What Makes A Man?

[AzureMind]

When you grow up in the midst of fighting, chaos and confusion you get lost...you don't learn anything about yourself, your likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc. and the next thing you know, you're 23, feel like a little old man most days, (not interested in being around people because you're so miserably depressed, yet FIGHTING everyday to climb out of it to survive)and you've got no direction, about which way you want to go, and more baggage than you seem able to carry. Everyday seems to go on like a blur because you dissociate....but you always wake up with the emotional remnants, and anxiety that SOMETHING happened yesterday, and you don't know how to make it better, so you just push on...looking for SOMETHING to hold onto...you're afloat in a sea of misery, simple and plain.

You have nobody to turn to, and everyone around you somehow "magically" knows who they are, or at least what they want to do with their lives, and you're gasping for air...the things you used to do, (not to mention can't remember) you don't have the slightest care/interest in, but you fear that if you don't find something you love soon, you're life will be rendered pointless...but now I'm a man...people tell me that...but sometimes, I don't know HOW to feel...I'm only human...I need support at times, I'm strong, and people think nothings wrong, but I feel like I'm falling apart...and I can't fix it...

What makes a man? What makes him happy? and HOW does he find meaning in a life that destroyed any sense of self-esteem, joy, or comfort with others? When the foundation of a house is knocked over...you rebuild...when a person is devastated, you can do this as well...but HOW?

 

[freakofnurture]

You don't sound like you're in a place, emotionally, where you can experience joy or love. It's a tough goal to find something to love while you're in such a state.

Maybe what you'd love to do is written between the lines of your post: Get better so that you can feel joy and love again. That's an honorable goal, I'd say, that one can derive meaning and purpose from.

Once you're feeling better the pleasant experiences will come on their own, as well as the energy to go out and look for a hobby or two.

(EDIT: How to get better: Therapy, meds, the usual... :/)

Concerning your explicit questions:

What makes a man? - I don't know. Feeling mostly comfortable being treated like one?

What makes him happy? - Depends on the person. Different men have vastly different interests and motifs in life.

I think those are the wrong questions to ask if you want to find your own feeling of being you, your own happiness. Society only offers so many answers; it's not even worth it looking there (unless you're not sure if what you want to do is actually legal).

Oh, another EDIT: People *appear* to know who they are. But most just stop asking that question.

 

[AzureMind]

FoN,

I agree, on all that was said; especially when people stop asking questions regarding who they are. It's something that life has forced me to constantly re-examine everyday of my life being so dissociated/depersonalized...waking up, and being completely unsure of your identity, feelings, desires, but having grown into a character you cannot identify with personally interferes with the search...everything is pretty nebulous inside, and all I've really got is my intellect to collect,and focus myself on these goals...I'm not sure what my feelings are or if, I feel that for that matter...I've usually walled them off, to survive, by putting them on the back-burner, but now the clock is winding down, and I have to get acclimated in order to have the family that I want...that's my main goal; to do what was never done for me...in spite of it all, I regret nothing, but the search seems so LARGE at times...so many paths, so much insubtantial material...I need to get back in touch with myself...but I have no idea how to do that.

 

[freakofnurture]

I have no idea if the following will be helpful at all, or if I'm completely missing the point of some bigger, underlying question, but let's hope for the best. Here comes:

One way to do get in touch with yourself is a practice called "Achtsamkeit" - I can't think of the English word right now - which means that you go about an activity with a mindset of introspection. You focus completely on the current moment, on what you hear, see, smell taste, feel in your body and in your emotions. Just observe the content of your consciousness as it floats past you. Don't name it, don't judge it, just observe it and be in the moment.

This exercise can have a very calming, grounding effect and bring you closer to yourself. It makes you more aware of what you feel now while you are active and it can help you a great deal with identifying if there is some pleasure, however small, in what you are doing.

What I wanted to express with the EDIT in my previous post is this: People get through life quite well without knowing who they are. They just live and experience and are whatever they are without putting it into words. I don't know if it is even possible to define an individual person. A human being is so much, has so many traits, so many different faces in different situations - you'd have to write a whole book in order to answer this question 'Who am I?'.

I do understand that it must be distressing to have no concrete idea about what you love, what you want to do with your life, what you need etc. But you are someone, an individual with boundaries and borders that is distinct from everything else in the world, even if you can't always feel it or pin down that difference with words.

It is okay if - for starters - you limit yourself to getting in touch with your current experiences, without naming them or trying to find something greater within them. You'll get to a feeling of 'you' eventually, and the process is already part of 'you'. Your questions are already 'you'.

I hope this wasn't just a big rant that made you feel misunderstood -.-

 

[AzureMind]

I have no idea if the following will be helpful at all, or if I'm completely missing the point of some bigger, underlying question, but let's hope for the best. Here comes:

What I wanted to express with the EDIT in my previous post is this: People get through life quite well without knowing who they are. They just live and experience and are whatever they are without putting it into words. I don't know if it is even possible to define an individual person. A human being is so much, has so many traits, so many different faces in different situations - you'd have to write a whole book in order to answer this question 'Who am I?'.

I don't feel misunderstood on here at all, FoN! As a matter of fact, any grounding exercises given to me from you all is a sign that you DO understand. As a suffer, or family member of someone who suffers from PTSD/Dissociative Disorders, you realize the importance of grounding/stabilizing exercises and that's been a huge help....i find that for you to know about this, you've already made a huge attempt at accommodation for me...I'll try to elaborate briefly on my interpersonal experience so it can better clarify my situation.

Normally, when I am grounded, I have a sort of "no mindedness" about me...I don't label things, and mostly I am for what I believe to be "peacefully detached/accepting" of short-comings, and misshapenings....I focus more on solutions, and possibilities rather than on dwelling in the moment on frustrations that I would personally think life is throwing at me....I realize that life on the whole is an impersonal experience that we subjectively "color" based on our own will/desire...which is in part why I can't blame or take offense to others, and their perceptions of me, which I'm not swayed by in the slightest...my father thinks I'm a "quiet rebel" but I just try to remain authentic to myself...and yet I have many words that can reflect my character, and yet no one word fills the void...perhaps personality isn't fixed; perhaps it's just an amalgam of words that shift capriciously...I can honestly say with confidence the only thing I know is that if I choose to "chain" myself to a set of words, than my personality shrinks and cannot grow past my subjective experience; at times there's a need to detach from being limited to a simple frame of reference because I'm aware that it can smother me...I appologize if this seems "odd" or "strange".... But since I'm a product of my experiences, then I suppose that life is something stranger, no? :)

 

[AzureMind]

Morals & principles are things we know as right and wrong. You feel the difference of right and wrong deep inside you. And if you know that something is wrong and you fight to make it right - that means you are standing on principle.

I feel like there's so many struggles I've had to endure, that I'm stuck in the middle of a broken life...like I came "to" in the middle of a war zone, and now I look at the shattered mirror in front of me, and I can't understand the pieces, but to the outside world, I'm a master of deception; calm, level-headed, placid, seemingly indifferent to circumstances...I never loose my composure, and I'm always calm...at times, I resent my lack of connection to things...but it's funny how trauma has a way of revealing the 'weight' of things in life...it teaches us what is important, right, wrong, just, and injust...it's unfortunate that these lessons have to come at the price of the heart/mind/soul....especially to the innocent.

 

[freakofnurture]

I appologize if this seems "odd" or "strange"

Nah, it's okay, we're all a bit strange here. Since that which doesn't kill us makes us stranger.

It's good to hear that you have such stable parts inside you, too. They're a resource.

Just to contribute some strangeness: During my second bout of depression I felt like, without this black hole for me to orbit around, I wouldn't know who I am; this made me scared to 'lose' it by getting better. The strange part is that at the same time I was perfectly aware of the fact that I don't care about this whole 'who am I'-stuff when I am not depressed.

 

[AzureMind]

Just to contribute some strangeness: During my second bout of depression I felt like, without this black hole for me to orbit around, I wouldn't know who I am; this made me scared to 'lose' it by getting better. The strange part is that at the same time I was perfectly aware of the fact that I don't care about this whole 'who am I'-stuff when I am not depressed.

I've been there...I think when the depression is that deep/black, it kinda swallows up your ability to see yourself for what you are....you feel that it IS your personality, especially if it's been with you your whole life... You feel like your loosing yourself without it, so you fight to hold onto anything that can define you as a person...but then, I suppose the real question is this; if the depression is what illicits the "who am I?" state of questioning, then does it make us introspective/reflective? Does it make us cast doubt on who we are as individuals? I'm a natural introvert/intuitive, but I'm not shy at all, just inclined to be on the quiet side, and reflect on things, and look at the meaning of what is being said..."where did that come from?" is usually apart of the line of questioning I have in my head... I'd actually like to loose my depression so I can know who I am away from it...I'm doing good now, but I think I'll be doing better if I just find a way to kick this thing's ass for good...:cool:

 

[just me here]

You need to understand that I am 50 now and I still couldn't lock in an answer for your question.

If you say you want to feel like a man, I guess you are trying to feel a different way than you do now or you wouldn't state a goal of being something you don't think you are. Maybe if you phrase it more like "how do i create self respect" thats more like what I am reading into this.

The men I admire, the examples I would like to be compared to, the guys I would say are the most comfortable in their man skin are the steady, consistant and reliable men I know.

You don't win for having the most toys, you don't have to earn a degree or find a passion or marry a trophy or build a house. thats not what it's about, not for me.

I finally fealt I could say I was a man when I realised that doing things poorly or without concern for others was a waste of my life. For me that meant dropping drug use, doing what I needed to do to have steady work and above all, keeping the fridge full and the bills paid and the oil changed and the lawn mowed.

My proudest acheivement as a man is that my kids all went to the same school district schools all the way through their education and had my help when they got to college. They can come home to the same house they grew up in, they don't have memories of inconsistancy.

Will Rodgers said "the best thing to do when you are in a hole is to stop digging".

You will notice that all of my comments are about me and my attempts to feel like a man, I have left out all the things that didn't leave me feeling any closer or made me feel worse. When it is all over and I look back I really do beleive I will feel best about the things I did for my family. maybe it is different for you. Not wrong, different. Keep at it and your question will answer itself some day.

 

[AzureMind]

Jmh, Will Rodgers was a wise man! "the best thing to do when you are in a hole is to stop digging"! lol I suppose in light of that fact, it would be most wise to do so, afterall, it's too dark down here to see!! lol :roflmao:

I suppose it's just feeling like I have no real examples to draw on for reference as far as being a man; but then I always wanted to do things MY way anyway :) I do have many older males around me that interact superficially, but none that really grew past the physical stuff...no real bonding, with dad because he was on drugs alot, and was abusive...so I spent alot of time in childhood on my own figuring things out for myself.

The difference between me and most of the men in my family is that I'm more of an abstract guy, but I'm in fairly good physical shape, but I lean more towards values, ethics, principles, and understanding...I'm masculine, the "tall, dark, and silent type" on the outside, but internally, I feel like I'm trying to be a man of esteem/respect for myself, and everyone around me but I feel like a boy inside... I feel I have an inner child in me and perhaps it just needs to be expressed? Maybe it's the remnants of my doubts/fears I never dealt with from childhood? Growing up in a home of domestic violence and no support is no place for a child to grow...there's no chance to live in the moment and make mistakes because your moment is horrifying, and makes no sense!

There's this constant feeling of over-compensation that I have inside me...I feel alot of pressure to be bigger and better than I am...all of the pressure is self-derived, but without pressure there's no proverbial 'burning ground' upon which to initiate a change...a challenge is issued, and now I have to respond to it...but how? How can I be a better man out of this sense/fear of inner incompetence I suppose I have...?

 

[fairywings]

You seem to have a very good outlook on things to even ask that question. What makes a man? I wish I would have heard at least one of my boyfriends say that. No, they always said I am a man or I am the alpha male and were not nice. Must be a southern thing. I'm new here but I would say you are on a good path.

 

[AzureMind]

I'm just glad TODAY to be positive Fairywings...tomorrow could be something COMPLETELY different! lol :) I guess, as long as I just own what I'm going through, SOMETHING will turn up, and stick with me...convincing yourself of your products value is usually the first step in selling any product to someone else right? :)