My Aunt hates men and it makes me uncomfortable.

My Aunt who I love dearly hates men. If i look from her perspective i get it. She had an injury that triggered an autoimmune disorder in her. At the same time she was diagnosed with cancer around the same time as my mom and my grandmother (her mom) who died from it a few years later.

During my teens I watched my Aunt decline from the cancer, cancer treatment, and autoimmune disorder. She went from being the “up and at em” girl on the farm they owned at 7am to laying in bed for weeks at a time. Her smile slowly faded from the family pictures over the years and her marriage started to slowly fall apart. Her husband (my uncle) ended up cheating on her and leaving the relationship.

I love my uncle, I know it was hard to do everything around the farm on his own, she was spending all his money, she would complain about everything he did, but she was also in pain, and unfortunately people like my mom, who lack a bit of empathy would call her lazy without trying to understand the daily physical and mental pain she was going through. I don’t hate what he did, I hate how he did it. He should’ve been honest and left if he couldn’t handle it. But he cheated. I’m mad at him for it to this day, even though I still love him.

During the divorce, my aunt changed. All her facebook posts became about how all men are bad and constantly uses the “All men until no men” quote, which I honestly still don’t fully understand the meaning, but I get the gist of it. She also constantly goes on about how all men are rapists and none can be trusted, how all men are horrible, talking about having male genitalia removed etc.

She’s lost nearly all her friends because she makes 10+ posts like this a day along with posts about how much her life sucks and how much pain she’s in. She’s almost unrecognizable from the person she was 5 years ago. She said horrible things about my uncle in court, and doesn’t allow them to see him on his court mandated weekends, but he never confronts her. The house that she got to keep, which once held so much light and laughter now literally looks like a mix of a tornado and a zombie apocalypse happened. But throughout it all i did my best to try to understand her. I am partly afraid of her because she’s been cutting off everyone (including her own family) who tries to tell her hard truths about her situation and i don’t want to lose her.

I’m 24, and throughout this whole thing i’ve gone and visited and hung out with my aunt, because I understand the pain of not being understood. I have GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) and my family thinks I use it as an excuse to be lazy and put off my responsibilities. That shit genuinely hinders my ability to safely drive and function especially when DPDR and panic attacks happen. So i get her a bit, and I talk to her about her issues and try my best to make her feel better.

My issue is that I am a man. And i’m worried she secretly sees me this way too. It makes me very uncomfortable. It makes me hate myself a bit. I know and understand that the safety of women from men has been a big issue for a long time and everyone has the right to speak out about it, but i’m certainly not what she’s saying “all men” are.