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AAC - TOXIC MASULINITY STIGMAS - When should I seek help to unlearn toxic behaviours? - Q5 - STEVE · Wellbeing Solutions - Ask A Counsellor

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: When should I seek help to unlearn toxic behaviours?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's earlier than you think.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to hit a crisis point to start unlearning harmful patterns.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: The best time is usually when you notice a pattern within yourself and you feel you know uncomfortable about it.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And these can be the most simplest of things like repeating the same conflict patterns within relationships.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Your arguments escalate quickly, you get defensive or shut down, and your partners and your friends give similar feedback.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like they say, or you don't listen, or you get angry fast, or you withdraw.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if this is coming from different people who are giving the same feedback over time, then it's time to think that there may be something going on here.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the patterns which are appearing are learned behavior, they're not your personality.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is something you've learned to do over time, either by yourself or by see or by seeing other people do this as well.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you can feel guilt or shame or regret in reacting in a certain way, and you have a tendency to snap at people, or you say things you don't mean, you feel embarrassed afterwards about saying something, and you keep promising yourself that you'll change, but you never do, and there is a gap, um, and there's a space between intention and behavior, and this is where therapy and coaching can come and narrow that gap between intention and behavior.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, you know, when we start to uh see a pattern, it's because we're becoming overwhelmed with emotions and we're finding trouble or finding it difficult to access those feelings.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Umger is the most common emotion that comes easily.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: The other one is we become numb and we avoid our feelings because it's painful, it hurts.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and it can cause a guilt and a shame, so we don't go near it, we avoid it.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we hate to feel vulnerable, so we struggle to express our vulnerability for fear that other people are going to judge us for not being manly, um, and you don't know what to feel, only that, or we don't know what we are feeling, only that we know that something is off, and sometimes the coping mechanisms mechanisms which we have are unhealthy ones.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: If they're not unhealthy ones, they can start to become unhealthy ones.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we use avoidance, we use going to work a lot or staying late at work because we don't want to go back to an environment where we um feel vulnerable.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um we doom scroll, so we're going through stuff on our phone, okay.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're just looking at rubbish on our phone.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um we can also start to abuse substances, um, we abuse alcohol, and we can start dabbling in drugs to cope with the situation because it numbs what we're feeling or numbs what's going on, and for a short period of time we can be in a different place.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: We can also use porn as a means of escape as well as gaming, um, which is quite common.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and one of the other things which we do as men is we isolate ourselves, we withdraw from people because we can't understand what's going on around us, so we go into what's our self-protection mode, um, and the strategies we use um are starting to not work as often um or as well as we might do.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the most important sign um if we see it.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: We are becoming someone we don't want to be.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like how I reacted or handled that situation.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be this kind of person to my partner, my friends.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I don't want to repeat what I've seen either my parents do, my friends do, um, other people around me do.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want that to happen to me.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So wanting to change is already enough reason for change to happen.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be bad, you don't have to be at a stage where um you think now is the time to do it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: The earlier you do it, the easier it is.