The Inner Lives of Men

Jen talks to award-winning research psychologist, Michael Addis PhD, about his book "Invisible Men: Men's Inner Lives and the Consequences of Silence" as well as his personal and clinical experience with anxiety in men due to the epidemic of men being taught to stay silent about their feelings and vulnerabilities.

For more information go here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429974066/invisiblemen

For more information on Jen Kirkman, the host of Anxiety Bites, please go here: https://jenkirkman.bio.link

and to get the takeaways for this episode please visit: http://www.jenkirkman.com/anxietybitespodcast

Anxiety Bites is distributed by the iHeartPodcast Network and co-produced by Dylan Fagan and JJ Posway.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Anxiety Bites podcast, and I am your host,
Jen Kirkman. Hi, I'm Jen Kirkman, and welcome to another
episode of Anxiety Bites. Today. My guest is award winning
research psychologist Michael Addis. He wrote the book Invisible Men,
Men's Inner Lives and the Consequences of Silence. Now it's

(00:33):
it's you know, it's always weird for me. Uh two,
I want to talk about something like this because I
have to be honest. You know, I was the week
that I was reading this book in preparation for this interview.
In my other life, in my life as someone who
well I I don't perform stand up comedy anymore, but
twenty five years as a stand up comedian. In my

(00:55):
other life, there was a lot going on in my
community where um, you know, a sexual offender who was
credibly accused and admitted to it want a Grammy for
his comedy album. And you know, he'd been exiled for
a little bit, but he came back and and anyone
speaking out about like wow, that really makes women feel

(01:16):
like they don't matter, and it does kick up a
lot of trauma and anxiety, and and uh, you know,
I live a life online, and I just am constantly
whenever I speak out about things, or speak up about things,
or just even talk about sexism and inequality and the
nuance of any conversation about a sexual predator winning a Grammy.

(01:38):
I'm not saying I don't even know what I'm I'm
not the argument I was good gets down to it
should they never work again? It's like I'm not even
thinking about that. I'm just thinking about how I feel,
think about my feelings about the message it sends to
other people in comedy that aren't men. And so I
noticed this online a lot. Is like women are hawking

(02:00):
through their emotions, their feelings. Men are coming back wanting
to debate. It's all in their head, you know, and
and it's it's exhausting, frankly. But it was just one
of those weeks where I am living online, I'm speaking
out about something, and the harassment I'm getting is just
un real. And it's happened before. It's a regular part

(02:21):
of my life being a woman at all, but online
as well. And so here I am reading this book
about men and their inner lives and how, you know,
because of the patriarchy, they they are stuck in these
ridiculous roles where they're you know, not supposed to show
emotion because everything is so sexist that it's like if
a man. Everything has been feminized to where like if

(02:43):
a man does this, it's, you know, it's not manly,
and so he doesn't do it, and it and it.
It was just interesting because I my empathy was at
a negative two on a scalpeoe to ten. I was
just like, don't just fix it already, everybody, because they're
making our lives impossible, you know. But it was great
to talk to Michael Addis because I mean, he's obviously

(03:04):
aware of the consequences that's in the title of his book,
The Consequences of Silence. When men don't feel like they're
you know, given any room in society to talk about
their feelings, express emotion, it builds up and can cause
anxiety up to dot dot dot someone is going on

(03:28):
a shooting spright right, or someone is harming others, or
at the very nest is just causing disruptions in relationships,
whether romantic or family or friendships, or maybe just you're
one of these guys online that just wants to debate
a woman which is talking about the nuance of a
feeling and these are consequences. And what we talked about

(03:53):
in this episode was that the scary part can be
when it's not like, oh, well, if only men could
talk about their feelings, there go back a step. They're
not even in their own minds and hearts and souls
recognizing a feeling. Like it's not that, oh, they have

(04:17):
all the same skills that that that women do and
you know, all kinds of different people, they're just not
able to verbalize. I mean, it's so much more than that.
It's like this just complete disservice that this kind of
patriarchal society has done to men. And that's you know
what I'm what was screaming about, is that feminism helps

(04:37):
men too, you know, break us all out of these
stupid binds that that we have because of as Michael,
and it reminds me of this episode the Big Pa,
the patriarchy. So if anyone listening is like I don't
want to hear about men, it trust me, you'll love
this episode. It'll be very healing for your soul. And

(04:58):
that's how m he be in his book is like,
I know what you're thinking. Really like, men have everything
and now I've got to read a book about But
it was a really great conversation about you know, whose
problem this is, what can be done about it, and
what women can do to help. And I think you're
going to love his answer on that one. I will

(05:20):
not give it away anyway. So let's just introduce my
guest today, Michael at his PhD. Has published more than
seventy articles and books. Um. He is a recipient of
the American Psychological Association's David Shaka Award and the New
Researcher Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.

(05:43):
He's the author of Invisible Men, Men's Inner Lives and
the Consequences of Silence. He's a professor of psychology at
Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Again, so enjoy my conversation
and I'll see you on the other side with this
episode's take aways. All right, everyone, I'm here with Dr

(06:06):
Michael Addis, the author of Invisible Men, Men's Inner Lives
and the Consequences of Silence. And it's funny because I
was reading your book and I was so glad that
the way you started it is Invisible Men, Who are
you kidding. The title of this book may make you
wonder invisible men? Who are you kidding? Everywhere we look,

(06:29):
we see men's lives on television and sports and politics,
at work and at home. Men are anything but invisible. Um.
But at the same time, men's most men's inner lives
remain hidden from others and often from themselves. But I'm
just glad you put it out there because I do think,
especially you know, being a woman, and I feel like
society lately, men seem to be, for lack of a

(06:52):
better word, going through some stuff. And so a lot
of times, and we'll talk about this more towards the
end of the episode, a lot of times my empathy
is really running thin, and it shouldn't because I have
anxiety disorders and I want to use this podcast to
help others. But I do like that you recognize and
are talking about you know, we're not saying that you know,
men aren't out there, but but they're living two different

(07:14):
lives right there, living their public facing life and I
don't even mean like a celebrity, but does anyone, um,
And then on the inside they're suffering from anxiety and
I know someone listening might go well, duh, that's everyone
with anxiety. But can you explain to us what's what's
so unique in men about about that? Well? I think
we're you know, encouraged from almost day one to have

(07:36):
this sort of public persona which lives up to images
of what it means to be a man, what it
means to be masculine. A lot of that is about
being powerful, impactful, stoic um, more powerful than women. Right.
I mean, this is this is where I think you're
strained empathy comes from. Is that if you look around,

(07:57):
it's like guys or everywhere saying, look at me, but
it's only part of me, right, It's the part that
is um that fits those societal ideals, and a lot
of times to achieve that, we have to sort of
squash and hold back the part that doesn't have a
frigging clue what's going on, and the part that's afraid
or anxious or depressed or were super stressed out because

(08:20):
saying I don't know what's going on and I'm struggling
is you know, essentially not very manly. So I think
that's where the duality comes from. So yeah, and you know,
the way I relate to this is I'll give you
an example. In my I had panicked disorder. I guess
I still do, but I'm not really panicking a lot.
But where I used to panic all the time was airplanes,

(08:41):
and sitting on the plane, I would compare and despair
and look around at other people. Oh well, none of
them are panicking. You know, that guy's reading a book,
that one's you know, doing a crossword puzzle. What's wrong
with me? You know? Then shame and then shame makes
a panic horse all that kind of thing. And but
I only have those experiences such a rationally, right, So
I can't imagine walking around thinking like, for example, with

(09:06):
the men that do know they might have anxiety, and
we'll talk about the ones that don't, but thinking, um, well,
I can't even let anyone know this, uh, you know,
because for me on the plane it would be I
would feel embarrassed or scared to let anyone know, and
so I would hold it in, which would make it worse.
But thank god, those were only situational things for one

(09:27):
to six hours of a time. But walking around the
world that way, what can that do to a person's
I don't know, personality, temperament, physical, does it kind of
hurt their body. I mean, what what does that do
over time to a guy that's stressful? You know? I
mean what you're talking about is is is the consequences

(09:47):
of guys hiding our true selves from each other. Right,
So one of those rules from early on about manhood
is no matter what's going on inside, project externally like
everything's cool. You know, you see this really coming out
in um the adolescent and teen years. That's sort of
super unemotional teenage boy is almost like an icon. Now

(10:12):
nothing troubles him, and what happens is, you know, you
look at other guys. I remember this very clearly growing up,
and it still happens now is looking at other men
and thinking, well, he sure looks like he's got it
going on, you know, like nothing bothers him. And so
now I've got two issues, right, One is I'm struggling

(10:32):
on the inside if I'm if I'm dealing with panic
or anxiety or any sort of vulnerable emotion. And then
the second problem is it feels like there's something shameful
about that because look around me, and other guys aren't
talking about it, and they've got this long practiced kind
of cool pose, right that that indicates or at least
seems to indicate, everything's fine. And you know, and I

(10:54):
don't mean to position myself as above that either. I'm
sure there's a I've been told this by my students.
There's a lot of ways I'm capable of giving off
sort of everything's great, you know, nothing bothers me sort
of thing. And so, yeah, it's you know, it's not
exactly the Emperor's close, but it's close. It's close to that.
So tell me then about like why you got into

(11:17):
this specific kind of work. I know, you talk in
your book about a friend of yours who's a PhD
who was studying borderline personality disorder in men, and then
you were saying that what she said is that, UM,
men with bp D seem brittle, but women come across
as fragile. And you were saying, you know, the differences

(11:40):
with men being more more brittle if it seems like
if you reached out and touch the metaphorically speaking, they
just might crack entirely. You know. Um, And unlike a
lot of anxiety people with things that disorders, men aren't
necessarily worried about going insane. It's sort of like, you know,
if I'm insane, then I maybe I won't even know it.
It's it's something different. I know that I just asked
you three questions, but can you talk about how I

(12:01):
got started in this and and what is that difference
between you know, women might appear fragile, evnxiety, men might
appear brittle. So yeah, I mean, I went to graduate
school in clinical psychology with the idea that I was
going to become a psychotherapist and help people, you know,

(12:21):
through talk therapy. UM started doing a lot of research
on UM counseling approaches and one of the first things
I noticed was that the majority of people coming in
for therapy were women. The second thing I noticed was Wow,
I'm the only guy in my graduate class here. And

(12:41):
the third thing I noticed was hot. Now that I'm
the only guy around, I'm starting to see some of
the things that I learned about being male that are
affecting how I'm doing in graduate school and how I'm
approaching this whole enterprise of you know, talking about emotions
and trying to help people that old on a coalesced um.
When I came to Clark University in the in the

(13:03):
mid nineties, and I started getting interested in the question
of why men don't attend therapy as often as women. UM,
do a little bit a little bit of research and
see that not only do we not go to therapy
as much, but we don't go to the doctor as much,
we don't take care of our health as much, we
don't disclose problems as much, you know, and the list
goes on, and it's really sort of a curious thing.

(13:25):
And so, you know, a lot of this led into
an interest in how men get taught to or to
not recognize problems in our lives, you know, all the
way back to like our things okay? Or not? Do
I even know myself that things are going on that
are difficult? You know, you mentioned to the frattle versus

(13:46):
frattle versus Bridgil, the fragile versus brittle. There's a new
diagnostic category. Um. That distinction actually came from one of
my graduate school advisors, Marshall Lenahan, who was the you know,
she developed this therapy for borderline personality to sort of
dialectical behavior therapy, and she became world famous for helping people,

(14:07):
particularly people who were prone to self injury. And she
was not interested in gender in particular, but early on
in my career. I visited her one time UM and
she asked me what I was doing. I told her about,
you know, being interested in men's mental health, and she said,
you know, the guys that I see, the very few
of them with BPD, it's like they're they're like brittle

(14:31):
rather than fragile. And I asked her what that was about,
and she said, well, like the women present as fragile
in the sense that I have to be really careful
around them, but the guys are like they're brittle there.
They seem really well held together and if if you
poke a little bit, they're fine. But you get this
sense that if I poke a little bit too much,

(14:51):
they're just going to explode into shatters. And I thought,
what what an amazing metaphor that is, because I can
relate to it personally. And it was true to my
experience doing therapy with men too, that I felt quite
a bit more resistance to the idea that you might
be suffering, the idea that you might be vulnerable. But

(15:14):
it also felt that as as tough as that resistance was,
there was almost in some ways more raw vulnerability underneath it,
and in some ways that rawness is a byproduct of
having to expend so much energy holding yourself together because
of the fear of what would it mean if I
can't hold it together? You know, and we know what

(15:35):
it means is you're normal. You're a human being, right,
And I think it's important to for listeners to realize
too that when we talk about men as being brittle,
it's not that they're actually brittle and going to completely
fall apart if they allow themselves to acknowledge what they're feeling.

(15:56):
It's more that that that's the fear, right, and it's
this sense that I'm just going to explode. It's like
I've seen so many men come through our research studies
who will deny anxiety or depression, and you know, despite
scoring off the charts on these standardized kinds of questionnaires,
and well, and I'll say, so, tell me about that.

(16:18):
So from your perspective, you're not anxious. Why is that?
And they'll say, well, I know I'm not anxious because
my wife has anxiety and she's a basket case. And
I'm still able to get up and go to work.
So if I'm able to get up and go to work,
that means I'm doing okay. And I'll say, what about

(16:38):
what's happening privately? What about you know? I get it,
you're you're doing really well and you're gutting it out
and that's great. And so I'm not suggesting that you
you know that you're crazy or that or anything like that,
but in terms of like what it feels like on
the inside, what what's going on? You know in that sense,
and you know, then it's like, if you can make
that connection, it's like, well, I'm just explode on the inside.

(17:01):
You know. That's it's it's overwhelming, But I don't have anxiety.
How do you um what happens? I guess when a
man that you're talking to does realize it's anxiety, does
he does his worst fear come true and he thinks
he's weak? Or you know, like what what's the reaction?
Is there any relief or is it like does it

(17:22):
just turn into more problems? That's a great question. I mean,
I think I think that all depends upon the context, right, So,
so ideally it turns into relief because the recognition that
you know that what I'm experiencing is not uncommon. There's
lots of other people, and importantly other men who have

(17:42):
experienced this, and you know, we don't have to look
far into fortunately these days, into professional athletes, politicians, famous,
you know, men with lots of I like to say,
lots of masculinity in the bank. You know, these guys
too have struggled. So ideally there's relief. But as you
I think you pick up on. You know, language can

(18:02):
be really powerful, and a lot of us men grow
up with a sort of femophobia. You know, if something's
been labeled feminine, it is frankly fright If it's feminine,
it's frankly frightening. Um, you know. And so if anxiety
quote unquote strikes a guy as shameful and weak, then

(18:25):
his his initial reaction to it might be um, shame, fear,
you know, um self, self hatred, guilt, and so on.
Hopefully they begin to understand, like I'm sure you've talked
about many times on your show, that anxieties and evolved
mechanism and all human beings, it's there for a reason,
and an anxiety disorder is really nothing more than a

(18:48):
sort of oversensitivity of a basic mechanism in the human
body and mind. And that's you know, there's nothing to
be ashamed of about that, and I was thinking, you know,
it's we all know that caveman thing, and that gets
said a lot on this show. And you know, it's
a back from when we were blah blah blah and
we had this sense of danger was coming and humans,

(19:09):
you know, we're able to you know, out we didn't.
We had to use our brains to realize when danger
was coming. So is there a danger? And I don't
know if I don't know what what's going on out
there in the in the world of helping men who
have anxiety, But is there a temptation to and a
danger to, uh making anxiety masculine? You know the way

(19:32):
they make Like now we're going to have shower gel
for men and it's gonna smell like car grease, you know, Like,
is is that something at one point people were doing?
Are they still doing it? What do you? How do
you feel about that? I can't tell you how glad
I am that you brought that up, because I've done
a lot of these interviews and usually I have to
bring that up in other words that yeah, yeah, that

(19:56):
What you're talking about from my perspective, is this tendency
ultrually to man up mental health right. The idea is
if we if we make it macho to talk about
mental health, or macho to see a psychotherapist, like have
the courage to change, or like that old Viagra commercial
that I remember this going where this famous baseball player

(20:16):
was like, I take batting practice, I take pitching practice,
I take viagra, step up to the plate and call
your doctor. It's like, I think I get the motivation
to do that. You know. It's marketing to a stereotype
of men. But it comes at a cost, you know,
because even though it might be changing the idea of

(20:38):
what's manly into something more theoretically helpful or adaptive, it's
also continuing this idea that men must be manly. Right now,
we just need to do the opposite. We need to
go from not talking about our feelings to talking about
our feelings. I think the bigger problem is the idea
that men need to be manly. A right, Let's just

(20:59):
let go of that a little bit and be like,
let men be human, you know, and then we'll see
the real improvements in functioning. I think we'll be right back.

(21:20):
So I looked back. There was this book, Uh do
you know the book Backlash by Susan Faludi quite well, Okay,
I'm obsessed with it. I haven't read it since the nineties,
but stayed with me, and I almost got this chill
when I read it, thinking, oh God, I think she's right.
I don't think things are going to get better. And
I think even though I'm in this, you know, it

(21:41):
was the mid nineties. You know, we get Hillary Clinton
first lady saying I'm not baking cookies. We've got Nirvana
is like the number one band and he's going on
Saturday Night Live and dresses and nail plashes, this kind
of moment of feminism and men were embracing their human
nous and not you know, there wasn't but there was.
There was both things as I was going on in culture,
but I was in a little bubble, so I'm like, oh,
everything's great and it's getting better. And I read her

(22:03):
book that was like not blaming the women's movement, but saying,
now that women are working, the men's roles are changing,
and we're not doing anything to uh walk the men
through it, you know, and they are going to there's
going to be a backlash. And I knew she was right,
and I feel like I'm seeing it now. And what's

(22:25):
so odd is when I meet, um, younger men who
still fall into this, like you're talking about things have
to be manly or I just keep thinking, when is
I thought just certain generation had to die off and
then we're done here, you know. So it's just interesting
to me, Like I could understand if your dad was like,
look at I was in you know, World War two,

(22:45):
and I didn't sit around talking about my feelings, so
shut up. But now we're so many generations from that, Um,
why is this still happening? Like where is this message
coming from? Because there's so many examples the opposite, but
it's really doesn't seem to have gotten better. Where's this
message coming from? Patriarchy? But what what I mean? But

(23:11):
that's what I mean is like, isn't the president of
patriarchy like dead? Now you know what I mean? Like
so he president of patriarchy passed it down to his son,
And if we're looking at patriarchy is like a corporation,
I get it. But in other words, I guess it's
like an impossible question where it's like there are, especially
with social media, so many more examples now of being
a man, which could just be anything, you know. Uh,

(23:34):
but it still seems just as bad as when there
was only the Marlborough man on to me. You know,
why am I being negative? Or is it getting better
at all? Or why is it still happening? Yeah, I
mean I think, you know, I mean I'm being facetious. Erarchy,
I mean, you know, but I think on some level
it's true like that that this idea that that it's
not even idea, it's a it's a absolutely overrehearsed path

(24:00):
of least resistance practice that people are born into in
which men are supposed to be dominant in some way
over women. Has that changed, yes, in some ways? Right,
Like I've got lots of young students in my classes, um,
who who grew up with a sort of positive feminist

(24:20):
ideology or just the absence of what is now called
toxic masculinity. UM. And I see lots of young men
who are, Um, they're not homophobic, they're not misogynist. Um,
they're for all intents and purposes progressive in the way
that they're thinking about things. And then there are also

(24:40):
the sorts of actions that you see that would fall
under Susan Flute's idea of backlash. You know that for for,
if women's increased access to power in society, you will
see men threatened by this, um And I think part
of that is that there's still a tremendous amount of
economic inequality, There's still a trium endous amount of white privilege,

(25:02):
there's um a lack of education, and I think a
tremendous amount of fear for a lot of men. A
lot of what some men feel entitled to is now threatened. UM.
So yeah, you have to be on the on the
watch for backlash. Was it Springsteen and one step up
and two steps back that song? But the problem with

(25:23):
that is that just means you're gonna end up going
backwards all the time, and that's not justful way to
look at things. I think we're making progress, but I
think I think it's up to us as men to
model for each other more adaptive ways of being in society.
You know, I don't think this is on women. I
don't think I don't think this is on on other

(25:44):
people whose identities put them in in marginalized, repressed positions.
I think it's on us. You know, I'm thinking because
it's I think, you know, like I've always tried to
say no, feminism helps men too. It takes the men
out of their boxes which is causing them so much anxiety.
And you still can be, you know, not less than

(26:05):
you're equal to. But with men, it's kind of like
I don't know what women are gonna do to you
know what I mean? Like it does seem weirdly like
a men's problem and it's on men to solve. So
that to me seems extra hard because who are men
going to listen to? In other words, you know, like
right right, well we yeah, we we were encouraged, you know,
to listen to other men. That's part of living in

(26:26):
a patriarchal society. I think one of the challenges is
it's not always apparent to guys what's what's to be
gained here? You know. So if I let go of
traditional notions of masculinity about toughness and emotional stoicism and
dominance and so on and being a big wheel and
making a lot of money, you know, where does that

(26:47):
leave me? And you know, I can say us someone
who's looked at the research, well, it's going to leave
you with better mental and physical health, better quality relationships,
a better sex life, more sense of connection. To your children, right,
and and a better ability to work with women and
people of other genders right. So there's a lot to

(27:08):
be gained there. But I think on some level you've
got to You've got to experience that to buy into it,
and you're more likely to experience it if you put
yourself in a community of men enacting it. Yeah, but
I don't I don't know how. You know, I guess
you'd have to actively seek that out. He you know,
you do, you do, and you have to take risks

(27:30):
to you know, it's like you have to. I'm just
thinking about times I've been out with golf buddies and
and been like, God, you know, how how's it going,
how's it going on? How's it going? And I'm thinking,
how's it going? It sucks right now? And this is
a moment where I have to decide am I going
to say it sucks? And when then they then when
they asked me what do you mean? Or they say

(27:51):
are you know? What are you talking about? I have
to be honest and say I don't. I feel awful,
you know, I've been down on myself or whatever it
may be, and not just gripe up out the economy
or something right, and then you know, kind of putting
yourself out there. Right, It's like then do they make
a homophobic joke or are they going to say, hey,

(28:12):
you know, I'm glad to send that, like let's all
cut the bullshit here, like I feel awful too. I
And is this do you notice like is this a
straight man problem or is this does this go? You know,
I don't, I don't know about it. Has it only
been studied with straight men or is it No? It's right.

(28:32):
So there's just stereotype out there that that, um that
gay men have transcended this this sort of restrictive masculinity
because they have more access to femininity and emotional expressiveness.
But the research shows that gay men er has affected
by this as as much as straight men. So gay
men struggle with you know, like what does it mean
to be masculine? And am I masculine? And enough they

(28:54):
struggle with body image right with um a sort of
hierarchy betwe ween more quote unquote feminine gay men and
more masculine gay men and so on. So now, I
mean I think that this sort of stuff affects people
of a range of identities. What you see, I think
is that, um, you know, at the risk of getting

(29:15):
a little over intellectual about this, but you see gender
intersecting with other identities as well. So what it means
to be a white straight man in today's society, UM,
I think that's very different. Yeah, yeah, but I think
that's in a hugely important, UM thing to talk about
at some point in this discussion. Is that I'm seeing

(29:37):
like the anxiety of the of the white man. Like
it's I've never seen it this bad before in my opinion,
my humble not a doctor opinion. But do you think
there's some crisis going on or is it just that
we're seeing it because of social media? Boys? That's a
good question, you know. I mean I think it's both.
You know, if I if I, if I had to

(29:58):
bet on it, um, things like COVID and um, just
the incredible political polarity going on in this country. There's
two major stressors right there that that that tear at
the social fabric, you know, like and you know it's
true for everyone, but let's talk about like guys, right

(30:21):
or white straight guys. Talk about people who historically have
been in relative positions of power and have had more
experience hiding their vulnerability. You've got two things here that
are making it harder and harder to connect with other people,
and we all need to connect. Loneliness is one of

(30:42):
the great understudied issues in men's lives. Um we did
a study at my university where we asked students of
all genders to estimate how much men in our environment
at the university wanted to have closer friends, how much
they felt lonely and wanted to share more of themselves

(31:03):
with other men. And people of all genders and backgrounds
estimated men to be less lonely and less in need
of close connections than the men themselves actually report. So
that's to me fascinating, right. It's like it's like, yeah,
there's all these angry guys out there, and a lot

(31:28):
of them I suspect are lonely. The problem is they're
they're ashamed of being lonely if they know they're lonely.
So you know, there's a couple of challenges there. Yeah,
that's really tough because you know, first of all, now
we've been you know, everyone's like locked in their home
and varying degrees for years now at this point, and
you know, the internet can be a great place to

(31:48):
connect or the worst place, you know, if you want
to find some toxic friends and and feel a sense
of community. You know, It's like, but I think shame
and I wanted to talk about that. I'm always trying
to get people to talk about shame on this podcast
and be like, but isn't it like such a cause
of panic attacks? And you know, your book really dove

(32:09):
into that, is like, shame causes men so much anxiety.
So it's like not even just this, like yeah, you're
gonna be masking all the time. That can you speak
to what does shame feel like and present like in men?
And what is why are they what is the shame?
I mean, shame to me feels like I just want

(32:30):
to hide, you know right now there is an impending
sense of doom coming from other people and the way
they're thinking about me. There's something about me right now
that is so unacceptable. I just need to go away.
And um, I think for a lot of men, shame

(32:50):
is such a powerful emotion. First of all, because it's
powerful for everyone. It's it's in our evolution, you know,
it's there for a reason. But second of all, because
so many of us guys are shame phobic. We don't
know how to deal with shame itself. We don't know
how to say I feel ashamed. We don't know how
to even own that we're concerned about being rejected, when

(33:12):
we're when we are feeling ashamed, or that we're rejecting ourselves.
I mean, it's just so many layers of vulnerability. It's
it's it's it's a bit too much to swallow, frankly
for a lot of guys. So do you like handle
that on your own? Like you know, it seems like therapy.
You know, you've got to go to therapy to work
that out. And and there's not a lot of like

(33:34):
quick fixed things that you see going around about shame phobia,
the deep level, not knowing how to verbalize shame. I mean,
I never thought about that really until you just said it.
M hm. One thing I think about. So I don't
think there's an easy answer to it, but there's one
thing that that that resonates with me. And I can't
remember where I first heard this. It was somewhere back
in graduate school. But it's the idea that shame grows

(33:56):
in the closet, and so, um, I make my own
shame worse by hiding that which I'm ashamed of from others. Now,
you know, I'm not going to confess everything I'm ashamed.
You know, You've got to do it in small doses.
But but for example, if I'm like I've, I've struggled
with depression and anxiety for for most of my life,

(34:19):
you know, on and off. And it occurred to me
probably fifteen years ago that you know, here I am
being positioned and positioning myself as an expert on men
and depression, and I haven't told anyone that I know
what it's like to be depressed and that some days
I wake up just really loathing myself and feeling like
all of my accomplishments are are fake and and my

(34:41):
life is fake. Well, so what you know, what good
is that doing me? To keep hiding that? It's It's
what it does is it reinforces the idea that this
is shameful. So I now talk about my experiences with depression.
I'm guessing that's a big part of why you're doing
this whole series right as you've found that that talking

(35:01):
about anxiety not only benefits other people, but it also
helps you absolutely. And you know, I was mistaken that
younger people have it easier because they have the Internet.
So if they're anxious, they'll type anxious into Google. They'll
figure it out. I didn't have the Internet growing up,
you know. And then I realized I was totally wrong,
and I was like, oh, well, well, I'd like to
talk about it and help people give them breadcrumbs that

(35:21):
they know where to begin their research. And you know,
like what you're saying, so okay, so you're here, you've
got depression and you're teaching it. You don't even want
to tell people you have it. So I'm assuming once
you did, you were positively rewarded, right, you got really
good feedback. People thought you were oh my god, thank
you so much for sharing. And I mean, I'm assuming
you've got like a Pavlovian response of some kind that

(35:42):
made you keep doing it. Right? Interesting, Yeah, I would
say overall, yes, yes, overall, it's absolutely been worth it.
The reason I'm pausing is that that, uh, it's absolutely
been some backlash and some policing of my mask gualinity
to um yeah. And the thing, the thing, you know

(36:04):
how I feel about that is um fuck you you know, like, um,
I've it's interesting you know, I teach a Psychology of
Men and Masculinity class every year, sometimes a couple of times,
and I've been doing it for almost twenty years now,
and there's this moment every time I teach this class

(36:24):
towards the end of the semester, where the students sort
of without planning it, they kind of come together on
a point of saying, I get it now, I get
how this works, but what are we going to do
about it? Like? How am I supposed to talk about
all this with my family who raised me to think
this way? How am I supposed to talk about homophobia?

(36:44):
How am I supposed to talk about the importance of
of of supporting women and you know, and and being
profeminist or whatever it may be. And especially from the guys,
it's I get this, I want to change, But my friends, right,
they're going to ridicule me. And I always say, I
don't have a really good answer to this. You know.

(37:05):
The truth is, if you're committed to a certain way
of being, you also have to think through who you're
hanging around, you know. So I mean I my friends,
my guy friends, you know, sometimes they'll give me grief
about stuff. But what I found is over time. If
I hang in there, it is positively rewarded, and I
start seeing it come out in them too. They start

(37:28):
being more honest about what's going on. They call me
up one on one and say, don't say anything to
the other guys, but could you help me talk through
this issue with my wife that always cracks me up.
That's so well, you know, it's um. You know, there's avoidance, right.
People do that when they're anxious. So I'm not going
to drive over this bridge because it makes me scared

(37:49):
and eventually they can't go anywhere. But it seems like, yeah,
if you of the only answer to avoidance is like
you're gonna feel anxious and you're gonna panic. Got to
do it. It's like there's got to be an exposure therapy,
right for men to take that first step and be
their authentic selves and you know, fuck you, Like you said,

(38:11):
if their friend friends can't handle it, they either get
new friends or maybe they'll help, you know, open their
friends up. Well, it's interesting to talk about exposure and
um and and things like that. And I sometimes say
uh and resist saying it because I anticipate lots of
hate mail. But I think masculinity can be really usefully

(38:32):
understood as an anxiety disorder. I think it acts exactly
like an anxiety. That's brilliant. Yeah, it's it's a coordinated
way of responding to a perceived threat, which is exactly
what an anxiety disorder is. It's also exactly like an allergy, right,
and an allergy is is like an anxiety disorder to right,

(38:54):
it's not. It doesn't have all the same cognitive and
emotional components, but it's still your body's way of saying threat,
get it out of here, got to coordinate some sort
of defense. Yes, right, exactly. And anxiety says, let's figure out,
you know how I'm going to not have a heart attack.
Let's run and hide. Masculinity says, let's pump ourselves up,

(39:15):
let's put women down, let's shut our emotional lives down,
you know, posture for other guys. It's very similar in
terms of how it functions. That's so genius too, because
like and that, like the other things that we do
when we're anxious that don't work, it makes anxiety worse, Right,
it certainly can, Yeah, because why am I putting all
this energy into into doing this? You know, it's like, yeah,

(39:40):
flooded with stories. We'll continue the interview on the flip
side of a quick message from our sponsors. So you
have talked about the three piece of silence with men
personal silence, public silence, and uh wait, where's what was

(40:05):
the third? Personal? Private and public? Okay, So in personal
silence you talk about when the man himself doesn't even
know he's in pain. And some men are raised in
such a way that they get a mild version of
a psychological condition called alexithymia. Is that how you said?
And as you say, it translates to without words for mood.

(40:30):
And so you talked about in your book, like in
an example of a conversation that you had with someone
that you couldn't even get them to say words about
how they felt because they didn't know. And so can
you tell us more about alexithymia. Alexithymia, Yeah, it's I mean,
it's a very common um disorder. And you know, the

(40:51):
um psychologist and researcher Ron Levant has suggested that that
men in general suffer from a sub centical version of this.
In other words, that the that the normal way when
you raise men in this society tends to produce a
mild case of not knowing what it is that you're feeling,

(41:12):
so when you know. One of consequence of this is
that when people will say to men, sometimes you know,
whether this is an intimate partner or a physician or
a friend, how are you doing? What are you feeling?
What does that feel like when such and such happens?
The answer is often I don't know, or it sucks right. Um.

(41:34):
And it's not necessarily because a guy is withholding, although
it could be. It could also be because he simply
doesn't know. Um. Sometimes it's just a bit of a
bodily feeling like you know, I'm i'm my my, a
tension in my chest, or it's an externalization kind of thing,
like it just feels like I hate my boss, you know.

(41:57):
And um, it's it's definitely a challenge because you know,
if you can't name something, how do you do anything
about it? Really, there's a big challenge. Let's say someone
has great parents, you know, um, whatever, every the perfect

(42:18):
scenario to not raise someone in a sea of toxic masculinity.
Mom and dad share chores, they both work, everything's great.
Can you still maybe develop something like that because of
like societal influences, like how much how much ConTroll to
parents even have over this? Yeah, you know, there's not
a clear answer to that, but I I think it's

(42:40):
important to avoid the idea that parents are sort of
master chefs of their kids psychological development. You know, for
one thing, we know that that kids are exquisitely sensitive
to pure influences. You know, as as we develop, we're
not really designed to figure out how to deal with

(43:01):
our parents. That's true for the first few years of life,
but we're designed to figure out how to deal with
the world we're going to grow into. And so peers
tend to to to win out over parents. Um. That said,
are you know parental influences also shape who we look
for in peers. Um, you know, just as this is
an end of one end totally. But for example, my father,

(43:24):
My father had his PhD in psychology. He was a
very emotionally expressive guy, and you know, when I would
struggle with bullies and such, you know, he would ask me, uh,
crazy questions like, um, well, what do you think that
guy is feeling as he's about to beat the crap
out of you? Was a guy guy got really good

(43:44):
at at analyzing other people's insecurities. And I have a
reasonable level of emotional intelligence. So in that sense, I
was shaped, uh in a way that I was able
to avoid some of the issues about you know, what
it means to be a man, so to speak, and
in other ways. You know, Um, I grew up thinking,

(44:05):
you know, it's my world, UM talk over women. Um,
you avoid things that are feminine. I remember, you know,
my mom I was in high school and we were
out shopping at the mall and she asked me to
hold her purse from it. I remember thinking, I can't
hold that thing. You know, it's if I hold that,
everyone's gonna see and you know that sort of stuff.

(44:27):
So it's, uh, you know, it's complex world out there
in terms of trying to figure out gender norms. For sure,
Well that makes sense. I I interviewed um, a therapist.
We talked mainly about love attachment styles, and and we
talked about people who you know, they've got all their
different attachment styles, and she was saying, you know, honestly,
like society can influence that as much as your parents.

(44:47):
Like if people are seeing too many romantic comedies, are
things that they think our love that really in real
life would be more like akin to obsession or chasing
someone that doesn't love you. And I was blown away
by that. Actually really didn't realize how much UM media
and society and just the world influences us. I really
am kind of blind to that. Weirdly, I think that

(45:11):
that's really good news. Right. So we were talking earlier
about about sort of what, you know, what kind of
what can we do about this this these issues of
men's ideologies and beliefs about about our own mental health
and how we're supposed to be as men. And one
of the things I always encourage people to do is
read more broadly, watched, watch different films. You know that

(45:31):
there are other ways of being in the world. And
I was just listening on NPR the other day and
they were interviewing uh, a guy who had started reading
romance novels at his at his wife's suggestion, because she
thought it would make him a better lover. And and
it was so fascinating to me because my first thought was,

(45:51):
how brave of this guy to go on radio and
talk about following his wife's advice to be a better
lover and not be talking about you know, well, this
is how to you know, stay hard longer, and this
is how to you know, like make her scream. What
he was finding from these novels was how much communication mattered,

(46:12):
how much humor mattered, how much just being real and
open and connected. And he was, you know, having a
better sex life because of this. So, I you know,
I think there's a lot of opportunities for learning out
there from the environment. You kind of don't want to
hear it from your wife or your mother or your girlfriend,

(46:33):
like what you need to do, but lead someone to water,
they might learn. You know, Yeah, I know, I know,
I have these fantasies about stuff like that too, that
if if you could lead to the water, that that
that men would realize too, that for example, in this case,
like that kind of stuff about you know, different ways

(46:54):
of being a lover is not just about learning how
quote unquote to satisfy her, but to also enjoy this
more yourself right, just to become more human in a
in a broader sense. In this intimate context, it's just
it's a tragedy. And I think that's one of the things.
You know, that this area of we're getting a little

(47:14):
bit far afield from anxiety. But you know, I have
a doctoral student working with me now who's looking at
scripts about not prescriptions, but like ideas that as that
young boys get about sex and sexuality from pornography at
a very early age that not only have harmful effects
on their sexual partners, but on themselves and their own

(47:38):
level of satisfaction and enjoyment. And to bring it back
to anxiety, on the amount of anxiety that they experience
in those encounters because they're so afraid of failure. So
before adolescents, and this is in the in the public
silence that you talk about that that men can experience
that young boys are very free, um when they're younger,

(47:58):
they're they expressed, tender, having feelings with friends and family,
They've got an emotional vocabulary. But then adolescence there comes
the public silencing. So that kind of fits in with
what we're talking about. Is that like eventually you go
out into the world and you kind of adapt to
the world and you start doing that anxiety response, which
is like shoving it all in, don't show emotion. And

(48:21):
is that would you say that the answer to why
that happens is because like once you're an adolescent, you
have more freedom and you are seeing things that are
outside of your parents influence. Yeah, I think so. And
I think also that, um, you know that we've known
for a long time that one of the key agendas
of adolescence is identity formation. You know, who who am I?

(48:43):
Where do I fit? And you see this coming up
in terms of what kind of music do you like?
Are you an athlete or not? What kind of clothes
do you wear? A sexual orientation, which click you hang
out with? And so to figure this out, this who
am I? Teen get exquisitely sensitive to feedback from other teams.

(49:04):
You know, I raised a teenage daughter and I watched
as this incredibly bright, wonderful child just got torn apart
by other people's reactions to her. And especially now with
social media, you know, in a very concrete sense, are
you liked or not? How many times a day are
you liked? And so with with young boys, I think

(49:26):
raised to think about being masculine. Now they're in adolescence.
Now they're trying to figure out which group do I
fit in? There raw and open and what we call
the policing of masculinity starts to take over. And this
this is where other people, boys and girls, frankly start

(49:47):
to shape behavior very directly with things like homophobic insults
and accusing boys of being gay or being a girl
or a woos and so on, and so yeah, that's
where you tend to see this, this move being really
emotionally open and and and out there to being really
shut down. And of course it's different for for different boys,

(50:08):
but this is the dominant trend we see. So in
one of your case studies, you were talking about this
man who had panic attacks and he kept saying, well, yeah,
you know, I feel lists the physical sensations, but that's
just stressed. This is physical, and you were pushing him
too more that it was you know, do you have
any shameful thoughts? You know, what are your thoughts? What's
your inner life? And he was like, no, this is physical.

(50:31):
And I mean everyone who has panic struggles with us.
You know, if people go to the e R, they
think it's a heart attack. But in terms of helping
men understand when they're feeling a physical sensation of a
panic attack, what is the emotional life behind that? Like,
I know we're not saying their thought in the moment
literally causes it, but is it Is it that a

(50:52):
lifetime of shame and shoving things down can then just
come out in panic attacks. I think the important thing
for a lot of men to understand about anxiety, including
panic attacks, is that the physical symptoms don't make it
more real, and the psychological or emotional symptoms make it

(51:15):
quote unquote in your head. This is the dilemma that
I see a lot of guys falling into, is that
they assume that if their heart is racing and if
they're sweating, right, um, that this can't be an anxiety
disorder because it's a physical symptom, and anxiety disorder is
a mental disorder, and that means it's in your head.

(51:37):
So in other words, I'm not making this up. Is
what they're trying to communicate and what I try to
help them understand, and I think a lot of contemporary
treatment is oriented towards this, is to understand that anxiety
is uh, bio psycho social right, Like, it has biological

(51:57):
components heart racing, sweating, right, that sort of thing. Um,
it also has thoughts and feelings, right, which, if you
look at the research, have biological components themselves. So there's
nothing there's nothing more or less real about thoughts, feelings
or sweat, right, it's all part of the anxiety response,

(52:19):
and the fact that you're feeling it and it's really
stressful is makes it real enough that you know you
deserve treatment and you deserve compassion. Anxiety bites will be
right back after a quick little message from one of
our sponsors. You mentioned in your book GERD which I

(52:45):
which is another name for um heartburn. But that's not
what you mean. You called it grandiose emotional restriction disordered.
What is that? Well, you know what, it's not really
a real thing. Um, Well, I like you made that
up and I like it. Yeah, thank you for noticing that.
So what I was trying to do at that point
in the book was to illustrate that as a society,

(53:06):
historically in America, we have tended to call things that
are more commonly seen as women mental disorders, and we've
tended to accept more problems in men as quote unquote normal.
So we so, for example, we see extreme emotionality as

(53:27):
something called histrionic personality disorder, and we're worried. Historically it's
not so much true anymore. But certainly, like you know,
women were criticized for not being able to contain their
emotions and not being able to be rational enough. And
what I was pointing out with this hypothetical grandiose emotional
restrictive disorder or GIRD, was that, well, you know what, UM,

(53:50):
being so emotionally restricted and thinking that you're you've got
it all together and that you're wonderful because of that
is equally problematic. We just haven't labeled it and put
in the diagnostic and statistical manual. So that's where GURD
came from. I like that because, yeah, I'm referencing your
book here, and I thought that was such a really
good point that, UM, because we are more prepared to

(54:13):
see stereotypically feminine behaviors as problems, we are more prepared
to see women as suffering from psychological disorders than men.
But if we assumed that the ability to cry, refusal
to worry about anything in a in an excessively high
opinion of oneself, where markers of an underlying disorder perhaps GIRD,
we might see higher rates of mental illness and men. So,
like you're saying, it's weird because in a lot of

(54:35):
medical society we UM base things on men's symptoms, and like,
you know, women's bodies are different in their diagnoses are
often wrong because everything is based on men, and then
this way weirdly, are you saying mental health is kind
of based on women and everything outside of that is
seen as quote normal. Well, yeah, in a way, that's

(54:57):
exactly what I'm saying, is that that mental health has
been feminized historically. And what I mean by that is
that we've tended to assume that mental health problems are
more in the realm of women. Um that um, going
to therapy is for women. I've heard plenty of men

(55:19):
in our research studies say that, you know, it's part
of a broader tendency, I think, to to see things
that are less desirable in society and associate them with women.
So we you know, we're back to our friend Mr
P the patriarchy. Well, so leslie to anyone listening, who's

(55:42):
um feeling really seen by this conversation. Do you have
an opinion should men see a male therapist? Is that
help that with the modeling or does it really matter?
You know, I don't. I don't. The research suggests, um,
it's complicated, so there's no sort of dominant pattern here,
So it's I certainly wouldn't say that men should see

(56:04):
a male therapist. I think if a guy is concerned
that there's something not masculine about what he's going through,
a male therapist could be helpful in confirming that now
you you know, it's okay, like, uh, you know, there's
a sense more power to normalize that from a male therapist.

(56:26):
For some men, that's too threatening to talk to a
male therapist, so a female therapist would be more helpful.
On the other hand, um, you know, some guys tend
to uh no, you probably want to edit this out.
This is the dynamics of this get complicated, right because
a lot of a lot of or they just just

(56:48):
sexualize the relationship or turn it into a UM you're
my mother, and you're supposed to you're not supposed to
challenge me. You're supposed to nurture me. Um. And so
you know, it's you know, the bottom line is find
a therapist who's well trained and who you feel comfortable with,
and who's familiar with the most contemporary, most evidence based

(57:10):
treatments for the sorts of things that you're struggling with.
It was something in your book you said that you know,
the guy that was having trouble understanding that his panic
was also emotional. He finally was like, all right, all right,
but I'm gonna tell my girlfriend and she's gonna be like,
I told you so. Is that I told you so helpful?
How can people better support the men in their life

(57:31):
that are just starting to get help? I mean, I
imagine that the I told you so is really not
a great reaction. M Yeah, I think you're right. I
don't think any of us like to be told I
told you so. I mean it's understandable that, yeah, there's
a reason we say I told you so to people,
But yeah, I mean I think it's I think that
there are lots of ways that that that women can

(57:53):
help men. I mean, I always give this caveat that
the most important way for women to help men is
for women to take care of themselves first and foremost.
I mean, there's a there's enough messages out there that
women get raised with about their role as being responsible
for men's emotional well being right and there, and lots
of guys get into this pattern where we keep all

(58:16):
of our vulnerability hidden except for a woman that we
share it with. And that's a tremendous responsibility for that
one woman. So women need to take care of themselves. Fortunately,
one of the ways that you can take care of
yourself is by um allowing him to take care of himself. Right,
So I encourage communication along the lines of I'm here

(58:39):
for you, I care about you. UM, I'm not going
to force you to do one thing or another, but
I'm I'm I'm glad that you're taking care of yourself,
and let me know how I can support you. Yeah. Right,
Because it's a great like kind of codependency boundary stuff
where you don't want to you know, when someone getting better,
like because you told them too, because they'll that'll bite

(59:01):
you in the ass eventually exactly. One of the things
I like to suggest that helps reconcile this kind of
paradox about the patriarchy, like how do we understand the
fact that men are in power structurally in a patriarchy
but appear to be suffering so much at the same time.
And I like to think about the idea that patriarchy

(59:22):
tends to oppress women and psychologically and socially restrict men.
So so being restricted is not the same thing as
being oppressed, Like we can men can for ourselves and
for each other reduce this restriction right, we can metaphorically
untied the tight knot around the neck, right, take the

(59:43):
tie off, be a little more open. So and and
it's funny because you talked about the three pis in
the book. Since I published that book, I've got another
three piece. I don't know what it is about that
about that letter, Um, but it's pain, power and privilege
go hand in hand as well, you know. So if
we're going to talk about men's pain, we have to

(01:00:04):
talk about men's power and privilege. And if we're going
to deconstruct men's power and privilege, we got to talk
about the pain part. Well, thank you so much. I
know this is like we did not solve the issue,
but um, I think we gave the men and my
audience a good place to start, and the women listening,
you know, a little assignment. And uh, I thank you

(01:00:25):
so much. I'm so glad you're teaching that class. I'm
you know, hopefully this will get better in our lifetime. Yeah. Yeah,
it's just you know, it's just boom boom boom. Oh
you're welcome. Thanks for the opportunity. It's it's been fun.
I hope you've got a lot out of my conversation.

(01:00:46):
With Dr Michael had is whether you are a man,
identify as a man or no a man? I think
I think this for me was a very healing episode.
So let's get to our takeaways. What can we sum up?
What are the key points that we learned today. One
is that from early on, boys and men are taught

(01:01:06):
that manhood is about no matter what's going on inside
of you, projecting externally like everything is cool. But now
that causes another issue. So a man is struggling on
the inside dealing with panic or anxiety, or any vulnerable
and emotion. But now the problem is it feels like
there's something shameful about that because look around and the

(01:01:28):
other guys are also doing the posturing of projecting externally
like everything's cool. Dr Addis got involved in even looking
at the mental health of men specifically because he noticed
that in his practice, the majority of people coming in
for therapy were women. The second thing he noticed was

(01:01:49):
I'm the only guy in my graduate class here. And
the third thing he noticed was now that he realized
he's the only guy, he's starting to see some of
the things that he learned about being male are affecting
how he's doing in graduate school and how he's even
approaching this whole enterprise of talking about emotions and trying
to help people. Statistically, men don't attend therapy as much

(01:02:13):
or as often as women. Men don't go to the
doctor as much, and they don't take care of their
health as much, they don't disclose as much, and the
list goes on. Men are not taught to recognize problems
in their lives, all the way back to the simple
question of our things okay or not? Does a man

(01:02:35):
even know himself enough to say that things going on
with him are difficult? Michael Addis has seen so many
men come through um in his research studies who will
deny anxiety or depression despite having taken a written test
and scoring off the charts of these standardized tests and questionnaires.

(01:03:00):
A lot of men will say, well, no, I'm not anxious.
My wife has anxiety, but if I'm able to get
up and go to work, that means I'm doing okay.
Dr Addas has seen that when working with men, when
explaining to them that actually what they do have is anxiety,
it's not just stress or a physical symptom, that ideally

(01:03:21):
the information is a relief to them because there is
a recognition that what they're experiencing is not uncommon. But
there is a complication when diagnosing some men because a
lot of men grow up with what's known as a
kind of femophobia. If something has been labeled feminine, like
mental health or having anxiety, it's frightening to men. And

(01:03:42):
you know, anything that's feminine is frightening. If a man, uh,
you know, thinks that anxiety is shameful and weak, than
his initial reaction to being diagnosed with having anxiety might
be shame for your self, hatred and guilt. What men
and ever it needs to know? Once again reminding everyone

(01:04:02):
that anxiety is an evolved mechanism in all human beings.
It's there for a reason. Anxiety disorder is nothing more
than oversensitivity of a basic mechanism in the human body
and mind, and there's nothing to be ashamed of about that.
We're experiencing a cultural tendency to man up mental health

(01:04:24):
or or all things that we're marketing towards men. The
idea is we make it macho to talk about mental
health or macho to see a psychotherapist, like like everything
is some kind of viagra commercial. The motivation is marketing
to a stereotype of men. But that comes at a
cost because even though it might be changing the idea

(01:04:45):
of what's manly into something more theoretically helpful or adaptive,
it's continuing the idea that men must be manly. What
needs to happen is we need to do the opposite.
We need to go from not talking about our feelings
you're talking about our feelings and letting go of what's
manly and what's not and let men be okay with

(01:05:07):
being human, and then there will be real improvements. Dr
Addas believes there's still a tremendous amount of white privilege
and lack of education out there, and so there's a
tremendous amount of fear for some men who feel that
what they're entitled to is now being threatened. Michael Addas

(01:05:28):
believes that none of this societal progress is on women
to solve For men, he doesn't believe that any of
these issues with masculinity are on other people whose identity
has put them in a marginalized and oppressed position to
figure out. He believes it's on men to figure out.
There's a stereotype that gay men have transcended this restrictive

(01:05:51):
masculinity because they have more access to femininity and emotional expressiveness.
But the research shows that gay men are as affected
by this as much a straight men. So gay men
struggle with what does it mean to be masculine? And
my masculine enough, They struggle with body image, with hierarchy
between more feminine gay men and more masculine gay men,
and so on. What does shame actually feel like when

(01:06:16):
someone's experiencing it, Shame feels like I just want to
go away and hide right now. There's a impending sense
of doom coming from other people and the way they're
thinking about me. There's something about me right now that
is so unacceptable. I just need to go away. A
lot of men are shame phobic. They don't know how
to deal with shame itself. They don't know how to

(01:06:39):
say I feel ashamed. It's a lot of layers of
vulnerability and can be too much to swallow. Michael Adds
believes the best way to combat that kind of shame
phobia is to remember that shame grows in the closet,

(01:07:00):
so you make your own shame worse by hiding it.
So now think about trying to confess everything that you're
ashamed of and you can do it in small doses.
A lot of people will say to dr Addas, I
get how all of this works, But how am I

(01:07:22):
supposed to talk with my family who raised me to
believe in masculinity this way? How do I talk about homophobia?
How am I supposed to talk about the importance of
supporting women and being pro feminist? Unfortunately, Dr Addis is,
there's no clear answer to this. But the truth is
to ask yourself. If you're committed to a certain way

(01:07:43):
of being, you also have to think through who you're
hanging around. For example, with with dr Addis, his guy
friends sometimes will give him grief about talking about his feelings,
but what he's found is over time, if he hangs
in there, it is positively rewarded and he starts seeing
them talk as well about their feelings too. Dr Addis

(01:08:05):
believes that masculinity can be really usefully understood as an
anxiety disorder because he sees it acting just like an
anxiety disorder. It's a coordinated way of responding to a
perceived threat, which is exactly what an anxiety disorder is.
It's it's also exactly like an allergy, an allergy is

(01:08:26):
like an anxiety disorder too. It doesn't have all the
same cognitive and emotional components, but it's still your body's
way of saying, hey, there's a threat, get it out
of here. There is a psychological condition called alexithymia, and
it's a very common disorder. It's suggested that men suffer
from a subclinical version of this. In other words, the

(01:08:49):
normal way we raise men in society tends to produce
a mild case of of this, which is not knowing
what you're feeling. So the consequence is that people say
to men sometimes whether it a friend or an intimate
partner or physician, how are you doing? How you feeling?
And the answer often is I don't know. The notion
that parents are the master chefs of their kids psychological

(01:09:10):
development is not really true. Kids are exquisitely sensitive to
peer influences, and as we develop, we're not really designed
to figure out how to deal with our parents. That's
only really true for the first few years of life.
But we're designed to figure out how to deal with
the world that we're going to grow into, and so
piers tend to win out as more important than parents.

(01:09:34):
What dr Addis prescribes for you know, helping men kind
of break out of this is, you know, when talking
about the issues of men's ideologies and beliefs about their
own mental health and how they're supposed to be as men,
he always encourages men to read more broadly, watch different films,
and and look at other ways of being in the world. Yeah.

(01:09:55):
I mean, look, if you're listening to this, maybe you
want to get more into a female comedian and you
want to buy my new comedy album called Okay gen X,
which is available on iTunes and Amazon. I'm just I'm
just throwing up plug in there for my you know,
if you're a guy who's like I don't really normally
listen to women comics and you're listening to this episode,
there you go. It's a doctor's orders. Um. And then lastly,

(01:10:18):
Dr Addis says, you know, mental health has been feminized
historically and going back to you know, femphobia. Uh, we
tend to assume that mental health problems are more in
the realm of women, and that going to therapy is
for women and so against doesn't lead men to want
to admit having mental health problems. But Dr Adds believes
that there are the three ps that go hand in

(01:10:39):
hand with, you know, kind of oppressing men in their
own mental health, which is men's power, privilege, and pain.
And if we're going to deconstruct men's power and privilege,
we've got to be comfortable talking about men's pain. And lastly,
if you're a woman, identify as a woman, what can
you do about the men in your life? But Dr

(01:11:03):
Addis says, there's enough messages out there that women get,
you know, that they're raised with about their role as
being responsible for men's emotional well being. And a lot
of guys get into a pattern where they keep all
their vulnerability hidden except for a woman that they share
it with. And that's a tremendous responsibility for one woman.
So women, the best way to take care of men

(01:11:24):
is to take care of yourselves, all right, everybody, I
hope you will send me an email anxiety bites a
weekly at gmail dot com. We will do a couple
more listener email episodes before the season closes out this August.
We still have some great guests coming up. We'll be
talking about things like a d h D and women um, anxiety, bullying, menopause,

(01:11:50):
all kinds of great stuff, so subscribe. Give this show
a five star review on iTunes, it tones, that's do
it on iTunes, who knows what itnes is, and then
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find this and let's you know, the more people that

(01:12:10):
find the podcast, the more people might start to feel better.
So do all of that for me and we'll meet
you back here next week. And just remember, yes, anxiety,
but but you're in control. For more podcasts for my
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(01:12:32):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,