We all care about men's mental health until a man in our life is having a mental health crisis

Tibel

- meet someone I like

- fall in love over the course of months

- they express excessive gratitude over how I'm helping them learn to be less anxious and overcome their mental health issues

- I show the first signs of agitation.

- they can't offer the most basic reassurance

- in my mind the relationship seems unlikely to work out because of it

- I don't know where their heads at because, again, they can't offer the most basic reassurance

This is a recurring theme in my life, and I'm not going to pretend I don't see it either. For the majority of people, we ONLY care about men's mental health in the abstract. Try and persuade me otherwise, please.

smallwolf

Hello and welcome to the forums. Thank you for sharing your story.

It is brutal. A relationship should absolutely be a partnership and not a one-way street. While it might seem exactly as you describe right now, there are people out there who genuinely care and want to support you. It’s saddening that you haven't found those people yet, but they do exist. Of course I cannot prove this. And I cannot deny your experiences either.

Listening if you want to share a little about your story or what happened. You deserve to find someone who is able to support you when things get tough.

randomxx

You are right Tibel , see the same and heard the same plenty buttt, thankfully smallwolf is right too and l'm pleased to say l've also seen and lived the same in that side of things as well.

rx

Tibel

Honestly, the entire thing has been world shaking.

In the interest of honesty and transparency, I'm going to share my full, unadulterated, view—even though it may offend historically marginalised groups. Please keep in mind my default mode of operating is to approach things with an open mind and heart, which is how I got into this mess in the first place.

Around February last year I became involved with an LGBTQI group. I am predominantly heterosexual, but I call myself bisexual because I find very effeminate men to be sexually exciting, whereas with some other men (and this is very rare) I find them attractive for more holistic reasons (the figure I often cite is musician Sufjan Stevens).

I'm not sure the group is for me. I have a more relaxed approach to things, whereas they're all concerned with this non-stop yammering about aspects of their identity that like—imagine someone won't shut up about a TV show you've never seen, except instead of a TV show it's a spitano grarper, and you have no idea what either of those words mean. Mind you, as someone who knows how identity formation works, this all strikes me as some weird game of "reinforce our identities". There's nothing wrong with cross-dressing, there's nothing wrong with being trans, but I personally find this endless, self-indulgent, reflexive egoism to be distasteful from anyone. This is how helplessness is learned, this is how people become bummers to be around: "Oh, I can't not be a bummer because I'm a kalplopper".

I can probably stop there. The group wasn't for me. I need to find a group with the same essential values, but which isn't incessantly reflexive, and is made up of people for whom it sometimes occurs to ask me a question. I met someone from this group, and so I shouldn't have been surprised that the relationship devolved into this deference to some abstract identity in lieu of, you know, talking about our relationship.

Look, I don't want to be a hater, at the end of the day this group wasn't for me, and so the member of the group I ended up getting on with didn't turn out right for me either. I'm glad I figured it out, and I'm happy they have each other.

Tibel

Okay, I feel a little bad about that. Now I could be accused of projecting.

I care about their mental health, of course I do. They frustrate me, but I don't want them to have a crisis over it. They're just not my people. I guess it's the same for me. There's people who would care about my mental health, I just have to find them.

randomxx

They sound like their feminine , sorta defensive come justifying come ldk what sides have gone into overdrive which is sometimes pretty typical with groups of women and friends, kinda blindly well, ldk how to put it and it will prob get me deleted but anyway.

Better that you recognize the group goes against your being true to yourself than going against yourself trying to fit where you don't. But alas, sadly t's a hard thing finding our people in this world isn't it.

rx

smallwolf

hello again,

that you did not connect with one group is OK. And if sounds like you were able to work through that. And then you said " There's people who would care about my mental health, I just have to find them."

never has a truer word been said. somebody I know went to one church and did not feel they fit into that. I said to her she needed to find her tribe - it was more of a suggestion after she told me about not fitting in. To make a long story she did find that group of people.

I guess the question is... what does your group or tribe look like?

You deserve to find like people (to you). Interested in hearing how you go...