Speaker 1: This is the Anxiety Bites podcast, and I am your host,
Speaker 1: Jen Kirkman. Hi, I'm Jen Kirkman, and welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of Anxiety Bites. Today. My guest is award winning
Speaker 1: research psychologist Michael Addis. He wrote the book Invisible Men,
Speaker 1: Men's Inner Lives and the Consequences of Silence. Now it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's always weird for me. Uh two,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about something like this because I
Speaker 1: have to be honest. You know, I was the week
Speaker 1: that I was reading this book in preparation for this interview.
Speaker 1: In my other life, in my life as someone who
Speaker 1: well I I don't perform stand up comedy anymore, but
Speaker 1: twenty five years as a stand up comedian. In my
Speaker 1: other life, there was a lot going on in my
Speaker 1: community where um, you know, a sexual offender who was
Speaker 1: credibly accused and admitted to it want a Grammy for
Speaker 1: his comedy album. And you know, he'd been exiled for
Speaker 1: a little bit, but he came back and and anyone
Speaker 1: speaking out about like wow, that really makes women feel
Speaker 1: like they don't matter, and it does kick up a
Speaker 1: lot of trauma and anxiety, and and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I live a life online, and I just am constantly
Speaker 1: whenever I speak out about things, or speak up about things,
Speaker 1: or just even talk about sexism and inequality and the
Speaker 1: nuance of any conversation about a sexual predator winning a Grammy.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I don't even know what I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not the argument I was good gets down to it
Speaker 1: should they never work again? It's like I'm not even
Speaker 1: thinking about that. I'm just thinking about how I feel,
Speaker 1: think about my feelings about the message it sends to
Speaker 1: other people in comedy that aren't men. And so I
Speaker 1: noticed this online a lot. Is like women are hawking
Speaker 1: through their emotions, their feelings. Men are coming back wanting
Speaker 1: to debate. It's all in their head, you know, and
Speaker 1: and it's it's exhausting, frankly. But it was just one
Speaker 1: of those weeks where I am living online, I'm speaking
Speaker 1: out about something, and the harassment I'm getting is just
Speaker 1: un real. And it's happened before. It's a regular part
Speaker 1: of my life being a woman at all, but online
Speaker 1: as well. And so here I am reading this book
Speaker 1: about men and their inner lives and how, you know,
Speaker 1: because of the patriarchy, they they are stuck in these
Speaker 1: ridiculous roles where they're you know, not supposed to show
Speaker 1: emotion because everything is so sexist that it's like if
Speaker 1: a man. Everything has been feminized to where like if
Speaker 1: a man does this, it's, you know, it's not manly,
Speaker 1: and so he doesn't do it, and it and it.
Speaker 1: It was just interesting because I my empathy was at
Speaker 1: a negative two on a scalpeoe to ten. I was
Speaker 1: just like, don't just fix it already, everybody, because they're
Speaker 1: making our lives impossible, you know. But it was great
Speaker 1: to talk to Michael Addis because I mean, he's obviously
Speaker 1: aware of the consequences that's in the title of his book,
Speaker 1: The Consequences of Silence. When men don't feel like they're
Speaker 1: you know, given any room in society to talk about
Speaker 1: their feelings, express emotion, it builds up and can cause
Speaker 1: anxiety up to dot dot dot someone is going on
Speaker 1: a shooting spright right, or someone is harming others, or
Speaker 1: at the very nest is just causing disruptions in relationships,
Speaker 1: whether romantic or family or friendships, or maybe just you're
Speaker 1: one of these guys online that just wants to debate
Speaker 1: a woman which is talking about the nuance of a
Speaker 1: feeling and these are consequences. And what we talked about
Speaker 1: in this episode was that the scary part can be
Speaker 1: when it's not like, oh, well, if only men could
Speaker 1: talk about their feelings, there go back a step. They're
Speaker 1: not even in their own minds and hearts and souls
Speaker 1: recognizing a feeling. Like it's not that, oh, they have
Speaker 1: all the same skills that that that women do and
Speaker 1: you know, all kinds of different people, they're just not
Speaker 1: able to verbalize. I mean, it's so much more than that.
Speaker 1: It's like this just complete disservice that this kind of
Speaker 1: patriarchal society has done to men. And that's you know
Speaker 1: what I'm what was screaming about, is that feminism helps
Speaker 1: men too, you know, break us all out of these
Speaker 1: stupid binds that that we have because of as Michael,
Speaker 1: and it reminds me of this episode the Big Pa,
Speaker 1: the patriarchy. So if anyone listening is like I don't
Speaker 1: want to hear about men, it trust me, you'll love
Speaker 1: this episode. It'll be very healing for your soul. And
Speaker 1: that's how m he be in his book is like,
Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking. Really like, men have everything
Speaker 1: and now I've got to read a book about But
Speaker 1: it was a really great conversation about you know, whose
Speaker 1: problem this is, what can be done about it, and
Speaker 1: what women can do to help. And I think you're
Speaker 1: going to love his answer on that one. I will
Speaker 1: not give it away anyway. So let's just introduce my
Speaker 1: guest today, Michael at his PhD. Has published more than
Speaker 1: seventy articles and books. Um. He is a recipient of
Speaker 1: the American Psychological Association's David Shaka Award and the New
Speaker 1: Researcher Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.
Speaker 1: He's the author of Invisible Men, Men's Inner Lives and
Speaker 1: the Consequences of Silence. He's a professor of psychology at
Speaker 1: Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Again, so enjoy my conversation
Speaker 1: and I'll see you on the other side with this
Speaker 1: episode's take aways. All right, everyone, I'm here with Dr
Speaker 1: Michael Addis, the author of Invisible Men, Men's Inner Lives
Speaker 1: and the Consequences of Silence. And it's funny because I
Speaker 1: was reading your book and I was so glad that
Speaker 1: the way you started it is Invisible Men, Who are
Speaker 1: you kidding. The title of this book may make you
Speaker 1: wonder invisible men? Who are you kidding? Everywhere we look,
Speaker 1: we see men's lives on television and sports and politics,
Speaker 1: at work and at home. Men are anything but invisible. Um.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, men's most men's inner lives
Speaker 1: remain hidden from others and often from themselves. But I'm
Speaker 1: just glad you put it out there because I do think,
Speaker 1: especially you know, being a woman, and I feel like
Speaker 1: society lately, men seem to be, for lack of a
Speaker 1: better word, going through some stuff. And so a lot
Speaker 1: of times, and we'll talk about this more towards the
Speaker 1: end of the episode, a lot of times my empathy
Speaker 1: is really running thin, and it shouldn't because I have
Speaker 1: anxiety disorders and I want to use this podcast to
Speaker 1: help others. But I do like that you recognize and
Speaker 1: are talking about you know, we're not saying that you know,
Speaker 1: men aren't out there, but but they're living two different
Speaker 1: lives right there, living their public facing life and I
Speaker 1: don't even mean like a celebrity, but does anyone, um,
Speaker 1: And then on the inside they're suffering from anxiety and
Speaker 1: I know someone listening might go well, duh, that's everyone
Speaker 1: with anxiety. But can you explain to us what's what's
Speaker 1: so unique in men about about that? Well? I think
Speaker 1: we're you know, encouraged from almost day one to have
Speaker 1: this sort of public persona which lives up to images
Speaker 1: of what it means to be a man, what it
Speaker 1: means to be masculine. A lot of that is about
Speaker 1: being powerful, impactful, stoic um, more powerful than women. Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is where I think you're
Speaker 1: strained empathy comes from. Is that if you look around,
Speaker 1: it's like guys or everywhere saying, look at me, but
Speaker 1: it's only part of me, right, It's the part that
Speaker 1: is um that fits those societal ideals, and a lot
Speaker 1: of times to achieve that, we have to sort of
Speaker 1: squash and hold back the part that doesn't have a
Speaker 1: frigging clue what's going on, and the part that's afraid
Speaker 1: or anxious or depressed or were super stressed out because
Speaker 1: saying I don't know what's going on and I'm struggling
Speaker 1: is you know, essentially not very manly. So I think
Speaker 1: that's where the duality comes from. So yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: the way I relate to this is I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example. In my I had panicked disorder. I guess
Speaker 1: I still do, but I'm not really panicking a lot.
Speaker 1: But where I used to panic all the time was airplanes,
Speaker 1: and sitting on the plane, I would compare and despair
Speaker 1: and look around at other people. Oh well, none of
Speaker 1: them are panicking. You know, that guy's reading a book,
Speaker 1: that one's you know, doing a crossword puzzle. What's wrong
Speaker 1: with me? You know? Then shame and then shame makes
Speaker 1: a panic horse all that kind of thing. And but
Speaker 1: I only have those experiences such a rationally, right, So
Speaker 1: I can't imagine walking around thinking like, for example, with
Speaker 1: the men that do know they might have anxiety, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the ones that don't, but thinking, um, well,
Speaker 1: I can't even let anyone know this, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: because for me on the plane it would be I
Speaker 1: would feel embarrassed or scared to let anyone know, and
Speaker 1: so I would hold it in, which would make it worse.
Speaker 1: But thank god, those were only situational things for one
Speaker 1: to six hours of a time. But walking around the
Speaker 1: world that way, what can that do to a person's
Speaker 1: I don't know, personality, temperament, physical, does it kind of
Speaker 1: hurt their body. I mean, what what does that do
Speaker 1: over time to a guy that's stressful? You know? I
Speaker 1: mean what you're talking about is is is the consequences
Speaker 1: of guys hiding our true selves from each other. Right,
Speaker 1: So one of those rules from early on about manhood
Speaker 1: is no matter what's going on inside, project externally like
Speaker 1: everything's cool. You know, you see this really coming out
Speaker 1: in um the adolescent and teen years. That's sort of
Speaker 1: super unemotional teenage boy is almost like an icon. Now
Speaker 1: nothing troubles him, and what happens is, you know, you
Speaker 1: look at other guys. I remember this very clearly growing up,
Speaker 1: and it still happens now is looking at other men
Speaker 1: and thinking, well, he sure looks like he's got it
Speaker 1: going on, you know, like nothing bothers him. And so
Speaker 1: now I've got two issues, right, One is I'm struggling
Speaker 1: on the inside if I'm if I'm dealing with panic
Speaker 1: or anxiety or any sort of vulnerable emotion. And then
Speaker 1: the second problem is it feels like there's something shameful
Speaker 1: about that because look around me, and other guys aren't
Speaker 1: talking about it, and they've got this long practiced kind
Speaker 1: of cool pose, right that that indicates or at least
Speaker 1: seems to indicate, everything's fine. And you know, and I
Speaker 1: don't mean to position myself as above that either. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's a I've been told this by my students.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ways I'm capable of giving off
Speaker 1: sort of everything's great, you know, nothing bothers me sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And so, yeah, it's you know, it's not
Speaker 1: exactly the Emperor's close, but it's close. It's close to that.
Speaker 1: So tell me then about like why you got into
Speaker 1: this specific kind of work. I know, you talk in
Speaker 1: your book about a friend of yours who's a PhD
Speaker 1: who was studying borderline personality disorder in men, and then
Speaker 1: you were saying that what she said is that, UM,
Speaker 1: men with bp D seem brittle, but women come across
Speaker 1: as fragile. And you were saying, you know, the differences
Speaker 1: with men being more more brittle if it seems like
Speaker 1: if you reached out and touch the metaphorically speaking, they
Speaker 1: just might crack entirely. You know. Um, And unlike a
Speaker 1: lot of anxiety people with things that disorders, men aren't
Speaker 1: necessarily worried about going insane. It's sort of like, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm insane, then I maybe I won't even know it.
Speaker 1: It's it's something different. I know that I just asked
Speaker 1: you three questions, but can you talk about how I
Speaker 1: got started in this and and what is that difference
Speaker 1: between you know, women might appear fragile, evnxiety, men might
Speaker 1: appear brittle. So yeah, I mean, I went to graduate
Speaker 1: school in clinical psychology with the idea that I was
Speaker 1: going to become a psychotherapist and help people, you know,
Speaker 1: through talk therapy. UM started doing a lot of research
Speaker 1: on UM counseling approaches and one of the first things
Speaker 1: I noticed was that the majority of people coming in
Speaker 1: for therapy were women. The second thing I noticed was Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm the only guy in my graduate class here. And
Speaker 1: the third thing I noticed was hot. Now that I'm
Speaker 1: the only guy around, I'm starting to see some of
Speaker 1: the things that I learned about being male that are
Speaker 1: affecting how I'm doing in graduate school and how I'm
Speaker 1: approaching this whole enterprise of you know, talking about emotions
Speaker 1: and trying to help people that old on a coalesced um.
Speaker 1: When I came to Clark University in the in the
Speaker 1: mid nineties, and I started getting interested in the question
Speaker 1: of why men don't attend therapy as often as women. UM,
Speaker 1: do a little bit a little bit of research and
Speaker 1: see that not only do we not go to therapy
Speaker 1: as much, but we don't go to the doctor as much,
Speaker 1: we don't take care of our health as much, we
Speaker 1: don't disclose problems as much, you know, and the list
Speaker 1: goes on, and it's really sort of a curious thing.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, a lot of this led into
Speaker 1: an interest in how men get taught to or to
Speaker 1: not recognize problems in our lives, you know, all the
Speaker 1: way back to like our things okay? Or not? Do
Speaker 1: I even know myself that things are going on that
Speaker 1: are difficult? You know, you mentioned to the frattle versus
Speaker 1: frattle versus Bridgil, the fragile versus brittle. There's a new
Speaker 1: diagnostic category. Um. That distinction actually came from one of
Speaker 1: my graduate school advisors, Marshall Lenahan, who was the you know,
Speaker 1: she developed this therapy for borderline personality to sort of
Speaker 1: dialectical behavior therapy, and she became world famous for helping people,
Speaker 1: particularly people who were prone to self injury. And she
Speaker 1: was not interested in gender in particular, but early on
Speaker 1: in my career. I visited her one time UM and
Speaker 1: she asked me what I was doing. I told her about,
Speaker 1: you know, being interested in men's mental health, and she said,
Speaker 1: you know, the guys that I see, the very few
Speaker 1: of them with BPD, it's like they're they're like brittle
Speaker 1: rather than fragile. And I asked her what that was about,
Speaker 1: and she said, well, like the women present as fragile
Speaker 1: in the sense that I have to be really careful
Speaker 1: around them, but the guys are like they're brittle there.
Speaker 1: They seem really well held together and if if you
Speaker 1: poke a little bit, they're fine. But you get this
Speaker 1: sense that if I poke a little bit too much,
Speaker 1: they're just going to explode into shatters. And I thought,
Speaker 1: what what an amazing metaphor that is, because I can
Speaker 1: relate to it personally. And it was true to my
Speaker 1: experience doing therapy with men too, that I felt quite
Speaker 1: a bit more resistance to the idea that you might
Speaker 1: be suffering, the idea that you might be vulnerable. But
Speaker 1: it also felt that as as tough as that resistance was,
Speaker 1: there was almost in some ways more raw vulnerability underneath it,
Speaker 1: and in some ways that rawness is a byproduct of
Speaker 1: having to expend so much energy holding yourself together because
Speaker 1: of the fear of what would it mean if I
Speaker 1: can't hold it together? You know, and we know what
Speaker 1: it means is you're normal. You're a human being, right,
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to for listeners to realize
Speaker 1: too that when we talk about men as being brittle,
Speaker 1: it's not that they're actually brittle and going to completely
Speaker 1: fall apart if they allow themselves to acknowledge what they're feeling.
Speaker 1: It's more that that that's the fear, right, and it's
Speaker 1: this sense that I'm just going to explode. It's like
Speaker 1: I've seen so many men come through our research studies
Speaker 1: who will deny anxiety or depression, and you know, despite
Speaker 1: scoring off the charts on these standardized kinds of questionnaires,
Speaker 1: and well, and I'll say, so, tell me about that.
Speaker 1: So from your perspective, you're not anxious. Why is that?
Speaker 1: And they'll say, well, I know I'm not anxious because
Speaker 1: my wife has anxiety and she's a basket case. And
Speaker 1: I'm still able to get up and go to work.
Speaker 1: So if I'm able to get up and go to work,
Speaker 1: that means I'm doing okay. And I'll say, what about
Speaker 1: what's happening privately? What about you know? I get it,
Speaker 1: you're you're doing really well and you're gutting it out
Speaker 1: and that's great. And so I'm not suggesting that you
Speaker 1: you know that you're crazy or that or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but in terms of like what it feels like on
Speaker 1: the inside, what what's going on? You know in that sense,
Speaker 1: and you know, then it's like, if you can make
Speaker 1: that connection, it's like, well, I'm just explode on the inside.
Speaker 1: You know. That's it's it's overwhelming, But I don't have anxiety.
Speaker 1: How do you um what happens? I guess when a
Speaker 1: man that you're talking to does realize it's anxiety, does
Speaker 1: he does his worst fear come true and he thinks
Speaker 1: he's weak? Or you know, like what what's the reaction?
Speaker 1: Is there any relief or is it like does it
Speaker 1: just turn into more problems? That's a great question. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I think that all depends upon the context, right, So,
Speaker 1: so ideally it turns into relief because the recognition that
Speaker 1: you know that what I'm experiencing is not uncommon. There's
Speaker 1: lots of other people, and importantly other men who have
Speaker 1: experienced this, and you know, we don't have to look
Speaker 1: far into fortunately these days, into professional athletes, politicians, famous,
Speaker 1: you know, men with lots of I like to say,
Speaker 1: lots of masculinity in the bank. You know, these guys
Speaker 1: too have struggled. So ideally there's relief. But as you
Speaker 1: I think you pick up on. You know, language can
Speaker 1: be really powerful, and a lot of us men grow
Speaker 1: up with a sort of femophobia. You know, if something's
Speaker 1: been labeled feminine, it is frankly fright If it's feminine,
Speaker 1: it's frankly frightening. Um, you know. And so if anxiety
Speaker 1: quote unquote strikes a guy as shameful and weak, then
Speaker 1: his his initial reaction to it might be um, shame, fear,
Speaker 1: you know, um self, self hatred, guilt, and so on.
Speaker 1: Hopefully they begin to understand, like I'm sure you've talked
Speaker 1: about many times on your show, that anxieties and evolved
Speaker 1: mechanism and all human beings, it's there for a reason,
Speaker 1: and an anxiety disorder is really nothing more than a
Speaker 1: sort of oversensitivity of a basic mechanism in the human
Speaker 1: body and mind. And that's you know, there's nothing to
Speaker 1: be ashamed of about that, and I was thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: it's we all know that caveman thing, and that gets
Speaker 1: said a lot on this show. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: a back from when we were blah blah blah and
Speaker 1: we had this sense of danger was coming and humans,
Speaker 1: you know, we're able to you know, out we didn't.
Speaker 1: We had to use our brains to realize when danger
Speaker 1: was coming. So is there a danger? And I don't
Speaker 1: know if I don't know what what's going on out
Speaker 1: there in the in the world of helping men who
Speaker 1: have anxiety, But is there a temptation to and a
Speaker 1: danger to, uh making anxiety masculine? You know the way
Speaker 1: they make Like now we're going to have shower gel
Speaker 1: for men and it's gonna smell like car grease, you know, Like,
Speaker 1: is is that something at one point people were doing?
Speaker 1: Are they still doing it? What do you? How do
Speaker 1: you feel about that? I can't tell you how glad
Speaker 1: I am that you brought that up, because I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of these interviews and usually I have to
Speaker 1: bring that up in other words that yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: What you're talking about from my perspective, is this tendency
Speaker 1: ultrually to man up mental health right. The idea is
Speaker 1: if we if we make it macho to talk about
Speaker 1: mental health, or macho to see a psychotherapist, like have
Speaker 1: the courage to change, or like that old Viagra commercial
Speaker 1: that I remember this going where this famous baseball player
Speaker 1: was like, I take batting practice, I take pitching practice,
Speaker 1: I take viagra, step up to the plate and call
Speaker 1: your doctor. It's like, I think I get the motivation
Speaker 1: to do that. You know. It's marketing to a stereotype
Speaker 1: of men. But it comes at a cost, you know,
Speaker 1: because even though it might be changing the idea of
Speaker 1: what's manly into something more theoretically helpful or adaptive, it's
Speaker 1: also continuing this idea that men must be manly. Right now,
Speaker 1: we just need to do the opposite. We need to
Speaker 1: go from not talking about our feelings to talking about
Speaker 1: our feelings. I think the bigger problem is the idea
Speaker 1: that men need to be manly. A right, Let's just
Speaker 1: let go of that a little bit and be like,
Speaker 1: let men be human, you know, and then we'll see
Speaker 1: the real improvements in functioning. I think we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: So I looked back. There was this book, Uh do
Speaker 1: you know the book Backlash by Susan Faludi quite well, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with it. I haven't read it since the nineties,
Speaker 1: but stayed with me, and I almost got this chill
Speaker 1: when I read it, thinking, oh God, I think she's right.
Speaker 1: I don't think things are going to get better. And
Speaker 1: I think even though I'm in this, you know, it
Speaker 1: was the mid nineties. You know, we get Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: first lady saying I'm not baking cookies. We've got Nirvana
Speaker 1: is like the number one band and he's going on
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live and dresses and nail plashes, this kind
Speaker 1: of moment of feminism and men were embracing their human
Speaker 1: nous and not you know, there wasn't but there was.
Speaker 1: There was both things as I was going on in culture,
Speaker 1: but I was in a little bubble, so I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: everything's great and it's getting better. And I read her
Speaker 1: book that was like not blaming the women's movement, but saying,
Speaker 1: now that women are working, the men's roles are changing,
Speaker 1: and we're not doing anything to uh walk the men
Speaker 1: through it, you know, and they are going to there's
Speaker 1: going to be a backlash. And I knew she was right,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'm seeing it now. And what's
Speaker 1: so odd is when I meet, um, younger men who
Speaker 1: still fall into this, like you're talking about things have
Speaker 1: to be manly or I just keep thinking, when is
Speaker 1: I thought just certain generation had to die off and
Speaker 1: then we're done here, you know. So it's just interesting
Speaker 1: to me, Like I could understand if your dad was like,
Speaker 1: look at I was in you know, World War two,
Speaker 1: and I didn't sit around talking about my feelings, so
Speaker 1: shut up. But now we're so many generations from that, Um,
Speaker 1: why is this still happening? Like where is this message
Speaker 1: coming from? Because there's so many examples the opposite, but
Speaker 1: it's really doesn't seem to have gotten better. Where's this
Speaker 1: message coming from? Patriarchy? But what what I mean? But
Speaker 1: that's what I mean is like, isn't the president of
Speaker 1: patriarchy like dead? Now you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 1: so he president of patriarchy passed it down to his son,
Speaker 1: And if we're looking at patriarchy is like a corporation,
Speaker 1: I get it. But in other words, I guess it's
Speaker 1: like an impossible question where it's like there are, especially
Speaker 1: with social media, so many more examples now of being
Speaker 1: a man, which could just be anything, you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: but it still seems just as bad as when there
Speaker 1: was only the Marlborough man on to me. You know,
Speaker 1: why am I being negative? Or is it getting better
Speaker 1: at all? Or why is it still happening? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think, you know, I mean I'm being facetious. Erarchy,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, but I think on some level
Speaker 1: it's true like that that this idea that that it's
Speaker 1: not even idea, it's a it's a absolutely overrehearsed path
Speaker 1: of least resistance practice that people are born into in
Speaker 1: which men are supposed to be dominant in some way
Speaker 1: over women. Has that changed, yes, in some ways? Right,
Speaker 1: Like I've got lots of young students in my classes, um,
Speaker 1: who who grew up with a sort of positive feminist
Speaker 1: ideology or just the absence of what is now called
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity. UM. And I see lots of young men
Speaker 1: who are, Um, they're not homophobic, they're not misogynist. Um,
Speaker 1: they're for all intents and purposes progressive in the way
Speaker 1: that they're thinking about things. And then there are also
Speaker 1: the sorts of actions that you see that would fall
Speaker 1: under Susan Flute's idea of backlash. You know that for for,
Speaker 1: if women's increased access to power in society, you will
Speaker 1: see men threatened by this, um And I think part
Speaker 1: of that is that there's still a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: economic inequality, There's still a trium endous amount of white privilege,
Speaker 1: there's um a lack of education, and I think a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of fear for a lot of men. A
Speaker 1: lot of what some men feel entitled to is now threatened. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you have to be on the on the
Speaker 1: watch for backlash. Was it Springsteen and one step up
Speaker 1: and two steps back that song? But the problem with
Speaker 1: that is that just means you're gonna end up going
Speaker 1: backwards all the time, and that's not justful way to
Speaker 1: look at things. I think we're making progress, but I
Speaker 1: think I think it's up to us as men to
Speaker 1: model for each other more adaptive ways of being in society.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think this is on women. I
Speaker 1: don't think I don't think this is on on other
Speaker 1: people whose identities put them in in marginalized, repressed positions.
Speaker 1: I think it's on us. You know, I'm thinking because
Speaker 1: it's I think, you know, like I've always tried to
Speaker 1: say no, feminism helps men too. It takes the men
Speaker 1: out of their boxes which is causing them so much anxiety.
Speaker 1: And you still can be, you know, not less than
Speaker 1: you're equal to. But with men, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: I don't know what women are gonna do to you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like it does seem weirdly like
Speaker 1: a men's problem and it's on men to solve. So
Speaker 1: that to me seems extra hard because who are men
Speaker 1: going to listen to? In other words, you know, like
Speaker 1: right right, well we yeah, we we were encouraged, you know,
Speaker 1: to listen to other men. That's part of living in
Speaker 1: a patriarchal society. I think one of the challenges is
Speaker 1: it's not always apparent to guys what's what's to be
Speaker 1: gained here? You know. So if I let go of
Speaker 1: traditional notions of masculinity about toughness and emotional stoicism and
Speaker 1: dominance and so on and being a big wheel and
Speaker 1: making a lot of money, you know, where does that
Speaker 1: leave me? And you know, I can say us someone
Speaker 1: who's looked at the research, well, it's going to leave
Speaker 1: you with better mental and physical health, better quality relationships,
Speaker 1: a better sex life, more sense of connection. To your children, right,
Speaker 1: and and a better ability to work with women and
Speaker 1: people of other genders right. So there's a lot to
Speaker 1: be gained there. But I think on some level you've
Speaker 1: got to You've got to experience that to buy into it,
Speaker 1: and you're more likely to experience it if you put
Speaker 1: yourself in a community of men enacting it. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know how. You know, I guess
Speaker 1: you'd have to actively seek that out. He you know,
Speaker 1: you do, you do, and you have to take risks
Speaker 1: to you know, it's like you have to. I'm just
Speaker 1: thinking about times I've been out with golf buddies and
Speaker 1: and been like, God, you know, how how's it going,
Speaker 1: how's it going on? How's it going? And I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: how's it going? It sucks right now? And this is
Speaker 1: a moment where I have to decide am I going
Speaker 1: to say it sucks? And when then they then when
Speaker 1: they asked me what do you mean? Or they say
Speaker 1: are you know? What are you talking about? I have
Speaker 1: to be honest and say I don't. I feel awful,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been down on myself or whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, and not just gripe up out the economy
Speaker 1: or something right, and then you know, kind of putting
Speaker 1: yourself out there. Right, It's like then do they make
Speaker 1: a homophobic joke or are they going to say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm glad to send that, like let's all
Speaker 1: cut the bullshit here, like I feel awful too. I
Speaker 1: And is this do you notice like is this a
Speaker 1: straight man problem or is this does this go? You know,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know about it. Has it only
Speaker 1: been studied with straight men or is it No? It's right.
Speaker 1: So there's just stereotype out there that that, um that
Speaker 1: gay men have transcended this this sort of restrictive masculinity
Speaker 1: because they have more access to femininity and emotional expressiveness.
Speaker 1: But the research shows that gay men er has affected
Speaker 1: by this as as much as straight men. So gay
Speaker 1: men struggle with you know, like what does it mean
Speaker 1: to be masculine? And am I masculine? And enough they
Speaker 1: struggle with body image right with um a sort of
Speaker 1: hierarchy betwe ween more quote unquote feminine gay men and
Speaker 1: more masculine gay men and so on. So now, I
Speaker 1: mean I think that this sort of stuff affects people
Speaker 1: of a range of identities. What you see, I think
Speaker 1: is that, um, you know, at the risk of getting
Speaker 1: a little over intellectual about this, but you see gender
Speaker 1: intersecting with other identities as well. So what it means
Speaker 1: to be a white straight man in today's society, UM,
Speaker 1: I think that's very different. Yeah, yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: that's in a hugely important, UM thing to talk about
Speaker 1: at some point in this discussion. Is that I'm seeing
Speaker 1: like the anxiety of the of the white man. Like
Speaker 1: it's I've never seen it this bad before in my opinion,
Speaker 1: my humble not a doctor opinion. But do you think
Speaker 1: there's some crisis going on or is it just that
Speaker 1: we're seeing it because of social media? Boys? That's a
Speaker 1: good question, you know. I mean I think it's both.
Speaker 1: You know, if I if I, if I had to
Speaker 1: bet on it, um, things like COVID and um, just
Speaker 1: the incredible political polarity going on in this country. There's
Speaker 1: two major stressors right there that that that tear at
Speaker 1: the social fabric, you know, like and you know it's
Speaker 1: true for everyone, but let's talk about like guys, right
Speaker 1: or white straight guys. Talk about people who historically have
Speaker 1: been in relative positions of power and have had more
Speaker 1: experience hiding their vulnerability. You've got two things here that
Speaker 1: are making it harder and harder to connect with other people,
Speaker 1: and we all need to connect. Loneliness is one of
Speaker 1: the great understudied issues in men's lives. Um we did
Speaker 1: a study at my university where we asked students of
Speaker 1: all genders to estimate how much men in our environment
Speaker 1: at the university wanted to have closer friends, how much
Speaker 1: they felt lonely and wanted to share more of themselves
Speaker 1: with other men. And people of all genders and backgrounds
Speaker 1: estimated men to be less lonely and less in need
Speaker 1: of close connections than the men themselves actually report. So
Speaker 1: that's to me fascinating, right. It's like it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's all these angry guys out there, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them I suspect are lonely. The problem is they're
Speaker 1: they're ashamed of being lonely if they know they're lonely.
Speaker 1: So you know, there's a couple of challenges there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really tough because you know, first of all, now
Speaker 1: we've been you know, everyone's like locked in their home
Speaker 1: and varying degrees for years now at this point, and
Speaker 1: you know, the internet can be a great place to
Speaker 1: connect or the worst place, you know, if you want
Speaker 1: to find some toxic friends and and feel a sense
Speaker 1: of community. You know, It's like, but I think shame
Speaker 1: and I wanted to talk about that. I'm always trying
Speaker 1: to get people to talk about shame on this podcast
Speaker 1: and be like, but isn't it like such a cause
Speaker 1: of panic attacks? And you know, your book really dove
Speaker 1: into that, is like, shame causes men so much anxiety.
Speaker 1: So it's like not even just this, like yeah, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be masking all the time. That can you speak
Speaker 1: to what does shame feel like and present like in men?
Speaker 1: And what is why are they what is the shame?
Speaker 1: I mean, shame to me feels like I just want
Speaker 1: to hide, you know right now there is an impending
Speaker 1: sense of doom coming from other people and the way
Speaker 1: they're thinking about me. There's something about me right now
Speaker 1: that is so unacceptable. I just need to go away.
Speaker 1: And um, I think for a lot of men, shame
Speaker 1: is such a powerful emotion. First of all, because it's
Speaker 1: powerful for everyone. It's it's in our evolution, you know,
Speaker 1: it's there for a reason. But second of all, because
Speaker 1: so many of us guys are shame phobic. We don't
Speaker 1: know how to deal with shame itself. We don't know
Speaker 1: how to say I feel ashamed. We don't know how
Speaker 1: to even own that we're concerned about being rejected, when
Speaker 1: we're when we are feeling ashamed, or that we're rejecting ourselves.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just so many layers of vulnerability. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a bit too much to swallow, frankly
Speaker 1: for a lot of guys. So do you like handle
Speaker 1: that on your own? Like you know, it seems like therapy.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got to go to therapy to work
Speaker 1: that out. And and there's not a lot of like
Speaker 1: quick fixed things that you see going around about shame phobia,
Speaker 1: the deep level, not knowing how to verbalize shame. I mean,
Speaker 1: I never thought about that really until you just said it.
Speaker 1: M hm. One thing I think about. So I don't
Speaker 1: think there's an easy answer to it, but there's one
Speaker 1: thing that that that resonates with me. And I can't
Speaker 1: remember where I first heard this. It was somewhere back
Speaker 1: in graduate school. But it's the idea that shame grows
Speaker 1: in the closet, and so, um, I make my own
Speaker 1: shame worse by hiding that which I'm ashamed of from others. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to confess everything I'm ashamed.
Speaker 1: You know, You've got to do it in small doses.
Speaker 1: But but for example, if I'm like I've, I've struggled
Speaker 1: with depression and anxiety for for most of my life,
Speaker 1: you know, on and off. And it occurred to me
Speaker 1: probably fifteen years ago that you know, here I am
Speaker 1: being positioned and positioning myself as an expert on men
Speaker 1: and depression, and I haven't told anyone that I know
Speaker 1: what it's like to be depressed and that some days
Speaker 1: I wake up just really loathing myself and feeling like
Speaker 1: all of my accomplishments are are fake and and my
Speaker 1: life is fake. Well, so what you know, what good
Speaker 1: is that doing me? To keep hiding that? It's It's
Speaker 1: what it does is it reinforces the idea that this
Speaker 1: is shameful. So I now talk about my experiences with depression.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's a big part of why you're doing
Speaker 1: this whole series right as you've found that that talking
Speaker 1: about anxiety not only benefits other people, but it also
Speaker 1: helps you absolutely. And you know, I was mistaken that
Speaker 1: younger people have it easier because they have the Internet.
Speaker 1: So if they're anxious, they'll type anxious into Google. They'll
Speaker 1: figure it out. I didn't have the Internet growing up,
Speaker 1: you know. And then I realized I was totally wrong,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, well, well, I'd like to
Speaker 1: talk about it and help people give them breadcrumbs that
Speaker 1: they know where to begin their research. And you know,
Speaker 1: like what you're saying, so okay, so you're here, you've
Speaker 1: got depression and you're teaching it. You don't even want
Speaker 1: to tell people you have it. So I'm assuming once
Speaker 1: you did, you were positively rewarded, right, you got really
Speaker 1: good feedback. People thought you were oh my god, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for sharing. And I mean, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: you've got like a Pavlovian response of some kind that
Speaker 1: made you keep doing it. Right? Interesting, Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say overall, yes, yes, overall, it's absolutely been worth it.
Speaker 1: The reason I'm pausing is that that, uh, it's absolutely
Speaker 1: been some backlash and some policing of my mask gualinity
Speaker 1: to um yeah. And the thing, the thing, you know
Speaker 1: how I feel about that is um fuck you you know, like, um,
Speaker 1: I've it's interesting you know, I teach a Psychology of
Speaker 1: Men and Masculinity class every year, sometimes a couple of times,
Speaker 1: and I've been doing it for almost twenty years now,
Speaker 1: and there's this moment every time I teach this class
Speaker 1: towards the end of the semester, where the students sort
Speaker 1: of without planning it, they kind of come together on
Speaker 1: a point of saying, I get it now, I get
Speaker 1: how this works, but what are we going to do
Speaker 1: about it? Like? How am I supposed to talk about
Speaker 1: all this with my family who raised me to think
Speaker 1: this way? How am I supposed to talk about homophobia?
Speaker 1: How am I supposed to talk about the importance of
Speaker 1: of of supporting women and you know, and and being
Speaker 1: profeminist or whatever it may be. And especially from the guys,
Speaker 1: it's I get this, I want to change, But my friends, right,
Speaker 1: they're going to ridicule me. And I always say, I
Speaker 1: don't have a really good answer to this. You know.
Speaker 1: The truth is, if you're committed to a certain way
Speaker 1: of being, you also have to think through who you're
Speaker 1: hanging around, you know. So I mean I my friends,
Speaker 1: my guy friends, you know, sometimes they'll give me grief
Speaker 1: about stuff. But what I found is over time. If
Speaker 1: I hang in there, it is positively rewarded, and I
Speaker 1: start seeing it come out in them too. They start
Speaker 1: being more honest about what's going on. They call me
Speaker 1: up one on one and say, don't say anything to
Speaker 1: the other guys, but could you help me talk through
Speaker 1: this issue with my wife that always cracks me up.
Speaker 1: That's so well, you know, it's um. You know, there's avoidance, right.
Speaker 1: People do that when they're anxious. So I'm not going
Speaker 1: to drive over this bridge because it makes me scared
Speaker 1: and eventually they can't go anywhere. But it seems like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you of the only answer to avoidance is like
Speaker 1: you're gonna feel anxious and you're gonna panic. Got to
Speaker 1: do it. It's like there's got to be an exposure therapy,
Speaker 1: right for men to take that first step and be
Speaker 1: their authentic selves and you know, fuck you, Like you said,
Speaker 1: if their friend friends can't handle it, they either get
Speaker 1: new friends or maybe they'll help, you know, open their
Speaker 1: friends up. Well, it's interesting to talk about exposure and
Speaker 1: um and and things like that. And I sometimes say
Speaker 1: uh and resist saying it because I anticipate lots of
Speaker 1: hate mail. But I think masculinity can be really usefully
Speaker 1: understood as an anxiety disorder. I think it acts exactly
Speaker 1: like an anxiety. That's brilliant. Yeah, it's it's a coordinated
Speaker 1: way of responding to a perceived threat, which is exactly
Speaker 1: what an anxiety disorder is. It's also exactly like an allergy, right,
Speaker 1: and an allergy is is like an anxiety disorder to right,
Speaker 1: it's not. It doesn't have all the same cognitive and
Speaker 1: emotional components, but it's still your body's way of saying threat,
Speaker 1: get it out of here, got to coordinate some sort
Speaker 1: of defense. Yes, right, exactly. And anxiety says, let's figure out,
Speaker 1: you know how I'm going to not have a heart attack.
Speaker 1: Let's run and hide. Masculinity says, let's pump ourselves up,
Speaker 1: let's put women down, let's shut our emotional lives down,
Speaker 1: you know, posture for other guys. It's very similar in
Speaker 1: terms of how it functions. That's so genius too, because
Speaker 1: like and that, like the other things that we do
Speaker 1: when we're anxious that don't work, it makes anxiety worse, Right,
Speaker 1: it certainly can, Yeah, because why am I putting all
Speaker 1: this energy into into doing this? You know, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: flooded with stories. We'll continue the interview on the flip
Speaker 1: side of a quick message from our sponsors. So you
Speaker 1: have talked about the three piece of silence with men
Speaker 1: personal silence, public silence, and uh wait, where's what was
Speaker 1: the third? Personal? Private and public? Okay, So in personal
Speaker 1: silence you talk about when the man himself doesn't even
Speaker 1: know he's in pain. And some men are raised in
Speaker 1: such a way that they get a mild version of
Speaker 1: a psychological condition called alexithymia. Is that how you said?
Speaker 1: And as you say, it translates to without words for mood.
Speaker 1: And so you talked about in your book, like in
Speaker 1: an example of a conversation that you had with someone
Speaker 1: that you couldn't even get them to say words about
Speaker 1: how they felt because they didn't know. And so can
Speaker 1: you tell us more about alexithymia. Alexithymia, Yeah, it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a very common um disorder. And you know, the
Speaker 1: um psychologist and researcher Ron Levant has suggested that that
Speaker 1: men in general suffer from a sub centical version of this.
Speaker 1: In other words, that the that the normal way when
Speaker 1: you raise men in this society tends to produce a
Speaker 1: mild case of not knowing what it is that you're feeling,
Speaker 1: so when you know. One of consequence of this is
Speaker 1: that when people will say to men, sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: whether this is an intimate partner or a physician or
Speaker 1: a friend, how are you doing? What are you feeling?
Speaker 1: What does that feel like when such and such happens?
Speaker 1: The answer is often I don't know, or it sucks right. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's not necessarily because a guy is withholding, although
Speaker 1: it could be. It could also be because he simply
Speaker 1: doesn't know. Um. Sometimes it's just a bit of a
Speaker 1: bodily feeling like you know, I'm i'm my my, a
Speaker 1: tension in my chest, or it's an externalization kind of thing,
Speaker 1: like it just feels like I hate my boss, you know.
Speaker 1: And um, it's it's definitely a challenge because you know,
Speaker 1: if you can't name something, how do you do anything
Speaker 1: about it? Really, there's a big challenge. Let's say someone
Speaker 1: has great parents, you know, um, whatever, every the perfect
Speaker 1: scenario to not raise someone in a sea of toxic masculinity.
Speaker 1: Mom and dad share chores, they both work, everything's great.
Speaker 1: Can you still maybe develop something like that because of
Speaker 1: like societal influences, like how much how much ConTroll to
Speaker 1: parents even have over this? Yeah, you know, there's not
Speaker 1: a clear answer to that, but I I think it's
Speaker 1: important to avoid the idea that parents are sort of
Speaker 1: master chefs of their kids psychological development. You know, for
Speaker 1: one thing, we know that that kids are exquisitely sensitive
Speaker 1: to pure influences. You know, as as we develop, we're
Speaker 1: not really designed to figure out how to deal with
Speaker 1: our parents. That's true for the first few years of life,
Speaker 1: but we're designed to figure out how to deal with
Speaker 1: the world we're going to grow into. And so peers
Speaker 1: tend to to to win out over parents. Um. That said,
Speaker 1: are you know parental influences also shape who we look
Speaker 1: for in peers. Um, you know, just as this is
Speaker 1: an end of one end totally. But for example, my father,
Speaker 1: My father had his PhD in psychology. He was a
Speaker 1: very emotionally expressive guy, and you know, when I would
Speaker 1: struggle with bullies and such, you know, he would ask me, uh,
Speaker 1: crazy questions like, um, well, what do you think that
Speaker 1: guy is feeling as he's about to beat the crap
Speaker 1: out of you? Was a guy guy got really good
Speaker 1: at at analyzing other people's insecurities. And I have a
Speaker 1: reasonable level of emotional intelligence. So in that sense, I
Speaker 1: was shaped, uh in a way that I was able
Speaker 1: to avoid some of the issues about you know, what
Speaker 1: it means to be a man, so to speak, and
Speaker 1: in other ways. You know, Um, I grew up thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, it's my world, UM talk over women. Um,
Speaker 1: you avoid things that are feminine. I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: my mom I was in high school and we were
Speaker 1: out shopping at the mall and she asked me to
Speaker 1: hold her purse from it. I remember thinking, I can't
Speaker 1: hold that thing. You know, it's if I hold that,
Speaker 1: everyone's gonna see and you know that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's, uh, you know, it's complex world out there
Speaker 1: in terms of trying to figure out gender norms. For sure,
Speaker 1: Well that makes sense. I I interviewed um, a therapist.
Speaker 1: We talked mainly about love attachment styles, and and we
Speaker 1: talked about people who you know, they've got all their
Speaker 1: different attachment styles, and she was saying, you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: like society can influence that as much as your parents.
Speaker 1: Like if people are seeing too many romantic comedies, are
Speaker 1: things that they think our love that really in real
Speaker 1: life would be more like akin to obsession or chasing
Speaker 1: someone that doesn't love you. And I was blown away
Speaker 1: by that. Actually really didn't realize how much UM media
Speaker 1: and society and just the world influences us. I really
Speaker 1: am kind of blind to that. Weirdly, I think that
Speaker 1: that's really good news. Right. So we were talking earlier
Speaker 1: about about sort of what, you know, what kind of
Speaker 1: what can we do about this this these issues of
Speaker 1: men's ideologies and beliefs about about our own mental health
Speaker 1: and how we're supposed to be as men. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I always encourage people to do is
Speaker 1: read more broadly, watched, watch different films. You know that
Speaker 1: there are other ways of being in the world. And
Speaker 1: I was just listening on NPR the other day and
Speaker 1: they were interviewing uh, a guy who had started reading
Speaker 1: romance novels at his at his wife's suggestion, because she
Speaker 1: thought it would make him a better lover. And and
Speaker 1: it was so fascinating to me because my first thought was,
Speaker 1: how brave of this guy to go on radio and
Speaker 1: talk about following his wife's advice to be a better
Speaker 1: lover and not be talking about you know, well, this
Speaker 1: is how to you know, stay hard longer, and this
Speaker 1: is how to you know, like make her scream. What
Speaker 1: he was finding from these novels was how much communication mattered,
Speaker 1: how much humor mattered, how much just being real and
Speaker 1: open and connected. And he was, you know, having a
Speaker 1: better sex life because of this. So, I you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of opportunities for learning out
Speaker 1: there from the environment. You kind of don't want to
Speaker 1: hear it from your wife or your mother or your girlfriend,
Speaker 1: like what you need to do, but lead someone to water,
Speaker 1: they might learn. You know, Yeah, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: I have these fantasies about stuff like that too, that
Speaker 1: if if you could lead to the water, that that
Speaker 1: that men would realize too, that for example, in this case,
Speaker 1: like that kind of stuff about you know, different ways
Speaker 1: of being a lover is not just about learning how
Speaker 1: quote unquote to satisfy her, but to also enjoy this
Speaker 1: more yourself right, just to become more human in a
Speaker 1: in a broader sense. In this intimate context, it's just
Speaker 1: it's a tragedy. And I think that's one of the things.
Speaker 1: You know, that this area of we're getting a little
Speaker 1: bit far afield from anxiety. But you know, I have
Speaker 1: a doctoral student working with me now who's looking at
Speaker 1: scripts about not prescriptions, but like ideas that as that
Speaker 1: young boys get about sex and sexuality from pornography at
Speaker 1: a very early age that not only have harmful effects
Speaker 1: on their sexual partners, but on themselves and their own
Speaker 1: level of satisfaction and enjoyment. And to bring it back
Speaker 1: to anxiety, on the amount of anxiety that they experience
Speaker 1: in those encounters because they're so afraid of failure. So
Speaker 1: before adolescents, and this is in the in the public
Speaker 1: silence that you talk about that that men can experience
Speaker 1: that young boys are very free, um when they're younger,
Speaker 1: they're they expressed, tender, having feelings with friends and family,
Speaker 1: They've got an emotional vocabulary. But then adolescence there comes
Speaker 1: the public silencing. So that kind of fits in with
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. Is that like eventually you go
Speaker 1: out into the world and you kind of adapt to
Speaker 1: the world and you start doing that anxiety response, which
Speaker 1: is like shoving it all in, don't show emotion. And
Speaker 1: is that would you say that the answer to why
Speaker 1: that happens is because like once you're an adolescent, you
Speaker 1: have more freedom and you are seeing things that are
Speaker 1: outside of your parents influence. Yeah, I think so. And
Speaker 1: I think also that, um, you know that we've known
Speaker 1: for a long time that one of the key agendas
Speaker 1: of adolescence is identity formation. You know, who who am I?
Speaker 1: Where do I fit? And you see this coming up
Speaker 1: in terms of what kind of music do you like?
Speaker 1: Are you an athlete or not? What kind of clothes
Speaker 1: do you wear? A sexual orientation, which click you hang
Speaker 1: out with? And so to figure this out, this who
Speaker 1: am I? Teen get exquisitely sensitive to feedback from other teams.
Speaker 1: You know, I raised a teenage daughter and I watched
Speaker 1: as this incredibly bright, wonderful child just got torn apart
Speaker 1: by other people's reactions to her. And especially now with
Speaker 1: social media, you know, in a very concrete sense, are
Speaker 1: you liked or not? How many times a day are
Speaker 1: you liked? And so with with young boys, I think
Speaker 1: raised to think about being masculine. Now they're in adolescence.
Speaker 1: Now they're trying to figure out which group do I
Speaker 1: fit in? There raw and open and what we call
Speaker 1: the policing of masculinity starts to take over. And this
Speaker 1: this is where other people, boys and girls, frankly start
Speaker 1: to shape behavior very directly with things like homophobic insults
Speaker 1: and accusing boys of being gay or being a girl
Speaker 1: or a woos and so on, and so yeah, that's
Speaker 1: where you tend to see this, this move being really
Speaker 1: emotionally open and and and out there to being really
Speaker 1: shut down. And of course it's different for for different boys,
Speaker 1: but this is the dominant trend we see. So in
Speaker 1: one of your case studies, you were talking about this
Speaker 1: man who had panic attacks and he kept saying, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel lists the physical sensations, but that's
Speaker 1: just stressed. This is physical, and you were pushing him
Speaker 1: too more that it was you know, do you have
Speaker 1: any shameful thoughts? You know, what are your thoughts? What's
Speaker 1: your inner life? And he was like, no, this is physical.
Speaker 1: And I mean everyone who has panic struggles with us.
Speaker 1: You know, if people go to the e R, they
Speaker 1: think it's a heart attack. But in terms of helping
Speaker 1: men understand when they're feeling a physical sensation of a
Speaker 1: panic attack, what is the emotional life behind that? Like,
Speaker 1: I know we're not saying their thought in the moment
Speaker 1: literally causes it, but is it Is it that a
Speaker 1: lifetime of shame and shoving things down can then just
Speaker 1: come out in panic attacks. I think the important thing
Speaker 1: for a lot of men to understand about anxiety, including
Speaker 1: panic attacks, is that the physical symptoms don't make it
Speaker 1: more real, and the psychological or emotional symptoms make it
Speaker 1: quote unquote in your head. This is the dilemma that
Speaker 1: I see a lot of guys falling into, is that
Speaker 1: they assume that if their heart is racing and if
Speaker 1: they're sweating, right, um, that this can't be an anxiety
Speaker 1: disorder because it's a physical symptom, and anxiety disorder is
Speaker 1: a mental disorder, and that means it's in your head.
Speaker 1: So in other words, I'm not making this up. Is
Speaker 1: what they're trying to communicate and what I try to
Speaker 1: help them understand, and I think a lot of contemporary
Speaker 1: treatment is oriented towards this, is to understand that anxiety
Speaker 1: is uh, bio psycho social right, Like, it has biological
Speaker 1: components heart racing, sweating, right, that sort of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: it also has thoughts and feelings, right, which, if you
Speaker 1: look at the research, have biological components themselves. So there's
Speaker 1: nothing there's nothing more or less real about thoughts, feelings
Speaker 1: or sweat, right, it's all part of the anxiety response,
Speaker 1: and the fact that you're feeling it and it's really
Speaker 1: stressful is makes it real enough that you know you
Speaker 1: deserve treatment and you deserve compassion. Anxiety bites will be
Speaker 1: right back after a quick little message from one of
Speaker 1: our sponsors. You mentioned in your book GERD which I
Speaker 1: which is another name for um heartburn. But that's not
Speaker 1: what you mean. You called it grandiose emotional restriction disordered.
Speaker 1: What is that? Well, you know what, it's not really
Speaker 1: a real thing. Um, Well, I like you made that
Speaker 1: up and I like it. Yeah, thank you for noticing that.
Speaker 1: So what I was trying to do at that point
Speaker 1: in the book was to illustrate that as a society,
Speaker 1: historically in America, we have tended to call things that
Speaker 1: are more commonly seen as women mental disorders, and we've
Speaker 1: tended to accept more problems in men as quote unquote normal.
Speaker 1: So we so, for example, we see extreme emotionality as
Speaker 1: something called histrionic personality disorder, and we're worried. Historically it's
Speaker 1: not so much true anymore. But certainly, like you know,
Speaker 1: women were criticized for not being able to contain their
Speaker 1: emotions and not being able to be rational enough. And
Speaker 1: what I was pointing out with this hypothetical grandiose emotional
Speaker 1: restrictive disorder or GIRD, was that, well, you know what, UM,
Speaker 1: being so emotionally restricted and thinking that you're you've got
Speaker 1: it all together and that you're wonderful because of that
Speaker 1: is equally problematic. We just haven't labeled it and put
Speaker 1: in the diagnostic and statistical manual. So that's where GURD
Speaker 1: came from. I like that because, yeah, I'm referencing your
Speaker 1: book here, and I thought that was such a really
Speaker 1: good point that, UM, because we are more prepared to
Speaker 1: see stereotypically feminine behaviors as problems, we are more prepared
Speaker 1: to see women as suffering from psychological disorders than men.
Speaker 1: But if we assumed that the ability to cry, refusal
Speaker 1: to worry about anything in a in an excessively high
Speaker 1: opinion of oneself, where markers of an underlying disorder perhaps GIRD,
Speaker 1: we might see higher rates of mental illness and men. So,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, it's weird because in a lot of
Speaker 1: medical society we UM base things on men's symptoms, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, women's bodies are different in their diagnoses are
Speaker 1: often wrong because everything is based on men, and then
Speaker 1: this way weirdly, are you saying mental health is kind
Speaker 1: of based on women and everything outside of that is
Speaker 1: seen as quote normal. Well, yeah, in a way, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm saying, is that that mental health has
Speaker 1: been feminized historically. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 1: that we've tended to assume that mental health problems are
Speaker 1: more in the realm of women. Um that um, going
Speaker 1: to therapy is for women. I've heard plenty of men
Speaker 1: in our research studies say that, you know, it's part
Speaker 1: of a broader tendency, I think, to to see things
Speaker 1: that are less desirable in society and associate them with women.
Speaker 1: So we you know, we're back to our friend Mr
Speaker 1: P the patriarchy. Well, so leslie to anyone listening, who's
Speaker 1: um feeling really seen by this conversation. Do you have
Speaker 1: an opinion should men see a male therapist? Is that
Speaker 1: help that with the modeling or does it really matter?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't. I don't. The research suggests, um,
Speaker 1: it's complicated, so there's no sort of dominant pattern here,
Speaker 1: So it's I certainly wouldn't say that men should see
Speaker 1: a male therapist. I think if a guy is concerned
Speaker 1: that there's something not masculine about what he's going through,
Speaker 1: a male therapist could be helpful in confirming that now
Speaker 1: you you know, it's okay, like, uh, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a sense more power to normalize that from a male therapist.
Speaker 1: For some men, that's too threatening to talk to a
Speaker 1: male therapist, so a female therapist would be more helpful.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, um, you know, some guys tend
Speaker 1: to uh no, you probably want to edit this out.
Speaker 1: This is the dynamics of this get complicated, right because
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of or they just just
Speaker 1: sexualize the relationship or turn it into a UM you're
Speaker 1: my mother, and you're supposed to you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: challenge me. You're supposed to nurture me. Um. And so
Speaker 1: you know, it's you know, the bottom line is find
Speaker 1: a therapist who's well trained and who you feel comfortable with,
Speaker 1: and who's familiar with the most contemporary, most evidence based
Speaker 1: treatments for the sorts of things that you're struggling with.
Speaker 1: It was something in your book you said that you know,
Speaker 1: the guy that was having trouble understanding that his panic
Speaker 1: was also emotional. He finally was like, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna tell my girlfriend and she's gonna be like,
Speaker 1: I told you so. Is that I told you so helpful?
Speaker 1: How can people better support the men in their life
Speaker 1: that are just starting to get help? I mean, I
Speaker 1: imagine that the I told you so is really not
Speaker 1: a great reaction. M Yeah, I think you're right. I
Speaker 1: don't think any of us like to be told I
Speaker 1: told you so. I mean it's understandable that, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a reason we say I told you so to people,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I think it's I think that
Speaker 1: there are lots of ways that that that women can
Speaker 1: help men. I mean, I always give this caveat that
Speaker 1: the most important way for women to help men is
Speaker 1: for women to take care of themselves first and foremost.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a there's enough messages out there that
Speaker 1: women get raised with about their role as being responsible
Speaker 1: for men's emotional well being right and there, and lots
Speaker 1: of guys get into this pattern where we keep all
Speaker 1: of our vulnerability hidden except for a woman that we
Speaker 1: share it with. And that's a tremendous responsibility for that
Speaker 1: one woman. So women need to take care of themselves. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: one of the ways that you can take care of
Speaker 1: yourself is by um allowing him to take care of himself. Right,
Speaker 1: So I encourage communication along the lines of I'm here
Speaker 1: for you, I care about you. UM, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to force you to do one thing or another, but
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm glad that you're taking care of yourself,
Speaker 1: and let me know how I can support you. Yeah. Right,
Speaker 1: Because it's a great like kind of codependency boundary stuff
Speaker 1: where you don't want to you know, when someone getting better,
Speaker 1: like because you told them too, because they'll that'll bite
Speaker 1: you in the ass eventually exactly. One of the things
Speaker 1: I like to suggest that helps reconcile this kind of
Speaker 1: paradox about the patriarchy, like how do we understand the
Speaker 1: fact that men are in power structurally in a patriarchy
Speaker 1: but appear to be suffering so much at the same time.
Speaker 1: And I like to think about the idea that patriarchy
Speaker 1: tends to oppress women and psychologically and socially restrict men.
Speaker 1: So so being restricted is not the same thing as
Speaker 1: being oppressed, Like we can men can for ourselves and
Speaker 1: for each other reduce this restriction right, we can metaphorically
Speaker 1: untied the tight knot around the neck, right, take the
Speaker 1: tie off, be a little more open. So and and
Speaker 1: it's funny because you talked about the three pis in
Speaker 1: the book. Since I published that book, I've got another
Speaker 1: three piece. I don't know what it is about that
Speaker 1: about that letter, Um, but it's pain, power and privilege
Speaker 1: go hand in hand as well, you know. So if
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about men's pain, we have to
Speaker 1: talk about men's power and privilege. And if we're going
Speaker 1: to deconstruct men's power and privilege, we got to talk
Speaker 1: about the pain part. Well, thank you so much. I
Speaker 1: know this is like we did not solve the issue,
Speaker 1: but um, I think we gave the men and my
Speaker 1: audience a good place to start, and the women listening,
Speaker 1: you know, a little assignment. And uh, I thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I'm so glad you're teaching that class. I'm
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully this will get better in our lifetime. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, it's just boom boom boom. Oh
Speaker 1: you're welcome. Thanks for the opportunity. It's it's been fun.
Speaker 1: I hope you've got a lot out of my conversation.
Speaker 1: With Dr Michael had is whether you are a man,
Speaker 1: identify as a man or no a man? I think
Speaker 1: I think this for me was a very healing episode.
Speaker 1: So let's get to our takeaways. What can we sum up?
Speaker 1: What are the key points that we learned today. One
Speaker 1: is that from early on, boys and men are taught
Speaker 1: that manhood is about no matter what's going on inside
Speaker 1: of you, projecting externally like everything is cool. But now
Speaker 1: that causes another issue. So a man is struggling on
Speaker 1: the inside dealing with panic or anxiety, or any vulnerable
Speaker 1: and emotion. But now the problem is it feels like
Speaker 1: there's something shameful about that because look around and the
Speaker 1: other guys are also doing the posturing of projecting externally
Speaker 1: like everything's cool. Dr Addis got involved in even looking
Speaker 1: at the mental health of men specifically because he noticed
Speaker 1: that in his practice, the majority of people coming in
Speaker 1: for therapy were women. The second thing he noticed was
Speaker 1: I'm the only guy in my graduate class here. And
Speaker 1: the third thing he noticed was now that he realized
Speaker 1: he's the only guy, he's starting to see some of
Speaker 1: the things that he learned about being male are affecting
Speaker 1: how he's doing in graduate school and how he's even
Speaker 1: approaching this whole enterprise of talking about emotions and trying
Speaker 1: to help people. Statistically, men don't attend therapy as much
Speaker 1: or as often as women. Men don't go to the
Speaker 1: doctor as much, and they don't take care of their
Speaker 1: health as much, they don't disclose as much, and the
Speaker 1: list goes on. Men are not taught to recognize problems
Speaker 1: in their lives, all the way back to the simple
Speaker 1: question of our things okay or not? Does a man
Speaker 1: even know himself enough to say that things going on
Speaker 1: with him are difficult? Michael Addis has seen so many
Speaker 1: men come through um in his research studies who will
Speaker 1: deny anxiety or depression despite having taken a written test
Speaker 1: and scoring off the charts of these standardized tests and questionnaires.
Speaker 1: A lot of men will say, well, no, I'm not anxious.
Speaker 1: My wife has anxiety, but if I'm able to get
Speaker 1: up and go to work, that means I'm doing okay.
Speaker 1: Dr Addas has seen that when working with men, when
Speaker 1: explaining to them that actually what they do have is anxiety,
Speaker 1: it's not just stress or a physical symptom, that ideally
Speaker 1: the information is a relief to them because there is
Speaker 1: a recognition that what they're experiencing is not uncommon. But
Speaker 1: there is a complication when diagnosing some men because a
Speaker 1: lot of men grow up with what's known as a
Speaker 1: kind of femophobia. If something has been labeled feminine, like
Speaker 1: mental health or having anxiety, it's frightening to men. And
Speaker 1: you know, anything that's feminine is frightening. If a man, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, thinks that anxiety is shameful and weak, than
Speaker 1: his initial reaction to being diagnosed with having anxiety might
Speaker 1: be shame for your self, hatred and guilt. What men
Speaker 1: and ever it needs to know? Once again reminding everyone
Speaker 1: that anxiety is an evolved mechanism in all human beings.
Speaker 1: It's there for a reason. Anxiety disorder is nothing more
Speaker 1: than oversensitivity of a basic mechanism in the human body
Speaker 1: and mind, and there's nothing to be ashamed of about that.
Speaker 1: We're experiencing a cultural tendency to man up mental health
Speaker 1: or or all things that we're marketing towards men. The
Speaker 1: idea is we make it macho to talk about mental
Speaker 1: health or macho to see a psychotherapist, like like everything
Speaker 1: is some kind of viagra commercial. The motivation is marketing
Speaker 1: to a stereotype of men. But that comes at a
Speaker 1: cost because even though it might be changing the idea
Speaker 1: of what's manly into something more theoretically helpful or adaptive,
Speaker 1: it's continuing the idea that men must be manly. What
Speaker 1: needs to happen is we need to do the opposite.
Speaker 1: We need to go from not talking about our feelings
Speaker 1: you're talking about our feelings and letting go of what's
Speaker 1: manly and what's not and let men be okay with
Speaker 1: being human, and then there will be real improvements. Dr
Speaker 1: Addas believes there's still a tremendous amount of white privilege
Speaker 1: and lack of education out there, and so there's a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of fear for some men who feel that
Speaker 1: what they're entitled to is now being threatened. Michael Addas
Speaker 1: believes that none of this societal progress is on women
Speaker 1: to solve For men, he doesn't believe that any of
Speaker 1: these issues with masculinity are on other people whose identity
Speaker 1: has put them in a marginalized and oppressed position to
Speaker 1: figure out. He believes it's on men to figure out.
Speaker 1: There's a stereotype that gay men have transcended this restrictive
Speaker 1: masculinity because they have more access to femininity and emotional expressiveness.
Speaker 1: But the research shows that gay men are as affected
Speaker 1: by this as much a straight men. So gay men
Speaker 1: struggle with what does it mean to be masculine? And
Speaker 1: my masculine enough, They struggle with body image, with hierarchy
Speaker 1: between more feminine gay men and more masculine gay men,
Speaker 1: and so on. What does shame actually feel like when
Speaker 1: someone's experiencing it, Shame feels like I just want to
Speaker 1: go away and hide right now. There's a impending sense
Speaker 1: of doom coming from other people and the way they're
Speaker 1: thinking about me. There's something about me right now that
Speaker 1: is so unacceptable. I just need to go away. A
Speaker 1: lot of men are shame phobic. They don't know how
Speaker 1: to deal with shame itself. They don't know how to
Speaker 1: say I feel ashamed. It's a lot of layers of
Speaker 1: vulnerability and can be too much to swallow. Michael Adds
Speaker 1: believes the best way to combat that kind of shame
Speaker 1: phobia is to remember that shame grows in the closet,
Speaker 1: so you make your own shame worse by hiding it.
Speaker 1: So now think about trying to confess everything that you're
Speaker 1: ashamed of and you can do it in small doses.
Speaker 1: A lot of people will say to dr Addas, I
Speaker 1: get how all of this works, But how am I
Speaker 1: supposed to talk with my family who raised me to
Speaker 1: believe in masculinity this way? How do I talk about homophobia?
Speaker 1: How am I supposed to talk about the importance of
Speaker 1: supporting women and being pro feminist? Unfortunately, Dr Addis is,
Speaker 1: there's no clear answer to this. But the truth is
Speaker 1: to ask yourself. If you're committed to a certain way
Speaker 1: of being, you also have to think through who you're
Speaker 1: hanging around. For example, with with dr Addis, his guy
Speaker 1: friends sometimes will give him grief about talking about his feelings,
Speaker 1: but what he's found is over time, if he hangs
Speaker 1: in there, it is positively rewarded and he starts seeing
Speaker 1: them talk as well about their feelings too. Dr Addis
Speaker 1: believes that masculinity can be really usefully understood as an
Speaker 1: anxiety disorder because he sees it acting just like an
Speaker 1: anxiety disorder. It's a coordinated way of responding to a
Speaker 1: perceived threat, which is exactly what an anxiety disorder is.
Speaker 1: It's it's also exactly like an allergy, an allergy is
Speaker 1: like an anxiety disorder too. It doesn't have all the
Speaker 1: same cognitive and emotional components, but it's still your body's
Speaker 1: way of saying, hey, there's a threat, get it out
Speaker 1: of here. There is a psychological condition called alexithymia, and
Speaker 1: it's a very common disorder. It's suggested that men suffer
Speaker 1: from a subclinical version of this. In other words, the
Speaker 1: normal way we raise men in society tends to produce
Speaker 1: a mild case of of this, which is not knowing
Speaker 1: what you're feeling. So the consequence is that people say
Speaker 1: to men sometimes whether it a friend or an intimate
Speaker 1: partner or physician, how are you doing? How you feeling?
Speaker 1: And the answer often is I don't know. The notion
Speaker 1: that parents are the master chefs of their kids psychological
Speaker 1: development is not really true. Kids are exquisitely sensitive to
Speaker 1: peer influences, and as we develop, we're not really designed
Speaker 1: to figure out how to deal with our parents. That's
Speaker 1: only really true for the first few years of life.
Speaker 1: But we're designed to figure out how to deal with
Speaker 1: the world that we're going to grow into, and so
Speaker 1: piers tend to win out as more important than parents.
Speaker 1: What dr Addis prescribes for you know, helping men kind
Speaker 1: of break out of this is, you know, when talking
Speaker 1: about the issues of men's ideologies and beliefs about their
Speaker 1: own mental health and how they're supposed to be as men,
Speaker 1: he always encourages men to read more broadly, watch different films,
Speaker 1: and and look at other ways of being in the world. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if you're listening to this, maybe you
Speaker 1: want to get more into a female comedian and you
Speaker 1: want to buy my new comedy album called Okay gen X,
Speaker 1: which is available on iTunes and Amazon. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: just throwing up plug in there for my you know,
Speaker 1: if you're a guy who's like I don't really normally
Speaker 1: listen to women comics and you're listening to this episode,
Speaker 1: there you go. It's a doctor's orders. Um. And then lastly,
Speaker 1: Dr Addis says, you know, mental health has been feminized
Speaker 1: historically and going back to you know, femphobia. Uh, we
Speaker 1: tend to assume that mental health problems are more in
Speaker 1: the realm of women, and that going to therapy is
Speaker 1: for women and so against doesn't lead men to want
Speaker 1: to admit having mental health problems. But Dr Adds believes
Speaker 1: that there are the three ps that go hand in
Speaker 1: hand with, you know, kind of oppressing men in their
Speaker 1: own mental health, which is men's power, privilege, and pain.
Speaker 1: And if we're going to deconstruct men's power and privilege,
Speaker 1: we've got to be comfortable talking about men's pain. And lastly,
Speaker 1: if you're a woman, identify as a woman, what can
Speaker 1: you do about the men in your life? But Dr
Speaker 1: Addis says, there's enough messages out there that women get,
Speaker 1: you know, that they're raised with about their role as
Speaker 1: being responsible for men's emotional well being. And a lot
Speaker 1: of guys get into a pattern where they keep all
Speaker 1: their vulnerability hidden except for a woman that they share
Speaker 1: it with. And that's a tremendous responsibility for one woman.
Speaker 1: So women, the best way to take care of men
Speaker 1: is to take care of yourselves, all right, everybody, I
Speaker 1: hope you will send me an email anxiety bites a
Speaker 1: weekly at gmail dot com. We will do a couple
Speaker 1: more listener email episodes before the season closes out this August.
Speaker 1: We still have some great guests coming up. We'll be
Speaker 1: talking about things like a d h D and women um, anxiety, bullying, menopause,
Speaker 1: all kinds of great stuff, so subscribe. Give this show
Speaker 1: a five star review on iTunes, it tones, that's do
Speaker 1: it on iTunes, who knows what itnes is, and then
Speaker 1: a Spotify now is allowing reviewing, so please do give
Speaker 1: a five star to the podcast. It helps more people
Speaker 1: find this and let's you know, the more people that
Speaker 1: find the podcast, the more people might start to feel better.
Speaker 1: So do all of that for me and we'll meet
Speaker 1: you back here next week. And just remember, yes, anxiety,
Speaker 1: but but you're in control. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,