Transcript
00:00:00people of the uk and ireland if you are coming to see me on tour i want to hear from you i want to
00:00:04know what problems you're dealing with your worst first date and any questions that you've got for
00:00:08me and i will be bringing some of you up on stage to talk about it so if you're coming to see me on
00:00:13tour this october go to chriswilliamson.live stories submit them and i might see you with
00:00:19a mic in front of your face very soon chriswilliamson.live stories does rsd look different
00:00:24in men um you want a weird answer for that sure okay i this is my soapbox for this i think that
00:00:36looking at just you know being a psychiatrist and seeing mental health just in general and seeing
00:00:41the progression of mental health especially as we've talked about it a little bit more you start
00:00:45to notice patterns and as you look at male mental health i think that we have done a huge disservice
00:00:52to men in terms of we don't educate men and help cultivate with men a lot of information about
00:01:00emotional sensitivity and as a result for a lot of men they know how to target a couple emotions
00:01:06and one of them being anger so i think for a lot of men you see men that have you know they've been
00:01:13told you know just man up this is not that big of a deal don't cry about it don't like they have
00:01:20been forced to suppress emotions but the only socially acceptable emotion they're allowed to express is
00:01:25anger i would say that some of that is probably misdirected or confusing signals of maybe emotional
00:01:30sensitivity what happens when emotionally sensitive bodies are told to man up i mean that you get really
00:01:37angry dudes and i mean it's just such a like i think as a parent who um has a son um it's weird because
00:01:48and maybe it's this is like the mom son thing that i'm so protective over him um but you know you see
00:01:56in other settings and you you start to really zoom in and you look at how other people are are
00:02:02bringing up their their six-year-olds their six-year-old boys and even from a young age in
00:02:08the kindergarten class you know the way that the girls are treated in the class versus the boys are
00:02:13treated in the class and not by the teacher right like the parents you look at it in birthday parties
00:02:17you know a girl will fall down they're scooped up they're they're coddled they're told you know
00:02:22everything is okay a boy will fall down and it's like oh that's not that big of a deal you know let's
00:02:26let's move on from this and it's it just it doesn't seem like it's like from genesis there's not like a
00:02:33huge spot where they can start to explore and really navigate emotional sensitivity well yeah i think
00:02:42emotionally sensitive women seem to have a bit more latitude and forgiveness to explore that kind of
00:02:49sensitivity than men do especially as they get into adulthood like i you know i think you're right that
00:02:55it's weird anger is such an anti-social emotion yeah right it's dangerous it can be destructive it's
00:03:01often not wanted by the people that are experiencing it and they don't want the impact of it to happen
00:03:05but anger is for many men more socially acceptable than sadness and when you think about how anti-social
00:03:13anger is as an emotion it really goes to show sort of how unaccepted sadness can be but yeah you know
00:03:20we talk a lot online about the importance of getting men to open up i had a conversation two
00:03:25conversations this week talking about male suicide and in both of them there is this i just wish that
00:03:31this guy had reached out i wish that he talked but in over 90 of cases where a man takes his own life
00:03:37in the uk he's already gone to some form of mental health counseling so it's not just the talking about
00:03:44it thing it's actually allowing like giving room for men to be able to feel their feelings and i think
00:03:49that to be honest like a lot of the blame a lot of the work not blame a lot of the work here can be
00:03:56laid at other men's feet because everyone says they want their friend to open up if you're having a bad
00:04:02time that i really need you to to talk to me and this is all easy to say after the fact especially
00:04:07if something really dangerous or devastating has happened but how many guys are supportive of
00:04:13another man on the internet that's opening up about how much he's struggling like not not to the
00:04:18overton emotional overton window of acceptability which is you know things are hard but i'm getting
00:04:23back in the gym and i'm gonna put some muscle on or whatever like really broken down and i don't know
00:04:28what to do i'm alone i'm broken i'm i'm lost i'm devastated uh a guy that's crying is aversive
00:04:36to a lot of men yeah and women too but like you don't get to say male suicide's a big problem we
00:04:42need to do more of more for this society needs to care more and then take the piss out of a guy who
00:04:48is opening up about his emotions online yeah i had this idea of man points which is guys need to
00:04:55accumulate sufficient kind of surplus masculinity in areas like muscularity or strength or success
00:05:02or money or notoriety or women or whatever and if they've got this bank account reserve of masculinity
00:05:09they can kind of withdraw from that and then talk about emotions it's like this special video game
00:05:14unlock that only happens once you've reached a particular level of being a man
00:05:19basically people have a big ick most of society has a big ick with men talking about deep emotions
00:05:25especially difficult emotions but they have far fewer if it comes from a place of prestige than one
00:05:31of poverty uh a guy who's already down on his luck and might not have much going for him talking about
00:05:37how much things are hurting doesn't get the same kind of sympathy that chris bumstead six time olympia
00:05:45world champion one of the most muscular guys on the planet that he gets he can cry and talk about how
00:05:49he broke down in his girlfriend's arms six weeks before he's about to win the world championship
00:05:53because he's got all of these trappings and trimmings of masculinity that make it seem like it's
00:05:58not coming from a place of weakness it's coming from a place of strength but again chris doesn't need
00:06:05the same kind of support because he's already got a community around him of a supportive wife and all of
00:06:11these successes that are continuing to move him down the track the people that really need it the guys
00:06:16that kind of don't have anything going for them and they're presumably going to be the biggest risk as
00:06:19well yeah but yeah that's my that's my soapbox as well to just i really wish that there was more
00:06:25latitude like speaking as a guy that feels feelings i just i did a a full week retreat working exclusively
00:06:30on emotions 12 hours a day for seven days in northern california last year two weeks ago i just did a
00:06:36jhana meditation retreat which is exclusively working on conductivity of emotions a silent meditation
00:06:42retreat for seven days like sitting on the cushion for i know six or eight hours a day so that was
00:06:48like both of those things for me i mean trying to get below the neck me trying to move away from a lot of
00:06:55the judge not even judgment like uh felt scrutiny yeah and um existing patterns of how is this going to
00:07:07show up in the world can i operate this way inside of my business is this something that i can do that's
00:07:11publicly acceptable it's like it doesn't you can go and work on this thing in isolation and then come
00:07:15back but yeah i i i know what it's like to be a really sensitive kid growing up that didn't have anywhere to
00:07:23put it because you're in a working class blue collar environment or the people around you
00:07:29don't notice or don't have the tools to be able to help and it can drive you to do really amazing things
00:07:36but it also creates a bunch of coping mechanisms that mean huh i had this weird gift like i had this
00:07:42depth of connection that i could have had with the world and i contorted it alchemized it you could
00:07:48say because it went from something that was a challenge to something that you've turned into something
00:07:51good yeah but it is kind of a denial of a bit of yourself as well at the same time so that's been
00:07:56this has been a it's one of the reasons i was excited to speak to you because it's a very personal
00:08:01like super interesting topic i think it's fascinating what a lot of emotionally sensitive people also
00:08:06they go through life and they hide that part of them because there's so much internalized shame about
00:08:11like you're not supposed to be sensitive you're supposed to be strong you're supposed to be able to
00:08:15handle stuff you're i mean male and females like i mean this is something that as a human condition
00:08:22people are are celebrated for like you were able to get on the other side of that adversity like you
00:08:26did so well you didn't complain you didn't do and so like you from a young age you just kind of learn
00:08:33to shut down that part of yourself or become really embarrassed i remember being like a kid and you
00:08:38know my mom something would happen and it would like hit my ear the wrong way and i i would think
00:08:45that oh my god like i'm so embarrassed or something and i would like go and hide i would like hide under
00:08:50a table or hide in a closet or because i was just like embarrassed and sad and everything happening
00:08:57all at once and eventually i was like this is young like eight i was like this is not conducive for me
00:09:05moving forward not functioning well yeah this is i can't do that when i'm grown up and so then you just
00:09:12start hiding it so if you're emotional or if you're having a hard day you lie about it you're like i'm
00:09:18fine i'm fine i'm fine it's not a big deal i don't want to talk about it or and sometimes i would
00:09:23be like i don't want to talk about it with other people because i'll cry and that'll prove that i'm
00:09:28emotionally sensitive and so i i hear that story a lot as well the insight that suppression isn't the
00:09:33same thing as strength yeah is i don't know kind of kind of world-changing that what you're doing if
00:09:40you're an emotionally sensitive person that's swallowing them down is you're performing the
00:09:46role of somebody who's got composure yeah but that's not the same as having composure that's
00:09:51not the same you're performing the role of somebody that hasn't felt the thing that's not the same as
00:09:55no not feeling the thing no and you've got this line the real challenge lies in not feeling deeply
00:10:00but in living in a world that doesn't always know how to support that sensitivity
00:10:06that's a good quote it's a great it's it's a great line it really is the real challenge lies
00:10:11not in feeling deeply but in living in a world that doesn't always know how to support that sensitivity
00:10:17yeah yeah the world feels very spiky every time i come back from retreat i always feel like
00:10:21everything is so tender i know and then what you get to see is how operating in a world that's
00:10:31incredibly intense very chaotic fast moving you have to create these strange patterns and coping
00:10:38mechanisms and wall yourself off and guard yourself just so that you can move through the day and that's
00:10:42fine right you don't want to be a whimpering blob on the floor you don't want to be a puddle i don't
00:10:47want to be a puddle of emotions i want to be able to show up but then also there are bits of your
00:10:50experience that you're denying yourself yeah and there are strengths that you can have that come along for
00:10:55this that's a question what are the strengths of highly sensitive people what are the strengths of people
00:10:59with rejection sensitive dysphoria yeah i think being able again i think that there is a direct pipeline
00:11:07between being highly emotionally sensitive and being highly emotionally intelligent and i think that's
00:11:11just how you deal with that sensitivity and so some of the strengths that can come with that emotional
00:11:18sensitivity are number one you have a deep deep deep understanding of other people's emotional
00:11:24insides and i think that's part of you know what led me into psychiatry in the first place that's part of
00:11:30why i've continued to enjoy it as much as i have because i think that you can intimately understand
00:11:37when people are talking about their experience or like you can even understand you know sometimes
00:11:42i'll have a patient come into my office and you start asking them questions and you know their answer is
00:11:48like i don't know like okay so can you tell me anything in the past two months that has really
00:11:55made you upset i don't know like and so then it's for a lot of people that's like a stone wall you don't
00:12:01really know where to go from there but for some people who are highly emotionally sensitive you're
00:12:05picking up like okay i'm picking up from like previous body cues that they were giving me when they were
00:12:10talking about their family or when they were answering in certain ways you're just like okay well there's some
00:12:15tension there and so you start asking about other questions so you're picking up stuff that you might
00:12:19not even have clocked as it was happening at the time but you've amalgamated and you know exactly
00:12:24what direction to go i think that's an incredibly um wonderful thing to have um and i think that yeah
00:12:32that outside of just psychiatry i think that does make you a good friend it makes you a good partner
00:12:36it makes you a good parent i think it's so helpful with parenting um so i think i think it's just that
00:12:44huge scope of understanding that emotional condition does emotional sensitivity have an impact on
00:12:50people's self-esteem um yes but sometimes it can be negative you know if you're highly emotionally
00:12:59sensitive i think and you're used to reading emotional data negatively sometimes that can
00:13:06start to impact your self-esteem and you're you're walking into a room and you know self-worth and
00:13:10self-confidence are different but you walk into a room and you start to feel like okay maybe i'm not
00:13:15wanted here and things like that and and you're reading emotional information and and possibly attaching a
00:13:22narrative on there that doesn't actually exist that can impact your self-esteem for sure um but there
00:13:28are other times like for example in the work that i do as a psychiatrist because of that emotional
00:13:34sensitivity i'm celebrated for that and i think it's a really unique field to be in as an emotionally
00:13:38sensitive person because that's one of the areas where i get the most validation because people feel
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00:14:41thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that clip you will love the full-length episode in all of
00:14:50its glory right here come on press it
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