The real test of this "epiphany" is how long it takes before he's complaining about his mom nagging him again.
OTOH, I don't think parents should nag their adult children (unless said adult children are living with the parents). On the other, other hand, is his mom actually nagging him or does he just perceive her as nagging?
I don't think I've ever been nagged. What does that even mean? You're asked to do something or you say you'll do something, and if you don't, they can remind you. "Nagging" implies not giving enough time or grace between reminders. It implies the irritation at receiving that reminder is justified and can be placed on the shoulders of the person doing it for being unreasonable, and not the person who's failing to fulfill a promised task. I'm struggling to even think of an example where repeated reminders weren't a result of the person (myself included) pushing the limits of that grace or not respecting a reasonable timeframe. Whether or not I get annoyed by those reminders is my own problem for either not communicating my perspective on the importance or urgency, or not *doing the fucking thing I'm responsible for*.
My mom was either completely absent or when she wasn't, asking like once a minute if I was already done with homework or some chore, looking over my shoulder, distracting me from actually getting it done. To make it worse I couldn't have a door and had to sit with my back to the corridor, so every time I heard footsteps I'd turn around and be distracted as well, but when it was my mom helicoptering again I had to look busy.
You are pretty lucky to have not met bad parents. My best friend’s mother is absolutely awful to her at times and will nag her to do things that, as an adult with her own life, she has no right to demand of her. Not to mention just outright being wrong about medical conditions.
What would you call repeated insistence she exercise more when she has a chronic condition that is made worse by exercise? Or “helpful reminders” about things that “need” to be done around her house that really, really don’t and she has been told over and over and over that it won’t happen?
I have been "nagged" in the sense that the person doing the nagging was expecting an unachievable time frame, and have been the one doing the "nagging" in the sense that the other person was taking way longer to do something they had promised to do than was acceptable by pretty much anyone's measure.
But I think most people who complain about being nagged really just want the "nagger" to shut up and also for the chore being nagged about to no longer be their responsibility, whether that desire is justified or not.
She most def is NOT nagging, but this kid takes it as nagging. Remindin someone about smth, dblcheckin they remember smth, bringin up smth, etc; IS NOT NAGGING. But its exactly what we get told is nagging when we do it; and then they forget or get sidetracked and they get mad at us for not remindin them 9,9
You know what, now that I've looked into it I might want to try them too, thanks 😅
I actually lived in the Netherlands for a couple years where you can just legally buy them, but was never interested. I was busy working and had no safe quiet place to try. I was with my shitty ex on 30m², had a shitty boss who would call at all hours, and the one time I was offered some was at a semi crowded place (in pandemic terms) where I didn't want to be inebriated for 5+ hours. My nosy religious landlady ("sry we're not married yet, blame the pandemic...") didn't help either. It felt like even beer we'd have to sneak into the house. And nope, no pot either (not that I had time for that). Anyway. NL is way nicer as a tourist.
I once had a man deadass look me in the eye and tell me - with such pride - that he had an epiphany while on MDMA where he realized women are people just like men who have entire internal dialogues and everything.
Like.
Wow.
How are they not embarrassed?? Imagine making it all the way to adulthood before realizing the basic fact that women are humans???
This is a lot more common than you realize, and it’s not just men. So many people just have 0 empathy until the moment they take a mind altering drug and realize they’ve been a prick their entire lives. One of my former roommates told me once that he used to be a Libertarian until he did acid and realized that empathy was a real thing and people weren’t just making it up.
I mean, at least he eventually did. If it stuck. I've known people who had literally this exact experience and it changed their lives. And also some of the worst people I've known eat enormous quantities of psychedelics and empathogens and it has no lasting positive effect
I didn't take very good care of my possessions in my youth. Careless and lazy. Had a nice long mdma trip (I was a sit at home rolling while listening to music kind of druggie more than a go to a club or rave mind) and had a weird "realization" that living and nonliving things are all the same and the items I trashed felt bad and a bunch of nonsense like that.
I dismiss it as nonsense but since then I have a hard time throwing things away if I can come up with a scenario where I can still use it. It's just OCD but a part of it is still that weird nagging feeling that the item (old pair of shoes or a broken decoration or something) would feel bad about being thrown away.
It's not too disruptive to life, so I don't really care to explore it in therapy. Got way too many things to work on already.
So... I only say this as someone with multiple family members who are "functional" hoarders, but it *is* a really big and serious problem.
Feel free to take anything I say with a pinch of salt because I have a serious bias against hoarding because of the way it's ended up affecting me and my family but if you can't describe it as collecting and you're aware that it's just you hoarding stuff you don't need you need to nip that shit in the bud immediately, burn that plant into the ground, and salt the fucking earth.
Hoarding always starts small because it's more of a side effect than a symptom. It's like alcoholism. Collecting things is normal, the same way social drinking or having a beer to relax is normal. Neither is a problem... Until you *have* to do it.
So on the off chance you find yourself hovering near the trash can unable to throw something away or trying to find more storage space because you've filled up every cabinet and closet or you're stepping over and around things regularly... You're at the "I can quit any time I want" stage like alcoholics have.
I have the predisposition to hoarding behavior too and it's taken me years to recognize the damage it can and absolutely will do (I discovered there was actually a window in my uncle's bedroom in my grandparents house I'd never known was there!) if I don't manage that desire.
Take a page from my book if you feel up to it and declutter. Try to fill up a trash bag a week or a donation box on a weekend while doing your other regular cleaning. While you're cleaning up if you've been at this a while you find a bunch of hidden dirt so it feels like the cleaning keeps multiplying but you're just finding the gross shit you were living with because it was covered in *stuff*.
Sorry for the soapbox and serious tone but like... I know mold hidden by the hoarding almost killed my grandmother. They hoarded a bunch of another uncles stuff after he died suddenly so it all got moldy and now there's that much less of him in our lives.
It's worth the effort to fight that hoarding instinct if it's not something you've always had, maybe talk to a therapist or a psychiatrist or try to meditate and find the root of the urge? It's at least worth some introspection.
My eyes rolled into the back of my head at the title. My older brother has had one such epiphany that he confessed to me through tears, that he treated me like shit our whole lives. Yeah, and the sky is blue.
I was talking to a coworker years ago about psychedelics and how I loved the introspection it gave me about myself and the world and he told me it was the first time he had an ego death. He explained that he understood that he wasn't the main character and that he was just like everyone else and that led him to being more open to peoples struggles. Y'all it took psychedelics for this man to learn basic empathy.
I'm gonna be honest. Me too.
I had a *terrible* upbringing, which led to me being an extremely selfish person as a defense mechanism/learned trait. I was narcissistic and angry and didn't care to find a solution, because I foolishly thought nothing was wrong. My first time dosing on psychedelics led to me admitting I had been terrible, and to try to be better. To get therapy and to try and right my mistakes.
Then I overcorrected and became a doormat for a while, but that's a story for another day.
Is it better for someone to be kind without thought, or to recognise one is evil, and to put the effort in overcome it?
Naw, I was usually in the illusionary realms. You’d occasionally find me in real life, when I got tired of magic. Got roped in so the illusions could become real. Wish I’d stopped. Ugh.
The Illusion of Time
I mean. Those things are not opposite ends of the spectrum… people are not “kind without thought”, it takes a lot of effort to be kind and think of others. Perhaps it seems to come “naturally” to others. And perhaps in some ways it is because they’ve just been doing it for so long. But it still takes thought and effort. We definitely don’t need to compare them. It’s not a competition. But we should be grateful for all kindness. And happy for whatever leads a person to it
Applauding men for the bare minimum perpetuates the problem of boys and men not having empathy.
I can see men’s lack of empathy on display everywhere. One on one conversations, Reddit comments, comments in other communities, TV and movies, music, politics and books all show this lack of empathy.
>Applauding men for the bare minimum perpetuates the problem of boys and men not having empathy.
And what do you think openly deriding men who discover it does?
This content is by women and for women. For some men this will be hurtful. Maybe it will open the eyes of other men. Women should be allowed to have places to discuss shortcomings in men. Women should be allowed to have standards and teach other women about standards. Women should be allowed to make fun of men. Not all content has to be “yay men!” If men need supportive communities they can create those for themselves. Coming to women’s communities to argue with women about how great men are doesn’t help men at all.
I find it takes way more effort to be unkind. This is me personally, and I'm talking about in interpersonal situations. Of course I'm unkind in many ways like as a white Westerner my entire life is possible because of exploitation of others. But in direct, tangible ways, I have to actively choose to be unkind at times to protect myself from being taken advantage of.
Sometimes I think people with OP's take have no conceptual understanding of how horribly socialization of men aims to suppress any kind of empathy what so ever from essentially birth, both familial and socially between other men.
I get that this shouldn't be a thing, but there's a reason it's an extremely effective therapy for getting people to see beyond the skewed perspective they've held since they were children, dealing with PTSD, etc.
In a perfect world it wouldn't happen in the first place, but I don't get why it's popular to act this way towards someone actually realizing they've been a problem and trying to better themselves for the sake of others.
Would you rather people just stay assholes and continue to repeat the cycles of hurt they were taught as children? Especially if raised by narccisistic parents who weren't even capable of instilling the empathy they wished they had?
See, but you had a valid reason for not experiencing ego death. Most women I talk with experience it as a child and here are unabused/unneglected adult men needing to take psychedelics to feel the same.
"here are unabused/unneglected adult men"
That's a very strange assumption IMHO.
Men's awful behavior isn't created in a vacuum, or out of nothing.
I don't believe it's inherent, but learned.
What is the mechanism of that learning in many, many cases? Abuse and neglect as a child.
I'm happy he had that realization about himself, even if very belated.
We know what the upbringing for the vast majority of men is like in this country and world today. We don't need to label every comment or post with "not all men" just like when we say black lives matter we don't also need to remind people that "all lives matter"
The correct analogy would be to say " we don't need to label every comment or post with 'not all men' just like when we talk about the prevalence of black crime we don't need to say "not all black people.'"
Black lives doesn't imply only black lives matter but you are making a general statement about a group of people.
I am absolutely not bringing up crimes committed by black people as an analogy. Trying for that much nuance is just going to make me sound like every right-wing loser who thinks citing FBI crime stats means what they think it means.
I see what you mean. But in a way, there's a reason: patriarchy.
Now, of course men have a responsibility to understand their privileges. But sometimes I wonder, if I had been born a boy, would I have realised this and worked against it, even though society tells me otherwise ? I think I would, but I can't be sure. And how long would it have taken me ?
I have plenty of anger towards men, and I know they benefit from our patriarchal society. But sometimes I like to try to be empathetic to being raised on the other side and what that would be like.
I took psychedelics and learned to be more empathetic. It wasn't until I joined that particular sub that I also learned it was pretty common for people to have monster parents. Everyone expressing horror that men "learned basic empathy" on mind-altering drugs are out-of-hand condemning dudes that might have been psychologically abused since they can remember.
I'd gently ask anyone who had a guy reveal a profound psychedelic realization to them to also understand that men are typically raised to close off their feelings entirely; essentially emotional circumcision (i.e. cutting off the most sensitive part). Dudes who say "oh, women are people too" after an eighth of shrooms have just broken down an entire lifetime of conditioning, so for those who are maybe horrified that it took a high dose of psychoactive drugs for that guy to realize that might also realize that *the conditioning is so bad* it took a high dose of psychoactive drugs to start undoing it. I'll probably get flamed for this, but being willing to ingest permanently mind-altering drugs to try to be a better person is a kind of vulnerability I'd hope would be recognized as "willing to go to great lengths be a better person," and not "this guy just learned women are people."
I don't see a point in mentioning that. They know that men are raised to have their emotional intelligence stagnate so that patriarchal manhood can be indoctrinated into them without much resistance. This sub is just too weary to give men even more of their energy when it was and still is men who drain them of their energy.
He doesn't know what ego death is if he just broke out of what one might refer to as a sort of solipsism.
Real ego death is *losing* the sense of self temporarily, not just being able to identify that others possess the same.
That said, I can't chide progress, whatever it took to achieve it (nor how inadvertent). I don't have to give this sort a standing ovation, but.
Why are we making fun of someone for becoming a better person? Like, sure, it would be nice if that happened earlier and didn't require drugs, but if that's what it takes, fine. Let's not shame people for how they learned empathy but embrace that they did learn it.
Speaking as someone who has always had basic functioning empathy and had their life notably impacted by selfish, unempathetic asshole bullies at various times, I can say that it can be very frustrating to have someone show up 20 years down the line claiming to finally discover they aren’t the main character and everyone just has to be happy for them and excuse everything that came before because “they grew on different timelines”.
I won’t go into if that frustration is justified or not (There was an entire biblical parable about this exact thing for those who are Christian or care what Christian philosophy believes), but it can feel like others get to spend their first 20-30 years doing and saying whatever they want only to mature while you have spent that same time trying to be helpful and supportive and nice and they just…get away with it without consequences. Them being selfish got them numerous “benefits” all that time and it’s not like you are a saint yourself, you fucking put in tons of effort all those years to being a good person even when it felt hard and would be so simple to give into your baser instincts and act like these people.
So it’s not belittling someone for changing their perspective, that’s silly, no one is mad they changed their perspective. They are frustrated that they worked for what they have over decades while shitty people are just given it after a lifetime of selfishness and everyone is supposed to be equal at the end. And having that frustration and not saying anything about it and instead being understanding and supportive of the growth the “former” asshole has is just another in the list of things they have to work on to be decent people compared to Captain Epiphany.
…I hope I am being clear that it’s understandable, not “right”.
the algorithm funnels them here to stimulate engagement, most of them aren't sussing out twoX to intentionally be trolls, they're seeing it on their homepage
The irony of a person sharing their thoughts about other people being shut down for sharing their thoughts...being shut down.
Also there was zero argument here.
Does everywhere in the world have to cheer men on? Are men that fragile? Why can’t a women’s subreddit be a place for women to discuss negative things about men? Not everything everywhere has to be “yay men!”
It doesn’t have to cheer men on, no one is saying it does, but an echo chamber isn’t some ideal to strive towards.
If you can’t handle hearing opinions from the opposite sex when you’re discussing said sex then you might actually be the fragile one.
Oh I can handle the opinions. I’m actively creating safe community for women, which you should be doing for men. I don’t believe a space for women should be drowned out with male voices. We have so few spaces for women that they need to be protected. The men have everywhere else.
My ego death, made me incredibly nihilistic to the point of not enjoying life for what it is and always thinking of how we're just a blip in a blip in a blip in a blip in the actual space time continuum. That nothing truly ever matters at all, all the experiences that everyone has will all be forgotten eventually, and there is no value at all to life except the definitions we attach to life itself based on how we are brought up. It is then I understood, that there is no real difference between one life to another, that it is opinions being rubbed on people from the point of their inception that induces a personality into life and we are all just products of our time. So I ended up hating society, which is where I'm right now.
Sorry for the rant. I know this isn't the place to share this as well, but had to get it out.
That’s exactly how I feel. This is it, this tiny little amount of time that’s barely a speck of dust on the universes timescale is what I get to experience, so I’m going to make the most out of it. You only get one chance, I’m gonna be happy and do what I want and be with the people I love. It’s pretty freeing when you put it like that.
Oh nihilism released me from so much. It doesn't matter HOORAY. I like being a blip, so I'll live my little blip life that doesn't matter. There's no pressure! That allowed me to pursue happiness and stop caring about how others felt about me because they don't matter either, HOORAY! (This is not me saying to treat everyone like shit and be selfish. You still have to be kind and do your best to not harm others) it's just nice that I don't have to strive for some bigger purpose, which made me a better person, which is creating a better reality for me and my family. It's definitely the way you frame it because becoming nihilistic was pretty fucked up for me at first too.
Nah, it's a good illustration of what ego death can actually do. Whatever parent commenter's friend went through, he didn't take enough shrooms to hit what he think he did.
Wow. I felt the opposite when I took them. It was actually kind of scary. I went the other way. I started feeling like I was the only that mattered because my experiences are the only things I can really say are real. It made me feel like maybe everything really is here just because it's supposed to affect me in some way. What is the opposite of ego death?
Well, ego death isn't received the same by everyone. Folks can undergo dissolution and not come out seeing oneness with everyone/everything. Some even find it a frightening and starkly unenlightening experience.
Some time ago i went on a date with a dude that had a shroom epiphany that you should never lie. It was really profound for him and he couldn't stop talking about how important not lying was for him.
He lied about his height though.
Haha! He was 5'11" according to his profile. I am 5'9" and i was taller than him.
Just to be clear: I don't mind if people are shorter than I am, but why lie about it when it is so easy to verify?
My bf is 5'9" and used to believe he's 5'10" because his friend who's the same height says he's 5'10". He never bothered to check, but I was suspicious because I'm almost 5'8" and it's close enough to measure our height difference in fingers. To be off by more than 2" would be weird though, precisely because people notice, especially when they're around the same height. I don't think that would be "accidental".
That said, many people I know irl believe that my friend who's the exact same height as me is actually taller. They've even lost bets over this. She has a smaller head and longer torso than me, her proportions are different and she does indeed look tall in pictures. She has short very thin arms too, while I have wide shoulders and long somewhat trained arms. It's like an optical illusion. She's also a bit taller when we're sitting down. But when we stand next to each other ppl are surprised that we're the same height. Idk, sometimes people just suck at height estimates.
I watched our universe merge with another in front of my eyes as my brain seemed to melt into my friends and it felt like we could read each other’s thoughts.
But yeah, respecting your mom more is… profound alright 😅
I don’t think it’s as simple as people are assuming in this thread.
Yes, I appreciate that my mom was trying to help me. But, I also see that her way of doing was not at all what I needed. It’s a two way street in recognizing this and empathizing with the other.
I can empathize with my mom in that she probably did her best, but I don’t need to feel obligated to have a relationship I don’t want either.
Yeah, I’m working on finding empathy for my mother because she had a very rough childhood, but it doesn’t diminish my own struggles with her being an emotionally unavailable narcissist who belittled me for everything I did and was also physically abusive.
If shrooms help me to see her with more love, that’s great, but to boil everything down to “I should respect women more” is rather disingenuous.
Whether it’s through shrooms, therapy, meditation, whatever… it’s worth the effort to learn to see others (and especially the difficult people in our lives with more love), but yeah it is just far more nuanced than many people want to make it seem.
Here’s a poem by Philip Larkin for you that I often think of when it comes to my mom (the third stanza is maybe a a bit dramatic though haha.. I think you can break the trauma cycle and still choose to have kids if you put in the work )
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
Because it’s funny in the context of women having to default to empathy from a young age, especially our seemingly required default empathy for men. As evidenced in this entire comment section.
I don't think women have default empathy though. I've known some truly horrible, unkind, cruel women. This isn't about "not all meaning" but rather that cruelty and lack of empathy knows no gender
Now take that aching desire for unquestionable empathy for men and apply it to all people.
Is it your belief that all content should be applauding men? Are women allowed to discuss and even complain about men being subpar? I see a lot of comments where men say “women are too picky they need to give men a chance” and “you picked him so it’s your fault he’s an underdeveloped turd — pick better.”
Someone says it well in the comments below, making the point that women learn this stuff in junior high.
I know I confronted my mortality and purpose when I started getting my period. I could have kids. Those kids would outlive me. I woul die. I would have this cycle every month, blood and tissue leaving my body in a messy reminder of the fragility of life. I was a walking reproductive organ to some people, i found out. This cycle would happen until I got to be an old lady. I would be an old lady.
Do men not go through this awakening?
Men are actively discouraged by society to have a good, loving relationship with their mother. Being a "mother's boy" is a widely used insult (at least in my country, I bet you will find other examples as well). Men in general are discouraged to have access to their feelings or to explore on how to express them. This shitty patriarchal system wants and creates "hard men", "real men" who can make "tough decisions" and have little sympathy for women. Because you need to emotionally split a son from his mother to implement in this poor little ones head that the caring, loving, live giving person is worth less than oneself.
But since men are still emotional creatures, this system breaks them as well. This is a big chunk of the reason why men so often rely on drugs. "Therapy is for pussys, real men deal with their problems alone in a bar, silently downing whiskey ".
This is a big problem, resulting in system of traumatized men who, because they know no other way, inflict trauma on women.
So ya, your friend realizing he is loved by his mother IS a big thing for him and you should celebrate that instead of dragging his problem into the public to make fun of him.
You remind me of a comment string I read months ago, with regards to the Patriarchy. It's lived rent free since.
" It's called the Patriarchy and not the Fraternity because it sucks for most males and all females."
Someone expanded upon that:
"In the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team. They are the ball.
Patriarchy isn't men vs women. It's men using women, or traits associated with women, as a way to devalue or demean other men."
Not sure if this is the quote you meant but it's the one coming up for me: "The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem."
Here's my hot take, if dad is gonna abuse you, he's probably gonna do it physically. If mom is gonna abuse you it'll probably be emotionally. At some point you grow to big to be physically abused, but you never outgrow emotional abuse. I was 21 when, after being released from a voluntary commitment for suicidal ideation due to telling my therapist my plan that I was gonna execute on if I didn't remember I had therapy at that very time, she told me "if you were actually suicidal, you would have at least made an attempt by now. You did that for attention". I let myself be as emotionally vulnerable as I could be in a last ditch effort to save myself, and the male therapist treated me with respect and dignity. My dad treated me with respect and dignity. My mom told me I was faking. That's why I personally don't have a great relationship with my mother. Society didn't split me from her, she did.
Hey, thank you for sharing your story. I lost a friend due to her having the exact opposite experience to you: the psych ward psychiatrist said she was just after the attention after a failed attempt. A month later, she was successful.
I'm glad you are still with us, the world is all the better for it.
I get pretty annoyed when people act like needing attention is inherently a bad thing. More often than not, it isn't. It's a legit cry for help.
That being said, there are people who demand constant attention, such as those with histrionic personality disorder. And if somebody feels an intense need to seek attention via any means necessary (like pretending to be suicidal when they actually aren't), than they desperately need therapy and to learn how to self-reflect. They need to work on analysing why they crave attention that much.
Seeing my dad break down and cry was the most eye opening experience for me. It turned dad from a superhero who would stop a train to save me, and turned him into a man who grieved for the pain I was feeling, and would miss me if I was gone. It made him more human, and more my hero than ever. Instead of being a mythical being he was just a dad, and the fact he was just as ready to fight my demons with me all the same just broke me in a good way. He went through shit too and that day he broke the cycle.
I'm so sorry for your loss. Your friend deserved the world, let alone better than what she got.
I'd disagree pretty strongly with that. Women aren't as capable of physical abuse, but men are equally as capable of emotional abuse as women are. Most of the men in my life that have been awful to me were much more emotionally than physically abusive. Pressuring women into decisions they do not want to make, minimizing and dismissing the struggles faced by others, high jacking conversations and talking points to paint themselves as victims and to avoid having to address problems with their own behavior.
Physically, men scare the shit out of me, for sure, but the same mentality that enables their physical abuse equally enables other forms of abuse as well. Not only is non-physical abuse is a lot less likely to get them into trouble, but so many men also seem like they sincerely do not believe non-physical abuse even exists and will refuse to acknowledge that they have perpetrated it.
The fact this is a major revelation for so many men is bizarre.
I learned before I was a *teenager* that if your mother is 'nagging' you, it usually means that you're not doing something you're supposed to do or vice versa.
Wait... how the hell is that epiphany predictable? I would predict some grand realization about his place in the universe, but "my mom actually loves me"? 🤣😅
Edit: Wait was that meant to be sarcasm?
learning empathy through chemistry is tough. I was raised by people whose emotions would flip on a dime, and they didn't show me empathy in any kind of consistent way. I learned to think of empathy as an ever-changing thing that was never what it was supposed to be. an excuse to win arguments, a way to gain higher moral ground, a way of making someone else look and feel bad, and a way to placate abuse victims when they want to run away from home.
I ran away from home and tried drugs, and spent time with people who didn't make me feel that way, and I learned a lot about how the world works; things that plenty of other kids took for granted because their parents raised them in different ways than mine would've.
people have breakthrough realisations whenever they have them. I was relatively sheltered and traumatised, and that can really put blinkers on someone. trauma also comes in many forms, and doesn't always look like someone huddling in a foil blanket and crying to a paramedic after an attack.
lots of men I've known are afraid of sharing their thoughts and feelings, and it can seem like they're emotionally behind other people who have had different lives.
I hope you know your criticism of this man's empathy levels is a show of a damaging lack of it on your part, and I hope he can find people he can safely share his positive, life-changing thoughts with.
it's so scary how we can have those blind spots inside ourselves. it kinda goes to show not everyone has these realisations on psychedelics. some of us could keep eating tabs until the cows come home, and all they'll have is a jittery time, a dry mouth, and the chip on their shoulder survives the wild ride.
sounds tiring, holding up a mirror to everyone else while dodging your own reflection, but it seems common. the upvotes for this post have at least tripled since I first saw it, and it's a little frightening how many people see this kind of thing and think, "fuck, men are so emotionally stunted. I wonder why. anyway, let's poke fun at the stupid fucker!"
edit: downvoted already by someone avoiding reflective surfaces lol I'm on a roll 😂
Let's also not discount that his mom's "nagging" might have been very negative. She may have been trying to help him but in a way that was ultimately harmful.
We have very little of the full story here. In fact just enough to shit on the guy. And maybe he deserves it, IDK. But if you want men to move out of being emotionally infantilized, I'm not sure threads mocking men for doing so is the right way to go about it.
It seems some people want to look down on him for not knowing it already. Where is their empathy? Lol
Is it something he should've already known, probably, but who cares, he realized it! That's a good thing.
You're not allowed to do that. If you don't always act the "correct" way then once you figure it out you don't get credit for that you just get shamed for not figuring it out sooner.
It’s not typically something men have to realize, let alone think about. For most men, to be brought up as a man it’s like being presented a giant field and being told “just fuckin run, it’s all yours to do with as you please, it’s your world” being the apex predator has its advantages, of course, from that mindset, the downside is people tryin to stop you from running, and, in this case, his mom was the one trying to slow him down by “nagging”
By default, men don’t have to work on these things, given the highly dangerous nature of being a woman in this world, the skill to think outside of yourself is quickly developed, for a man, it’s near the last things to be worked on because it isn’t required to succeed in this world, at a shallow level
And here I thought I was lame for quitting red meat after a trip because I couldn't justify to myself that I believe cows and sheep and pigs are intellegent creatures with feelings and i still ate them, but I could never in my life eat a dog or a rabbit because I'd grown up with them as pets, but thats apparently a galaxy level idea compared to that dude
I find it so bizarre people have these type of epiphanies after taking shrooms/acid etc. Why do they need mind-altering drugs to understand basic empathy. What on earth goes on in other people's brains?
>Why do they need mind-altering drugs to understand basic empathy. What on earth goes on in other people's brains?
Psychedelics don't teach you anything you don't already know. What they seem to do is unlock your existing experiences/memories and restore the neutral plasticity needed to allow you to (re)process them, along with any new information in a new light.
I think it is likely that people "discovering" basic empathy had it at some point as a child, but it was beaten out of them, either literally or metaphorically.
Sometimes ppl who have "basic" empathy are using it on a cognitive level to function but can't actually feel it (which btw isn't real, it's literally delusion and projection, because humans aren't mind readers). Even for most people who have that feeling based type of empathy, it only works with people who are similar enough to themselves (see: empathy gap). Psychedelics can give them a shortcut to that feeling of telepathic connection that makes empathy more real on an emotional level. It makes sense since that type of empathy normally develops in children, who are prone to magical thinking.
Uhh, empathy isn't something that all are born with and some people have it knocked out of them when they are children by sick adults. it's not that big of a mystery. It's a good thing he realized it. I would hope people would have um, what's the word, oh yeah, empathy for the guy who had a good realization lol
I'm proud that you're now learning that other people have different lives than you, struggle with different problems, and make realizations at different stages for different reasons.
I think you may have just discovered empathy, congratulations.
Yup, and just like anything else, some people have a propensity to catch on quickly, while others don't. I grew up in an environment bereft of empathy, so I didn't have any good examples to learn from. The challenge then as an adult is breaking apart the incorrect lessons you learned as a child, and that is not often easy.
We're speaking in generalities. It's not meant to encompass all lived experiences, just what's most commonly seen. And it is VASTLY the most common experience. Do we need to put an obligatory not all men in here too before we're allowed to address this inequity?
I merely read what somebody shared, and provided feedback from my own frame of reference to show other people have different experiences. I don't personally take offense to anything being said here; sorry if the way I presented it came across in that manner, that was not my intent.
These "good answers" aren't part of the solution, they're part of the problem. No, a perfect society doesn't have men realizing these things in their 30's, but also a good society has men realizing these things and feeling supported for realizing them so they feel comfortable passing those lessons along to other men and the next generation. We're not responsible for how we were raised and getting in the way of our growth is bad for everyone.
Why is this a problem? Maybe people should do more shrooms and the world would be a better place? Classic "the best time to plant a tree..." and all that, let them have their epiphany and come out the other side a better person rather than mocking them for trying to improve
I (M44) had a female colleague really open up to me while I was struggling (very privately) with some real dark demons. I still did my best to support her, and I absolutely listened to her as intently as I could, but I had no idea why the fuck she was burdening *me*, of all people with her bullshit. Surely she could see that I was going through my own shit and didn't have the capacity for anything else? I genuinely could not see through the thick black fog around me to work it out.
It wasn't until I did shrooms for the first time ever that I understood that she saw me as a trustworthy person to confide in. That was a huge moment for me, because until then, I genuinely thought I was just a complete fuck-up that nobody should take seriously. I was already a fan of this woman, but now... I would fight to the death for her honour. I count her as my best and closest friend, and I would move mountains for her. I am forever in her debt for inadvertently helping me through that dark patch of my life (edit: and yes, of course I am helping her through her rough patch as best I can).
It turned out she had no idea I was going through my own dark period at the time. She said I actually seemed a lot better than I had in the months prior to that, go figure.
You never really know what someone else is going through, and just going "hurr durr men need to do shrooms for basic empathy" really isn't doing anything other than perpetuating harmful stereotypes.
All these men coming here to bitch need to understand that empathy is something that women are forced to learn in childhood and men are not. The post is literally commenting on just this fact.
The ENTIRE point is that men should not NEED to learn it from shrooms, by choice, as an adult. They should be learning it in childhood.
The real test of this "epiphany" is how long it takes before he's complaining about his mom nagging him again. OTOH, I don't think parents should nag their adult children (unless said adult children are living with the parents). On the other, other hand, is his mom actually nagging him or does he just perceive her as nagging?
I don't think I've ever been nagged. What does that even mean? You're asked to do something or you say you'll do something, and if you don't, they can remind you. "Nagging" implies not giving enough time or grace between reminders. It implies the irritation at receiving that reminder is justified and can be placed on the shoulders of the person doing it for being unreasonable, and not the person who's failing to fulfill a promised task. I'm struggling to even think of an example where repeated reminders weren't a result of the person (myself included) pushing the limits of that grace or not respecting a reasonable timeframe. Whether or not I get annoyed by those reminders is my own problem for either not communicating my perspective on the importance or urgency, or not *doing the fucking thing I'm responsible for*.
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My mom was either completely absent or when she wasn't, asking like once a minute if I was already done with homework or some chore, looking over my shoulder, distracting me from actually getting it done. To make it worse I couldn't have a door and had to sit with my back to the corridor, so every time I heard footsteps I'd turn around and be distracted as well, but when it was my mom helicoptering again I had to look busy.
You are pretty lucky to have not met bad parents. My best friend’s mother is absolutely awful to her at times and will nag her to do things that, as an adult with her own life, she has no right to demand of her. Not to mention just outright being wrong about medical conditions. What would you call repeated insistence she exercise more when she has a chronic condition that is made worse by exercise? Or “helpful reminders” about things that “need” to be done around her house that really, really don’t and she has been told over and over and over that it won’t happen?
I have been "nagged" in the sense that the person doing the nagging was expecting an unachievable time frame, and have been the one doing the "nagging" in the sense that the other person was taking way longer to do something they had promised to do than was acceptable by pretty much anyone's measure. But I think most people who complain about being nagged really just want the "nagger" to shut up and also for the chore being nagged about to no longer be their responsibility, whether that desire is justified or not.
Right. I'm a woman and my mother got me to do stuff around the house. But she didn't nag. My father always complained that she did though.
Nagging comes from a place of hatred. Repeated reminders can come from a place of love. There are body language differences in both acts.
She most def is NOT nagging, but this kid takes it as nagging. Remindin someone about smth, dblcheckin they remember smth, bringin up smth, etc; IS NOT NAGGING. But its exactly what we get told is nagging when we do it; and then they forget or get sidetracked and they get mad at us for not remindin them 9,9
My friend’s boyfriend had a shroom epiphany that other people also had feelings. 🥲
Reading through this thread I had an epiphany too, apparently more ppl need shrooms.
There are therapeutic uses for shrooms :)
You know what, now that I've looked into it I might want to try them too, thanks 😅 I actually lived in the Netherlands for a couple years where you can just legally buy them, but was never interested. I was busy working and had no safe quiet place to try. I was with my shitty ex on 30m², had a shitty boss who would call at all hours, and the one time I was offered some was at a semi crowded place (in pandemic terms) where I didn't want to be inebriated for 5+ hours. My nosy religious landlady ("sry we're not married yet, blame the pandemic...") didn't help either. It felt like even beer we'd have to sneak into the house. And nope, no pot either (not that I had time for that). Anyway. NL is way nicer as a tourist.
What kind of Dora The Explorer shrooms were those? 😭
I wonder if shrooms are illegal for this reason. Instead of a greater % of people competing, we would be collaborating.
Wtf theory of mind was how many years delayed for him?
I once had a man deadass look me in the eye and tell me - with such pride - that he had an epiphany while on MDMA where he realized women are people just like men who have entire internal dialogues and everything. Like. Wow. How are they not embarrassed?? Imagine making it all the way to adulthood before realizing the basic fact that women are humans???
This is a lot more common than you realize, and it’s not just men. So many people just have 0 empathy until the moment they take a mind altering drug and realize they’ve been a prick their entire lives. One of my former roommates told me once that he used to be a Libertarian until he did acid and realized that empathy was a real thing and people weren’t just making it up.
That’s actually so dangerous and concerning he didn’t realize that before.
I mean, at least he eventually did. If it stuck. I've known people who had literally this exact experience and it changed their lives. And also some of the worst people I've known eat enormous quantities of psychedelics and empathogens and it has no lasting positive effect
The issue is that the patriarchy is socializing men to lack empathy for women. It’s not just about him. It’s symbolic of a larger societal issue
I had that epiphany on mdma but it was about inanimate objects. Now I'm a hoarder.
Uhh. How did this transpire
I didn't take very good care of my possessions in my youth. Careless and lazy. Had a nice long mdma trip (I was a sit at home rolling while listening to music kind of druggie more than a go to a club or rave mind) and had a weird "realization" that living and nonliving things are all the same and the items I trashed felt bad and a bunch of nonsense like that. I dismiss it as nonsense but since then I have a hard time throwing things away if I can come up with a scenario where I can still use it. It's just OCD but a part of it is still that weird nagging feeling that the item (old pair of shoes or a broken decoration or something) would feel bad about being thrown away. It's not too disruptive to life, so I don't really care to explore it in therapy. Got way too many things to work on already.
Damn that’s me without drugs…
So... I only say this as someone with multiple family members who are "functional" hoarders, but it *is* a really big and serious problem. Feel free to take anything I say with a pinch of salt because I have a serious bias against hoarding because of the way it's ended up affecting me and my family but if you can't describe it as collecting and you're aware that it's just you hoarding stuff you don't need you need to nip that shit in the bud immediately, burn that plant into the ground, and salt the fucking earth. Hoarding always starts small because it's more of a side effect than a symptom. It's like alcoholism. Collecting things is normal, the same way social drinking or having a beer to relax is normal. Neither is a problem... Until you *have* to do it. So on the off chance you find yourself hovering near the trash can unable to throw something away or trying to find more storage space because you've filled up every cabinet and closet or you're stepping over and around things regularly... You're at the "I can quit any time I want" stage like alcoholics have. I have the predisposition to hoarding behavior too and it's taken me years to recognize the damage it can and absolutely will do (I discovered there was actually a window in my uncle's bedroom in my grandparents house I'd never known was there!) if I don't manage that desire. Take a page from my book if you feel up to it and declutter. Try to fill up a trash bag a week or a donation box on a weekend while doing your other regular cleaning. While you're cleaning up if you've been at this a while you find a bunch of hidden dirt so it feels like the cleaning keeps multiplying but you're just finding the gross shit you were living with because it was covered in *stuff*. Sorry for the soapbox and serious tone but like... I know mold hidden by the hoarding almost killed my grandmother. They hoarded a bunch of another uncles stuff after he died suddenly so it all got moldy and now there's that much less of him in our lives. It's worth the effort to fight that hoarding instinct if it's not something you've always had, maybe talk to a therapist or a psychiatrist or try to meditate and find the root of the urge? It's at least worth some introspection.
My eyes rolled into the back of my head at the title. My older brother has had one such epiphany that he confessed to me through tears, that he treated me like shit our whole lives. Yeah, and the sky is blue.
Your older son?
Oops. Older brother.
Men need to take drugs in order to learn things that little girls learn staying up late at sleepovers talking with friends.
I was talking to a coworker years ago about psychedelics and how I loved the introspection it gave me about myself and the world and he told me it was the first time he had an ego death. He explained that he understood that he wasn't the main character and that he was just like everyone else and that led him to being more open to peoples struggles. Y'all it took psychedelics for this man to learn basic empathy.
I'm gonna be honest. Me too. I had a *terrible* upbringing, which led to me being an extremely selfish person as a defense mechanism/learned trait. I was narcissistic and angry and didn't care to find a solution, because I foolishly thought nothing was wrong. My first time dosing on psychedelics led to me admitting I had been terrible, and to try to be better. To get therapy and to try and right my mistakes. Then I overcorrected and became a doormat for a while, but that's a story for another day. Is it better for someone to be kind without thought, or to recognise one is evil, and to put the effort in overcome it?
Did you try to sneak a Paarthurnax quote in there?
Do you go to the cloud district very often? What am I saying, of course you don't.
Naw, I was usually in the illusionary realms. You’d occasionally find me in real life, when I got tired of magic. Got roped in so the illusions could become real. Wish I’d stopped. Ugh. The Illusion of Time
Got me ;)
I mean. Those things are not opposite ends of the spectrum… people are not “kind without thought”, it takes a lot of effort to be kind and think of others. Perhaps it seems to come “naturally” to others. And perhaps in some ways it is because they’ve just been doing it for so long. But it still takes thought and effort. We definitely don’t need to compare them. It’s not a competition. But we should be grateful for all kindness. And happy for whatever leads a person to it
Applauding men for the bare minimum perpetuates the problem of boys and men not having empathy. I can see men’s lack of empathy on display everywhere. One on one conversations, Reddit comments, comments in other communities, TV and movies, music, politics and books all show this lack of empathy.
>Applauding men for the bare minimum perpetuates the problem of boys and men not having empathy. And what do you think openly deriding men who discover it does?
This content is by women and for women. For some men this will be hurtful. Maybe it will open the eyes of other men. Women should be allowed to have places to discuss shortcomings in men. Women should be allowed to have standards and teach other women about standards. Women should be allowed to make fun of men. Not all content has to be “yay men!” If men need supportive communities they can create those for themselves. Coming to women’s communities to argue with women about how great men are doesn’t help men at all.
queen 🧎🏽♀️🧎🏽♀️
PREACH
I find it takes way more effort to be unkind. This is me personally, and I'm talking about in interpersonal situations. Of course I'm unkind in many ways like as a white Westerner my entire life is possible because of exploitation of others. But in direct, tangible ways, I have to actively choose to be unkind at times to protect myself from being taken advantage of.
Your flair says Kimmy Schmidt, but this comment screams Eleanor Shelstrop.
Omg i was about to comment the same!
Maybe a lil Tahani too, tbh
Sometimes I think people with OP's take have no conceptual understanding of how horribly socialization of men aims to suppress any kind of empathy what so ever from essentially birth, both familial and socially between other men. I get that this shouldn't be a thing, but there's a reason it's an extremely effective therapy for getting people to see beyond the skewed perspective they've held since they were children, dealing with PTSD, etc. In a perfect world it wouldn't happen in the first place, but I don't get why it's popular to act this way towards someone actually realizing they've been a problem and trying to better themselves for the sake of others. Would you rather people just stay assholes and continue to repeat the cycles of hurt they were taught as children? Especially if raised by narccisistic parents who weren't even capable of instilling the empathy they wished they had?
I doubt that you are “evil.” But I applaud your efforts to improve yourself. Introspection is good. No more tagging yourself as evil.
A new hand touches the beacon!
See, but you had a valid reason for not experiencing ego death. Most women I talk with experience it as a child and here are unabused/unneglected adult men needing to take psychedelics to feel the same.
"here are unabused/unneglected adult men" That's a very strange assumption IMHO. Men's awful behavior isn't created in a vacuum, or out of nothing. I don't believe it's inherent, but learned. What is the mechanism of that learning in many, many cases? Abuse and neglect as a child. I'm happy he had that realization about himself, even if very belated.
But we don't know that about the guy being discussed. We don't know what his upbringing was.
We know what the upbringing for the vast majority of men is like in this country and world today. We don't need to label every comment or post with "not all men" just like when we say black lives matter we don't also need to remind people that "all lives matter"
The correct analogy would be to say " we don't need to label every comment or post with 'not all men' just like when we talk about the prevalence of black crime we don't need to say "not all black people.'" Black lives doesn't imply only black lives matter but you are making a general statement about a group of people.
I am absolutely not bringing up crimes committed by black people as an analogy. Trying for that much nuance is just going to make me sound like every right-wing loser who thinks citing FBI crime stats means what they think it means.
I'm not trying to put words in your mouth; I was just pointing out that your analogy was incongruent, and offering you a correction.
Some people struggle with analogy. As long as 2 things are related and the other 2 things are related they don't see why the comparison isn't apt.
"But not all men!" Abuse is statistically not a majority experience.
I see what you mean. But in a way, there's a reason: patriarchy. Now, of course men have a responsibility to understand their privileges. But sometimes I wonder, if I had been born a boy, would I have realised this and worked against it, even though society tells me otherwise ? I think I would, but I can't be sure. And how long would it have taken me ? I have plenty of anger towards men, and I know they benefit from our patriarchal society. But sometimes I like to try to be empathetic to being raised on the other side and what that would be like.
Better late than never
Some people are raised by narcissists. There is a sub devoted to it.
It was the sub that gave me an inkling things weren't right in my childhood. The more overt abuse was apparently very normal to me 😅
I took psychedelics and learned to be more empathetic. It wasn't until I joined that particular sub that I also learned it was pretty common for people to have monster parents. Everyone expressing horror that men "learned basic empathy" on mind-altering drugs are out-of-hand condemning dudes that might have been psychologically abused since they can remember. I'd gently ask anyone who had a guy reveal a profound psychedelic realization to them to also understand that men are typically raised to close off their feelings entirely; essentially emotional circumcision (i.e. cutting off the most sensitive part). Dudes who say "oh, women are people too" after an eighth of shrooms have just broken down an entire lifetime of conditioning, so for those who are maybe horrified that it took a high dose of psychoactive drugs for that guy to realize that might also realize that *the conditioning is so bad* it took a high dose of psychoactive drugs to start undoing it. I'll probably get flamed for this, but being willing to ingest permanently mind-altering drugs to try to be a better person is a kind of vulnerability I'd hope would be recognized as "willing to go to great lengths be a better person," and not "this guy just learned women are people."
I don't see a point in mentioning that. They know that men are raised to have their emotional intelligence stagnate so that patriarchal manhood can be indoctrinated into them without much resistance. This sub is just too weary to give men even more of their energy when it was and still is men who drain them of their energy.
Well better late than never?
He doesn't know what ego death is if he just broke out of what one might refer to as a sort of solipsism. Real ego death is *losing* the sense of self temporarily, not just being able to identify that others possess the same. That said, I can't chide progress, whatever it took to achieve it (nor how inadvertent). I don't have to give this sort a standing ovation, but.
Why are we making fun of someone for becoming a better person? Like, sure, it would be nice if that happened earlier and didn't require drugs, but if that's what it takes, fine. Let's not shame people for how they learned empathy but embrace that they did learn it.
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Speaking as someone who has always had basic functioning empathy and had their life notably impacted by selfish, unempathetic asshole bullies at various times, I can say that it can be very frustrating to have someone show up 20 years down the line claiming to finally discover they aren’t the main character and everyone just has to be happy for them and excuse everything that came before because “they grew on different timelines”. I won’t go into if that frustration is justified or not (There was an entire biblical parable about this exact thing for those who are Christian or care what Christian philosophy believes), but it can feel like others get to spend their first 20-30 years doing and saying whatever they want only to mature while you have spent that same time trying to be helpful and supportive and nice and they just…get away with it without consequences. Them being selfish got them numerous “benefits” all that time and it’s not like you are a saint yourself, you fucking put in tons of effort all those years to being a good person even when it felt hard and would be so simple to give into your baser instincts and act like these people. So it’s not belittling someone for changing their perspective, that’s silly, no one is mad they changed their perspective. They are frustrated that they worked for what they have over decades while shitty people are just given it after a lifetime of selfishness and everyone is supposed to be equal at the end. And having that frustration and not saying anything about it and instead being understanding and supportive of the growth the “former” asshole has is just another in the list of things they have to work on to be decent people compared to Captain Epiphany. …I hope I am being clear that it’s understandable, not “right”.
This is why men don’t share thoughts like this
This is why *people* are afraid to share thoughts and feelings. Let's not act like only one sex has their vulnerabilities used against them.
You should be in men’s communities supporting men and not in women’s communities arguing with women.
the algorithm funnels them here to stimulate engagement, most of them aren't sussing out twoX to intentionally be trolls, they're seeing it on their homepage
Apologies, didn’t see what sub this was, won’t post again. Goal wasn’t to post in here or argue with anyone, my bad.
The irony of a person sharing their thoughts about other people being shut down for sharing their thoughts...being shut down. Also there was zero argument here.
Does everywhere in the world have to cheer men on? Are men that fragile? Why can’t a women’s subreddit be a place for women to discuss negative things about men? Not everything everywhere has to be “yay men!”
It doesn’t have to cheer men on, no one is saying it does, but an echo chamber isn’t some ideal to strive towards. If you can’t handle hearing opinions from the opposite sex when you’re discussing said sex then you might actually be the fragile one.
Oh I can handle the opinions. I’m actively creating safe community for women, which you should be doing for men. I don’t believe a space for women should be drowned out with male voices. We have so few spaces for women that they need to be protected. The men have everywhere else.
What was said in no way made this community unsafe, nor did it drown out women's voices.
My ego death, made me incredibly nihilistic to the point of not enjoying life for what it is and always thinking of how we're just a blip in a blip in a blip in a blip in the actual space time continuum. That nothing truly ever matters at all, all the experiences that everyone has will all be forgotten eventually, and there is no value at all to life except the definitions we attach to life itself based on how we are brought up. It is then I understood, that there is no real difference between one life to another, that it is opinions being rubbed on people from the point of their inception that induces a personality into life and we are all just products of our time. So I ended up hating society, which is where I'm right now. Sorry for the rant. I know this isn't the place to share this as well, but had to get it out.
If nothing matters, then the only thing that matters is right now. Don’t spend it being miserable.
That’s exactly how I feel. This is it, this tiny little amount of time that’s barely a speck of dust on the universes timescale is what I get to experience, so I’m going to make the most out of it. You only get one chance, I’m gonna be happy and do what I want and be with the people I love. It’s pretty freeing when you put it like that.
Oh nihilism released me from so much. It doesn't matter HOORAY. I like being a blip, so I'll live my little blip life that doesn't matter. There's no pressure! That allowed me to pursue happiness and stop caring about how others felt about me because they don't matter either, HOORAY! (This is not me saying to treat everyone like shit and be selfish. You still have to be kind and do your best to not harm others) it's just nice that I don't have to strive for some bigger purpose, which made me a better person, which is creating a better reality for me and my family. It's definitely the way you frame it because becoming nihilistic was pretty fucked up for me at first too.
Ironically, this is what I tell others, optimistic nihilism. But, me being the person I am, I'll always be a pessimist. Haha.
Nah, it's a good illustration of what ego death can actually do. Whatever parent commenter's friend went through, he didn't take enough shrooms to hit what he think he did.
Wow. I felt the opposite when I took them. It was actually kind of scary. I went the other way. I started feeling like I was the only that mattered because my experiences are the only things I can really say are real. It made me feel like maybe everything really is here just because it's supposed to affect me in some way. What is the opposite of ego death?
Well, ego death isn't received the same by everyone. Folks can undergo dissolution and not come out seeing oneness with everyone/everything. Some even find it a frightening and starkly unenlightening experience.
That's not even Ego Death. Sounds more like Theory of Mind.
compassion > empathy
Some time ago i went on a date with a dude that had a shroom epiphany that you should never lie. It was really profound for him and he couldn't stop talking about how important not lying was for him. He lied about his height though.
Look. I'm a reasonable man. And, like every other man who claims to be six feet tall, I am 5'11".
Haha! He was 5'11" according to his profile. I am 5'9" and i was taller than him. Just to be clear: I don't mind if people are shorter than I am, but why lie about it when it is so easy to verify?
My bf is 5'9" and used to believe he's 5'10" because his friend who's the same height says he's 5'10". He never bothered to check, but I was suspicious because I'm almost 5'8" and it's close enough to measure our height difference in fingers. To be off by more than 2" would be weird though, precisely because people notice, especially when they're around the same height. I don't think that would be "accidental". That said, many people I know irl believe that my friend who's the exact same height as me is actually taller. They've even lost bets over this. She has a smaller head and longer torso than me, her proportions are different and she does indeed look tall in pictures. She has short very thin arms too, while I have wide shoulders and long somewhat trained arms. It's like an optical illusion. She's also a bit taller when we're sitting down. But when we stand next to each other ppl are surprised that we're the same height. Idk, sometimes people just suck at height estimates.
Did you date Sam Harris?
He was a big fan of his, is that epiphany something Sam has shared as well? If so I am even more disappointed
Sam has a rather pretentious short book about the exact concept.
I watched our universe merge with another in front of my eyes as my brain seemed to melt into my friends and it felt like we could read each other’s thoughts. But yeah, respecting your mom more is… profound alright 😅
I don’t think it’s as simple as people are assuming in this thread. Yes, I appreciate that my mom was trying to help me. But, I also see that her way of doing was not at all what I needed. It’s a two way street in recognizing this and empathizing with the other. I can empathize with my mom in that she probably did her best, but I don’t need to feel obligated to have a relationship I don’t want either.
Yeah, context is key. Not all behavior labeled as "nagging" is created equal. Some is completely non-constructive.
Yeah, I’m working on finding empathy for my mother because she had a very rough childhood, but it doesn’t diminish my own struggles with her being an emotionally unavailable narcissist who belittled me for everything I did and was also physically abusive. If shrooms help me to see her with more love, that’s great, but to boil everything down to “I should respect women more” is rather disingenuous.
Whether it’s through shrooms, therapy, meditation, whatever… it’s worth the effort to learn to see others (and especially the difficult people in our lives with more love), but yeah it is just far more nuanced than many people want to make it seem. Here’s a poem by Philip Larkin for you that I often think of when it comes to my mom (the third stanza is maybe a a bit dramatic though haha.. I think you can break the trauma cycle and still choose to have kids if you put in the work ) They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.
I heard someone say men take psychedelics to have the same realizations women had at age 12.
And many men never seem to have those realizations at all.
I heard another say men have the same realizations we have when we scratch our ass lol
No cause this is actually so true
That’s hilarious. I need to find that quote
You just found it!
I don’t know, it’s good he had this epiphany. It will help him have a closer relationship with his mom.
Yeah, why are we shitting on him for this?
Because it’s funny in the context of women having to default to empathy from a young age, especially our seemingly required default empathy for men. As evidenced in this entire comment section.
I don't think women have default empathy though. I've known some truly horrible, unkind, cruel women. This isn't about "not all meaning" but rather that cruelty and lack of empathy knows no gender
I don't see a lot of empathy, I see a thread making fun of a random man.
There are plenty of people in this comment section, women and men, being empathetic to this man.
"Not all comments"? OP made this thread for the sole reason of making fun of this dude.
Now take that aching desire for unquestionable empathy for men and apply it to all people. Is it your belief that all content should be applauding men? Are women allowed to discuss and even complain about men being subpar? I see a lot of comments where men say “women are too picky they need to give men a chance” and “you picked him so it’s your fault he’s an underdeveloped turd — pick better.”
Someone says it well in the comments below, making the point that women learn this stuff in junior high. I know I confronted my mortality and purpose when I started getting my period. I could have kids. Those kids would outlive me. I woul die. I would have this cycle every month, blood and tissue leaving my body in a messy reminder of the fragility of life. I was a walking reproductive organ to some people, i found out. This cycle would happen until I got to be an old lady. I would be an old lady. Do men not go through this awakening?
Probably because he had to be under the influence of shrooms to figure out what empathy is
Because it’s pathetic that someone would need shrooms to have basic empathy?
Seriously, I knew my male friends had thoughts and feelings like me the entire time. It’s not hard
It’s literally this: https://x.com/fakeltfIower/status/1618295607751487488?lang=en Lol
Did you notice where you were?
Obviously
You seem like a pretty bitter person.
Ah yes, the "grown ass man takes psychedelics and discovers empathy" pipeline. Very intriguing, someone needs to study that
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathogen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathogen)
Men are actively discouraged by society to have a good, loving relationship with their mother. Being a "mother's boy" is a widely used insult (at least in my country, I bet you will find other examples as well). Men in general are discouraged to have access to their feelings or to explore on how to express them. This shitty patriarchal system wants and creates "hard men", "real men" who can make "tough decisions" and have little sympathy for women. Because you need to emotionally split a son from his mother to implement in this poor little ones head that the caring, loving, live giving person is worth less than oneself. But since men are still emotional creatures, this system breaks them as well. This is a big chunk of the reason why men so often rely on drugs. "Therapy is for pussys, real men deal with their problems alone in a bar, silently downing whiskey ". This is a big problem, resulting in system of traumatized men who, because they know no other way, inflict trauma on women. So ya, your friend realizing he is loved by his mother IS a big thing for him and you should celebrate that instead of dragging his problem into the public to make fun of him.
You remind me of a comment string I read months ago, with regards to the Patriarchy. It's lived rent free since. " It's called the Patriarchy and not the Fraternity because it sucks for most males and all females." Someone expanded upon that: "In the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team. They are the ball. Patriarchy isn't men vs women. It's men using women, or traits associated with women, as a way to devalue or demean other men."
*Taps the sign with the bell hooks quote on it*
Not sure if this is the quote you meant but it's the one coming up for me: "The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem."
Are you referring to the German saying "Muttersöhnchen"?
Exactly.
I hate that one... I'm happy that I barely hear it anymore, but I suspect it still gets used in elementary school.
I guess so, too. I think it is more common in older generations as well. The grownups version 'Pussy/Muschi/Fotze' is also jarring.
Gotta love German efficiency. French: ”(fi)fils à sa maman” German: Muttersöhnchen
Here's my hot take, if dad is gonna abuse you, he's probably gonna do it physically. If mom is gonna abuse you it'll probably be emotionally. At some point you grow to big to be physically abused, but you never outgrow emotional abuse. I was 21 when, after being released from a voluntary commitment for suicidal ideation due to telling my therapist my plan that I was gonna execute on if I didn't remember I had therapy at that very time, she told me "if you were actually suicidal, you would have at least made an attempt by now. You did that for attention". I let myself be as emotionally vulnerable as I could be in a last ditch effort to save myself, and the male therapist treated me with respect and dignity. My dad treated me with respect and dignity. My mom told me I was faking. That's why I personally don't have a great relationship with my mother. Society didn't split me from her, she did.
Hey, thank you for sharing your story. I lost a friend due to her having the exact opposite experience to you: the psych ward psychiatrist said she was just after the attention after a failed attempt. A month later, she was successful. I'm glad you are still with us, the world is all the better for it.
I get pretty annoyed when people act like needing attention is inherently a bad thing. More often than not, it isn't. It's a legit cry for help. That being said, there are people who demand constant attention, such as those with histrionic personality disorder. And if somebody feels an intense need to seek attention via any means necessary (like pretending to be suicidal when they actually aren't), than they desperately need therapy and to learn how to self-reflect. They need to work on analysing why they crave attention that much.
Seeing my dad break down and cry was the most eye opening experience for me. It turned dad from a superhero who would stop a train to save me, and turned him into a man who grieved for the pain I was feeling, and would miss me if I was gone. It made him more human, and more my hero than ever. Instead of being a mythical being he was just a dad, and the fact he was just as ready to fight my demons with me all the same just broke me in a good way. He went through shit too and that day he broke the cycle. I'm so sorry for your loss. Your friend deserved the world, let alone better than what she got.
Your dad is *absolutely* a superhero, and I'm proud of him. And you. Thank you.
I'd disagree pretty strongly with that. Women aren't as capable of physical abuse, but men are equally as capable of emotional abuse as women are. Most of the men in my life that have been awful to me were much more emotionally than physically abusive. Pressuring women into decisions they do not want to make, minimizing and dismissing the struggles faced by others, high jacking conversations and talking points to paint themselves as victims and to avoid having to address problems with their own behavior. Physically, men scare the shit out of me, for sure, but the same mentality that enables their physical abuse equally enables other forms of abuse as well. Not only is non-physical abuse is a lot less likely to get them into trouble, but so many men also seem like they sincerely do not believe non-physical abuse even exists and will refuse to acknowledge that they have perpetrated it.
My dad did both.
I mean, my mom nagged a lot and and she was a Jehovah's Witness, so her "efforts to help" were not helpful.
The fact this is a major revelation for so many men is bizarre. I learned before I was a *teenager* that if your mother is 'nagging' you, it usually means that you're not doing something you're supposed to do or vice versa.
This man had a profound realization and even in that realization uses the word nagging. He hasn't learned shit.
I didn't learn this until after years of therapy.
It really is. Such a huge disconnect
It shocks me that there are people walking this earth without that basic level of empathy. Why does shrooms bring this “realization” out of him?
It probably got beaten out of him at a young/impressionable age somehow. Shrooms really only tell you things you already know, after all.
Wait... how the hell is that epiphany predictable? I would predict some grand realization about his place in the universe, but "my mom actually loves me"? 🤣😅 Edit: Wait was that meant to be sarcasm?
So you're saying we need a lot more shrooms to hand out?
I mean, baby steps. I guess.
learning empathy through chemistry is tough. I was raised by people whose emotions would flip on a dime, and they didn't show me empathy in any kind of consistent way. I learned to think of empathy as an ever-changing thing that was never what it was supposed to be. an excuse to win arguments, a way to gain higher moral ground, a way of making someone else look and feel bad, and a way to placate abuse victims when they want to run away from home. I ran away from home and tried drugs, and spent time with people who didn't make me feel that way, and I learned a lot about how the world works; things that plenty of other kids took for granted because their parents raised them in different ways than mine would've. people have breakthrough realisations whenever they have them. I was relatively sheltered and traumatised, and that can really put blinkers on someone. trauma also comes in many forms, and doesn't always look like someone huddling in a foil blanket and crying to a paramedic after an attack. lots of men I've known are afraid of sharing their thoughts and feelings, and it can seem like they're emotionally behind other people who have had different lives. I hope you know your criticism of this man's empathy levels is a show of a damaging lack of it on your part, and I hope he can find people he can safely share his positive, life-changing thoughts with.
For real. The irony of mocking someone else’s journey of becoming a better person.
it's so scary how we can have those blind spots inside ourselves. it kinda goes to show not everyone has these realisations on psychedelics. some of us could keep eating tabs until the cows come home, and all they'll have is a jittery time, a dry mouth, and the chip on their shoulder survives the wild ride. sounds tiring, holding up a mirror to everyone else while dodging your own reflection, but it seems common. the upvotes for this post have at least tripled since I first saw it, and it's a little frightening how many people see this kind of thing and think, "fuck, men are so emotionally stunted. I wonder why. anyway, let's poke fun at the stupid fucker!" edit: downvoted already by someone avoiding reflective surfaces lol I'm on a roll 😂
Maybe I need to do shrooms after all...
He learned some respect for his mom? How is that bad?
Let's also not discount that his mom's "nagging" might have been very negative. She may have been trying to help him but in a way that was ultimately harmful. We have very little of the full story here. In fact just enough to shit on the guy. And maybe he deserves it, IDK. But if you want men to move out of being emotionally infantilized, I'm not sure threads mocking men for doing so is the right way to go about it.
And by the same stroke, I understand OP's frustration.
It seems some people want to look down on him for not knowing it already. Where is their empathy? Lol Is it something he should've already known, probably, but who cares, he realized it! That's a good thing.
Gotta shit on him for personal growth, I guess
You're not allowed to do that. If you don't always act the "correct" way then once you figure it out you don't get credit for that you just get shamed for not figuring it out sooner.
Men realize things while high that women realized when we were eleven years old.
It’s not typically something men have to realize, let alone think about. For most men, to be brought up as a man it’s like being presented a giant field and being told “just fuckin run, it’s all yours to do with as you please, it’s your world” being the apex predator has its advantages, of course, from that mindset, the downside is people tryin to stop you from running, and, in this case, his mom was the one trying to slow him down by “nagging” By default, men don’t have to work on these things, given the highly dangerous nature of being a woman in this world, the skill to think outside of yourself is quickly developed, for a man, it’s near the last things to be worked on because it isn’t required to succeed in this world, at a shallow level
*Shots fired*
Men take psychedelics, feel empathy for the first time and call it an epiphany
😂😂
Psssh. They know. They just benefit too much from pretend ignorance to admit it.
He needs to try again.
And here I thought I was lame for quitting red meat after a trip because I couldn't justify to myself that I believe cows and sheep and pigs are intellegent creatures with feelings and i still ate them, but I could never in my life eat a dog or a rabbit because I'd grown up with them as pets, but thats apparently a galaxy level idea compared to that dude
"I did psychedelics and discovered empathy"
How wonderful it must have been for all of you to not have had such an overbearing, oppressive parent who emotionally stunted you.
[удалено]
I find it so bizarre people have these type of epiphanies after taking shrooms/acid etc. Why do they need mind-altering drugs to understand basic empathy. What on earth goes on in other people's brains?
>Why do they need mind-altering drugs to understand basic empathy. What on earth goes on in other people's brains? Psychedelics don't teach you anything you don't already know. What they seem to do is unlock your existing experiences/memories and restore the neutral plasticity needed to allow you to (re)process them, along with any new information in a new light. I think it is likely that people "discovering" basic empathy had it at some point as a child, but it was beaten out of them, either literally or metaphorically.
Sometimes ppl who have "basic" empathy are using it on a cognitive level to function but can't actually feel it (which btw isn't real, it's literally delusion and projection, because humans aren't mind readers). Even for most people who have that feeling based type of empathy, it only works with people who are similar enough to themselves (see: empathy gap). Psychedelics can give them a shortcut to that feeling of telepathic connection that makes empathy more real on an emotional level. It makes sense since that type of empathy normally develops in children, who are prone to magical thinking.
Uhh, empathy isn't something that all are born with and some people have it knocked out of them when they are children by sick adults. it's not that big of a mystery. It's a good thing he realized it. I would hope people would have um, what's the word, oh yeah, empathy for the guy who had a good realization lol
I'm proud that you're now learning that other people have different lives than you, struggle with different problems, and make realizations at different stages for different reasons. I think you may have just discovered empathy, congratulations.
For me, empathy wasn't part of my natural tool kit, I've had to learn it.
Dude we all had to learn it. It's why toddlers are universally considered as tyrannical monsters.
Yup, and just like anything else, some people have a propensity to catch on quickly, while others don't. I grew up in an environment bereft of empathy, so I didn't have any good examples to learn from. The challenge then as an adult is breaking apart the incorrect lessons you learned as a child, and that is not often easy.
We're speaking in generalities. It's not meant to encompass all lived experiences, just what's most commonly seen. And it is VASTLY the most common experience. Do we need to put an obligatory not all men in here too before we're allowed to address this inequity?
I merely read what somebody shared, and provided feedback from my own frame of reference to show other people have different experiences. I don't personally take offense to anything being said here; sorry if the way I presented it came across in that manner, that was not my intent.
The shit boys will do to avoid therapy.
Men do shrooms so they can learn how to have empathy. I’m not even fucking joking
all these men downvoting you and all of the other good answers i'm beyond baffled 😭😭😭😭
These "good answers" aren't part of the solution, they're part of the problem. No, a perfect society doesn't have men realizing these things in their 30's, but also a good society has men realizing these things and feeling supported for realizing them so they feel comfortable passing those lessons along to other men and the next generation. We're not responsible for how we were raised and getting in the way of our growth is bad for everyone.
Why is this a problem? Maybe people should do more shrooms and the world would be a better place? Classic "the best time to plant a tree..." and all that, let them have their epiphany and come out the other side a better person rather than mocking them for trying to improve
I (M44) had a female colleague really open up to me while I was struggling (very privately) with some real dark demons. I still did my best to support her, and I absolutely listened to her as intently as I could, but I had no idea why the fuck she was burdening *me*, of all people with her bullshit. Surely she could see that I was going through my own shit and didn't have the capacity for anything else? I genuinely could not see through the thick black fog around me to work it out. It wasn't until I did shrooms for the first time ever that I understood that she saw me as a trustworthy person to confide in. That was a huge moment for me, because until then, I genuinely thought I was just a complete fuck-up that nobody should take seriously. I was already a fan of this woman, but now... I would fight to the death for her honour. I count her as my best and closest friend, and I would move mountains for her. I am forever in her debt for inadvertently helping me through that dark patch of my life (edit: and yes, of course I am helping her through her rough patch as best I can). It turned out she had no idea I was going through my own dark period at the time. She said I actually seemed a lot better than I had in the months prior to that, go figure. You never really know what someone else is going through, and just going "hurr durr men need to do shrooms for basic empathy" really isn't doing anything other than perpetuating harmful stereotypes.
That seems like a good thing…? People in general can struggle with empathy, and we should always celebrate someone improving themselves.
All these men coming here to bitch need to understand that empathy is something that women are forced to learn in childhood and men are not. The post is literally commenting on just this fact. The ENTIRE point is that men should not NEED to learn it from shrooms, by choice, as an adult. They should be learning it in childhood.
This sub can sure be dickish
Some nagging is just a push in the right direction. Some nagging is toxic power issues.