Translator: Mohand Habchi
Reviewer: Queenie Lee Thank you very much. Human beings simultaneously
inhabit two worlds. The first of these worlds
is seen and external. It is the world of our five senses, the world of sights and sounds and all that whistles
and goes bump in the night. This is the world of physics,
where life is somewhat predictable. I often tell my students
that no one breaks the law of gravity for if you try to break
the law of gravity, chances are the law
of gravity will break you. Instead, we find ways through the manipulation
of mechanistic, inexorable natural laws to comply with the laws of gravity so that when we fly in an airplane, we do so with some ease
and arrive at our destination safely. The second of these two worlds
is internal and unseen. It is the world of our thoughts,
our emotions and our feelings. We have a bad habit
of privileging what we see and ignoring what we don't see. And this habit becomes
especially problematic when we consider the fact
that what is unseen and what is neglected
is often what is most important. For example, if all of the oxygen
were sucked out of this room right now, all of us would see how important it is,
but we do not see oxygen. Tonight, I want to tell you
a story of a man who lived long enough to know that what was unseen and important, that is his inner life, the life of what the Greeks
called the Psyche or the soul, that though so important to him, this life was neglected,
terribly neglected. Neglected by his spouse,
neglected by the larger society, and neglected to such a degree
that it led him on more than one occasion to the point of considering
taking his own life. As you listen to the story of this man, I want you to think very carefully
about the men in your lives. I want you to think about your fathers.
I want you to think about your husbands. I want you to think about your brothers,
your uncles and your nephews. This man begins his life in a household that some might
rightly call hyper-masculine. He grows up, the youngest of seven children in a home with three brothers and three sisters. He affectionately calls himself
the tiebreaker. And growing up in a household
with a father and three brothers was sort of like growing up
with four fathers, and growing up in a household
with a mother and three sisters was sort of like growing up
with four mothers. And this household was,
by today's standards, I would venture to say,
rather chauvinistic. The men had more important things
to do than cook or clean - after all, the men had
to watch football on Sunday. And as this man's father saw it,
it was the task of the women to tend to the men and make sure
that they had food to eat while they watched the game. And one of the cardinal rules
in this man's household was that men were never supposed to cry. Men were never supposed to show emotion. Men were never supposed
to cry or show emotion, because to do so was to demonstrate
to the rest of the world, which, by the way,
was always out to get you, that you were weak somehow. And in a strange sort of way,
this man grew up in a household where he never once saw his father cry. As he grew up and moved
through high school, this hyper-masculine mentality
sort of served him well. He excelled on the football
team in high school and bears the distinction to this day
of being the only male in his family who played on a football team
that actually won a league championship. And through all
of the challenging practices in the hot summer sun
before the season started and through all of the bumps and bruises
of playing football in high school, his father's advice and the advice
of his brothers served him well: "Ignore how you feel even when it hurts." On the football field, this works nicely
because it means you're tough, it means you're a team player. And so his ethics, his value system of being tough, served him well through his adolescent years,
through college. And then he got married. And when he got married, he carried his ideas of masculinity
with him into the marriage. When he got married, he noticed that his spouse
seemed preoccupied with his physical appearance. And from time to time, she would comment
on how displeasing it was to her. And she would comment
on how unattractive he was to her, in the most intimate of ways. She would remark to him about how other men
who she knew in the past that she never even considered dating,
let alone marrying, were far more attractive than he was. But because he had always been taught
to ignore how he felt, he kept going. And it was just like the bumps and bruises
that you experience on the football field: your leg may hurt, but you keep playing
because you have to take it for the team. You have to be a team player. And so he ignored the way he felt,
and he kept going. And not long into his marriage,
he began to see very clearly that his feelings of inadequacy
and a profound sense of worthlessness began to affect him deeply. And he started to experience
intense bouts of depression. But he was always told
to ignore how he felt. He was always told not to cry,
for the cry would make him less of a man. In fact, he was told men don't even talk
about things like thoughts or feelings. And this pattern continued
throughout his marriage to the point where every
six months to a year, he could with some accuracy pinpoint the moment in time when he would be confronted
with an episode of rage and hostility about what he looked like
and how unattractive he was to his spouse. He continued and persisted,
always ignoring how he felt. Until one day, the hostility
and anger that confronted him reached crisis proportions as his spouse committed
what some would suggest was the ultimate act of betrayal in withdrawing completely from the physical side of the relationship and unilaterally declaring celibacy until such time as he made himself
more attractive for her. Now his feelings of worthlessness
have reached a boiling point. And now, he begins to reach out for help. And for the first time,
about three years ago, this man in our story begins to run internet searches
about how he's feeling. He couldn't talk about it, because his father's voice
still echoed from his grave: "Men don't talk about things like that." And as he typed
in the Google search field "feeling of worthlessness,
sadness, depression," he came across a definition
of emotional abuse. And the definition of emotional abuse
that he found was "an ongoing process where one person systematically diminishes then destroys the inner life of another." Remember how we inhabit two worlds, one outer and external and seen,
and the other internal and unseen? He realizes now that he has
a name for how he's feeling. And then he looks up the symptoms. And chief among the symptoms
of emotional abuse is a fixation of the abuser on some physical characteristic
of the abused. And it says that the fixation may persist,
in the worst cases, for decades. And as he thought about it
and as he reflected on it, he came to understand that her persistent demands for him to lose weight
and change his appearance, to make himself more attractive, bore the hallmark symptom
of emotional abuse. He then came across others,
which were menacing tones and looks, and he realized that recently,
the anger and hostility had been ratcheted up to a level
that he had never seen before. And so now, he sees multiple symptoms
of emotional abuse, and he's in crisis. So he reaches out. And one of the first places
he reaches out to is his church. And he discovers, quite tragically,
that his church is woefully unprepared to deal with abusive situations in terms of emotional abuse in marriages. Now, for the first time,
he understands what he heard all of the women in his church
say for decades, which was "I'm in an abusive relationship,
and the church can't help me." Now, for the first time, this man
who had been taught his entire life to ignore the way he felt,
he understood the plight of women in a way that he had
never understood before. All his church could do was tell him
to "stay married and work it out." And then, fortunately for him, there was one small church about two and a half hour
south of where he lived that provided him a place
through a small men's group to share how he was feeling. And he discovered that he was
far from being the only one who experienced what he had
been experiencing for so long. In fact, as he engaged
other men in conversation, he realized that their inner lives
had been disregarded as well. Since then, no less than five or six men
have come up to him and said, "Every time you tell me
what happened to you, I'm thoroughly convinced
that you are telling my story." He got to a place where he thought
that his only way out, having turned to his church for help, having turned to certain male friends
for help and being disappointed, he got to a place where the only thing
he thought he could do to relieve himself of this pain
was to end his life. And on more than one occasion
hatched a plot to do exactly that. This plot reached crisis proportions
when he came to see that the thoughts of suicide
no longer bothered him but rather gave him peace
because, contrary to popular belief, people who kill themselves are not upset, they actually feel quite calm because they know the next step
will bring them relief. He sought a clinical intervention and was talked off of the proverbial edge. And now, this man
is at a much better place. As this man has talked
about his story with other men, they have, as I said a moment ago,
said to him, "You're telling my story." I want to take you back to your fathers, to your husbands, to your uncles, to your brothers and to your nephews. And I have a sense that as I talk
and deliver these words to you tonight, I'm probably telling
some of their stories too. I know the man in our story, quite well. That man is me. I hope that as a result
of something I've said tonight, someone, some man, somewhere,
somehow, someway, will cease to suffer in silence because someone has listened in a way that has allowed them
to be touched by the story, not necessarily of themselves, but by the story of the men
or man in your life. The aim of tonight's talk
is to raise awareness and to bring attention
to what is so often neglected. That is to say to the inner life
of a human being. I'm confident that if we give
the inner life of a human being this sort of attention, that men and women will no longer have to suffer in silence. Thank you. (Applause)
I recently told my therapist about my struggles with suicidal thoughts. I've had them since middle school. This lecture spoke to me, particularly the part where he reached out to his church and wasn't satisficed. I felt belittle by my therapist when I opened up. The person I'm encouraged to open up to the most. He said "so you're gonna kill yourself because of x" in a fairly dismissive and hurtful manner.
Anyway I will be getting meds soon.
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