Cracking the Code of Male Emotion

Have you ever witnessed the struggle many men face when it comes to sharing their deepest emotions, even with those they hold dear? This week we have  a revelatory discussion that peels back the layers of why men often bottle up their feelings of sadness or depression. We take a look at factors that set up the stage to repressing men's emotions, from childhood conditioning that equates vulnerability with weakness, to sports and ingrained gender roles reinforcing the facade of stoicism.

Together, we navigate the complex landscape of gendered expectations and emotional expression, examining how these societal norms uniquely challenge both men and women. While women are discouraged from showing anger, men face a reality where sadness is often only recognized when it reaches a breaking point, a conditioning that undeniably contributes to the rising problem of men not seeking help for emotional issues. The evolution of therapy and its growing acceptance emerges as a beacon of hope in our conversation, underscoring the critical importance of addressing and maintaining emotional health for all.

Wrapping up our deep dive, we critique the damaging stereotypes that shape modern masculinity, including the extreme views of public figures who dismiss men's emotional needs. The stark reality of gendered expectations and their impact on mental health is laid bare as we unpack the ideologies that contribute to a society in which emotional suppression is often mistaken for strength. The episode concludes with a resounding call to action: it's time to dismantle toxic norms and foster an environment where emotional honesty isn't just allowed, but encouraged, for everyone, regardless of gender. Join us in this critical exploration of what it means to be emotionally expressive in a world still grappling with outdated definitions of strength.

Transcript

Christopher D Patchet: 0:15

Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people to their simplest ingredients. I'm your host, christopher Patchett LCSW.

Lindsay McClane: 0:25

And I'm Lindsay McLean fish mom again.

Christopher D Patchet: 0:31

So let me ask you give me a percentage of guys that you saw cry in front of you that you've dated. Ooh, cry in front of you that you've dated.

Lindsay McClane: 0:45

Ooh, uh, ha, ha Ha ha. There was one who did, but that was. He knew he had fucked up and I think there were tears to try and get me on his side. Actual, like tears over. I feel really bad about something, yeah, no how many?

Christopher D Patchet: 1:09

what would you say? The percentage of guys who have said I feel sad, depressed, whatever?

Lindsay McClane: 1:18

I'm gonna go with a nice round, number of zero really yeah, I don't think of guys that I've dated with a little bit of pushing pushing is the wrong word but like encouragement, you will get some like yeah, I'm a little stressed out right now, like I'm a little, you know, frustrated, but more often than not I've just kind of left on their own. They're not going to say anything. You will notice the signs that they may not be doing super hot, but actually those words coming out of their mouth, of their own free will, by choice, saying hey, I'm really like stressed and depressed and down right now, I don't remember anyone really saying that.

Christopher D Patchet: 2:10

Hmm, so today we're going to talk about feelings.

Lindsay McClane: 2:14

Ooh, this is going to be a good one.

Christopher D Patchet: 2:18

Kind of starting off, where men kind of get this whole idea of what masculinity means is there is kind of growing up. There was study, especially at school. A boy who has gone to kindergarten usually will bring like teddy bear to feel protected, and they will if. If they're they're feeling scared or they're feeling upset or or whatever the case may be, they'll hold onto their teddy bear though They'll hug them and everything like that. We see that drastically change by second grade.

Lindsay McClane: 3:02

Oh wow, Just two years later.

Christopher D Patchet: 3:04

Yeah, by second grade. Then the rules of the playground kind of take over and you start hearing don't be such a sissy yeah so this is by second grade. You're seven to eight years old, so already you're getting that put into your head. Don't be a sissy, don't cry.

Lindsay McClane: 3:25

Don't be a cry baby, things like that oh yeah, because I've heard plenty of men just straight up say, like a real man doesn't cry yeah, yeah, and that's that's the other part.

Christopher D Patchet: 3:40

Father's teaching their kids suck it up, be a man, men, don't cry. They're, they're getting out of school. They're having to reinforce that home. What is one of the biggest after-school activities that most men will do? Sports. I like sports, I.

Lindsay McClane: 4:04

I assume that we go run around and like throw balls at Sports.

Christopher D Patchet: 4:07

I like a sports. I assume that we go run around and like throw balls at each other, as if this is, like you know, like you know, like a huge test Sports. I'm going to go with B.

Lindsay McClane: 4:20

Yeah, what are sports?

Christopher D Patchet: 4:24

So yes, you are correct, Sports.

Lindsay McClane: 4:26

I win the prize Do.

Christopher D Patchet: 4:30

I get a man with feelings. Well, here we go.

Lindsay McClane: 4:36

I don't think I want this prize.

Christopher D Patchet: 4:37

Especially in sports and especially where, like in America, football is one of the big sports that people will play. You're being told to suck up those feelings and if you're feeling upset, then you bring it out to the field. If you're feeling sad, if you're feeling depressed, if you're feeling alone, suck up those feelings and let it out in aggression.

Christopher D Patchet: 5:03

That won't ever go wrong, which will never go wrong, which never, ever, ever goes wrong. Here's the thing you even have now. The definition of masculinity is a man who is heterosexual, who has physical strength, athleticism, control over situations, caretaking as head of the household, so they're in charge of disciplining being the leading figure and then financial success.

Christopher D Patchet: 5:35

The big one is not crying or showing emotions. These are things that are defined by us. Masculinity is just a word. The definition of a word is brought out by people ourselves. We're the ones who define these words. These are the expectations that most men will adhere by. Then, if a man wants to be a man, so to say, then they're going to follow these rules, and that's including not showing emotions.

Lindsay McClane: 6:09

Yeah, because there's obviously going to be a lot of pushback that if you aren't in the group, you're now out of the group, and so you have to conform to the group's rules.

Christopher D Patchet: 6:20

Here's the big thing. The reason why I asked you at the very beginning is they did a survey of 1,500 women. 95% said that they wanted a man to wear emotions on their sleeves. We really do. Of the 1,500 women who were surveyed, 97% said that crying is a sign of strength.

Lindsay McClane: 6:44

It's normal. Yes, this, this validates me actually because I'm sure you're going to get into this but you see men on the internet being like oh, women say they want this, but then they view men who cry as sissies. No, we don't. You view yourselves as that. This is a you problem. We want this for you.

Christopher D Patchet: 7:10

So you're going to hate me? You're going to hate me.

Lindsay McClane: 7:14

You're going to hate me. What statistic are you about to pull out?

Christopher D Patchet: 7:20

You're even more so by the end of the show. You're also going to hate women.

Lindsay McClane: 7:26

Never.

Christopher D Patchet: 7:28

Female solidarity. Other women who had a partner 81% wish that their partner showed more emotions. 17% of men still believe that women doesn't want a guy that shows emotions. Still believe that women doesn't want a guy that shows emotions. This is actually kind of an interesting figure, considering the fact that it's only 17% of men who believe that women don't want them to show emotions.

Lindsay McClane: 7:56

Yeah, we've got what? 83%, then, who understand that women do want that? And yet how many percent of women said that guys weren't doing that or that they wanted more?

Christopher D Patchet: 8:12

So 95% of women said that they wanted more.

Lindsay McClane: 8:17

The math ain't mathin'.

Christopher D Patchet: 8:19

But here's the thing. Is that kind of going back to growing up? If you are being told, like at the age of seven, that if you show emotions you're a sissy, if your father is saying, man up, suck it up, men don't cry, this is kind of. The problem is that those ideas don't just get thrown out the window.

Lindsay McClane: 8:43

Yeah.

Christopher D Patchet: 8:43

Yes, a guy might realize that showing emotions is important in a relationship, but during that whole age of growing up and figuring out your identity and things like that, whereas women are taught to be emotional, guys are being taught that emotions are a sign of weakness and that you're being a sissy and things like that. So it is kind of one of those things where, yes, men do realize that they need to be more emotional but at the same time, you had that first 20 years of your life being taught to bottle up your emotions.

Lindsay McClane: 9:27

Yeah, it's definitely not an easy path to go from being like no emotions ever like emotions are bad to letting it out. I do put the onus a bit back on the men, though, that once you are an adult and you realize that this is something that is out there, you need to do the work to learn how to express your emotions. You need to see a therapist. You can, you know, talk to people, start practicing little bits here and there, read about it online, take that initiative. If you see, if your partner is coming to you saying like please, I want you to talk to me about stuff, like I want you to say this, I want you to be open. Why is it that when women come and do this to men, men are like okay, and then do nothing?

Christopher D Patchet: 10:23

so okay. So you know. I'm glad you kind of brought that up, because there is another side to this. Women as much as men, are being told that you got to bottle up your emotions, that you need to not cry and you can't show this sadness or feeling upset. There is one emotion that women forget about. Oh, I like that look that you're giving me.

Lindsay McClane: 10:58

I'm trying to figure out what it might be.

Christopher D Patchet: 11:02

Anger.

Lindsay McClane: 11:04

Yeah, it's the only emotion that men show. Whoa oh you are now going right into the trap. I see.

Christopher D Patchet: 11:18

So women? When I was doing the research I saw an article on psychology today and they actually put out a good article on like articles that we've talked about in the past and apparently on what Threads or X were kind of on Psychology Today shit list for calling them out.

Lindsay McClane: 11:42

Hey, they deserve that.

Christopher D Patchet: 11:44

Yeah, they totally deserved it.

Lindsay McClane: 11:45

That was a shit list, but this time they actually did something good. Okay.

Christopher D Patchet: 11:49

So they talked about the story of a girl who was talking to a co-worker. And when she was talking to a co-worker, she said that she was crying, she was upset, and the co-worker asked what was wrong and she said this guy that I've've been dating for for about six months he goes to me. We were supposed to go on a trip together and he took off without me and she said feel so upset, I feel hurt. I feel hurt, but it's more than just being upset. I wish that there was a word for this emotion.

Lindsay McClane: 12:22

Okay, okay, I see where this is going, I think, and I disagree with it violently.

Christopher D Patchet: 12:27

So let me ask you where do you see this going?

Lindsay McClane: 12:30

That women don't show anger.

Christopher D Patchet: 12:34

Okay, and why do you disagree with it violently?

Lindsay McClane: 12:39

Why do you?

Christopher D Patchet: 12:39

disagree with women not showing anger violently.

Lindsay McClane: 12:45

Because there's obviously a range for every emotion. There's a range that it can kind of show up as, and even within one person I may show sadness this way today and tomorrow. It's a different type of sadness and so it's a little more over here, you know, but I have my range there and then, compared to somebody else, my way of showing sadness may be very different. Anger is one of those that men show anger like very openly. This is a stereotype. Anger for men is going to be like shouting and smashing things and just like really up in your face, and so when women don't act that same way, men don't realize that it's still anger.

Christopher D Patchet: 13:40

So I agree with you on that. However, there is a saying that I absolutely fucking love Tell a lie, enough times it becomes the truth. This person who is sitting there saying that I'm sad versus I'm fucking pissed Now she doesn't have to go there and fucking Hulk smash, you know, or anything like that. But, acknowledging the fact that she was upset or that she was pissed, that she was angry at this person for ditching her, even though that they had dated for you know, six months yeah, I mean, I'm just.

Lindsay McClane: 14:24

I'm thinking about my friends, which obviously are a representative sample of all women in the world statistically, and I think most of them have at some point said the words like I'm so fucking pissed right now or angry. At least within my friend group, the words like anger come out on a regular basis, makes it sound like we're just angry all the time. But you know, when there's a reason to be angry, I would say that the people that I'm friends with do express that. Like the word anger comes out, the word sad comes out when you're like yeah, I'm feeling sad, like my feelings got hurt, and anger comes out like this fucking bitch did what now? Like now, I'm mad so okay.

Christopher D Patchet: 15:12

So just as you said, like you know, there are different degrees of emotions. I think that, just like you will hear that there are guys that say, like you know, like I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling hurt or or something along the lines of that, that those words don't come out until you hit that extreme of that emotion. When I talk to clients about like anger management, I have my patented anger management scale can you share with us?

Lindsay McClane: 15:46

on the anger scale you have like frustrated or you need to have a cool name for this scale.

Christopher D Patchet: 15:53

First, maybe you can uh, help me, uh, because I, I I call it the scale of one to holy shit okay, okay, I can so one, two, three might be annoyance.

Christopher D Patchet: 16:07

You're feeling annoyed by somebody, you're feeling, uh, you know, like, oh my god, this person is just there's frustration, there's upset, there's mad, there's pissed off, there's holy shit. Yeah, I think that on a, on a female scale, it ends up being sad, sad, sad, mad, pissed and holy shit it is true that I think women have been taught that, like being angry is not feminine well, like you're not supposed to, show the anger.

Lindsay McClane: 16:40

That's not men. Get angry and smash it. You are a woman, you don't smash it, so you can't be angry. Quote unquote. I do agree, yeah.

Christopher D Patchet: 16:51

That's true. So I think that there's that whole thing that if you are constantly saying, like on these lower levels, that I'm sad, you're lying to yourself that you're sad, whereas men is the opposite. There is different variables of sadness. I don't have a patented scale for for sadness. When, on your lower levels of, let's say, one to 10 of sadness, where one is just feeling a little upset, you know, like feeling a little hurt, and ten is like full-fledged depression yeah men are gonna see anger, anger, anger, anger, anger, depression yeah that's kind of the thing is that you have these emotions that are not truly there.

Christopher D Patchet: 17:46

Men who understand that, yes, I need to be more open with my feelings of sadness isn't going to see that as being sad until they hit, let's say, a 7 ten of sadness scale that's true.

Lindsay McClane: 18:04

Yeah, if you don't have the words for it, then it's just like yeah yeah, yeah.

Christopher D Patchet: 18:09

so just like the person that I was saying about the, the girl, like I feel sad. No, she was fucking angry. But yet society, for the same reasons of, just as you said, it's not feminine to be angry, it's not. You know, women are supposed to be docile and you know, like this is what you know feminine emotions can look like, are not going to realize those lower levels of anger of anger, because yeah, you know like anger isn't something where you don't have to be hawk smash angry, for you to be angry.

Christopher D Patchet: 18:48

But if that's all you recognize as anger, then you're saying to yourself I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm sad, and you're taking all that emotion onto yourself, whereas tagline how many times will we say it this week?

Christopher D Patchet: 19:06

we talked about like friend zone where a guy will okay, look, I, I don't like you that way and I think that we should be friends. Okay, might feel hurt, might feel hurt, might feel sad. But if you're taught that this level of sadness is actually anger, then fuck you, bitch, yeah, and that's the thing, is like okay. So men realize that, like okay, yeah, I need to be more open with my feelings. But if all the feelings that they're feeling before seven is all anger and they only recognize seven, eight, nine, ten as being sadness, and then that's when they come out and say, like you know, like hey, like you know, like I'm really having problems, I'm really feeling sad, I'm really feeling upset yeah, and you look at and you're like, holy fucking shit, dude, we should have been talking about this months ago exactly, exactly.

Christopher D Patchet: 20:08

Again, you can't throw out 20 years of life experience, yeah, and 20 years of knowledge, and you kind of said about that's where guys need to go to therapy and things like that.

Lindsay McClane: 20:20

Well, yes, I know men love therapy.

Christopher D Patchet: 20:23

Trust me I know, but also therapy as a whole.

Lindsay McClane: 20:29

Like up until the 90s, if you were seeing a therapist, there was something fucking wrong with you yeah, it's really only been millennials who I'm sure you've seen, like the meme that's gone around the internet for a while now, where it's like you know, boomers whispering. I heard she went to therapy and millennials are in gen z, are like ayo. Let me tell you what my therapist said like I think this is the first generation that has been much more open about going and saying like, yeah, you can go for all sorts of things. Most people could probably do with a little bit of therapy in their life and some people could do with a whole lot more.

Christopher D Patchet: 21:12

So you know, I, I tell people this. Okay, maybe I'm biased or whatever but you as a therapist therapy. But here's a little trade secret most therapists see a fucking therapist yeah, I already knew that from my ma'am.

Lindsay McClane: 21:33

The people who work in therapy are generally stereotyped as the ones who really need it kind of getting back onto.

Christopher D Patchet: 21:43

I was actually going gonna do an episode about about women's feelings on a later date, but yeah, you kind of brought it into, uh, into the spotlight.

Christopher D Patchet: 21:51

So all the feelings kind of getting back onto the men, or, as you would say, the men. Uh, I've told you about this before. Like this is one of my favorite demonstrations to do is if I were to take, if I were to take this battery, I, I, I just change out the batteries in my game console, okay, or controller thing. Don't judge, don't judge, don't even go there. No, bad Lindsey.

Lindsay McClane: 22:36

Fucking children.

Christopher D Patchet: 22:41

So if I were to take this battery and I wave my hand around and I, you know, make it disappear?

Lindsay McClane: 22:48

yeah, wow did I?

Christopher D Patchet: 22:50

did I really make that battery uh vanish in the thin air?

Christopher D Patchet: 22:55

I am shocked to say no no, I, I just put it somewhere else. And that's the thing with emotion is that just because you're not quote, unquote feeling it, just because you're suppressing it, it's going to come out somewhere else. Four of the wonderful ways that hiding your emotions actually end up coming out. When you're talking about like sadness and things like that is it's going to come out in alcoholism, depression, anger, suicidal, and that's why do you see a lot of men who end up going through these things? And and same thing, if you want to look at it, with the women as well. If, rather than you know, when you're talking about anger, that's anger towards somebody else, but if you're constantly taking that in, like you know, like I feel hurt that he did this to me, well, no, be fucking angry, you know, but if you're saying that I feel hurt because he did this to me, now you're starting to have those feelings of like what the fuck is wrong with me and you're gonna feel depressed and things like that.

Lindsay McClane: 24:10

That is kind of the whole thing is that hiding emotions is not good for men or women no, as you said, it has to come out somehow, and better to have it come out in the moment, within reason of instance, and saying like hey, my needs aren't being met, or I've asked you to do this multiple times, we need to get this done. You hold it in because you don't want to nag, you don't want to whatever, and then all of a sudden, at one moment it just comes out in one go and the other person is left probably a little bit shocked because it's like where did this come from? I didn't realize that this was a problem because nothing was being said. It was, you know, okay, okay, okay, just like fucking pissed off, yeah. And then you can't have a productive conversation about things because one person's really upset, one person's confused and probably also upset at that point too, because why did you just explode at me?

Christopher D Patchet: 25:25

before we get into our favorite man. You know who that is right tater tots absolutely our, our favorite, uh, tater tot. I like that I like that.

Lindsay McClane: 25:37

I don't want to have to keep saying his fucking name.

Christopher D Patchet: 25:39

I hate him he serves a rot in jail. One of the biggest things that you hear contribute to men's emotion is finding a man who can control his emotions. Yeah, okay, you know I agree with you like 100% and I tell people this all the time is that there are two extremes to anything In the sense of controlling your emotions or being emotional.

Christopher D Patchet: 26:12

Okay, there are the people who don't show any type of feelings, and that's going to be extremely toxic feelings and that's going to be extremely toxic. And then there are going to be the people who are over emotional about anything and everything. Yeah, and those are the people that you're just like come on, like are you fucking serious, like you're, you're mourning over your dead goldfish for the past like six months, like it's time to get over it yeah like stop your crying and and grow a pair.

Christopher D Patchet: 26:48

Here's the thing is that I I like this one professor that I had in college. He said are you a brain or do you have a brain? And the thing that he was kind of getting to was if you have a brain, you're in control of your brain.

Lindsay McClane: 27:05

Yeah.

Christopher D Patchet: 27:06

And the thing is is that all reality we don't have control Like our, our brain is, is it's its own separate unit. So, as much as we would like to sit there and be like you know, like, oh, I, I'm in control of my thoughts. I'm in control of my thoughts. I'm in control of my feelings. A perfect example that I always say to people is it's a bright, sunny day, and the sun is shining, the birds are whistling, you're driving to an event that you really enjoy, that you really want to go to, everything in life is going perfect. You're, you're fucking whistling in the car like it, like it's a fucking disney, uh, cartoon, and for out of nowhere, your, your thought goes to. If I drove into uncommon traffic, I could really fuck up my day, and the thing, the thing is, we all have that type of thought during those type of days. Doesn't mean that we're suicidal, no. It doesn't mean that we are constantly thinking of death. No.

Lindsay McClane: 28:15

I love me some good intrusive thoughts.

Christopher D Patchet: 28:18

Yeah, just random, intrusive thoughts. We don't have the control that we would like to believe that we have. Our brain is gonna throw bullshit out there for whatever reason. And same thing with feelings. You know, we can't sit here and say like, okay, you know what. This person just broke up with me and I'm just gonna get over it right now yeah, it'd be great if you could do that.

Lindsay McClane: 28:43

I mean yeah, I think if we could, we would like, we would have figured that out. It's like all those stupid ads. Like you know this one secret trick to lose all your belly fat. If we had a trick to do that, we would know about it, you, you would see people. It's the same thing for. For this but it's.

Christopher D Patchet: 29:06

It's also on the other side, though, like we kind of need that time to to kind of mourn. Yeah, you know, we need that time to learn from from that relationship what we want, what we don't want and things like that. If it gets down to the point where and we've talked about it with, like the alpha widow there is a degree where it does become too much. So there is a point that it does become too much and and you know, you kind of have to figure all that out when does the idea that continues, these types of ideas of you know what masculine is and things like that?

Christopher D Patchet: 29:48

well, our bff, tater tot oh yeah I looked up a video about emotions and here's the beautiful thing. So, starting off with algorithms because of doing the show that we do, ah, fucking YouTube, and and you know, we need to make a burner account that we can use Cause.

Lindsay McClane: 30:14

I've also run into this problem where I have needed to look something up or whatever, and you're just like, fuck, instagram is going to be like did you want to see more of this? It's like no, I want to see cute animals, I want to see plants, I want to see crochet, and it's like narcissism.

Christopher D Patchet: 30:34

Right. So so I I put it in women's reactions to men's own emotions, and because of the fact of doing the show, the the first first things I see are fucking tater tot. This is women's reactions.

Lindsay McClane: 31:04

Yeah.

Christopher D Patchet: 31:12

Tater tots you know why you need to control your emotions. Jordan Peterson, who is a fucking crackpot who's lost his fucking medical license because he is such a crackpot.

Lindsay McClane: 31:21

I mean when you go to Moscow to get put into a coma, to get over your addiction. I've got a lot of questions.

Christopher D Patchet: 31:34

And then a surprise name that I just learned. I don't know if you heard this person, but I'll talk about that here in one second here. But let's go with Tater Tot's wonderful words of wisdom. I only watched maybe the first like four minutes, and that's all I could stomach. So the very first thing is the most terrifying but beautiful thing about being a man is you're born without values. Nobody cares about you. Society only cares about how useful you are, what. And you know I see a lot of videos. It's been growing more and more of men saying nobody cares about me, Nobody cares about the way that I feel, Nobody cares, and they're basically echoing exactly what Andrew fuckhead T. You know that name works too Fuckhead.

Lindsay McClane: 32:40

T, you know.

Christopher D Patchet: 32:42

That name works too, and the thing is is that, yeah, you know, like people do care about you.

Lindsay McClane: 32:49

Mm-hmm.

Christopher D Patchet: 32:50

But women, you know, the person that you're with cares a fuck ton about you and wishes that you would show more emotions, but if all you're hearing is that nobody fucking cares about you being a man, yeah, another beautiful, beautiful thing that Tater Tot said is do you know what happens when man acts upon or acts on how they feel? You get school shooters, you get violence, which I mean as as a therapist, I would say is the total opposite. You know if you're bottling up, because if you actually look at like you know, like the, the studies and things like that, no, it's a person who fucking bottles up these feelings yeah you know, somebody is not gonna say I'm feeling really depressed, therefore I'm going to violently go out and do shit.

Christopher D Patchet: 33:51

It's a person who says I feel that nobody cares and nobody gives a shit about me and I need a voice to express, and therefore this is the only way to do. It is by sheer action versus verbal words. And then last thing that I heard before I just had to shut it off was you need to teach a man. The world is very difficult. You're going to feel bad Sometimes. You need to suck it up and perform anyway.

Lindsay McClane: 34:27

Was this the video, by any chance, where something came up about crying and he was like I don't cry. Sometimes water comes out of my eyes, but it's not crying.

Christopher D Patchet: 34:38

There was. It was 15 minutes altogether, so it could have been in the other 10 minutes. But, like I said, after the first five minutes I was just like, oh my God, I, I, I can't do it, even for the podcast. No. I just if I hear one more word out of this guy's mouth, I am going to explode violently, because that is actual anger.

Lindsay McClane: 35:02

Yeah, there's a word for that.

Christopher D Patchet: 35:07

One of the things that really made me think about this was somebody that I was working with and they were talking about how they don't show feelings and things like that.

Christopher D Patchet: 35:18

They have a couple boys that this person is trying to teach not to be so emotional.

Christopher D Patchet: 35:26

And this person was saying that he saw a video and I did everything that I possibly could to find this video, but he saw a video where it was six women and this guy or and six men and one of the guys kind of talked about a recent loss that he had and how he was feeling, you know, sad.

Christopher D Patchet: 35:50

And this person who was telling me well, all six of them said that they lost it for this one guy who said that he felt sad because of a loss, that he had too much baggage, and I'm guessing, and I would say that it's more than likely that they cherry picked these women, that they cherry pick these women, because if you're going to the mall and trying to find six women who and you find six women who are dressed up to the t, you know, wearing the diamond rings and has the you know big ass necklace going to the mall, then you can pretty much guess where their, their, their thinking range goes. Even if they were six people or six women that were picked at random, you can randomly decide which way you want to go.

Lindsay McClane: 36:47

Yeah, this is. This is an episode that we've actually we have started planning it. I want to point that out. It's not just like vaguely in the future, we are working on it. But what you always see online is not necessarily the truth and it's really easy to kind of like accidentally or purposefully create these pipelines and to cherry pick the data and you, as the person watching the video, don't see how many women they actually asked. All you see is the handpicked and carefully edited video that shows them asking six women in a row what do you think about this video right here, and each of them says I lost respect for him. You don't see the who knows how many other women that they potentially asked in between who said I think this guy is great, bravo for him. Like this is really cool. You don't see it. You see what they want you to see yeah, yeah.

Christopher D Patchet: 37:47

Now, here is the thing that you can really, really, really, really love okay, I think I know what this is. Have you heard of Just Pearly Things?

Lindsay McClane: 37:59

Just Pearly Things.

Christopher D Patchet: 38:01

Yeah.

Lindsay McClane: 38:01

I know Just Girly Things.

Christopher D Patchet: 38:04

Nope, Just Pearly Things.

Lindsay McClane: 38:06

Like P-E-A-R-L-Y.

Christopher D Patchet: 38:09

Yeah.

Lindsay McClane: 38:10

No, am I allowed to look it up? Yeah, go ahead, look it up I don't know if I like this, oh dear I.

Christopher D Patchet: 38:26

I was gonna say I.

Lindsay McClane: 38:27

I saw the moment that, oh, I'm loving these looks I'm looking, I just see I can see the posts on X, and two hours ago I squatted two plates. Today I'm getting strong, okay. Three hours ago, pregnant women used to work on farms. They didn't just sit around and do nothing because they were pregnant. We're head downhill, don't worry. We're headed real fast now Because, also three hours ago, trump was an amazing president. Bring him back.

Christopher D Patchet: 39:02

So just pearly things. She is the female. Andrew Tate, that is the title that has been given to her and she takes it with pride. She is anti-feminism. She has actually said women should not vote. If women want the ability to vote, then they should be put into the draft just like men, okay, so again going back into the algorithm and things like that, if you are looking up geniuses like Tater Tot and ex-Dr Peterson, you are sure to come by this person, just pearly things, who says that if she's only seen her dad cry once and she has nothing but respect for her dad and the only time that she's ever seen her dad cry was when he lost a parent, but if he would have cried any more than that, she would have lost respect for him. These are people that are being jammed into guys' heads, who already have the idea that crying is not allowed and that big boys don't cry and things like that. That's only reinforcing those ideas of a fucking second grader.

Lindsay McClane: 40:38

Yeah, and I think, unfortunately, despite what I said earlier about you know, women do actually want this and we're very vocal about it and, despite what you saw in the study, there are still a shocking number of women here in the Western world, even even, who still say men shouldn't cry, on the one hand, like men should show emotion, like I don't want you to just explode and punch holes in walls, but also, yeah, it's weird when guys cry you, you can't have that's the thing.

Christopher D Patchet: 41:15

You can't have it both ways. You can't say that a guy shouldn't cry and then wonder why a guy is pissed off all the time.

Lindsay McClane: 41:23

Yeah.

Christopher D Patchet: 41:25

It's? It's like do you want a guy who is calm and able to express himself, or do you want fucking? You know, hulk smash.

Lindsay McClane: 41:36

Yeah, so, gee, which one should I pick? I don't know, not even Hulk smash, because I will point out too, I dated a person embarrassed to admit that now who had what I would call some anger management issues, and his way of dealing with it was he would sit with his arms crossed and his head back like this and his eyes closed and refuse to interact with me. When he got upset and this was not a five minute, like I need to calm myself, collect myself so we can have a productive conversation, this was like three hours.

Christopher D Patchet: 42:22

Stonewalling never heard anybody.

Lindsay McClane: 42:25

Nope, never heard anybody. And when I brought this up to him there was like this is not a healthy, productive way for you to be dealing with your anger. The response was well, at least I'm not like being really like explosive with my anger. I was like nope, nope, that we don't even consider the guys who punched the holes in the walls right, like that's no, you can't sit here and be like I just don't want you for three hours. That's better than me being abusive, no, sir I'll.

Christopher D Patchet: 43:02

I'll just kind of throw this out there as a therapist stonewalling, not good. If you do need time to kind of bring it down, yeah, 15 minutes max, that is really anything after that now you're kind of avoiding. So a little bit of extra advice on this. So let me ask you, with all of that into consideration, where would you put this on our wonderful scale of toxicity? Would you call this a green potato, where it doesn't hurt anybody? Would you say that this is a death cap mushroom, where it's a 50-50 shot of killing you? Or would you call this an antifreeze? A delightful last meal.

Lindsay McClane: 43:56

I'm going to go with antifreeze, because feelings are important, feelings are valid and when you don't have an outlet for your feelings it can end badly, not just for you but for people around you. See the men who get incredibly violent. See women who maybe get really depressed, and it can go both ways. Women can also get violent, men can also get depressed. But because on both genders have this problem of, as you were saying before, kind of putting the correct name with the feeling people may not be able to properly acknowledge, like this is what I'm actually feeling, and so I can ask for help now by saying, hey, like I'm just, I'm really stressed, like I'm not doing well, I'm stressed from work, I'm stressed from this, like I'm worried about my parents and have your partner be there to be. Like okay, like let's, let's work through it. Instead, you get kind of stuck in this thing where, like I can't talk about it because I've, I've got to be the man, or you know, I don't have the words to say I'm really fucking angry at you for what you did, and by the time it comes out it may be too late. Like you may now be in a fullown depression that you don't have a way out of at this point, and it can I mean it can lead to suicide.

Lindsay McClane: 45:20

I think if people don't have the ability to talk about what they're feeling and to get it out, refusal to admit it. I mean, I've seen, seen a couple people, like guys in my life who you look at them you're like I think you're depressed, sweetie, like I mean I really think that this is what's going on, but you don't have the words to admit it, so you can't seek help. And if you can't seek help, then maybe it will get better on its own, maybe it won't. If you don't need, if you can't even say I'm depressed, I need something. So, and I think it has those like really negative effects and it has just other effects in general. I mean thinking about women. Women aren't really supposed to say I'm angry because we also get punished for it. Women who show any sort of anger in the workplace or like even the little bit of like you put your foot down and you're like no, we're not going to do that because I don't think that's a great idea. We're going to do this.

Lindsay McClane: 46:18

And men, are clean yeah, men, instantly, are just like, oh, she's, bossy, she's and this is especially true for women of color, who they'll face this, and so then you, just you can't show those emotions, like I'm not allowed to have any emotions. If I can't have those emotions at work and I can't have those emotions here, are you really able to just like turn them back on when you get home, or does it start staying bottled up and then you have no way to get it out? So I would be, I would be tempted to say this is, this is an antifreeze, like being unable to talk about your emotions and to have words and names and a safe place to get them out. It's not good.

Christopher D Patchet: 46:58

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you 100%. I can tell you like just this past week, I had a case that affected me and I saw my supervisor and we talked about it and it hit me. I ended up crying in her office a little bit and we we were able to talk it out and the fact that I have a supervisor like that, who you know this is one of the beautiful things about being being in the field of social work and being a therapist is that you know your, your boss is also a therapist who's like I.

Christopher D Patchet: 47:42

I want you to express it here rather than you know you going back into the room pissed off. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't imagine going through what I had gone through and and just sit there and be well, I just have to suck it up and I just have to see the next person and just no, no no, no. Yeah, I agree it's, I think that full fledged antifreeze.

Lindsay McClane: 48:11

Yeah, there was actually a um, an exercise we did when I was working at the girl scout camp that we would joke about it as staff, uh, but it was actually really helpful and I had to make a group of children that I had at one point do it because they were all being nasty to each other, and that was I statements.

Lindsay McClane: 48:29

I feel sad when you blah, blah, blah, you know, and, and we would, we would joke about this as the adults and be like I feel you know, mad when you eat the last, whatever. If you could not, you bitch, like, obviously, where the kids come here, you know you would sometimes like amp it up like that, or I feel fucking pissed when it rains, but it did. It got you in the habit of kind of like saying those things. And when I had the group of girls who they were there for two weeks, which was longer than usual, and they were just they were having problems. They were how old would they have been? Like nine, 10, 11. And so I pulled them from a campfire and I was like, right, we are doing like group bonding experiments, not experiments, but like group exercises.

Lindsay McClane: 49:18

Yeah, so yeah, I pulled them from campfire and made them do group bonding stuff together for about three hours and one of the things that they had to do was practice using I statements to each other, and it was. It's quite eye-opening watching them finally get the words, like the ability to, when they had that statement. There, I feel x, when you x. Could you maybe try doing this instead to watch them be able to plug and play with that and be able to say these things to each other and actually say stuff to me too and be like we feel stressed when we don't know what the next day is going to be? Can you give us the schedule ahead of time so that we're not asking you and you're not getting frustrated at us? And I was like, wow, look at you guys go.

Christopher D Patchet: 50:08

I I love uh reviewing uh I statements with couples, because I'll always say to them I'll be like okay, this is how you make out I statement. Just a reminder I feel like you're an asshole is not a nice statement, but it starts with I right like I and it was, it was great. I actually did have a couple that came back to me and they said to me that they would actually say that as a way to kind of break the tension.

Lindsay McClane: 50:44

Yeah.

Christopher D Patchet: 50:45

And then they would actually go into an actual I statement. Nice, I like that. Now you get to see what kind of therapist I am the best. So yeah, let us know, like, how you feel. Tell us how you feel we'd love to know your feelings and you can always write to us and let us know how you feel at toxic, at awesome life skillscom, and you can always look us up on social media. And until next time, thank you so much for listening. I'm christopher patchett lcsw and I'm Lindsay McLean.

Lindsay McClane: 51:33

Bye.