would sometimes within my dating experiences have things happen that i was like what was that you know whether it be being groped or uh women being physically uh abused i don't like using the word abusive but you know like getting slapped for a disagreement you know within like a dating context i was like how do you feel this comfortable hitting me in front of other people and when i would bring this up to folks i would be almost often gaslit into thinking like oh this is not that big of a deal and i'm like and i'm someone who i really dislike it when people put their hands on me in a non like in a non-intimate sense you know when they do it as a sense of control whether or a sense of like aggression it triggers me to to a point i can't explain even if it's like little stuff like like oh i don't have to you know just little things like that can really set me off and i couldn't under imagine me grabbing somebody when they didn't want to be grabbed or and i would see this stuff and when i would bring it up to people and i would see the nightclubs and stuff like that i'm just like and the only time i ever saw that issue reflected or people talking about some of the comfort that people feel touching others i was when i was in the red pill community so it started warping my perception of um of women to some degree and uh made me resentful um even the idea that i had to be the one who makes the first move and i had to be the one who puts my self-esteem on the line when i go up to somebody i'm like hey i'm really interested in and i get yelled at and i'm supposed to just accept that that's my job as a man to do that i became resentful of like the the burden that society placed on me and i think that community kind of fueled it with some of the ideas because i found other people who felt the exact same way uh and so you have this like kind of echo chamber and as i grew older i decided to kind of slink away from that because i started to realize it was clouding my judgment how did you make that realization it was progressive you know i i i'd like to believe that i'm introspective enough to acknowledge when i'm holding on to a bad idea and i was questioned on things i can't tell you an exact moment but i remember being questioned on certain things and i would sit with those ideas and i'm like if i look at this logically it doesn't make sense and so i just had to re-examine things uh you know try to study a little bit and be like am i holding on to this because it's it's reflective of some of my experiences and and you know am i holding on to this due to like anger resentment or am i holding on to this because it's a sound idea and i think just a bit of that reflection kind of made me realize you weren't there were great ideas yeah so you know it's it's kind of staggering but i want to share like one or two experiences that really terrified me so i one time was talking to a sexual assault victim who was um uh you know a tall you know well-built man who was um sexually assaulted by like a five foot three woman and uh they were at a party and she um basically climbed on top of him and he felt really scared and like he felt like you know he couldn't explain to other people that like because they would look at the physical difference and they would say how on earth could you not defend yourself in that situation yep and then so i i asked him i was like you know when people sit like so i just asked him why didn't you feel like you could defend yourself and he was like if i defended myself my chances of going to jail were so much higher because what would it look like if i if i like pick her up and throw her off like like she was persistent like he pushed her away she didn't and she falls awkwardly yep and and so like what is like is he supposed to hit her across the face like he can absolutely physically overpower her he can knock her unconscious but what happens then um and and so he felt incredibly powerless incredibly he felt stuck like he couldn't do anything about it um and so it was it was just really i never until i you know until i heard him say something like that i had never thought you know i never thought about that yeah yeah there's a there's a layer even above that i am there's this one lady who i knew who was a teacher at a at a school she basically taught like the progressive ideas of um gender studies and uh me and her some conversations in the past and i remember on new year's eve i think it's like 2018. i was uh i was at a club and and she came up to me and she was like oh it's good to see you i'm good to see you as well and um she's a little bit intoxicated i was very sober and she kind of approached me trying to get close and i was like i'm i'm not interested in i remember like just before the countdown hit i was heading towards the bathroom she was coming out of it she said oh good to see you and i'm like yeah good to see you as well and and she just went right away and groped me right and i remember being like what are you doing and she immediately just lunged at me to make out right and and as her lifts my mind i pushed her off um and i just remember thinking like what just happened right now right and maybe a week later i just remember seeing her on social media just talking about boundaries and how it's important for men to respond i just i remember being so angry at that moment i remember he's so mad and and i think it kind of reflected an experience that i had in my life where i i would look at things that would happen like that and the the really difficult thing for me was accepting that some of the women who would do this stuff weren't necessarily bad people you know like whether it be slapping a guy or things like that when they get really angry they weren't necessarily bad people but i also saw how nobody held them accountable when they did some of these things because of the perceived size difference because of the idea that a man being hit really doesn't have any implications or his boundaries being violated doesn't really matter you know and i when i had a conversation with one person i was like do you not realize that you are doing something wrong when you put your hands on me that way and the person has to sit with it and come to the real understanding like oh i did something [ __ ] up but it dawned on me that this person at 27 had never been told that before and it felt comfortable doing that in the past and it was like we got a bigger problem this is not just a matter of like individuals it's also a matter of like messaging and and and and how we have these conversations you know every guy i've ever spoken to could tell me of experiences where they've had people place their hands on them you know from the opposite section um and they just they just never talk about it like uh it is what it is i'm like oh okay yeah yeah yeah that was a tough one it was a tough one to be like i can't hate this person because they're not evil but that what they do what they're doing is terrible yeah so what i'm i'm hearing is that you know also like it in a sense i i think you can't really blame someone if you never give them feedback and what i'm hearing is that people aren't really getting feedback that yeah it's it's hard though it's hard to give someone feedback who violated your boundaries because then it means that you as a man have to accept the idea that someone did something wrong to you which is not a conversation you want to have like i don't even like to refer to it as abuse even though by definition it would technically be categorized like that's not how i perceived it but you know it is what it is and to have that conversation should mean i have to relive that and then i also have to confront them which is why don't you see it as abuse maybe maybe it's more so because of my response to it isn't like to me just i guess this is how i interpret it but maybe i'm lying to myself i just see it as like blatantly disrespectful that's what i think when i when i think back to that experience i would never do that to you i would never like not care about your boundaries so much that i would just do that i just couldn't imagine but for you to do that like where do you get off feeling that comfortable and i think that's why i don't necessarily categorize abuse because i didn't feel necessarily violated per se so i think that's why i would see them and maybe that's wrong but that's just my perception of it and so where so it sounds like you kind of cooled off on dating you had a couple of relatively you know negative experiences here and there like where are you nowadays oh things are really peaceful you know like i i think one thing i value within my day in life now is just um peacefulness you know not that there's never conflict but that we can like get through this stuff in in a in a peaceful way if you will and um it's good it's good um i i don't feel any compulsive needs like i used to i mean you know sometimes the ego flares up and you want to dabble a little bit but for the most part things are pretty quiet and i'm kind of grateful for that because i get to put my energy towards things that matter a little bit more and then i don't like that um you know about this may sound a little bit weird but you know we're talking about how people don't have guidance and i'm curious is there something that um you want guidance on now like um i think for me in the next chapter of my day in life my relationship i think it's just a matter of going through it i don't think i necessarily need guidance at the moment per se i just i just constantly see people suffering and they're coming to me with their suffering and i'm just like man there's a lot a lot of people are going through what i went through before so i think that's more and what is it what is it that they're going through uh that feeling of inadequacy that feeling of not knowing you know we do these call-in shows and and every day without fail i get i've been surprised by this i get 16 to 21 year olds hitting me up like i don't know what i'm doing and i feel not confident and i feel like i suck and i just want to give up on this all together what do you say to them i tell them to have patience with themselves because this is going to proc is a process and i also remind them like if you don't put yourself out there there's no chance for you to really have any sense of success in this regard you know like you can't shield yourself from from love and also get the benefits of it you have to take some form of a leap so to give up is not in your best interest but also understand you have a lot of time ahead of you even though the world tells you as an 18 year old you're an adult and you need to know what you're doing like most 18 year olds don't know you know and so just to be patient with themselves and to to remind themselves that there's time for them to to grow and and so that's a great response i think it's it's kind of interesting because there's also sort of like uh i don't know if this is maybe this is my own bias where i i'm interpreting what you're saying is having a certain like masculine quality you know of and maybe that's unfair maybe it's it's neither masculine or feminine but just human is really when i stop and think about it but i noticed that i had sort of a masculine response to that which is like that's what men do right like you got to put yourself out there you gotta you gotta brave the danger if you want the reward yeah and and that's something that you know sort of a very like masculine ethos that i think we kind of project but at the end of the day i don't think it's really masculine at all it's really just human um right and but oddly enough i i was just surprised a little bit by my mind's reaction and then seeing how like how right that felt like that's a manly thing to say like when i heard you say like you know you got to put yourself out there like sure you can you can't shield yourself and get the benefit you have to be brave you have to be courageous yeah um and like i said i clearly don't i mean i don't think it applies just to men but it's interesting how that's kind of uh you know that's where we kind of go you got to be manly bro yeah well i mean the idea of putting yourself out there is what men are are repeatedly told all the time whether it be like making the first move whether it's protecting your family and shielding them with your life whether it's being the one to provide financially it's like you're the one who has to put yourself on the limb in an outward perspective i think women do it as well i think it just doesn't manifest as like outwardly as it would with men traditionally i think that's what it is yeah and so i want to go back to this like so someone asked you what you thought about red pill and what was your answer again um i think it is the only source of resources that um that men have and i think it has its imperfections as a community but some of their ideas are very valid and um you know that that was my stance on it it's got its problems but it's only spot fermented to hear some of the stuff they need to hear and what is it that you think they need to hear to take accountability to understand that they have a responsibility towards self-improvement if they want the results that they feel they should get that they that it's not going to be handed to them but they have to work you know i got that from the military and other stuff they most folks don't get at that age you know they don't get at the days they don't get told like if you want to meet somebody or find love you have to put in some work you know some people just feel entitled like i'm supposed to find a partner and i'm supposed to just be it's like no there's things you got to do so i think this idea of accountability and responsibility towards self-improvement is two ideas that men desperately want to hear and want to be told and this community provides that what are some of the things in the community that you think are not as helpful okay this is when it gets to the minute stuff because you know you have so many different voices kind of writing things so it's hard to pinpoint one or two things i often agree with some of the rhetoric that individuals say as creators and i think sometimes i push back on that even the idea of like um necessarily having to embrace uh traditional uh gender roles and the idea that if you don't you're somehow beta or inferior or that if you happen to have a wife who's a little bit more masculine that makes you somehow less of a man it's just all these ideas that seem a little bit too rigid i'm not a big fan of so so what i'm it's interesting because when you when you talk about the positives once again i think it's like stuff that i don't think is really masculine i think it's human that you have to take accountability for your actions and if you want something in life you probably have to work towards it i i agree the issue is they don't get told that there's nobody there to tell them that and if nobody's saying that to them then they'll go where they can find it so i think that's the lament yeah i i i'm not i just i get what you're saying yeah so so so the the the reason i kind of bring that up is because i i'm also hearing that some of the stuff that is maybe a little bit more rigid that you're not on board with seems in a definition standpoint like more masculine like gender roles like it's gendered by nature but that that does that make sense what do you mean what do you mean by itself so so like you were kind of talking about how like you know traditionally like there's an idea of masculinity if you don't meet that ideal your beta so the things that you don't really kind of agree with as much are like the things that are inherently more gendered sure sure yeah i'm just drawing that kind of observation right yeah gender conformative yeah sure yeah right right so it's kind of interesting because i i mean i'm with you in terms of like people need a place where they can be supported um in sort of a compassionate way and still held accountable and this is something that you know it's interesting because in our in our coaching program part of what like our values are a little bit weird because being nice is not one of them being polite is not one of them so one of the things that we actually work really really hard with our coaches to train them in is to be authentic and compassionate so what that means is like being authentic is like if you think someone like if your client is messing up then you hold them accountable like you have to be authentic with them you can't brush it over but that that authenticity should be tempered with compassion so like it's walking the road of like not blaming them but also holding them accountable like be like hey man like you're kind of you know you're kind of screwing up here like let's work on that but like not let it slide yeah you know i think one thing they do well within the red community which works for some people is that they say things authentically in a way that they think you need to hear it and that a lot of people do like so i've heard coaches be like what's your problem young man and the man will be like well you know i'm not getting girls together like well all right what's your what's your physical stature like are you doing well physically and he's like uh you know i could stand the workout he's like are you saying that you're fat and i remember when he said that to the man a lot of people in the chat with crazy like you can't say that but young my mom you know what i feel like that's what i needed to hear because i didn't want to acknowledge it and what i'm saying is i'm not saying it's necessarily the right way what i'm saying is that for some people they feel like eating that directly is what they want and i remember also being an army and like having people talk to you that way sometimes is the thing that you need in some circumstances and so um what you thought about in terms of authenticity and saying things and holding people accountably accountable they definitely have that a lot in the uh in that community yeah so i in my experience you can be you can certainly temper it with compassion and you know you know i i think i think there are a lot of things and maybe i'm wrong here but there are a lot of things that i say to people in interviews that tend to be clipped out of context and sound really mean and you know if you just look at the transcript it certainly does sound mean but they're usually said with compassion which is why people are okay with it yeah right but you gotta kind of you gotta call it what it is you gotta you know if someone's got cancer you gotta diagnose it and like face that that reality before you treat it yeah um and and so hmm yeah i mean i feel like we've i really appreciate kind of everything that you've shared and i sort of understand what you're saying i think i agree with you that you know men for sure and not to say that women that this is an exclusive need of men which i think is another big problem with these kind of gender conversations is that people tend to draw comparisons um okay and and so i i think that it's completely possible for us because i see this you know i see women having gender norms that are challenging in an uphill struggle that cause them a lot of personal suffering and i think that men have gender norms that are challenging and suffer and and cause them a lot of suffering or uphill battle and somewhere along the way i think some people feel like there's like it's a zero-sum game and so the more men struggle you're sort of devaluing women's struggles or vice versa and i just don't really see it that way i just kind of think that you know there are some cases of of male privilege in some cases of female privilege there are some cases of minority privilege and some cases of majority privilege it's kind of interesting being india and i kind of felt this in a bizarre way in like medicine so everyone looks at me and assumes when i'm a medical student that i'm a doctor because i'm indian which is fantastic um but you know from a standardized test perspective like in terms of like the standardized test score that i need to get is like 20 higher than like other ethnicities who are underrepresented in medicine so i have to score above average to be competitive right um and then still on my first day of training at harvard medical school a third of the room was south asian and so you know it's like i don't know whether it's right or wrong i've certainly felt both sides of it and in terms of minority privilege and racism and yeah all that kind of stuff you know it's kind of interesting yeah i i think the issue with this more than i agree that everyone has a struggle i think i think the problem is i just remember never having many resources to look towards whereas when i think when i when i spoke to women on you i think they saw themselves in a lot of like talk shows for example or resources that they could look towards for information and i think you know it's just the idea of me having to go on youtube to learn about this stuff in 2012 which is so weird to me um you know because you can't really think of like tv talk shows for men or stuff like that and and more than just you know you know what i mean yeah i was just thinking like what's the male equivalent of the view that there is none that's my and i made the comparison i said joe rogan which is funny because it just used to be like a shitty podcast in some dude's basement and now it's like this worldwide thing but it's inception it really wasn't um and and and more than that i think oftentimes um it's like the little that we do have almost feels like it's constantly being threatened to be cancelled and so it's just like you get a little bit defensive you know uh and so i understand that uh i mean yeah in terms of like the red pill community sometimes diversif deservedly so people just are gone in terms of like their presence online um take the rogan podcast another great example which is like you know it's been in the news a few times for you know people trying to have it removed from online platforms and so there's just this perception even if it's not reality i'll grandchild could be wrong and this is anecdotal but there's a perception that male spaces are not safe that's how a lot of folks feel and what's your understanding of of like joe rogan and like like why it why it's been in the news for being cancelled because it's a male space i'm gonna i'm gonna draw a parallel and um there's another individual creates content online and sometimes people feel like he when he's coaching people or when he's talking to people right um that he has a strong dislike for for women and so i went to go watch his content and i went to go watch his like coaching with with men and a lot of the verbiage was the same i think sometimes in male space we have a way of talking and we have a way with engaging with each other that's often seen as unacceptable or wrong when it's just for some people it's like it's a perfectly fine temperament and i think men feel like they're being policed in a sense like does that make sense what i'm saying sure yeah so but give me an example of of what you think is like you know just is the language of men that other people take offense to or that other people are trying to police i couldn't give you an example of like words we use i could just give you in terms of like a like a bluntness so i had the same thing in the army the way we talk among soldiers perfectly acceptable if it ever made it online there was no way we would keep our jobs but it is how we speak on a regular basis it is how we talk to each other you know behind closed doors or whatever and so there's this need to hide some of that constantly um and to temper our way of being online uh which would most like that's toxic and i'm like is it though or are we just fine with how we talk to each other so uh and i've just seen it so much over the years like shows that i used to love that i think geared towards men's experience i remember this one on on on bet the man show like gone you know and and and people were like this kind of talking isn't except i'm like is it though so i think that's the perception even if not accurate that is the perception that a lot of men have yeah so i think that's that's uh i i'd really love to hear some examples abba because i think it's like if you're making the argument that some people behind closed doors say certain things which they're okay with with which other people aren't okay with i think that there's like something to really be explored there right so even if we look at the incel community um or like the red pill community so there's this sense of so this is part of like what we've kind of uncovered in our research is that you know there's a sense of online drift so what tends to happen is that you know we start out like i'll look at let's say like a jordan peterson video on youtube and then what'll happen is like my youtube will start recommending other things to me and depending on what i i click on like i'm going to go like down this rabbit hole right i don't know you just kind of you almost described jordan peterson as a gateway it was kind of funny to hear that but you know i i i'm not i that wasn't it was i used him as a good example because like here's a good example yeah right so so like what i'm not i'm not making a judgment or anything i'm saying like literally from a youtube algorithm standpoint this is literally what we're researching is how online drift occurs so this is what content creation platforms do so they curate content and they say like oh for people who watch jordan peterson videos like half of them also like something else and then half of them like something else and you also see this in in political drift right so if i watch like fox news like a fox news clip that is making fox news look good on youtube then like youtube will populate with something else and then so over time what happens is like we get and you kind of mention this echo chamber over time it's kind of weird i don't think people realize this is happening but because of the nature of content curation and platforms are trying to you know do this on purpose we start to be surrounded by voices that are similar to our own sure i agree with that oh notion and over time as that radicalization happens i think that like you'll see in some of these like you know so then you'll get like the in-cell subreddit gets banned and things like that um and and so what ends up happening is over time people will like go to esoteric like further and further like remove from the front page of the internet and then sometimes in those spaces you know you'll talk about people routinely discussing things like violence towards women and stuff like that and i i imagine that those people feel very comfortable with their language behind closed doors sure um and that people from out you know on the other side of the door would find it unacceptable but you know how do they get from that point part of it is also your drift but a part of it is even the more modest examples sometimes of like masculine discussions sometimes get removed from platforms jordan peterson's example you used as a starting point but i remember a time when he would get you know boot out of universities and colleges for for rhetoric which i didn't think was crazy extreme but that's what i'm talking about when i say it almost feels like our language is being policed is that even the modest example that you started with was often being removed from campuses i remember seeing one guy who went in for a discussion and they just barred the doors and so um you know when i see this stuff it it it changes my perception of how i think masculinity is viewed whether accurate or not it is how i see it yeah sure so so how do you think masculinity is viewed toxic i think it's very and and here's what i'll say i think you know when you look at the uh my mom are you dabbling in your world but i think this is the five big big personality traits oh yeah yeah i just want to make sure you know because that's what you studied so i just want to make sure i do it right it's just as much as your world um i think if you see an over-representation on any of those axes i think you're going to see negative um behavior and i think um you know one example i gave is like when you i take mothers for example i think their need to protect and to nurture sometimes if taken to an extreme can turn into a turning to a concept i think it's called maternal gatekeeping i think about a helicopter parent okay so a maternal cancer was an idea but but yeah like the idea like you it's like the idea that you insulate your your child from society's problems so much you protect them that you stunt their growth as a kid and i actually grew up with a friend who went through that uh and had to be diagnosed then i was like whoa and it just taught me the idea that yes of course if you take traditionally masculine traits and you push them to an extreme i could definitely see how they're negative for society um but i think even the more modest forms are sometimes seen as bad and like competitive sports is another interesting example where like they they don't like the idea of things being too competitive for young boys and i'm like i feel like sometimes you rob them something that they desperately need you know whether it's video games i'm not going to say women or anything like that it just you know i remember when when these ideas were removed you know like oh we're no longer giving out trophies or things like that everyone gets a little participate i was like ew like i loved it at school when i even if i didn't come in first just the idea of like trying to go for it meant something to me and i think ideas that like men traditionally value so much uh i think men feel like are being attacked that's what i think i'm not saying theaters and like i can point to a group of people or say it's this gender or anything like that this is just the perception i have of that yeah so so what i'm because i i was kind of thinking about the sabbath like we're trying to figure out to like how to support people right at healthy gamer it's what we do we try to offer people guidance i've been toying around with like making a guide to dating relationships which is you know because i think there's a lot of basics that i'll teach because we're not taught these things yeah so i don't do couples counseling which i explain to all the couples who wind up in my office because i don't do that but i definitely teach people how to work on themselves to be like better partners in relationships and there are a lot of like you know quips that i've come up with one is that you know everyone's looking for the right partner but in my experience the right partner is not something you find it's something that you become and and so i think that there's a lot of like anyway so there's kind of a random aside but what i'm kind of hearing from you is that so it is part of the struggle of trying to figure out how to support people in our community men women transgender folks kind of everyone um part of what we're what i've been trying to understand is like what is toxic masculinity and what is masculinity and and because there's this sort of idea that there's what's your cringe um i'm i'm i'm such a stickler for words and and so i understand it conceptually but every time i hear it i cringe but i understand what it is no no no no i think we should explore the cringe that's where the money is i think i think people don't understand i think people have this idea conceptually what the word means but they don't understand how it's internalized by our brains inherently meaning you know i remember taking a marketing class and how important it was for a company to get the right slogan and the right words at the same spot and no matter what a company may mean by their slogan they understand that people interpret words and it just goes right to their core irrespective of what spin or what idea you want to put with it and i think whether it's you know toxic masculinity or men are trash i think the ideas behind the sentiment i can understand i just think people don't understand the implications it has subconsciously and how it makes us feel viscerally when we hear these ideas how do you feel viscerally when you hear the phrase toxic masculinity i'm going to use men or trash because i think that's like a much more poignant one and i think a more extreme one but um i think when i hear that for example i immediately think we're not redeemable i think of the word trash and i think of throwing it out you know i think it's like it's over for that and i and it's just such a tough thing to to hear especially when you're young in development you see it online men are trash men are trash and masculinity's toxic or toxic masculinity you're just like woof it's very it's very polarizing language that's why so so you you you equate toxic masculinity like in when you hear the phrase toxic masculinity your mind goes to men or trash okay men are trash is a separate phrase but they're often coupled with each other online and platforms so for me yeah for me it's like part of that whole ensemble kind of of of polarizing terms that people use um that i think uh has a more of a negative effect than anything else yeah because it reinforces it reinforces an idea that i think a lot of people already hold in their heads and what is that idea uh you know it's like it goes back to that idea of like policing and and and and men have these that men are the problem you know and it's just like i said i understand it conceptually as like as a macro scale but as a micro skill someone with dealing with struggles it just constantly feels like i'm hearing like your men's problems don't matter that's what i hear when i hear that stuff even i know it's not what they're saying i get it that's what it feels like just considering the other societal stuff that i deal with have you felt like people have treated you like your problems don't matter oh yeah oh yeah every all the time all the time still i mean sometimes i get sick of talking about men's issues or men's problems like i don't even want to discuss them at times because it's just like you're always going to have a role people like oh man are complaining again i'm like men are committing suicide too you know like it's crazy to me that there's all these things and you could verifiably like quantify them in some ways and people are still like you guys don't really have problems and i'm just like what or or the worst one i don't think it's worse but it's it's somewhat but the the thing i hate them even more sometimes is it's like we get that you suffer but because women suffer more like let's put that on the back burner i'm just like bruh um so so yeah it's just it's just things that peeved me but i i don't want to get about it how does it how does it feel when people invalidate your struggles i think i'm fortunate that i'm at the age that i am now and that i've dealt with so much because i'm able to handle it up better but sometimes it takes me back to how i was when i was much younger and i was dealing with stuff and i had nothing and it's just be like man 20 world me would have never survived a lot of this like this would have really wrecked me um and it makes me it makes me sad it makes me sad because i think i recognize a lot of people are young and in a vulnerable state and the language we use doesn't help to make them feel accepted or to feel okay you know i think these conversations are important they're absolutely necessary to have but i think we don't it's like what you said there's a way to do things with compassion that's what's lacking with the discourse and also understanding that the person that you're talking to yes you know they exist within a larger group whether it be gender or sex or whatever but they're also individuals who are dealing with their own problems that you don't know about and uh i just think the way we have these conversations uh just makes me sad more than anything are there particular things kind of that happened to you when you were like 20 or maybe even younger where you felt like you had a particular struggle that was very important to you that people didn't seem to you know i can't i can't pinpoint a moment i just know what it's like to go through life without a mentor and to go through life having to figure it out as a young adult and to have no resources to help you like i know how lonely that is and how frightening that is and how inadequate and like shitty you feel it's not a one-time thing it's like an everyday thing for a lot of young folks and it just seems like um when you're in that little what do they live with every day just tremendous anxiety about like not knowing where the future is going and and and feeling like they're supposed to have their [ __ ] together but they don't and feeling like feeling like they're not good enough while everyone else is like because you just you know you go to instagram and you just like damn everyone's popping they live in their best life right and it's just like that's not what's happening behind closed doors that's the perception you have you feel alone and struggling that's what it is you just feel inadequate talk to any like 18 to 21 year old and they'll say they'll be like i don't know what the [ __ ] i'm doing i'm in school and i don't like my major i'm in debt i don't know what i want to do with my future women don't like me it's like god damn it's a lot of struggles you know i understand that women go through on the same side i'm not discounting that for me it's just as a man i understand that experience a little bit better so that's just why i speak to well so i think there's there is a big difference and you know here i may say something that will get me canceled but what i'm hearing from you is that the response so like i think i agree with you that men and women all share that i've had you know my lion's share of men and women who each struggle with 18 years old and being directionless and being in debt and whatnot yeah but what i am hearing is that i i do think there's a certain amount of acceptableness to invalidate men's struggles so what i'm hearing from you is that you know if you complain there are going to be people out there who will say men are trash what are you complaining about and and and i think that we all struggle and we all suffer this is what buddha said he said that you know there are two guaranteed things in life and he didn't really break things down by race or class or ethnicity or gender and the two things that all human beings are entitled to in life are suffering and death and and i think that you know i tend to agree with him that suffering is sort of a universal human condition but what i'm kind of hearing from you is that because what seems like what really grates you is the invalidation of your struggle like the struggle is shared but the way that people listen to your struggle and that's sort of what i'm hearing is that you know even if we think about these like sexual assault victims who are who are men and who kind of are like you know you should be happy that your teacher is sleeping with you that's your teacher 15. sure you know you know even i hold some of these bad ideas what do you mean i hold some of these bad like like conceptually i agree with you that it's terrible that a teacher would sleep with a fifth year old in my mind for whatever conditioning i'm just like hey man good job and it's a terrible sentiment terrible and i can acknowledge it's not based on anything but it's just i've been programmed i had a teacher i liked i wish she would it's not it's not a good thing to think but i also participate that at times so i have to check myself um yeah but what you said about the suffering is something i agree i agree that it's it's part of our experience i just think i wish we wouldn't go to such lengths create more suffering for others or if people are suffering to make them feel like they're suffering doesn't matter you know like i think my goal in life is to try to alleviate people suffering as much as i can even though people need to have a certain level of it and to not to not try and create more for others i think that's my goal so yeah i just have a hard time when people actively don't realize in which ways they may be creating some and uh don't seem to care at all that's like the struggle i have sure so just something for you to think about abba you know i don't think we need to get into this but i i would really uh invite you to explore kind of on your own if there have been so the emotional energy when we talked about the invalidation of people's struggles and when i mentioned toxic masculinity when i see that emotional energy in people oftentimes it stems from like actually like a bizarrely unrelated personal experience and i think we're hearing the themes of you kind of being alone and and maybe they're because i i i think you know oddly enough we didn't really get into this but you kind of said that you felt ashamed of reaching out to other people for help and the interesting thing is that shame is learned right so like like like we human beings aren't born with that in fact babies reach out for help all the time so that shame of being inadequate and needing help from someone else is something that we're taught and conditioned to do and so oddly enough you know if we think about why did you feel ashamed asking for help it's probably because if we kind of track that back it's probably because there were times in your life where you did reach out for help and then your struggle was essentially invalidated and someone made you feel like right like that's that's how you're going to develop that shameful condition okay can i ask you something in your practice when you're speaking to men do you not feel like they have that same experience of reaching out for help because okay so that's why i'm telling you okay okay all right all right that's why i'm telling you that i've walked this journey with many men and the fact that you respond very emotionally to like when i mention toxic masculinity you just get pissed right like it's like some slumbering giant wakes up within you and like you equate that to men and trash that goes to an invalidation of the struggle and pain that you feel which in turn probably relates i'm i'm making a real stretch here okay so each step at these is like 10 chance of being right but because it is a shared experience which is why i can lay this out for you or other people that are watching right so like if that pisses you off then chances are like you're you have personally felt like that's personal emotional energy about you've been on the receiving end of that stick which is why it hurts so much when you see other people doing it you know like like victimizing like 20 year olds you imagine 20 year old you who's seeing on twitter that men are trash and like he doesn't have the fortitude that you have to like not internalize that yeah yeah and oddly enough that's something that you understand because at one point you didn't have the internal fortitude to internalize it which is exactly what you did and and that's sort of why we get to 18 year olds because it's interesting because it's not like a catastrophic emotional moment that we're gonna have an emotional catharsis about it's gonna be like these little bits of like conditioning that happen about you know when you were seven years old there was one day that you like didn't know how to do your math homework and then like you know you tried to talk to someone about it and they were like shouldn't you know how to do this okay i actually got something for you okay this is the one that stuck it's one of the few childhood numbers so i remember oh man this is taking me so far back this is the first time i was 12. i was 12 i think could be wrong about the age it doesn't matter uh we would do this thing at school where once it would snow real bad we would make these snow forts and everyone would make their own and then obviously a little bit of like water would fall and it would get iced up and um there was this girl who lived across the street from me and my neighborhood we take the bus the whole group of us take a bus but she'd be part of that group and uh man i remember having a crush on this girl i'll never forget i used to have a big question on this girl but i never talked about it and um you know when you're a kid and you have a crush on somebody sometimes you might be like a little bit mean to them and so i had a little habit of like going back and forth with her like that as a kid i remember this and one morning we came to school and her fort had been destroyed as well as like two other three-fourths she went to the principal and she said abba did it abba destroyed my fort and so i got called into the principal's office and i'm just standing here she's there so i was like oh what's she doing here and the prisoner asked me why i destroyed the forts and i was like what are you talking about and and he's like he's like well people want to know i was like i didn't do anything do you think i came to school early to destroy things you think i walked here and they're like well everyone's saying it's you and i was like i didn't do it okay i don't know what to tell you i didn't do it and um i remember they called my parents and it turned into something and i'll never forget this i think it was like two days later i got called back into the office and the girl was there she was crying the principal's standing there and her dad's there and i'm just like what'd i do this time and uh he says she has something she would like to say and she said uh i'm sorry and i'll say what happened and it's like turns out the janitor was getting tired of these snow forts when he was cleaning the yard so he just ran over them just to flatten them out and clear them out of the way and i remember being so mad i just remember being so angry because i'm like everybody looked at me like i was garbage for a couple days just like she's that being accused and like how her word was inherently taken as true and i just remember being so mad that day and uh i accepted her apology and went back but i don't know why that memory always stuck with me as the first time i was accused of something i didn't do and i just i remember being so mad about that now that's probably the experience yeah so that's it yeah that's a good one i have never brought that up before yeah so it's interesting right like how the mind works how like your mind just like jumps to that experience because what i'm hearing so so i'm gonna try to interpret this a little bit for you okay because like it feels a little bit off to me but i think it's actually it it's that emotional energy like now i'll ask you abby you know just something for you to think about when you hear the word toxic masculinity does the quality color and flavor of the emotion you feel feel similar to what you felt in that second principal's office oh yeah for sure you know because the idea is the idea that like you're wrong without any concept of who i am like you're wrong it's that similar idea i would be inclined to agree with you right so which is why your mind jumped there because it's it's but like there's there's a lot of subtlety there right because like what i'm hearing is that like when she had a grievance what happened when she was hurt and then what happened she was she was hurt she was hurt right you were called in there was a trial people were called in everyone said you do it there was an investigation and when you were hurt what happened people thought you were trash for days what happened when you were hurt yeah i think i was just i was given a small apology and then i shut out the door absolutely yeah right yeah no no and let me ask you another question were you pressured or forced into accepting her apology i think yeah i think i was just expected to accept it right so like when you're a 12 year old boy and there's a girl crying and she apologizes you don't get to say [ __ ] you no right even though that's how you feel so in that moment it's sort of like it's it's incredibly invalidating right and and it's it's like it's just it's like night and day yeah and and i think it it speaks to a lot of like resentment that you carry with you which is justified but i think still is going to color the way that you look at things for sure undoubtedly undoubtedly i mean you know and and similar experience like that i've played out throughout my life where culpability is just automatically assumed for reasons i can't explain so i attribute to gender but it's just like um it's a tough thing to accept when you think of yourself as like somebody who has some measure of integrity and that's immediately thrown out the window because for whatever reason it's a hard thing to stomach it's like i didn't do anything wrong this moment but i'm immediately seen as evil it's a hard thing to accept and to yeah this is hard it's a very difficult thing for me to accept yeah i mean what i'm hearing is that you're being blamed for men being trash yeah yeah definitely definitely and it's compounded by the idea that sometimes it's like you know because i don't i don't necessarily experience it when men are trash i'm not there in those intimate moments with women where they're being violent so i don't i don't know what that feels like i can hear about it and i can sympathize but i do know what it feels like to to be falsely accused by somebody who did something terrible to you and and because they're a woman they're like inherently seen as like they couldn't have done it and it's a tough thing to stomach so i think that's why i probably feel more strongly about that because that's what i have visceral experiences with absolutely you know like my my negative experiences with men could have probably been ranging from when i was like 14 to 17. and there was always a catharsis we got into a fight we exhausted all our energy one person one one person lost and i move away but there was never this idea that you're evil because you did this it was like we're gonna just duke it out as equals and then that's it you know and i could live with that what i couldn't understand was like no this person was wrong but i'm seen as a guilty party that's a hard thing to stomach and not only talking about like when i was like 17 i'm like talking about even later on in life so um that's a tough part i think for me has there been another time where you know you've been right yeah yeah yeah yeah it was crazy it was crazy this girl tried to pressure me to kiss her i'm like i don't want to like i told her multiple times i'm not interested and you know because i felt like it was too soon for me that i just didn't want to in that moment and but i was interested in this person but i just felt like the way she was going about it i wasn't feeling and i remember a week later right we were having this conversation and she was like this is like a 2018 so prime time you know harvey weinstein's out there and she was having this conversation about like men have to be more conscious about the fact that they're pressuring women and i was like you did that to me like a week ago you know i couldn't believe it in that moment you know and it was just such a weird thing to me it was like it it that even to this day triggers me yeah i see that the audacity for you to have this speech for me right now when you're not even taking culpability for the things that you've done and it's just that's the frustrating part but like i said i feel this viscerally because of the fact that there are my experiences with women right and i feel this viscerally because i only date women so the things that men are doing that maybe merit the whole amount of trash i don't see them because a lot of this stuff happened happens behind closed doors or things like that and you know there are too many parties present so i'm not discounting the idea that these things happen or that women are suffering i would never do that but i'm like i can only speak to what i see and that's what's going to cover my perspective so yeah so i just want to share you know a couple of like maybe academic thoughts sure for sure go for it um so you know the first is that that i want to just invite you to question your earlier assertion like the assertion you just made that i don't see that so i think this is something where you know a lot of men i know certainly since i've started looking for it that like if you actually look at it objectively there may be more of it than you realize um and i think it's true of of women too where where you know like sometimes it's kind of interesting because when i work with my female clients sometimes i'll ask a question like we'll be talking about something in therapy and i'll ask them like what would your girlfriend say about this and like you know their response is always like their girlfriends are overwhelmingly supportive irrespective of like how this person may have screwed up and you know in some cases you'll have like married women that have affairs and stuff and their girlfriends are like 100 supporting them right and and so you know i'm i'm a big fan of being authentic and then i'm you know so i'll ask for permission to be like a little bit more judgmental i don't even ask them like can i be judgmental in this moment and so if you really so i think like we have a tendency when we're with our group to you know gloss over a lot of things and say we haven't seen them because you haven't been on the receiving end but behind some of these closed-door conversations that may get people canceled there may be more evidence of toxicity you know directed from men towards women that we sort of like pass off based on our language so i'd encourage you to just really be a little bit like careful and objective about that i'm not saying that you know you're sometimes there's more toxicity that we take for granted because it's so normative right and like certainly we've been talking about the normative toxicity that men put on themselves and there may be other kinds of toxicities there's just something to think about no no no you're right and and biases like that probably have clouded my conversations with people in my uh my time on earth and i would be inclined to agree i think it's just hard to recognize where those blinders are because a lot of this happens in gray areas you know even when i recount the story of the girl to other people sometimes they don't even see it even after explaining them to so it can be difficult to see that and and i would i would be inclined to agree with you that i could do a better job in that regards yeah so but that's the nature of blinders right like we don't blame you for having blinders because that's just what the mind does it has all these kinds of blinders and that's the nature of bias and and so that's number one so the second thing that i just want to touch on which is you know i'd love to get your thoughts so you know i tossed out this term toxic masculinity we went on a beautiful tangent my favorite of the day uh it was it really abbott's lovely to see how like animated and passionate and like when you get that plus the thoughtfulness like i i don't know why i mean the stories really weren't positive in any way shape or form but just hearing the way is something about your storytelling capability or something i just really enjoyed hearing that and i i felt like i felt oddly enough happy that you were able to sort of share that even though it's kind of an ugly story if you really think about it yeah yeah you know but you know it's interesting even even your response to the story indicates the different perception of it because i i feel like again this is probably my biases again but it's one of those things where it's like we can have this conversation and it not be too much of an issue i think precise maybe i'm wrong precisely because of the different genders do you know what i mean wha what do you mean meaning like i'm talking about as i'm talking about this right and we're having this conversation about being pressured like even though intellectually we might look at it and be like yeah that was terrible and toxic i think subconsciously we don't we don't infer that same implication we don't actually see it as necessarily being as terrible as the action itself would normally dictate does that make sense i i say it's terrible right i think i think you see it as terrible too i don't even think i do that's that's the [ __ ] up part yeah that's the part about that so so so here's here's the reason i think you think it is terrible on a subconscious or unconscious level there are parts of you that don't but like the fact that i mentioned to you that there's going to be you know maybe you can look for a time in your life where your struggles were horribly invalidated right and and your mind goes there that tells us that like you do feel on some level like your mind can like i'm talking about a position where your struggles are invalidated and you're unfairly judged and your mind is like here we've got it we found the file right yeah it jumps right there so that that i think even though i don't doubt that society has taught you because that's what happened right in that moment is society taught you that like she's been this entire school has thought you're an [ __ ] for two days and it's not like the apology should be public in front of the school assembly because they've been you know and like did anyone know that she apologized did anyone know that you were falsely accused no so the shaming was public but the apology was private and then you were expected to move on that is society's response to you being wronged right and so no no surprise that you were taught or conditioned to feel like you don't get to complain like who are you to complain does that make sense so i get that your condition but i i also think that your mind's ability to connect those two dots means that there's also some amount of like authentic like you recognize that that really was not fair and was uh i i agree i think my question lies more in the fact do other people have that connection and if they don't how do they perceive it because i think it's fine for you to feel like something unjustly happened to you but if other people around you don't acknowledge it it can feel very you start to question it i start to guess like myself to be like did anything really happen uh and so i think that's more so my issue uh more than anything sure sure so so i think that too i'm guessing that there's going to be other stories about that yeah right there are going to be stories where as you grow older and you become more like assured of yourself yeah i bet you if we dug around we would find stories where like you felt a particular way i mean we've even heard a couple right we're like they're these people publicly talking about bound setting and respecting you know people and then like here they are like groping you and you know trying to get a piece of abba yeah because that's that's a fine piece of meat and and then they're like you know they're they're talking one way and you know what i question i question whether or not that kind of stuff has any kind of subconscious negative um consequences in the sense that like it's one thing to say things but i think people really resonate with how you act and in terms of the messaging i wonder if that's not backwards it's like we can say things intrinsically like oh we can say like oh you know we shouldn't do this to each other or like oh you know i know plenty of people like gender roles are terrible and then like you see their dating life and they subscribe to them 150 all their choices and how they want to live and i'm like are we doing something that's super confusing in the sense that you know we can say whatever we want but the way that we act really encourages people to not act in line with what we aspire to be but more so how we're being does that make sense yeah i didn't quite follow you but i think i know what you're saying so here's what i would say to that it is very common for someone to publicly support a righteous cause and their ego to excuse them being an [ __ ] in their personal life because they support a good cause i don't know if that's speaking to what you're saying but i think that we see this i see this like a seeming contradiction very often and there's even a term for it in psychology which is reaction formation so it's a defense mechanism okay um where like the the classic example of of reaction formation is the person who's actually gay who becomes a homophobe no okay yes right so like they feel so ashamed of like what they are on the inside that they like they're taught to hate it and then they like resent themselves they're very kind of like ugly on the inside they have a lot of resentment a lot of pain a lot of suffering and then they channel that towards the outside world and like hate gay people right and and so yeah i i think it's not necessarily what i'm going i think where i'm trying to go is like you can have a parent that tells you to not be physically violent with others but if they beat you do you go on to say that's an acceptable response or do you like do you base your reality off of what they did rather than what they said does that make sense absolutely no yeah you base your reality off of the [ __ ] confusion of being in that situation okay okay cool right and and so i i'll give you just another example most of the advice that we give to other human beings is based on the resentment for what we of the mistake mistakes that we've made in the past sure i would agree with that right so like there's there's definitely like some kind of connection and tension between what you say and what you do and there's a reason why human beings are like hypocritical like there's all kinds of psychological reasons why we're hypocritical reaction formation is one one is like it har you know it comes from our own resentment even the political not political but like the views that we're talking about today i think if we really look at the map are deeply rooted in your personal experiences which is reasonable right that's just how we learn to care about particular things that's right that's true um kind of the last sort of academic point that i wanted to mention was kind of back to toxic masculinity and it was sort of like we're trying to figure out what to do about this because the term means so many different things to so many different people right so some people equate toxic masculinity as masculinity is toxic sure right so that's sort of the men is trash masculinity is inherently evil patriarchal whatever you know paternal whatever then there's kind of another perspective on it which is that there's like healthy masculinity and there's toxic masculinity that there are some gender roles which are actually like okay to have and and can even be healthy like competitiveness taking accountability which don't necessarily have to be gendered but sort of are gendered and that somewhere along the way like you know learning to be self-sufficient crosses a certain like gray area into the bridge of like self-isolation you know and and sort of like being in control of your emotions starts to mean like i think a good example is sort of this apology that you were kind of forced into because you can't really like you can't really say no i don't accept your apology right you're not allowed to do that yeah and and so there are certain aspects of masculinity which can become toxic but that masculinity in and of itself is not inherently bad which isn't a separate argument but and so i'm not quite sure because i i do think there's a lot of confusion around these terms and like what it means um you know you're smiling again so penny for your thoughts uh no no i'm actually just listening intently uh while i'm okay yeah so so i think this is something that we're kind of working through um it's something that we do research on and i'm just kind of curious so i i you know i understood your reaction but i just wanted to share sort of how we're thinking about it which is like trying to figure out you know is certain amount okay and then like what is the difference between healthy masculinity and toxic masculinity yeah yeah i think i think even getting to that point having that discussion is difficult for people because the terms are so loaded and because like again you know so many varying definitions and oftentimes we're having these discussions on public platforms and 140 characters it's tough to get a good perception of the term and i think branding wise because i i think people hate marketing terms in terms of civil discourse but i think it matters i think how things are branded inherently creates biases and and natural reactions to things that cloud the possibility of like good discourse um and i think most men's reaction when they hear that term is viscerally negative and so you can't even get past the layer of like explaining what's going on behind it because they're so reactionary to the term you've just used you know um so i think i think that's one hurdle that's like very difficult to cross for most people i think i can intellectually do it and and be able to hear that i get what you're saying you know what i agree with you but i also know for most folks that they're not going to get to that point and that's a tough thing to to hear yeah that's my thoughts on on that that first hurdle seems to be the one that most people have difficult with difficulty with and there's also a question to be asked like are we using the right words and some people like what does it matter there's a problem i'm like it does matter though every the the words you use have visceral reactions for everyone you know whether you use words like moist and people are just instantly grossed out even though you're talking about a countertop that is moist just say i did that people like they hear the word our words matter what words we use matter and i think that's such a seems like such a minor detail but i think it's like one of the largest impediments to a real discussion on what i think i agree with you which is the idea is like sometimes you know masculine traditionally masculine traits can be taken too far they do become bad aggression is a perfect example i think men you might correct me if i'm wrong men are overrepresented on one end of the scale in terms of aggression correct i i don't know what you mean by that question when we talk about um the big five right uh i'm pretty sure when it comes to like aggressive type behaviors are men not overrepresented what do you mean by over-represented do you mean greater than 50 percent of aggressive figures are done by men yeah i actually don't know that statistic off the top of my head okay i could be wrong i think i know with like conscientiousness or like you know ideas like compassion i think women might be more represented in some regards like men when it comes to violence like they're much more represented on the extremes if i remember correctly that's what i remember so at times like violent crime traditions why so why men are present there whatever um where was i going with this okay yes i could agree that if you if you over represent men in certain areas uh certain personality traits that yes i could definitely understand that the okay toxic masculine i can see how that's represented um and i think the discussion is valid again i i just think it really comes down to the the the um the branding more than anything that'd be my yeah so i think when it gets to statistics we get into a really tricky situation so like just to give you an example there was a paper that showed that being on antidepressants during pregnancy doubled your risk of having an autistic child so people like when this paper came out people freaked out because like doubling your risk and the other thing that you have to remember is that like media organizations are not about accurate representation of knowledge they're about clicks right so like they're gonna make things as inflammatory as possible certainly one interpretation of the paper the thing that people don't really get though is that if you look at statistically doubling the risk sounds really really bad right but i still think like 98 of autistic children are born to women without antidepressants and 98 to 99 of women on antidepressants do not have an autistic child so it's kind of interesting because depending on how you look at the numbers like the vast majority of autistic children are still born to people it doubles your risk but the risk is very very small and so just from an epidemiological perspective it's still like you know 99 out of 100 autistic kids are born to mothers without antidepressants and if you have a 99 if you have it if you're taking antidepressants during pregnancy you have like a less than one percent risk of having an autistic child and so i think when when people ask these questions about you know males are over represented on on the aggression scale i don't know the data but i know that you have to be really careful about interpreting that kind of data because my general perception about men in aggressiveness is that people overestimate the percentage of men who are aggressive yes yes that's been my anecdotal experience is that like yeah i i i want to understand i think that's why i was more so talking about the extremes where it's like a very small minute population size but i get what you're saying yes yeah so you just have to be i just don't know what that means and so i'm hesitant to say yes to that because like i think you know the vast vast majority of men are not violent in any way yeah what i meant to say and maybe i'll just try to clear it up is that idea like when you see extremely high levels of aggressive or violent behavior um traditionally men are overrepresented in that very small population that that i could would completely believe so that's what i was trying to say i just didn't use my words well so what you're saying is that that if you take the most the one percent of the most violent human beings on the planet most of them or more than 50 percent will be men yeah yeah which i i i would completely believe that statistic yeah it's just and i think yeah i think we both agree on that and then you know one thing that was really interesting for me to read up on is the idea that like we're more alike than we are different in terms of like how um those personality traits are represented the idea like uh yes sir go ahead yeah so i mean i was gonna say just as a clinician like that's been my experience is that i certainly think that there are unique gender issues but at the end of the day i'm sort of in buddhist camp which is that if you're born you're sol yeah yeah and you know i'm not mad at that i'm not mad at that and so it's kind of like you know everyone sort of deserves support and help um yeah yep yeah so how are you feeling about today's conversation i mean did we cover most of what you were kind of looking for or yeah no i think it was a great discussion and uh when depth on certain things that i haven't had an opportunity to discuss before so that was great yeah yeah i i mean i i sort of feel like we're at a natural stopping point or pausing point maybe is a better way to to talk about it makes me think back to you know these emails that i wrote to my friends and a couple years ago and i remember i i showed them to one of my uh one of my colleagues and i was like you know i was thinking about talking about some of this stuff publicly and and i was like you know but i i'm not ready to yet because i'm pretty sure i'm going to lose my job you know at harvard and academic position and he was like oh no no if you talk about this you're not going to just lose your academic position you're going to lose all of your positions and so i was like oh okay interesting so yeah gotta make strategic moves um i know i know we're probably nearing the end so i don't want to keep you too long but there's one last thing i want to touch on i think yeah please and this is not related to this topic um but i wanted to know i think oftentimes we talk about depression and uh issues like that affecting us in the first person but i wanted to know what you think about having people around you that are depressed like i have a someone who is almost like a little brother uh going through i don't know i say it's depression but clearly he according to him huge bounce of anxiety he has a hard time functioning in i as his friend um as somebody who loves him i have a hard time knowing how to help him in those situations or what i can't do beyond listening because he feels i feel like he's so deep in it you know and just to give you an idea like i'm convinced i i i believe it's wholeheartedly like i'll get a call any day and just hear that he's gone you know and as a friend it's kind of hard to deal with that kind of powerlessness because i see him suffering and i just don't know how to manage that is that too much to ask at the end no i mean in a sense yes but it needs to be asked and it sounds certainly important so ask it um can i just think for a second by all means what's it what's it like being in the position you're in what's it like sort of trying to support him and him being kind of in a dark place to tile futile because i know he has to take those steps but as someone who's watching the suffering happening in front of them it's like uh difficult what are the stuff he has to take i i'm not sure i know i know how i function so i know how i can move forward i can't i don't want to impose my experience or my way of viewing things on him considering he might have a different experience or might have different needs you know so just so so i don't know what those steps are but i know that there may be things that he has to accept or do things that i don't know you feel powerless yeah i mean i think as a friend you always want to be able to lend a helping hand and and so you want to lend a helping hand what are you doing aside from listening and checking in i don't know what else to do you know i say hey man if you need to talk what's your what's the value of listening and checking it checking in i think there's huge value in it i think it definitely helps people feel like they matter in some sense i hope i think i think i'm worried it'll feel futile or not enough if that person is gone do you do what i'm saying yep i yeah so here's here's here's what i'm hearing that you're doing okay you're helping him understand that he matters your words right what do you think about that it it feels like the most i can do because i i've pondered it and i don't feel i don't think i can do anything else yeah so i i think that um i'm going to give you just a little bit of maybe additional stuff you can do but i think the first thing to understand for people in your situation is that you are doing more way more than you realize like way way more and and the reason is because like so we tend to view our value like you know what you're doing it just doesn't appear to be helping right because it seems like he's not getting better so the first thing to understand is that sometimes like if you look at psychiatric treatment like people will be in psychiatric treatment for a year or two and they're not getting better and so one way to interpret that is that you know we're not helping him because treatment doesn't seem to be working but the other thing that sometimes you discover is that your treatment is the only thing that's keeping them afloat right so they're taking on a bunch of water and you're baling it with a bucket on a daily like weekly basis with treatment so this is something that i see very very commonly when friends ask me what more can i do the first thing is that they almost universally grossly underestimate the impact that they're having so you're saying i can't i feel like i'm not doing anything whereas my estimation is you're doing actually like eighty percent of it because i want you to imagine what it's like to be in that person's shoes and be in such a dark spot and to have one beacon of pers someone who no matter what their mind tells them there's one person in their life that is listening to them and is is signaling to them you matter like that's all a human being needs and when when people really like kill themselves and stuff like that what they lose is they lose that last beacon it becomes completely dark right so so i i want to really emphasize that like one beacon and i i've been you know once again anecdotal experience but i've you know i've heard from people who because you know i talk to people who are deeply suicidal for long periods of time about like what keeps them going and i cannot tell you how many times i've heard just the most random things that seem so insignificant like their cat right like what would happen to their cat if they died and that a lot of times like people will say like this is the one person you should go back i forget if it's the porn addiction stream or the burnt out gifted kids stream we had a stream where some guy was talking about like he was so close to suicide except there was one random person on the internet that they would like talk to every single day and like i remember we were joking at the end of the stream about how like that person is the hero and the thing is like that person is never gonna know yeah right because you're just not gonna get that feedback um and and this is where you know i hate to break it to you but i'm very good at my job and i can't keep someone alive right right so that outcome there's another subtle thing that your mind is doing which is that if i do more i can prevent a particular outcome no you can't can you do more sure can you do less sure but you can't your fear that you're gonna wake up one day and discover that he's gone is not something that you can actually control you can be really good and believe me i'm really good and i've learned that lesson the hard way right right that as human being i fundamentally cannot control the actions of another human being no matter how many years i spent studying in india and what institutions i've trained at i cannot keep someone from ending their life i mean i can in sort of acute in specific situations and i do have a good impact on it but at the end of the day there's a certain amount that you just can't do i think i understand that intellectually these are things i know i think it's just coping with that reality that's difficult yeah so that's where so i i get that you are so then i think that this is where the conversation really becomes a longer conversation because in the same way that some of these like views around men's issues are tied to your personal experiences there may be something here about you know when you were so alone and when you were so you know isolated and in a dark place that there may be something there that you know may i i don't know i mean i think there if it's if you want to understand it intellectually but you feel a particular way like there's an exploration process around those feelings that can lead us to some kind of understanding which will then like decompress the feelings is it not possible that it's just a fear of the inevitable inevitability in the sense that like this is someone i just care deeply about and i see them suffering and it and i what you said is 100 correct maybe my impact is way higher than i'm estimating i could actually probably concede that to you but i think it doesn't even though i know that and i know i can't have a white why do you think it's inevitable just just the way i hear him speak and just the way i hear him speak there's a certain like era of hopelessness that that he has when he speaks and sometimes it fades but then it comes back so strongly so and then he and then and then there's like a disappearance yeah go ahead so you said the words we use matter right sure yeah so they matter the the way we interpret words is based on our own experience right so if you're hearing his words why does your mind interpret that as hopelessness see if you want to get to the bottom of this that's where you have to go right because i i feel like i'm watching somebody in the loop and the loop seems never ending like where they were at day one and day 95 seems exactly identical or progressively getting worse does that seem possible how long has this person been on this in this loop a few years a few years and so a few years but i've watched it progressively get worse and more intense and and this person has like reiterated the idea that it's getting more intense and is this person getting professional help i think they tried and didn't like the experience so they quit so you know i've offered to to pay for it and whatever you know but it's one of those things where unless they take the olive branch i can't force it on them so um sure but there are ways you can get them to take the olive branch so here are a couple things you can do okay very practically all right so i know like i think this is definitely a longer discussion but um let me try to at least give you a couple things because this is a question we get a lot how can i help someone so the first is i think you can share with them how you feel so you can tell them that you know you i hear that you're getting worse i hear you've been struggling with this a long time i'm trying to be here for you i want to support you i'm always here to listen and also i'm terrified that one day i'm gonna wake up and you're not gonna be here anymore could i ask just one thing right there does that not place more pressure on them yes yeah and is that a good or a bad thing it's a good thing okay so here's why so in relationships we have caregivers and caretakers right what are you in the relationship the caregiver the caretaker uh the caregiver i would assume and then they are the caretake caretaker so who's responsible for making things right uh hmm are they okay actually i i guess it would be me yep yeah that needs to change right yeah because even the framing of how you said it kind of threw me off a little bit but okay yep right so like like this is where because he does so it's authentic can it be dangerous absolutely can it pressure him more absolutely could it tip him over the edge absolutely and this is a relationship you aren't his doctor right you're his friend right and so one of the best things you can do for another human being is let them take care of you right like he has to understand that like like this is the problem is it's all one way right now and he's got to understand that like he he carries some of this weight in this relationship you can't carry it all on your own and it's healthy for you to tell him like i don't want to wake up and not have you there that day and so it's like his responsibility to like alleviate that fear in you and is that going to put pressure on him absolutely and so then you talk about that and you even say i was afraid that if i shared this with you it would be like too much for you to handle but i've been sitting with this for a long time and like i'm i'm afraid and because you're my friend like i hope i can share this with you is it okay that i shared it with you right so i think this is a real problem with like mental illness i see this a lot as a psychiatrist is like speaking of accountability too many psychiatrists take accountability away from their patients and it's not healthy it's how you create a dependent patient and part of what i have to do is like give that power back to them right like you have to give him you're saying that the issue is he's powerless like give him some of that power but here's the problem if you give him that power he could do something with it he could do the wrong thing but you're basically like you're surrendering that piece of the relationship to him and could it be too much for him to handle absolutely but is it healthy in the long run i think so you know if you're really dealing with issues of suicidality and stuff i think what he really needs is professional help but from uh from a more you know macro level like taking that kind of off the table i want you and everyone else to understand that a lot of times the most important thing that you can do for someone is have faith in them to do it themselves and sometimes that means like not protecting them from it right because you're like so protective you're like we talked about oh parental gatekeeping in here you are yeah because you're treating him like he's frail but like it sounds to me like he's actually incredibly strong that he's been sinking further and further below water for years and he's still around sounds incredibly resilient yeah but you know i agree i think he's resilient i think he's dealt with so much and you know me knowing his lifestyle i agree um i just worry that he gets to a point where enough becomes enough and he's tired of struggling you know and i can't tell somebody to keep suffering but um so i think that that too is a reasonable thing for you to share with him that you sh you have that fear that enough is enough and then the more practical thing is i would really talk to him about you know asking about his experience of mental health treatment and and try to really direct him that way because this is really you know i i don't know exactly what the situation is but it sounds like you're afraid and that he really needs help and so there's like you know one bad experience doesn't you know yeah it's like they're good burgers and they're bad burgers you shouldn't write off all burgers based on just having one bad burger i agree i agree so that's really what i would encourage him to do is to try to you know try to understand what his negative experience was and try to push him in the right direction okay well that was uh wonderful advice and it's something i'll probably get to right probably today so thank you for that yeah well thanks a lot for the conversation and you know i hope things work out well yeah and good luck to you and your friend yeah again so thank you for doing this i honestly mean a lot of people in my community reached out when they heard i was going to talk about the last subject so um you just taken the time to talk about that was good for me and for other folks so i appreciate it oh i loved it man i i really enjoy talking to you and i think it's you know you move really fast in terms of like having a view and being able to sit with new thoughts and different thoughts and so it's it's cool it's refreshing all right so thanks a lot you ever want to hit me up hit me up all right we'll do man take care cheers and who are we raiding chat we are going to auto mod wants to ban the phrase ligma but i'm going to allowed allow it

Channel: HealthyGamerGG

Views: 332,584

Keywords: mental health, drk, dr kanojia, healthygamergg, healthy gamer gg, twitch, psychiatrist

Id: rGFK1DAgal0

Length: 126min 14sec (7574 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/quepha]

When are we gonna find out who Preach is?

[u/BruyceWane]

Seems like Aba and Preach deleted the video of him talking to Destiny off his channel. Am I wrong?

[u/Neo2Trinity]

Always nice to see 2 characters from the Destinyverse do a spinoff episode