Men’s Rights Activists and their MGTOW fellow travelers would probably be a lot more effective in fighting male suicide if there weren’t so many of them who think suicide is kind of cool.
In the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit today, a fellow called Zombocom1911 posted a link to a story about a man who slashed his own throat with a straight razor while sitting at the kitchen table in front of his wife and kids.
To Zombocom1911, the obvious question raised by this deeply unsettling story was this: “Can suicide be considered MGTOW?”
Chillingly, some of Zombocom1911’s compadres on the MGTOW subreddit seem to think the answer is “yes.”
aanarchist, while acknowledging that the man’s actions were “really f*cked up,” couldn’t quite contain his admiration.
“what a badass to do that sh*t in front of his own family,” he wrote in a comment that actually got upvotes from his peers. “it’s like looking them in the eye and going all f*ck you, death is preferable to slavery.”
Yes, I’m sure his wife and children benefitted enormously from this lovely message.
aanarchist went on to suggest that large numbers of men killing themselves could strike a powerful blow against women and feminists.
i’d say that suicide is letting feminism win but in reality the worst possible thing for women and feminism is a reduction in the male population. women’s comforts are built upon an abundance of manpower. if you cut down the population of men enough they go through some pretty strifey periods cuz no one’s there to provide for them.
You may recall a gentleman at Return of Kings making a strikingly similar argument not long ago — although his preferred method of man-elimination was to send as many men as possible to die horribly in wars.
You may also recall how, several years ago, Men’s Rights activists turned a fellow MRA who burned himself alive outside of a family courthouse in Maine into a sort of Men’s Rights martyr, celebrating him in song and doing their best to disseminate the frankly terroristic manifesto he left behind, in which he urged other men to take up his cause by firebombing courthouses and police stations.
There are, to be sure, some MRAs and MGTOWs who are genuinely concerned about male suicide, though very few of them have actually done anything at all about it. They might start by trying to convince their ideological compatriots that suicide is not actually cool.
I have multiple psychiatric disorders, I’ve gone through multiple suicidal episodes over my life, but I can’t muster any sympathy for these losers. I can muster sympathy for any family members they aim to traumatize by doing this in their presence, as the man with the straight razor did, but if an MGHOW legitimately wants (without being mentally ill, just a controlling, abusive asshole) to do this, and he has no partner or children, as I’m sure is the case for a lot of these losers, I cannot muster the care to go, “Noooo! Don’t throw your life awaaaay!”
I could pretend that it’s not the answer, that every life is precious, that I want them to live, but I can’t form any sympathy for people who have proven themselves to be manipulative, controlling, abusive, women-and-children-hating scum of the earth. I just can’t. What they do to themselves of their own volition, I don’t give a fuck. It’s just the honest truth. Women, and society in general, would make so much progress with the bitter, self-important, “oppressed” misogynists out of the way.
Well, there it is again: the answer to the question “Is there any tragedy, any disorder, any atrocity, any human failure which Manosphere shiteweasels can’t claim as a gain for its own ends?”
And once again that answer is NOPE – as if we were in any doubt.
@Kat @Snorkmaiden @saphira and @ all the others of you with similar stories (hugs) and kudos and I’m so glad you got away from those situations and those people!
@Paradoxial – Hoo boy. Now I’ll back up to pre-abusive ex to abusive childhood, when I had my own very serious suicidal tendencies (and I am SO GLAD I DIDN’T KILL MYSELF – although I 100% support the right to end life when it is unbearable and no solution).
I was raised in a Quiverfull cult in North Texas (at one point across the Brazos from the Branch Dravidian compound in a splinter faction.)
TW for child sex abuse.
If anyone’s been keeping up with the Duggars, I kind of rolled my eyes at that whole thing because DUH. Old news, all the families I grew up with were like that, hell, kids got passed around from infancy as sex toys. I was the eldest of nine and things got progressively worse as I got older – I was stuck between having blackouts in my mind’s desperate attempt to protect myself form my own abuse, and trying frantically to figure out how to protect my siblings.
(Nope, it did not occur to me to seek outside help at first because I WOULD BURN IN HELL … Yep, later when I did seek outside help no-one believed me because PILLARS OF THE COMMUNITY. Fucked six ways to Sundays say please and thankee.)
Anyway, long story short it got to the point that killing myself was all I could think about. I considered and discarded idea after idea – including literally hundreds of times being in the car and latching onto the door handle trying to gather my courage to fling myself out on the freeway – because the only thing worse than being in that situation was the thought of being paralyzed and aware in that situation.
I finally escaped. I got my siblings out of that house for six months. There was press. There were preliminary court hearings. There were hours spent with psychologists and psychotherapists, trying to figure how much to say and how to say and who was really on our side and who was not. There was the day when the judge decided the case was too messy and no-one had videotape of the rapes and tossed it and my siblings went away forever back to that black hole and I put my car in a ditch at 50 miles an hour around a hairpin turn on my way home form saying goodbye.
I didn’t mean to do it. Honest. I blacked out behind the wheel. The car went through a gap in a row of trees where one tree had died. It hit nose down in the ditch and flipped tail over nose and rolled three times and ended up in the middle of the woods looking like it had already been through the crusher at the junkyard.
The CD ejected and ended up quivering stuck in the back hatch of my 2 door sport car (if my neck had been in the way it would ahve cut my throat.
I walked away with a seatbelt bruise. EMT, Fire, and Police were combing the woods for my body before someone thought to approach me where I sat by the side of the road and ask if I had seen what happened and if I knew whether or not the driver had been thrown clear.
I am glad I am alive. I have a good life (despite the flashbacks and nightmares and PTSD and the residue of the 13 year crap marriage) – I now have an amazing soon-to-be wife and three lovely kids and when I don’t make it I fake it – which is rarer and rarer as years slide by.
I’m glad I didn’t kill myself. I’m glad I survived the car wreck. I know there is pain too terrible to stand up under. I know some people reach that point when there seems no way out – and sometimes they are right and they should be given dignity and peace.
But I also know I was within a whisker of dying over and over for no reason except that I didn’t know how to get OUT of a bad situation. I was trapped. I did get out, and for that I will always be grateful. And I’m grateful for each of you who have survived things in your lives and come out the other side. <3
@ Paige Hamilton, thank you. I have no words of any use, but I read your post a moment ago and I had to respond, if only to say “I see you.” Go well and stay well <3 <3
It has been really helpful for me today to read from so many people who have suicidal ideation but live with it. I have had this off and on all my life and it feels – frankly – pretty normal to me. Not fun. Definitely not cool. But a sucky kind of normal. It is not something I talk about in flesh space. Because I feel like I’d be seen as seeking drama or ‘threatening’ suicide, and I’m not. It’s not something I want to do or even want to think about and it’s obviously associated (for me) with stress and depression.
I have been having these thoughts with greater frequency since the beginning of the year and it’s definitely NOT COOL. I don’t think I’d ever do it except under certain circumstances (circumstances which are widely socially acceptable such as terminal illness), but I sure wish I wouldn’t think about it. Such a painful distraction from actually living.
<3 @Mish
@rugbyyogi… I get what you mean about if you talk about certain things it's immediately labeled attention seeking, and I'm sorry you don't have a safe flesh space to talk about those feelings… I'm glad you are here and sharing ((hugs)).
If the MRAs and MGTOWs of the world are genuinely concerned about male suicide, then they need to support restrictive gun and ammunition laws. Men are more successful suicides because they typically use more effective means than women, primarily firearms.
Coming into this thread late because I just couldn’t deal yesterday.
@NiOg
My experience has been that the worse my mental state gets, the more frequent the intrusive thoughts become until at some point they’re no longer intrusive thoughts but active plans. And how long I allow them to linger, how long I play through what the proposed scenario would mean (jumping is a common one, which is funny because I’m acrophobic), is usually an indication of how bad off I am. I’m not sure how typical my experience is, though.
I almost never get the intrusive thoughts right now, so that’s good. 🙂
Hugs to anyone who wants them.
It will never cease to amaze me when any man believes men are the honorable, brave, honest, hard working, loving, etc gender but then turn around and say and do the absolute opposite of those qualities.
If that’s what being a man is then I’m proud to be a woman.
For the record I’m not trying to be disrespectful to anyone or trying to be funny. I’m just very angry at anyone who thinks and does this.
Love and hugs for everyone who has had suicide thoughts, attempts, been in abusive relationships, etc. I had suicide attempts and thoughts when I was a kid and growing up. I think I became a masochist. Yeah I know I’m mentally ill. But it’s ok I have no thoughts of suicide anymore and I’m so defiantly not homcidal I wouldn’t dream of hurting anyone.
@ MarkyMark
Work on your act, it’s rather stale.
You may also recall how, historically, women’s rights and living conditions improved greatly during times when men were less able to provide for them on account of being either dead or busy trying to kill each other, viz. the world wars and their aftermath.
@MarkyMark:
“Wonderful, wonderful cold reading,” the man in black said. “But you’re not auditioning now, not for me. I don’t even have final cut. Now, this way, please? Your next scene’s in the kitchen.”
— John M. Ford, How Much for Just the Planet? (New York: Pocket Books, 1987)
@MarkyMark
Holy shit could you be more boring?
@Paige: that is horrible. Like Mish, I don’t have words. Good on you for finding a way out.
I don’t believe in hell (I go with Paul, who said ‘the wages of sin are death’), but if there is one, it is populated by those who use religion to do such things.
I take exception to MarkyMark’s comment. I always felt Died in the Wool was one of David Sylvian and Dai Fujikura’s better collaborations, right up there with Last Days of December and Snow White in Appalachia.
😀
(and thanks, @joekster!! <3 )
@kahze
Eminently useful, thanks. And sorry you had to go thru what you did <3
Our (or at least my) problem with Mnemni wasn't that they had concerns about David's writing. David's writing is, more often than it should be, pretty bleh. Typos, unclear language, it happens. The problem was that they
1)refused to accept the likelihood that they were wrong
2)made generalizations about the "pro life views" of the commentariat
3)posited that psychology ain't a science… somehow
4)was generally shitty and combative about a topic that profoundly affects and hurts some really good people here based on things that nobody said. Suicide isn't 'cool' and those that do it aren't bad people. We don't need or want anyone here that would argue either point
I hope you stick around, and thanks again for sharing 🙂
Is Marky the same MarkyMark who used to be an MGTOW blogger that got written about here sometimes? The one who wrote lots of creepy stalker posts about his co-worker Maria? Or is he just the same Mark that has been trolling here lately?
@kahze:
Firstly, I would like to say that I am sorry that you are in such pain. I understand the urge to end it.
Secondly, I would like to say that there is no shame in having suicidal thoughts. Society likes to hide it and sweep it under the rug, and I find that very harmful. I think that being able to talk about these things without fear of what others may think is incredibly helpful.
I do not want to demonize people who commit suicide; in most cases I think it is a decision that makes sense to them at the time. But I will say that it is a selfish act, intentionally or no. Many people with suicidal thoughts, myself included, think that everyone will be better off without them; that they will no longer be a burden. But one of the things that has kept me from the act was thinking of whoever would find my body. (I know someone who found his father. His wife told me; he’s never spoken of it.) Or if I chose to jump in front of a subway, how that driver would be affected. And any passengers who witnessed it. And who would have to clean it up. And the people I would leave behind who would feel like there was Something They Should Have Done. (My father told me about someone he knew whose son committed suicide. He said they never got over it. I think he was talking to me in code about how he would feel.)
So yes, I think suicide qua suicide, as Mnemni put it, is a bad thing. Understandable in some cases, but it leaves more human wreckage. And killing yourself in front of your family, as possibly a “fuck you” to them, (as mentioned in the OP) is just despicable.
My careful planning once involved being found by professionals and not doing it around anyone’s birthday or major holidays (like that would make any difference to them). My current thoughts involve musings on how to make it look like an accident. But I still choose to live. I’ll say as many times as I can that continuing to live is not cowardly. Especially when you’re in chronic pain. It’s so hard and takes real courage. You are braver than you give yourself credit for.
My best wishes and compassion to you.
@rugbyyogi:
Many hugs. Intrusive suicidal thoughts are so hard, even when you don’t plan on acting on them. Overpasses are hard. Subways are hard. Steep stairs are hard. And fuck I have a balcony which is incredibly hard.
And it’s so hard to talk about it without causing Drama and feeling like an attention-seeker. Or just getting your ass involuntarily committed. How do you tell a friend “I thought about ‘accidentally’ falling down that flight of stairs just now”? They’d freak the fuck out and rightfully so. Because many (most?) people don’t understand wanting to die.
Something I find helpful is noting the thought or the urge when I notice it, labeling it as a thought or an urge, and trying not to judge myself on it but instead saying “okay, nope, not going to do that”. I’m very lucky in that I also have a counselor who I can tell about these things without having her put me in inpatient. She knows I don’t plan to act on them and am instead asking for strategies to deal with them.
I gotta go now, but I empathize with each and every one of you (except MarkyMark, who needs to just GHOW already).
I feel like I’ve written out this whole thing before, like, to Marky Mark, but I’m in the mood to do it again.
Marky Mark needs to start campaigning for wage equality and equitable division of childcare labour, since those two things together would solve so many of his problems.
Alimony: Alimony is generally only awarded in the rare case that one spouse has not been earning income for many years within the marriage. In my province, for example, the rule of thumb is 15 years.
There is nothing inherently gendered about how alimony is structured, however it is awarded much more often to women than men in the dissolution of m/f marriages. Want to fix that, Mark? Me too! And all we need to do is 1) equitably split household/childcare labour so it is no longer a given that the mother should have to take on the bulk of childcare responsibilities, including sacrificing paying work; and 2) put an end to income inequality, as currently husbands (on average) earn more than their wives, and so, if one partner must leave the workforce, it makes better financial sense that it be the woman.
Asset division: It makes no sense to say that asset division “goes from men to women,” as asset division by definition is the equitable split of shared assets. If your complaint is that more of those assets were brought into the marriage through the husband’s wealth or income, again, you will want to do something about income inequality.
Child support: Both custodial and non-custodial parents have a legal responsibility to contribute financially towards the wellbeing of their children. Non-custodial parents do this through the custodial parent as an intermediary, a process we call “child support.”
Since women are more often the custodial parent (or have a larger portion of custody), more child support is paid by men. However, almost always, custodial parents spend more money on the upkeep of the children than non-custodial parents do. In addition to that, they are responsible for the non-financial aspects of child rearing.
This seems like a pretty sweet deal for the often male non-custodial parents, if we look at children only in terms of being burdens (which I don’t, but since you’re whining about child support, I assume you do), so I’m not sure why you have a problem with it. But, hey, you want to fix it? No problem. Equitable division of childcare, my friend. Boom, fixed.
Men pay more taxes – now stick with me here – because they have more wealth and income. Women use government programs, surprise surprise, because they have less wealth and income. As well, some of those programs are for children, and as we’ve established, women are more likely to handle childcare. GUESS HOW TO FIX THESE PROBLEMS MARK. GUESS.
Thank you, @Viscaria. I was just going to copy/paste Lindy West’s “Fleetches and Flootches” post from Jezebel (a must read) but you saved me the trouble 😀
Excuse me I need to go vomit out of sheer bloody horror. Seriously these people are advocating suicide now, I’m terrified at what those MGTOW guys will think of next
While we’re on the topic of mental health, I wanted to ask if anyone else has experienced two particular phenomenons I’m going through with mine.
1) Motivation is very hard and I’m still trying to pin down exactly why I feel so paralysed and resistant to just doing shit. Half the time if I could choose to do anything I wanted I’d simply curl up into a ball under my bedcovers. I don’t, because life requires me to keep moving in order to get by. Still, I should have started studying for my driving theory ages ago. Job hunting is less consistent than it should be, though a big part of it is an uber strong feeling that if I apply I’ll just fail and even if I get the job I’ll wipe out after about a month. I think that thinking I’m hopeless at everything plays a part. I almost don’t want to try because I don’t want to deal with the inevitable pain of failure. Yet despite a powerful energy sucking drain on me there is a nagging voice in the back of my head that says I’ll be okay if I just fake it to make it. That I’m simply not trying hard enough to cover up, that I’m indulging in self pity too much, yada yada.
2) I feel so utterly vacant in my mind. Like it’s full of rocks and fog. Again, a sort of paralysed sensation. I honestly don’t think I’m stupid, although sometimes I feel that my colleagues do. I just… can’t function like I used to years ago. I forget things more often, when I try to problem solve I draw a blank (sometimes. Before though I’d have figured out an answer in seconds). When I was younger I was sharp as a tack. Highly analytical, a quick thinker and people would refer to me as intelligent a lot. Now I’m in a haze and I miss what I had. I want my cognitive prowess back.
@Sunnysombrera
While I am chary of the rules about internet diagnosis here, that sounds an awful lot like severe depression to me. It certainly matches my experience of same.
@sunnysombrera
I am not a mental health professional, but your description sounds quite a bit like a symptom I struggle with, which is a sort of executive dysfunction. Initiation issues. It is teh suck and I’m sorry you’re going through it. If you have the means, I would highly suggest talking to a therapist or counsellor of some sort about this and your other symptom (which I have less experience with). They may be related to something treatable. For me, the initiation problems masqueraded as a depression thing, but really they were an ADD thing, and appropriate medication has helped.