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Anxiety Looks Different in Men

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Re: Anxiety Looks Different in Men

#231

Post by etripe »

shange wrote: post #210

Toxic masculinity: "The concept of toxic masculinity is used in psychology and media discussions of masculinity to refer to certain cultural norms that are associated with harm to society and to men themselves." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_masculinity It's not the same as misandry. "Homophobia" sounds like it means "afraid of homosexuals" but that is incorrect. "Toxic masculinity" kind of sounds like it mea…

In my opinion, toxic masculinity is a political term, not a solidly scientific one. Whatever the case, the nomenclature definitely does not fit the bill of abject observation associated with science. While the term isn't synonymous with misandry, the very notion contains misandric elements and value judgement. Harm is in the eye of the beholder, especially when it comes to inculturation and socialisation.

It is my firm hope that the public debate can move beyond firmly entrenching further into the male-female dichotomy and start to see all human behaviour as part of a spectrum, where gender norms are clearly understood to be a statistical tendency but not a rule. "Toxic masculinity" does nothing to further that goal.

Re: Anxiety Looks Different in Men

#232

Post by ethanbond »

hi41 wrote: post #209
spaceprison wrote: post #52

This is a great article. For years I didn't know how to handle anxiety so I handled it "like a man" which lead to a pretty decent drinking habit. Now that I've stopped drinking and being open about what's going on with me, my anxiety looks like traditional anxiety which was easy for my gp to help diagnose. Taking the leap to be open and get help was the best thing to happen to me in years.

I read the article and noticed something I have been doing recently. I have been drinking heavily. I say I work from home and then I drink. I have been drinking in the night when my wife goes to bed. I have had two anxiety attacks before. I was on medication for several months. I know meditation helps but don’t have time to practice it with all the commute and long work days. I don’t know what to do.

I don't often post here these days but this really stuck out to me and I'm kind of surprised it hasn't yielded any responses. Based on this description, you need to get some help my friend. Depending on your relationship, a reasonable first step may be to talk to your wife about this. If you don't know what to tell her exactly, point her to this comment. There are professionals and there's no shame in utilizing them to become the best version of yourself. Good luck :)

Re: Anxiety Looks Different in Men

#233

Post by Infernal »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #211
Infernal wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I normally see FAANG for Facebook Apple Amazon Netflix and Google. Not sure how to work Microsoft in there - maybe MAFANG or FANMAG or some such.

Netflix is one side business for Amazon and they rely on AWS for hosting. Why put them in the group?

It was originally used as a label for high performing tech companies from an investor's perspective[0], and from there adopted by software engineers and other employees who work or aspire to work for those companies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook,_Apple,_Amazon,_Netfl...

Re: Anxiety Looks Different in Men

#234

Post by WhitneyLand »

jazoom wrote: post #123
WhitneyLand wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see where we are disagreeing? I'm not arguing against triage. GPs were mentioned - I'm simply stating that it's not uncommon that a patient comes to see a GP questions are asked to elicit the role of stress and anxiety in the situation as appropriate. This does not rule out other care or take precedence over it as you know.

Reading your comment now I also don't see where we are disagreeing. Though, I didn't say we are disagreeing, and I don't see why we need to. Edit: Did you by any chance edit your comment? I swear the word "miss" was in there.

My mistake then in inferring that.

I don't recall making such an edit, usually I would note a change in semantic meaning, I believe the primary error was inferring a contradiction.

Thank you for clarifying.

Re: Anxiety Looks Different in Men

#235

Post by MononokeMoon »

spaceprison wrote: post #52

This is a great article. For years I didn't know how to handle anxiety so I handled it "like a man" which lead to a pretty decent drinking habit. Now that I've stopped drinking and being open about what's going on with me, my anxiety looks like traditional anxiety which was easy for my gp to help diagnose. Taking the leap to be open and get help was the best thing to happen to me in years.

Yup. You can't heal if you don't communicate what's going on in your mind.

Re: Anxiety Looks Different in Men

#236

Post by dkarl »

Retra wrote: post #180
dkarl wrote: post #40

Anxiety is one of the emotions that I have to consciously think about how to express. I have to imagine what people look like in the movies when they're scared, and then I try to reproduce it. I can show many other emotions naturally, without thinking about it: happiness, anger, disgust. But fear I have to consciously simulate. (I suppose if I was in a bus going off the edge of a cliff or someone stuck a gun in my fa…

I have the opposite problem: I don't know what anxiety is. Supposedly it's an emotion people have (and it's certainly possible I feel it too,) but I have no way to identify my feelings as anxiety because nobody has ever expressed the meaning of that term in a way the conforms to any feeling I have ever had.

I originally glossed over your comment pretty quickly, but the more I think about it, the more I realize this is true in practice for me as well. I know what it feels like to feel joy or sadness, but for me anxiety is more often a collection of things I observe about myself than something I feel. This is partly because my anxiety is so often coupled with depression, and partly because anxiety pushes your brain into a fight/freeze/flee trichotomy, and the "freeze" and "flee" responses can feel pretty emotionally blank when the fear is distant or ill-defined (like a deadline or social rejection as opposed to a grizzly bear.)

Again depending on the fight/freeze/flee response, my anxiety can manifest as stiffness in my body, requiring special concentration to force myself to do normal things, or it can manifest as a jitteriness, like when you drive a car with a lot more power than you're used to and every time you touch the accelerator it surges forward in an alarming way. It can be accompanied by elevated body temperature, even sweating.

The way I differentiate the paralyzing kind of anxiety from depression is that depression paralyzes with lack of energy and an inability to believe that anything you do will come out well. Anxiety paralyzes with stiffness and a blank mind that is too twitchy to make plans.

Paralysis is the flight/freeze response to anxiety, but it also has a fight response, where I single-mindedly execute the next thing to do. I can get a lot of things done this way, and sometimes this is the only thing that snaps me out of procrastination, but sometimes the "clear next step" I'm unthinkingly executing is not the right thing. And when it becomes unclear what the next thing is, I'm back to being paralyzed.

Likewise, in social situations, anxiety can make me talk a lot (for me) and become much more open and engaging, and it can be a great thing to get me over the hump to knowing someone well, but more often it just makes my mind blank and makes me so slow to say the things I want to say that the moment passes. From the point of view of my social anxiety, I guess that's a win, preventing me from engaging more than superficially.

Re: Anxiety Looks Different in Men

#237

Post by therealdrag0 »

Retra wrote: post #180
dkarl wrote: post #40

Anxiety is one of the emotions that I have to consciously think about how to express. I have to imagine what people look like in the movies when they're scared, and then I try to reproduce it. I can show many other emotions naturally, without thinking about it: happiness, anger, disgust. But fear I have to consciously simulate. (I suppose if I was in a bus going off the edge of a cliff or someone stuck a gun in my fa…

I have the opposite problem: I don't know what anxiety is. Supposedly it's an emotion people have (and it's certainly possible I feel it too,) but I have no way to identify my feelings as anxiety because nobody has ever expressed the meaning of that term in a way the conforms to any feeling I have ever had.

One of the few times in my life where I have palpable anxiety is when I go for on-site interviews. Most other things I'm a cool cucumber. I think there is something to having feelings but not recognizing what they are, but there is also the other side which is people are different and different people feel things more keenly than others.

Re: Anxiety Looks Different in Men

#238

Post by hi41 »

ethanbond wrote: post #232
hi41 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the article and noticed something I have been doing recently. I have been drinking heavily. I say I work from home and then I drink. I have been drinking in the night when my wife goes to bed. I have had two anxiety attacks before. I was on medication for several months. I know meditation helps but don’t have time to practice it with all the commute and long work days. I don’t know what to do.

I don't often post here these days but this really stuck out to me and I'm kind of surprised it hasn't yielded any responses. Based on this description, you need to get some help my friend. Depending on your relationship, a reasonable first step may be to talk to your wife about this. If you don't know what to tell her exactly, point her to this comment. There are professionals and there's no shame in utilizing them…

Thank you much for your thoughtful suggestion. I have to get a lot of things in order.

Re: Anxiety Looks Different in Men

#239

Post by alien14 »

hi41 wrote: post #238
ethanbond wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't often post here these days but this really stuck out to me and I'm kind of surprised it hasn't yielded any responses. Based on this description, you need to get some help my friend. Depending on your relationship, a reasonable first step may be to talk to your wife about this. If you don't know what to tell her exactly, point her to this comment. There are professionals and there's no shame in utilizing them…

Thank you much for your thoughtful suggestion. I have to get a lot of things in order.

I also wanted to comment here. Cheering you on. Working with a professional has been the biggest relief for me. It's absolutely worth the money if you can afford it (and you can always ask if therapists could offer "sliding scale" meaning they charge less for folks that can't afford the full price). I went on Psychology Today's website and used their listing of therapists. It was scary emailing the first one but I did it and I showed up to the appointment. Now years later I am no longer drinking and have all sorts of tools for my anxiety. You can do this.

Re: Anxiety Looks Different in Men

#240

Post by alien14 »

ZitchDog wrote: post #61
dleslie wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may be so bold as to inquire, what was your path to stop drinking? Do you find you replaced it with another coping mechanism?

Not OP, but I had a similar experience. Getting to the root of things with CBT caused me to completely change my relationship with alcohol. At this point, heavy drinking has become a clear path to increasing my anxiety, and it’s easy to abstain.

How did you practice CBT? Yourself? With a therapist? A workbook?
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