Anxiety Looks Different in Men
wsj.com/articles/anxiety-looks-different-in-m...
wsj.comPosted Aug 13, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC
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wsj.comCW: For discussions of suicide in my comment.
This is particularly worrisome now that more research is finding a link between anxiety and suicide. Depression is the mental illness most strongly associated with suicidal thoughts, but it doesn’t often lead to suicidal acts, according to a 2010 study by researchers at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School. Instead it is anxiety disorders, along with substance abuse and conduct disorder, that are most strongly associated with suicide attempts; the link between anxiety and suicide has been echoed in more recent studies as well.
Now that is extremely interesting. I definitely have general anxiety as well as social anxiety. And I’ve said that I have “situational depression” as well. I went through a period a few years ago where I had some suicidal ideations. I don’t think I was ever truly a danger to myself, but I was getting there. I kind of just assumed that because I had suicidal ideations, it must have been some sort of depression but after reading this article and particularly the quoted part, I wonder if it was actually anxiety (plus alcohol abuse and the outside stressors I was dealing with then) the whole time.
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Also considering how high suicide rates are among men, particularly young men, this is doubly concerning.
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Depression tends to lead to extensively planned suicide attempts, which are only about a quarter of suicide deaths. However, I've come across data that indicate the for the overwhelming majority of suicide deaths, the decision to take ones life was made less than 2 hours prior. That strongly points to an anxiety/panic reaction.
I lost my spouse to suicide, and in the months following his death, I've come to realize that he most likely was suffering from severe anxiety. It's agonising to realize after the fact other things I might have been able to do to help him, but I really hope this issue gets more attention and saves other men.
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I'm sorry for your loss. Hopefully we as a society can work on this to prevent future tragedies.
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Anxiety is usually the cause of depression even. In the last year it gets so bad and then i just have to withdraw. My depression and suicidal ideation is like a blanket that comforts me
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oh holy shit if this is true that explains a fuckload for me
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I used to use suicidal ideation for comfort until I became super suicidal. I started having impulses to hurt myself or kill myself. After that happened, I went to therapy. Therapy and meds take the edge off of it. I can still have suicidal ideation at times, but it is nowhere near as bad as it once was.
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Yeah I'm on medication and in therapy but it hasn't changed too much yet. Clonazepam is the only thing that help but its habit forming so i cant really take it every day
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When I started effexor, it did more harm than good. I had severe side effects. After getting up to half then full dose, it started helping a lot. My delusions for the most part went away and my anxiety attacks weren’t as severe.
It is a process, and not a perfect one.
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Instead it is anxiety disorders, along with substance abuse and conduct disorder, that are most strongly associated with suicide attempts
Seriously asking here: is "having conduct disorder" also called "being [actually] antisocial"? Just want to make sure I'm understanding the term correctly.
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Conduct disorder is something you diagnose kids under 18 with, you can probably think of it as the precursor to a dark triad diagnosis. It doesn't have to develop into that, though.
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My last suicide attempt was undoubtedly caused by an anxiety attack combined with an inability to escape my current situation, and the describing of anger as an output describes my situation well, because I was panicking, angry and I just lashed out at myself.
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It was for me. I finally got myself to go talk to a psychiatrist in December last year. Diagnosed with severe anxiety and moderate depression. After working with her and a therapist we figured out that I've probably had an anxiety issue since I was a teenager. That explains why I've felt angry everyday for years for no explainable reason.
For the last few years I've slept like garbage, had daily headaches and neck pain, and have just been an angry asshole. Working with my doctor I've gotten started on medication and coupled with some therapy I'm much better. Cut way down on my drinking, starting getting out of the apartment and having a hobby again, and got back to the gym. My mental health is so much better and for the first time in my life I can control my temper.
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It’s a good article. However, I don’t like this quote (referencing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) towards the beginning:
Controlling your thoughts is a proactive way to make yourself happier and more productive.
My psychiatrist, who is also a mindfulness instructor, is insistent that it is impossible to control your thoughts. Thoughts often just happen, whether we want them to or not. In my experience, trying to “control” or “resist” unpleasant thoughts only leads to greater frustration and feelings of helplessness. What we can do is recognize that they are only thoughts, that they are not reality and that they don’t define who we are. We can also modify how we behave in response to our thoughts. Accepting this really helped me make progress towards managing my anxiety.
Everyone is different, but when I first tried CBT it became extremely frustrating to me that I could not “control” my intrusive thoughts. The most useful thing that I ever did was find a therapist who paired CBT with mindfulness and meditation.
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I can't help but be reminded of the litany against fear.
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain
Just like fear, everyone will have thoughts that they do not want to have. You can't force them to not appear. You are NOT beholden to them. You can (try to) see where they came from, and choose for yourself what you want to do.
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I think you would like this subreddit:
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Really? Because I thought that subreddit was for poking fun at people who minimize the severity of mental health issues and recommend bullshit remedies for complex problems. What I did in my comment was discuss one specific example of how mindfulness (an extremely well-studied and scientifically supported method for addressing depression and anxiety) helped me deal with intrusive thoughts.
I’ve suffered from anxiety for years, and I’ve put more work into therapy and my mindfulness practice than anything else in my life. When people talk about “controlling” negative thoughts it can be really discouraging for people who have tried and failed many times to do exactly that, when in fact it is an impossible task. My only intention was to briefly share my experience with a strategy that actually helped.
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I'm sorry you feel like I minimized your experience; however, that was not my intention.
You yourself said that your psychiatrist told you that it is impossible to control your thoughts, and trying to do so is not an effective method for addressing anxiety.
I was just hoping you'd enjoy that many people out there also recognize that solutions that involve controlling your thoughts are not effective, and take a light-hearted approach to pointing that out. That means there are people who are not advocating to methods such as "controlling" or "resisting" unpleasant thoughts for combating anxiety, but instead using humor to combat those misconceptions. Is that such a bad thing, or an unreasonable thing to think others might enjoy? I personally think we all need more humor in our lives.
If you don't like the memes/jokes on the subreddit, that's fine. However, there was no need to lash out so vehemently against someone with no ill intentions.
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Sorry dude, I think it’s just hard to interpret tone through a Reddit comment. I thought your first comment was implying sarcastically that my original comment would have fit in as a submission on r/wowthanksimcured.
Re-reading your comment, I’m not sure why I took it that way tbh. Maybe I’ve become jaded and assume people on Reddit are looking for an argument. So, maybe this is an opportunity for me to be more mindful about jumping to conclusions about other people’s intentions on this site.
My bad. I definitely enjoy the jokes on that sub, haha. I sometimes get a good laugh from r/trollcoping as well.
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You can, without a doubt, direct your thoughts. And considering how our thoughts are the precursor to our feelings, it's very relevant.
I don't think mindfullness is useful (a bit controversial, I know) for many reasons, one of them is that a lot of anxious people aren't going to be able to relax enough for that to work. What's useful is learning how to deal with your thoughts so they won't be harmful. That's what CBT is about, and if you haven't had the chance to learn this tool I would highly recommend that you do.
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CBT is very useful, and again, different strategies work better for different individuals. I would never claim that mindfulness alone would be the best strategy for everyone.
I did a lot of “cognitive restructuring” with my first therapist, which is a cornerstone of CBT, and it just didn’t work for me. I often became frustrated because despite thoroughly analyzing my negative thoughts and recognizing them as untrue, they kept happening and they kept exacerbating my primary psychosomatic problem (insomnia). By trying to resolve or push back against negative thoughts I only made their impact worse. Clearly cognitive restructuring works for others, but after months of trying it just did not help me. I did CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) with two different therapists, and there were definitely some other critical takeaways that helped me immensely.
I don't think mindfullness is useful (a bit controversial, I know) for many reasons, one of them is that a lot of anxious people aren't going to be able to relax enough for that to work.
Well, I think this opinion is controversial mainly because it isn’t supported by available scientific evidence. There have been thousands of peer reviewed studies on mindfulness, and specifically a curriculum called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. Some people with anxiety may benefit more from other strategies, because everyone is different, but mindfulness has certainly been shown to be efficacious.
It is a misconception to believe that you need to be relaxed to practice mindfulness. On the contrary, I have often found becoming attentive to my breath (or another anchor of attention such as physical sensations, the sounds around me, etc.) has been most useful during my most stressful moments, including during a panic attack. I haven’t had a panic attack in quite a while now, but I know that in the past they would be so much worse when I fought or resisted the pain that I was feeling. When I instead really paid attention to the sensation of the pounding in my chest, the clenching of my jaw, the tears running down my face, then it was so much easier to bring my mind back to the present moment and ease myself out of that fear.
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CBT is definitely best when combined with something more emotionally adept, like DBT or person-centred. Otherwise you can fall into the trap of judging yourself for not thinking 'correctly'.
I like to use 'helpful' versus 'unhelpful' rather than good/bad, because we learn to do things a certain way because at one point it did help us somehow. And I think of CBT as changing my thought habits, rather than all my thoughts. Choosing and reinforcing a pattern that makes me feel happier, and letting the pattern that leaves me feeling awful wither away from disuse.
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My therapist uses EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, which is frustrating in another way, reliving these moments of great anxiety or pain is scary and hard, but helps with that desensitization bit. Anyway, the point I was going to make is my therapist doesn't like CBT either, and is moving away from it for anxiety patients.
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There's lots of differences between the sexes. Whether they're nurture or nature based is a great debate... but it doesn't exactly help with current methods of dealing with the differences.
Anxiety according to this article is one of those differences. Sure, there's discussion about if it's the result of 'Toxic Masculinity', but that doesn't get people the treatment/therapy/help they need with it now.
I hope this article might help people see that -- just like any other mental or physical ailment -- there's symptoms that are not all alike and to help them seek treatment/assistance.
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Anecdotal evidence but I'm a woman who was raised pretty gender-neutral and I tend to be angry and irritable whenever I'm anxious. I felt like this article was describing how I felt to a incredibly accurate degree.
Maybe it's just how I was raised but I really do believe in a lot of it being nurture. I do hope it becomes better for all of us when humanity can become more understanding and kind with each others emotions.
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We've been through this again and again and again. WE DO NOT DEBATE ABOUT TERMINOLOGY. Complain about how you don't like it when people say "toxic masculinity" on literally any subreddit except this one. It has been done to death.
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There is no evidence that it is anything other than nurture.
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The article has some good points. It's interesting how many ways I've seen anxiety manifest. And this is just of the people close to me:
My mom and sister are constantly moving- they'll never take a break, and they'll never turn down a request. If they stop working, they start worrying.
My partner and other sister try to control everything. My sister will yell at me for existing in the same room as her, because I'm not predictable so I need to be out of her sight. My partner tries to plan for every possible outcome. They shut down when things don't go according to plan.
My other partner and I try to hide from everything. There are some days where I can't leave the house alone. It's too scary, I just can't. My partner hides from the world with books and podcasts. Every minute not spent working or sleeping, she's in a fictional world. It's safer there.
If any of this sounds like you, it's possible you have a problem with anxiety. Or not. It's mostly a matter of degree. The relevant questions are: are you functional? And are you happy?
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Poly?
That aside, anxiety has been a bitch for my whole life and I definitely am a “retreat to the safety of...” book and video games recently. In the past I used more amorous and alcohol infused ways of hiding from my anxieties.
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Depends on your definition of poly. I have a platonic life partner and a datemate, and datemate and I are romantically/sexually monogamous.
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I think that fits the definition. It’s not like it’s ever really set in stone how many have to be involved and in what ways.
Good on you, though. I don’t think I could handle that many realllly intimate relationships without fucking one up. Evidence for me? I’ve tried, but I was young, then. So who knows?
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Thanks for sharing the different examples. It's good for people to see how these symptoms can vary a great deal from person to person.
I'm similar to your partner and other sister. I can get really irritable when things don't go as I expected them to. And if I don't have time to adjust then I shutdown. Some/a lot of this is my ADHD too.
Sigh, school really should've gone over mental health and self-care.
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When a man explodes in anger over something seemingly insignificant, he may appear like just a jerk. But he could be anxious.... anxiety in men often manifests as anger and irritability.
Well that kind of explains things for me. It's nice knowing what would could be going wrong with me, gives me some kind of idea that maybe there is something to fix or can be worked on and I'm not just a bad person.
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If you are struggling with excess anger and irritability this does not make you a bad person by any means. What it does mean is that there is something in your life you need to work through. Everyone struggles with themself, I think it's how we work through it that's important.
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Oh you are totally right. But after I have an "outburst" and immediately feel guilty about letting my emotions take over and I don't really think logically.
Combine that with having a bad experience with a counciler who basically said I'm overreacting, I kinda start to doubt myself. Like, what if I don't really have a problem, what if I'm not depressed or have something wrong with me to fix, what if this is just who I am?
And that actually makes me feel more depressed because, I used to think that going on antidepressants would be awful because they would change who I am, like "me" would go away and be replaced with someone else. But after a while of living like this I stopped caring about going away and being replaced, I just want to be a normal functional person... But if this isn't something antidepressants can fix, if I'm just an awful person and this is just my nature... That's a pretty bleak outlook...
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I'm sorry you had such a shitty experience with the councillor. If you haven't already, you may want to try talking to someone else.
I am by no means a professional or remotely qualified, but I very much struggled with having similar outbursts of anger as a child (I could be a fucking terror) and to an extent as an adult. For me something that's helped a lot is asking myself why something made me so upset. What I found is that when something would really set me off, I'd be using my anger to basically avoid confronting something I didn't want to admit. Like if someone accused me of something and I knew they were right, I'd get irrationally angry or upset as a very shitty defense mechanism.
If you're like me, I suggest you really ask yourself WHY something got to you so badly after you respond emotionally. The example above is super straightforward, but it can be more complicated or buried.
Anyway, not sure if this will help at all. I'm also definitely not saying to never respond with emotion, its just an uncontrolled and out of proportion negative reaction that I try to avoid.
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Wow. This explains why I am so snarky and constantly angry, but I also can't sleep. So how do I take care of this? I am living at my parents house for probably another 40 months and they hate it when I get emotional besides happiness and don't have any friends to talk to.
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Well, the best thing you can do for yourself is find a therapist you resonate well with and start working with them. They'll be able to provide you with a lot of strategies for dealing with anxiety and a foundation of emotional support.
For friends, I'd make a list of everything you'd like to do with other people, but also enjoy doing by yourself. Then, use online resources to guide you to those activities. Once you find a group that works for you logistically, make a commitment to go at least three times. If you dont have fun after three times, then you can move on to something else. If you did have fun: keep going, even if you don't feel like it. Especially if you don't feel like it. Friendships arise from consistent positive interaction, so it is important to keep going.
For your parents, I'd suggest to just be curious about how they're feeling for now. Obviously I don't know what they're like, but something is definitely off if they have such a strong reaction to negative feelings. If they have a history of abuse or narcissism, it would definitely not be a good thing to stay with them for such a long time. That'd be an important topic to discuss with a therapist
Finally, focusing on the big three of lifestyle health: food, exercise and sleep can do a lot to stabilize emotional distress. That is something you can start right now. Just remember to take it slow, and that healthy foods and exercise are rewards, not punishments
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Thanks, but meeting a therapist is something that I can't do as long as I live with my parents. They simply would lock me up. My mother is narcissistic and verbally abusive. The same goes for my father, but he barely is at home and I can't even remember the last time he did something with me. Do you think it's possible to hold out for another 40 months or is that too long?
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To be honest, I think that trying to tough it out is the worst thing you could do. Being around an abusive person with as much emotional power as a parent for any length of time is very very bad for you. Under the circumstances, I would advise to start coming up with an exit strategy now. It should be your top priority to establish a space in which you're safe to be vulnerable and seek help when you need it.
I'm afraid that with respect to such a strategy, that's a bit beyond my wheelhouse. This subreddit and r/raisedbynarcissists certainly might be of help. There are people who genuinely want to help you thrive, so don't ever stop seeking them out.
Also, online therapy might be a good option for now. I don't know your financial situation, but if you can afford it, they could be a resource both for your anxiety and for establishing a safe place.
Best of luck to you man. It sounds like a difficult situation, but I'm rooting for you.
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Thanks, but I already have a plan. I kinda am making money on the internet and plan to get a job around January, December since I noticed my weight loss in the last few months. I still weigh a lot for my age, but I am not in danger, but just limited in speed and durability. I plan to leave this hell in August 2022. I have also found a way to deal with everything that is going down by expressing my feelings on the internet through drawings and writing. There's no need to worry about me, but still... Thank you.
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Do you have chunks of time where you get privacy? If so, you could look into one of those remote therapy services. I almost signed up for one but put it off too long and now I'm in a place where I can look for in-person therapy.
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Thank you for posting this article. It's very timely for me. Just last night I was dealing with the angry and violent (to things, not people) outburst of another man in my family, and he later broke down into tears about all of the things that he worries about. I particularly appreciated the tips on how to encourage him to get help.
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You cannot radically and non-judgementally accept your way through 4 hours of sleep a night mate.
Consider reading 'Why we Sleep' by Matthew Walker to explain and elaborate on the mental and physical damage you're doing to yourself. You can't trick your body into getting less sleep than it needs, anymore than you can eat less than you need and meditate yourself to maintaining or gaining weight.
I'm not gonna gaslight you and say it's easy or there'll be some simple way to do it, but you've gotta make the time. You obviously have an unwritten list of priorities in your life, and I'm guessing aiming to get your 8 hours is somewhere near the bottom. It needs at the very least bumping up a few notches, even if that means disappointing a few people. Ideally it needs to be near or at the top or the rest of the priorities will eventually not matter.
'Put your own oxygen mask on first' is a thing for a reason - because you run out of it a lot fucking quicker than you realise... and then you're in no fit state to help anyone else with theirs.
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One note, the separation of mind and body is a fiction. We talk as if they are separate because that's how our culture views them.
But when it comes to our lived experiences, the mind and body are inextricably linked. What is a body without a mind and vice versa? What are sensations without perceptions and vice versa?
I only mention this because you said your mind is calm but your body is not. And I just want to challenge you to question that conclusion a bit.
I know you probably don't have time right now, but there's a great podcast episode on this topic from the Brain Science podcast: https://brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/2018/biological-mind-with-alan-jasanoff-bs-146
Possibly more digestible, here's an article on the same topic: https://aeon.co/essays/we-are-more-than-our-brains-on-neuroscience-and-being-human
Hang in there!
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Meditation is not a good tool for controlling your thoughts, though. CBT could help give you the tools.
But even with the right tools it's extremely hard to keep sane in situations like the one you describe.
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Depression can also manifest as anger.
Depression and anxiety are often treated with the same medications (SSRIs) interestingly.
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What's even more interesting is that SSRIs are much more often effective for treating anxiety than depression.
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This hits home. My wife has pretty bad anxiety, and she'll often call me during work to vent. This usually leads to a discussion that ends with me getting angry, which fuels her anxiety. I guess I have anxiety as well.
It's difficult to respond in a positive way, especially being that there's really nothing i can do for her, and she's interrupting my work day and killing my productivity.
I understand she's suffering, but because we have shitty insurance, there's not much I can do, other than trying to get her to eat better, exercise, and get get enough sleep, most of which she refuses.
Anxiety is a monster, and I really don't know that we'll be able to fight it.
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I relate to this article so much.
Weeks ago I got irrationally angry (for me anyway, I'm rarely visibly angry) for not having cooked burgers properly. The tension with my then girlfriend was insufferable, I was crippled by fear of abandonment and that one burst of anger was the only way I could express it in that moment.
Obviously, it didn't help, and I got dumped the next week when I brought up the problem.
I might be heartbroken, but at least I'm not anxious anymore and I've started sleeping again.
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This hit home for me. I've struggled with generalized anxiety disorder since my early teens and I've responded in all the ways outlined in the article at least once, including sucidal ideation. I've also always felt intense shame about appearing either anxious or angry to other people so I tend to just withdraw and basically wish I didn't exist. Thankfully intense episodes are rarer these days for me, and therapy has been helpful when I was doing it.
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my partner read this article the other night and was like "yo check this out. you always get headaches and backpain especially when you have a deadline or something and also you get irritable"
i read the article and was like "holy shit this is describing me." i have been to therapy a few times for depression (which helped) but i never really thought the anxiety piece applied. the article was an eye-opener in that regard.
to manage my anxiety (which i didnt really understand myself to have until i read the article), i've been just eating a lot of weed edibles on a regular basis and compulsively shopping for things i never buy (like "what camera is best" - i need to obsessively compare every single make and model until i find the best one - and then i dont buy it because i dont take pictures and i dont need a camera). who would have thought that these were strategies for managing anxiety? i surely did not.
i start CBT specifically from an anxiety perspective next week.
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I’m glad you managed to get some help. It gives me some hope.
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Avoiding diagnostic labels may also help. Dr. McKay doesn’t mention the word anxiety during the first couple of therapy sessions with some men. Dr. Chapman says some of his patients are more comfortable calling treatment “coaching” or “help with performance” that is focused on “distress at work.”
I went to a shrink once after suffering some particularly nasty bullying at work, and after one session she gave me some photo copies of some anger management stuff that read like it was written for someone with English language comprehension deficits. It was really unhelpful and I haven’t been to see anyone since. Which is a shame, because I really think I could have used some help.
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I know this post is a couple days old but I just want to tell you that sometimes you won’t find the right therapist the first time. Don’t let that discourage you. If you think you need help that’s cool; go get it!
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Anxiety looks different in some men. Others including myself have your run of the mill anxiety with nerves and worry and all that. Of course most people just think we're awkward weirdos and take the piss. Therefore I understand why some men cloak it in anger, as much anger as sufficient which might well be a scary amount. You've been warned. Don't make a joke of men with anxiety.
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I love how empathetic this article is, specifically this:
I really hate when articles or people treat men as just stubborn in these situations. Mental illness sucks and just living can be draining. Seeking help, especially when it's so stigmatized and your battling gendered expectations about weakness and vulnerability, can seem impossible.
Can I ask for some advice?
My husband suffers from an anxiety disorder - he's been diagnosed, and was in therapy previously. It manifests mostly as anger, where the smallest things trigger small bursts of violence like kicking toys or banging cupboards closed quite hard, or outbursts of shouting and cursing (often directed at himself).
He doesn't see a therapist anymore and doesn't want to try medication. Instead, he uses coping mechanisms his previous therapist taught him, like working out.
I think his anxiety is getting worse, and he's probably on the edge of depression, if not actually suffering from it, as well.
But when I bring it up, his reaction is to tell me that he's not unhappy, he's not struggling, he is in fact 'content' (his words). If I mention therapy or medication, then I'm trying to 'fix' him.
I really think he need some help. We have two young children (2 and 4) who are now old enough to be affected by this - and who raise the stress level in the house merely by being young children. He's a stay at home dad, and is with them most of the day.
I don't know how to approach this in a way that doesn't basically trigger the very problem I'm worried about.
That's a super difficult question and one I'm not really equipped to answer unfortunately. My suggestion is talk to your own therapist (if you are seeing one) about how to handle this situation. They should have some good tips on how to ease his defensiveness and hopefully get him some help. Does your husband seem receptive to things that are bothering you or harming you? For example, if you said something like "I'm feeling like X lately, could you help me with Y so I can feel better" would he be receptive to that? It might be worth a try to frame it that way. I'd def suggest talking to a therapist about it though.
He might be afraid that the medication will make him less "him", dull him somehow, and be unwilling to try other coping mechanisms ("working out really makes me feel better and it's good for me"). But coping mechanisms are meant to stop the pain so you can work on the source. You don't want someone normal, you want him. But when you see him fly off the handle, you think of how that comes from somewhere and wouldn't it be nice to reduce the output from the source. You love and accept him warts and all, but in that love, with respect, you think he's naive to believe he's reduced it to the lowest it can be.
I'd probe first for the "why not" but I don't know what to do if he's not forthcoming. You wouldn't sneak him pills and you can't make him try stuff in his own head.
This is exactly what he's afraid of - specifically, that it will harm his creativity. I've pointed out that trying medication is just TRYING - if it's not working, or having unpleasant side effects, there are always other options.
But he does take it very much as 'you just want to fix me for your comfort no matter the cost to me'. And I don't really know how to get past that without very drastic measures that I'm not ready for yet.
I recommend watching Andrew Solomon's TED talk "The Secret We Share", then watching it again with your husband. It is focused on depression, and mentions anxiety only as a tangent because the presenter has both. It describes the variety of treatment options and why that is, the difficulties talking about it and why that is, individual stories about persisting in trying other options and how rewarding it can be, why people avoid treatment and why that is, good effects these diseases have and how that doesn't necessarily go away. It would be a good one for you because it's oblique enough (focus on depression) to perhaps avoid triggering his defense response, but general enough (treatment and mental health) to still shed some light.
I have depression, and I was actually doing well when I first saw the video, but it gave me a lot of tools for describing the hard parts to people who don't get it. Right now, I think he thinks you don't get it, and I think he has common fears about how him he'll be on the other side. Knowing you love him how he is but you can't stand to see the option left unexplored is too much. Have him imagine if you were sick and you both knew Tylenol wouldn't even touch your pain. Pepto just makes you vomit. Would he watch you suffer, or bring you advil and fenergen (or some other anti-nausea like weed)? But you can't bring him anxiety drugs. That's why you are the way you are.
I'd save that for after the video when he's more convinced you Get It.
Have you tried just being upfront about it?
Something like "You tend to get mad over small things and I need to know you're not going to overdo it around the kids". It might have to be something you get mad at him about.
Idk, sometimes people just need it broken down but they mean well and don't want to be trouble but they just can't see how they're affecting others which is why they think they're functional (or "functional enough") even when they're not
Hopefully afterwards you can say you're there to be the one he talks to about this sort of stuff and establish open communication. Does that sound like a situation that could play out safely between you two?
My response is probably less helpful than others here as it's merely anecdotal. But both I did my younger brother suffer anxiety/depression. My brother was like your husband - the usual "I don't want to become a zombie" or the like. Doesn't trust them. But eventually after year of pushing, it got to a point where he had no choice.. it was just getting worse.
He's much more stable now and doesn't know why he used to be so opposed to it.
Personally, the drug that works for me (Lexapro, pretty standard SSRI) has kinda killed my libido. But, I'm not inexplicably crushed by my anxiety every day any more nor ideating on a regular basis. It really is worth it.
Many of those medications can have sexual side effects.
If you’re already worried about your masculinity and/or marriage with your failure to manage your emotions being unable to perform is a legitimate psychological and marital fear that needs to be addressed.
Violence even when not used to physically hurt someone is abuse. It is not good for your children to grow up with a parent who yells, swears, and kicks things when he is angry. I had a parent like this and it's cause my siblings and I severe anxiety. It's likely his outbursts cause you and maybe even your children to walk on eggshells around him.
I think it's great to approach this with empathy and understanding. But I also think this isn't something to put up with for an extended period of time.
My mom behaved like your husband when my dad was home. When dad went to work she hit us. My siblings and I assumed most of our childhood that dad knew mom would spank and slap out of anger. Just something to consider.
I agree, but unfortunately the last therapist he had saw things differently (he went for 'anger management', and she told him that most of the people she sees for that break things or hurt people, so it wasn't that bad. We also disagree on what counts as 'violent'. Kicking a dustpan? Slamming a chair hard enough to make a loud sound?). So that complicates the conversation (you just don't like her, she's the professional, etc). I never saw her.
He does do a fairly good job of controlling it in front of the kids, and makes an EFFORT to do so. He doesn't just give his anger free reign. And I can clearly see it ramp up at times of particular stress - and my god, are toddlers stressful. I don't think this is something worth leaving over, but I really wish I could convince him to seek help.
We are in a similar situation. My husband had a burnout, went to a therapist, but she wasn't the right one for him. Stress kept building up as we approached the birth of our second child. So we have now a baby and a toddler, I have postpartum depression (no worries, I seeked help immediately and am doing very well on meds). Its A LOT. And because he never started feeling any better, starting flipping out, telling me he had anger problems (luckily he was able to contain himself, but he felt that he couldn't hold it anymore). So he decided to start working out, change the job, start a hobby, whatever. None helped.
So I just said to him, "I love you. But I NEED you to do this for me and for our children. Go to a psychiatrist. This is the number. Find out what has been bothering you for so long."
He called, got in the same night and now we're both doing better. Slowly, day by day. Toddlers are extremely hard. Having two difficult, extremely high risk pregnancies was just too much on us. We're now trying to put the pieces of our life back together.
I wish you all the best and I hope your husband will seek treatment.
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This is a hard one. I am reading this article because it's so similar to my husband that he even looks like one of the pictures.
My experience is that you can be supportive but he will not get help unless he sees that it is causing bigger problems.
Because my husband's anger doesn't get directed toward me or others, I'm trying to just allow him to be angry at things like traffic, inanimate objects, and whatever else sets him off. My personality is that I am sensitive to other people's anger, so I know that part of it is that it bothers me not than it bothers him.
At this point I try to let it go or avoid him until his mood improves. He knows he has anxiety, so at least he has some self awareness about it.
However if it happens too often his mood does affect me and I tell him. The only thing I can change is my expectation that he's not going to be in an angry mood or that he will not curse in traffic or whatever it is. I can also remind myself that it's not about me and he's not angry at me.
In my situation I don't think my husband would seek professional help unless I was very unhappy and it was affecting our marriage, or if it affected his job. Unfortunately therapy is very challenging and most people will not do it until there are consequences. Everyone is different and only you know whether it's "hey this guy is great and also has some problems that I can live with," or "this is too much." If the kids are scared or you're scared or if he shouts at any of you is a different story.
If it is too much, would frame the conversation as, "you know, it's really hard for me when xyz and I try to be cool about it but it is affecting our marriage. I want to know what you think about that and what you can do to help me. What should I do when x happens?" That might frame it as a problem he can help you with.
In my case I get a LOT of silence but at least he knows I'm trying to solve the problem on my end instead of blaming him and then insisting on my solution (therapy.) I then hope he'll come up with his own solution and try it out.
A lot of guys don't like the idea of therapy and they don't think it's helping enough to be worth the money. Mine works out every day and it helps his anxiety but of course I wish he would learn more about how to identify and calm his feelings instead of focusing on the thing that's making him mad. But he can't unless he wants to, so I try to do as much work on my end to see if I can take his mood less personally. This would be totally different if he raised his voice at me or said mean things out of anger. So of course it depends a lot on the situation.
It would help so much if he could even say, "I'm so pissed off this morning and I don't even know why." But most of the time I get the "I'm fine." He's a good man, and I am learning how to stop hoping for a guy that can articulate his feelings, and love the guy that checks the locks too much or freaks out a little too much when our flight is delayed.
I'm glad you reached out and i suggest to keep reaching out to find out how you can make a safe and happy home for your family. It's not an easy line to walk, it sounds like you might be afraid of provoking your husband's anger, but it that's the case, he needs to know that. Good luck!
This is very much what it's like. The anger is never really directed toward me, but toward objects or video games or other cars. But I'm still there when the things slam, when he shouts. It creates this ball of tension inside of me that I can't unwind easily. But he thinks that because he kicked the chair and not a person, it shouldn't affect me.
I've learned that my fight-or-flight reflex is more fight than flight, so it doesn't make me scared so much as it triggers anger in //me//. I get angry in response, and it simmers until we end up fighting about it.
We've had so many conversations about what I should do when he has these moments, but in the heat of it, it never works. Suggesting he go for a walk or work out, suggesting he leave the room where the kids can hear - in the moment, these things he's asked me to do just make him angrier. Because (I assume) it's criticism of his actions in that moment.
I know I probably need to push for a new therapist (his previous one has left) and I know it's going to be a huge fight and but typing this all out has really clarified a few things for me.
Please be careful as being violent with inanimate objects can be a warning sign that things will eventually escalate
Sounds like his defenses are quite high regarding the subject at the moment. At this point, I think your first goal should be to provide him opportunities to become more comfortable being with the negative emotions he's feeling. Encourage him to talk about how he's feeling by starting in situations which are benign and he already feels comfortable in. The goal at this point is to allow him a space to become more aware of himself and be able to articulate that, and that you are willing to hear and accept his feelings without judgement.
While I always think it's good to encourage and support people to seek professional help, that's really a decision only they themselves can make. The best we can do for others is to cultivate an environment where asking for help is supported and celebrated.
As for your kids, I would take this as an opportunity to teach about how to express and hold space for difficult feelings. I can only speak from my own childhood memories, but please don't use their father as a negative example of this. It can be very discouraging to hear that your parents are at odds about important matters. Likewise, it would be a very bad thing if a negative example is misinterpreted as a veiled criticism by the kid and is communicates as such to their father. I would assume anything you say to your kids you are also saying to your husband.
> Sounds like his defenses are quite high regarding the subject at the moment.
Pretty much always. I don't think we've ever had a conversation on the matter that hasn't turned into a fight.
> Encourage him to talk about how he's feeling by starting in situations which are benign and he already feels comfortable in. The goal at this point is to allow him a space to become more aware of himself and be able to articulate that, and that you are willing to hear and accept his feelings without judgement.
Can you elaborate on this at all? This is where I'm just lost. I struggle with how to have this conversation without seeming accusatory or trying to fix things or it turning into a confrontation rather than a conversation. We are both pretty defensive about this these days.
> As for your kids, I would take this as an opportunity to teach about how to express and hold space for difficult feelings.
Thanks, I definitely try to do this. I've caught myself making snide comments about some things to my 4yo before; those are not my proudest moments. I try not to. Sometimes frustration is a bitch.
Well, first I would say to let the matter of his anxiety lie for now. Defensiveness indicates that it is a very delicate topic for him. I'll be blunt and say that he probably doesn't trust you to handle the topic in a way that feels safe. He probably also doesn't trust himself to handle the topic in a way that feels safe too. He is likely hypersensitive to shame, as indicated by his reaction that you are trying to "fix" him.
Obviously, I don't know the truth of the situation, but I know from personal experience that in such a state, even genuine and loving expressions of concern can sound like condescension or hostility. I might guess that he feels like his emotional problems is jeopardizing his relationship with you. His solution, it sounds like, is to deny and repress the problem. When you bring it up and indicate that you disapprove of his anxiety, that signals that you disapprove of him. Anger is his way to restore the state of denial, and in his mind, stability.
So what can you do? Demonstrate that expressing one's feelings and vulnerabilities is a way to strengthen relationships, not jeopardize them. You can do this in two ways.
First: be interested in the feelings he's comfortable expressing. If he has a hobby he enjoys, or is emotionally invested in his job, ask how he's feeling shortly after. If he gets fired up about some topic, look to learn about why he feels that way. Let him share how much he wants to share. If he doesn't have anything to say, don't pry further. Your goal is to let him know that you are genuinely interested in how he's feeling as it is, and won't judge him for his feelings, even if they are a bit strange or uncomfortable.
Second: Demonstrate comfort with vulnerability and receptivity towards feedback. Ask for his help or advice on things that you are having trouble with. Start out with things that he feels competent in, and always emotionally validate his advice. The goal is to signal to him that he is providing value to you, and that you are comfortable revealing that you require what value he can provide. I should note that currently, men tend to lead with practical advice, and might not be aware that emotional validation is another reason people might expose vulnerabilities. That's fine for now. As your communication strengthens, it's something you can add.
One final note: none of this should be done with the goal to make him do anything. What you are doing to him is signalling that he has options for emotional communication with you that he might not have seen before. The overarching message you should be sending is "Sharing vulnerabilities strengthens relationships. I want to strengthen our relationship, so I am going to share my vulnerabilities, and I encourage, but don't require, you to do the same."
Sorry this was a bit longer than I expected. I hope this helps.
While my experience with couple relationships is almost inexistent, something I've read regarding talks with someone that has their defenses up is that you should lower the fence they have to jump as much as possible. Sometimes giving in can be seen as losing face and that will keep someone from accepting other points of view, so making it an issue of you being right and (particularly) him being wrong is an approach that probably won't work.
I can relate to this sentiment quite a lot, and for me it boils down to wanting to be accepted. Often when I open up about something I'm struggling with and I'll get a response of "you need to do this" or "that" or go through these steps. The message is I need to fix it immediately, that it is not acceptable that I am that way, or struggling with that thing. On the surface it seems like the other person is concerned with my well being and quality of life, but more often than not I feel like their real concern is over their own internal reaction to what I just told them about. It is my duty to correct this issue so they can get out of the discomfort brought on by their mirror neurons. It makes me feel less of an individual and more of a unit of basic social function. Its worse when the reasoning is tied to my role or some obligation to provide value to someone else.
My suggestion is to switch gears from trying to fix him to trying to understand what he's going through with genuine interest. Without becoming disconnected or turned off by it. To see his struggle as valid, and to participate in it with him. That he as an individual is valuable, not what he provides as an output.
He needs to go to a therapist. He also should check out meditation. It’s great for us men and helps us to regulate emotions even in the moment.
He probably already has depression and anxiety and those fits of violence is how he is improperly coping. Anger is usually a secondary emotion that needs to be followed to the root in order to address things. Meditating, therapy, and sometimes even meds are needed to address this. Meds for me started making me go insane and I started getting somatic reactions to some of them. The other two will create a chemical change overtime as the brain rewires it’s pathways to cope or even approach the entirety of reality in a different way.
I see some others have given you advice here which I agree with strongly and I'm not particularly equipped to do give advice as I'm still in my early 20's.
However, during my teenage years, I felt "content" in some ways. I was deeply depressed and anxious and had no way of expressing it. I felt content because those anxious depressed thoughts became normal to me in some twisted way. I became so totally numb that I wasn't ever really sad, or ever really happy. Everyday was just a 5/10 struggle of a day, where I'd feel emotionally blank and empty inside. It didn't feel bad necessarily at the time because it was all I knew or could remember.
Perhaps when your husband says he feels content, this is what he means?
It took me a long time to accept being like that wasn't normal and that I needed professional help and medication. That has helped to an extent.
My feeling of emptiness would occasionally lead to horrible bouts of anger. I'm usually a quiet, chilled, laid back sort of person but occasionally I would erupt. Afterwards, I'd feel embarrassed and ashamed. These moments of bad temper became particularly bad after I lost a parent very suddenly. Has your husband lost anyone recently or had any other event that has caused him some significant emotional distress? Perhaps his anger could be linked to that like it was for me?
Anyway, best of luck and best wishes.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I think. He tells me he is content, but he doesn't act in ways that I associate with contentedness. I think that he is actually unhappy, but feels like this is where he is, so he has to make his peace with it.
This was my father when I was a child. He had anxiety and depression and would explode with anger when my sister and I were simply giggling on the couch. It had an effect on me and my sister. Eventually my father changed, probably when I was around 10, and figured out how to deal with it differently other than making us kids feel like we had to walk on egg shells for simply being kids. He needs to figure out different coping mechanisms when he can’t deal with a situation. It is not good for the kids if he is acting this way and it obviously has an effect on you. It is abusive. He may want to consider how important having you and the kids in his life is, because I wouldn’t stick around if he continues to behave this way. He can change how he deals with this, even if he can’t control how he feels. Seriously if he won’t change, consider giving him an ultimatum. It’s not healthy for kids to experience that and the fear it causes.
As a recipient of my wife's concern over the issue I would advocate for direct discussion and persistence. Treating depression and anxiety are already hard enough as it is but without an serious effort it can linger. Getting him help is good for everyone in the equation, depression has a way of spreading beyond patient zero.
You just described me.
You can have depression without anxiety, but you can’t have anxiety without depression.
Maybe he has friends he can vent to or journal? Small steps with anxiety. Also, lack of sleep, bad diet, and no time for self care make anxiety worse. With two small children, providing each other with as much alone time as possible, is best.
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Would he be open to couples therapy? Frame it as you having trouble communicating your concerns that you feel could benefit from having a third party professional to meditate. This is basically what's going on. It may help both of you open up about what's going on and both gain more techniques on how to address it together.
Maybe. This is probably not a bad angle for us at this point, anyway. I think that we have hit a point where we are not our best selves with each other, and communicating productively about this is a real challenge for us.
I have similar issues (I'm a man). Little things will set me off, and I often have angry thoughts at myself and will occasionally direct the anger at my wife when it's really bad. I used medication for several years, and while I found it helpful in the short term, in the long term it didn't address the fundamental issues. It did help lessen my outbursts, but what I'm saying is even without medication, it's possible to move to a place of working on the root causes.
My next thought is this: as others have pointed out, he needs to be reassured that he isn't broken, and doesn't need to be fixed. Tell him that you have noticed that he reacts angrily to things frequently, and that even if he's feeling content, these little outbursts are affecting you and also your children. Tell him you need him to be the best version of himself, because you need him to be a strong father and husband, and that it means dealing with his feelings.
Another thing: Don't be afraid. I've acted on my wife's advice most often when she has been stern, almost in a motherly sort of way. Saying things like "It's not acceptable for you to lash out at yourself or me when you're feeling anxious, even if you think everything is fine. It's not OK to behave that way around the children".
But above all else, approach it with compassion. Initiate conversations about how he's feeling. Initiate conversations about how you are feeling as well. This is not about guilt - approach it as "The way you act sometimes makes me feel afraid". But above that, share feelings about other smaller things too. Share what makes you feel happy, ask him what made him feel happy.
Does he have hobbies? A friend circle he can spend time with? I know that when I spend too much time off work at home, it can drive me crazy. I recently joined a board games group and got a bicycle to get around and it feels so liberating and like I can be myself. Video games are another way that men often stay in touch with their male friends and discuss their own feelings.
It can be hard to balance wanting to help him and inadvertently making him feel like you are trying to control him. I do think that going to the gym is great for him to do, if he feels like it helps, and encourage him to keep doing things that make him feel stronger like that. See if there's a way you can maybe be a part of that - buddy workouts? Hiking together? Anything to build bonding and trust so he knows you just want what's best for him and aren't trying to make him be someone he is not.
And in a somewhat contrary sense to what I said above... let him have control over his decisions. Let him decide what he needs when you have brought up the issues you have. Let him know you love him and want what's best for him as well as for you and the family, and that in order to be that he has to take care of himself. Stress that taking care of himself is vital and that you don't mind how he does it - he just needs to do something so that you don't feel intimidated by his outbursts.
This is a little rambly - feel free to message me if you have any questions about my suggestions.
I was very much like this less than a year ago. I had a very short fuse and would be mad and couldn’t control my outbursts. I didn’t really see it either for a long time until I started paying attention to what my behavior was doing to our dogs, specifically my dog Lucy. I wasn’t physically abusive but my verbal outbursts would scare her so much I could see the stress it was putting on her and I felt horrible about it and decided to start trying to do some work on myself.
I found a book called “You are not so Smart” by David McRainy that opened my eyes to why we as humans do the things we do. For me personally it was like a religious experience, here it was in scientific terms put into easily understood wording on why we do many of the things we do and how to be more cognitive of where some of my anger might be coming from. That was really what got the ball rolling so to speak for myself but it wasn’t what’s helped me the most with my anger. But because of this quest I was now on to find out more about the human mind I found my way to Mindfullness.
I started listening to Podcasts that were giving a lot of the same info as Davids book does (he has a podcast by the same name as well that’s a great listen) and that’s when I found Sam Harris and his Waking Up course. I had never thought about meditation as a way to combat the way I was feeling before and I was a bit skeptical. I am not a religious person, at least not anymore, so I think I always thought it wasn’t something for me. Sam’s approach to it is very secular which was what I was looking for myself. I decided to give it a try and started Meditating daily for about 10-15 minutes a day, mostly through his guided meditation. I cant believe the turn around in how I feel since I’ve started doing that. Its been about 2 months now since I’ve started practicing almost everyday and my anger has almost totally gone away. Its still something I have to be cognitive of but its much easier to do so with Meditation in my life. When you meditate it helps train your brain to see where your thoughts come from and to take note of them before acting on them. That’s such an important part to it all, being able to have that emotion well up in you but then being able to see it for what it is instead of acting on it has made a world of difference for myself.
There are a lot of little steps it took for me to get to Meditation as an answer for my anger issues but its honestly been the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. Its improved everything in my life. My relationship with my wife has gotten much stronger. I also see it in my dog Lucy, she was once nicknamed Blue Lu because she would just get into a funk and seem a bit like Eeyore, but since I’ve been working on myself she’s changed almost completely into this silly, happy outgoing dog. It breaks my heart to think my attitude was affecting her that much but I’m thankful for her putting a mirror up to the person I was becoming. Its easy to dismiss other people sometimes because we feel like they probably have their own agenda on something but with a dog the only agenda they have is to be loved so it became to hard to dismiss what my actions were doing.
I hope my story helps you. Half the battle it seems is to get us to see there’s a problem to begin with. We live in a stressed out, angry society at the moment so it can be hard to not feel the same ourselves. Best of luck to your and your husband on your journeys.
Edit: wording
I have so much sympathy for you. I’m sorry your family is going through this.
I’m not a medical professional, but I have suffered from severe anxiety and PTSD my entire life, stemming from an event when I was 4 and my father was murdered.
I don’t know what will work for him, but I will tell you what has worked for me.
If he’s reticent to see a therapist, I don’t know if he’d be willing to participate in a group therapy session... but they’re so helpful. If you can find a men’s support group nearby, try to get him to go just once. It’s less intrusive than a one on one therapy session. Pitch it to him like shooting the shit with some guy friends, because that’s exactly what it is.
Second, if you live in a state that allows medical marijuana, ask your doctor to prescribe him. You don’t have to smoke, and they’ll recommend you don’t, but they make edibles that are fantastic. Even a low dose can have a profound effect on my mental wellbeing. Another benefit is sleep: anxiety is awful because you’re anxious all day and then you can’t sleep to recharge your batteries. You end up burning the candle at both ends.
Just 10mg a day can be a life changing dose for most people. I didn’t touch marijuana until my 30’s and I regret it. I haven’t slept better in my life.
If you have any questions or need someone to talk to, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
This is the same sentiment that was raised in Jacobin's last episode of the Dig about work culture.
When talking about screaming PTA moms or disgruntled Karen's at the checkout counter or Dude who won't let off the horn in your traffic commute, it often comes down them coping with stress and lack of control in their daily lives. And it's tough not to take it personally, or chalk it up to identity basket that keeps your world in clean working order.
Yesterday I was almost hit by another car (video) in the morning. I used the horn and was a near miss. The other guy was frazzled but I didn't yell at him, neither one of us intended to be in an accident because that's what they are — accidents. I asked if he was going okay, we shook hands, and reminded him to be safe. Strangers aren't your enemy, the system of stressors in people's lives are.
The "anger culture" (I don't know if this is a term, it's what I've been thinking about for a little while) would have you fight this person for their transgression, I like your approach, nobody wanted it to happen.
Not only is seeking help hard on its own for the reasons you listed, but it can be a source of anxiety in and of itself.
Everything from "do I see a therapist or a psychiatrist" to "how much is this really going to cost me, how am I going to pay for a prescription" to "I don't get anxiety attacks, I just get worried sometimes, who doesn't?! It's probably just nothing and I'll get laughed out of the office when I tell them what's bothering me" and plenty of other things in-between can crop up when trying to make the decision to go get help.