By David Futrelle
The “Incel” cult not only encourages so-called “involuntarily celibate” men to hate and blame women; it also teaches these men to hate themselves, obsessing endlessly over alleged physical flaws and other imaginary impediments that they think make them undateable and fundamentally unlovable.
One of the most insidious ways in which the Incel cult harms those in it is by discouraging clearly depressed men from seeking the psychological and psychiatric help it is clear so many of them desperately need.
Some incels dismiss therapy and medication as frauds, convinced that nothing will work for them. This is self-defeating but at least understandable. Therapy is hard work, and meds. while generally effective in helping most people, aren’t a panacea, and when you’re deeply depressed it’s hard to believe anything will help.
But there are plenty of incels who reject therapy and meds not because they think they won’t work, but because they’re afraid they will. These deeply miserable men don’t want to be cured of their misery because they don’t believe they deserve to be happy. Or even to live.
In a recent post on the Incels subreddit, someone calling himself StarvedOfHumanTouch argues bluntly that “[t]reating incels for depression should be illegal.”
“Some anti depressants and anti psychotics are too fucking effective,” he writes.
They have the ability to turn even the most suicidally depressed men into tax contributing good goys.
So far, if we ignore the not-too-subtle hint of anti-Semitism at the end there, StarvedOfHumanTouch is rehashing an old and silly argument put forth by some social critics who wrongly think that antidepressants turn everyone into “shiny happy” conformists. But his argument quickly gets much darker.
Depression like all other state of minds has a purpose. It is meant to hurt, weaken, and ultimately kill you. Trimming the fat from society so to speak. It is in the benefit of all to let the weak and disabled die off.
He’s including himself in this group.
So why keep us around? Is it compassion? Sadism? Or are we just a buffer to keep around to take the blow when shit hits the fan in society every other decade?
As far as I can figure out the logic here, StarvedOfHumanTouch apparently think that “normies” conspire to keep incels and other alleged “undesirables” around as, I guess, designated sufferers when crises roll around. It doesn’t make much sense to me either.
But StarvedOfHumanTouch’s fellow incels seem to have little trouble understanding what he’s getting at.
“[W]e subhumans exist so chads and staceys can feel better about themselves that they arent subhuman like us,” writes PM_ME_STRIPPERS.
“Yes, and conning them into “therapy” should also be a stoneable offense,” adds Thizizwhyimincel,” whose flair for the subreddit suggests that his “[m]other deserves to be raped by ISIS.”
Any normie, or whore, who recommends therapy for an incel, is intentionally trying to steal money from an inferior man. They absolutely deserve the rope for even suggesting this.
3K-caloriespurple-pilled non-incel is of the opinion that”letting people suffer is [un]acceptable.” But instead of suggesting that sufferers get treatment to ease their suffering, he thinks that “euthanasia should be legalized for people with severe depression or mental issues.”
As someone who has struggled with depression for decades now, I can tell you that this sort of bullshit is the last thing any depressed person needs to hear. Treatment is available; meds help. Incel is, as I’ve said many times before, poison. It makes everyone it touches worse off. It’s suicide fuel.
I think “bone idle” is Appalachian too. It goes with being “no account”.
@Bluecat
Hey, turds can be useful! I’ve played enough Don’t Starve to know not to pass up perfectly good fertilizer!
…That said, I’m glad you’re able to get help now. My dad “is on anti-depressants,” and I take after the man. I think I feel it lurking, sometimes…and I wonder how things would be better if it turns out there was something to take for what seems like little (if incredibly aggravating) things to me.
@ Lea
Isn’t there some northern Britain/Scotland cultural connection to Appalachia? Seem to recall that from a documentary about folk music.
As someone who’s just now returning to get treatment for anxiety (first time to therapy since 2007) these guys can seriously go screw. I’m not going to be ableist or anything but isn’t it kinda truly evil to tell people to ignore medication and mental health? It’s not just the person that they’re telling to do something bad but also that person’s family and friends who rnd up seeing them suffer.
Most of these Incel types are not the hideous monsters they belive themselves to be, but just ordinary common or garden variety teenagers. Eliot Rodger and Dylan Roofe included. Not deformed monstrosities, except in their heads.
Yes, a lot of Scots came over and settled in Appalachia. I want to say that they were mostly Borderers, but memory is dim, so if anyone else can confirm, feel free.
of we want to read charitably, I’d like to point out that “good goys” COULD just be “good boys” with a typo. ‘g’ and ‘b’ are quite close on the keyboard.
my general response: JFC. get help. it helps.
Depression is probably one of the most treatable serious illnesses we know about. There’s no panacea, but the vast majority of depressed people get better with treatment. Telling people not to seek treatment and to stay miserable is evil, by most definitions of the term “evil.”
@Alan
The short answer is yes. The long answer involves iterated colonialism, attempted genocide, and Ulster still being part of the UK.
As someone who has suffered from major depression in the past, and fears nothing so much as that she will again — FUCK YOU, NAZI BOY. If you want to kill yourself, I ain’t stopping you, but I’m damn well going to LIVE. And I refuse to let your eugenics-based argument (bad science if ever there was any) convince me otherwise. If I ever get sick again (heaven forfend) — I’m damn well taking my meds. And if society don’t like it, society can fuck the hell off along with you.
There’s the ideology that traditionally privileged or wealthy groups are now oppressed by leftist government policies and social attitudes, successful disadvantaged people must unjustly benefit (to a lesser or greater degree) from that oppression and they’re “not suited” to that type of success, etc. Incel ideology is just a much more radical and extremist version of that, going up to supporting violence and terrorism to create social change.
This is the part that gets me:
Even the suggestion of help is treated with disdain; as if the mere thought of not wallowing in their own victimhood is a valid reason to visit violence on somebody.
I have help at present, but treatment just hasn’t worked for me so far. It’s not always treatable.
@Alan Robertshaw
That’s about the most sympathetic thing you could say, actually. These guys are not depressed, they are just hateful. To them, it’s another ploy for sympathy.
My depression does not make me hate other people. Even when it would be quite justifiable it’s difficult, and I hate myself most – I can’t even hate these guys for being horrendously misogynistic as much as I hate myself for failing to stop them (which I should be able to, because Everything Is My Fault, obviously), or as much as I hate myself for feeling like I should (because although it is All My Fault, isn’t that arrogant? And it’s still pathetic that I can’t, and I’m pathetic for thinking that, and urgh…).
Depression also does not distort my view of external reality in quite this specific way. Sometimes it brings it into crystal-clear unbearable focus. It could not make me think that women were all [insert their horrible claims about women here], because I can at least see that isn’t true. Depression doesn’t make me totally impervious to reason, either.
They also seem to have a lot of energy for this, more than I could manage.
@weirwoodtreehugger
I think if the economy was perceived as needing us, we might be more likely to get help. We’re not seen as worth it, and given many people have the same qualifications as me (highest is degree, English), maybe that’s understandable. I don’t think my perception of not being needed is actually off.
Well yeah, in capitalism, workers are commodities and are all considered replaceable. No one individual is going to be treated as needed whether or not they have any mental illnesses. Not saying I personally agree with that, of course. Sadly it is the present condition in the US at least. Speaking from personal experience, that’s hell on someone with depressive tendencies. But in the aggregate, enough of the population suffers from mood disorders that if treatment for depression and anxiety ceased to exist, we’d most likely see negative effects on the economy.
I am a little perplexed by the question of why society keeps them around as if everyone in society gets together and makes decisions about what to do with everyone. You know, incels, you’re not the center of the universe. We’re not all thinking about you and what your life is like.
You should want help so you can get some enjoyment from this life. And working is not just about paying taxes. It’s about getting money to do things you enjoy doing.
It’s eyeroll inducing how objectively important these people think they are. Everything is about their ‘pain’. The rest of us only exist to further and exacerbate it. Just cos y’all only think about genitals don’t mean we only think about your genitals
@ Alan Robertshaw
The Scots-Irish/Ulster Scots were the dominant group in the earliest colonial settlement of Appalachia. A lot of Appalachian culture is traceable to that source. Maybe the best-known book about it is Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer, which describes the four main segments of British society that settled in colonial America and shaped its culture.
Speaking as a lifelong disabled person, abled people don’t want us as a “buffer.” They occasionally want us for “inspiration” or subminimum-wage labor, but generally, they’d love to get rid of us (hence the various eugenics campaigns in history). They’ve written pages of economic and political and philosophical theory on why we’re society’s burdens.
Staying alive and trying to get the care we need is, therefore, the most radical act we can do. I wish someone could make these incels believe that. This is really sad.
One of the most irritating aspects of these incel comments is the bizarre mix of self-loathing and the conviction that they are superior to the rest of us. Usually I have immediate empathy for people who feel socially excluded. It’s horrible. But it doesn’t make you A Special Person Who Sees The Truth and it certainly doesn’t justify wishing violence on everyone.
@Moggie,
Seconding this, with feeling. I appreciate how you articulated it. This is only anecdata, but: I’ve hated myself, and hurt myself, because of depression, but it’s never taken other people as its object. Never blamed others, either.
About the only reason I wouldn’t want to see one of those chucklefucks commit suicide is because they’d probably try the suicide-by-cop method, which tends to produce collateral damage.
Alan,
Yes, there is.
I know these guys are obsessed with gold digging womenz who are only interested in them for their money, but isn’t this is taking it to a really weird extreme?
To believe that it is better to suffer severe emotional pain and possibly self destructive or suicidal behavior than to spend money on treating & healing yourself. It’s like they believe that money is some precious commodity, that is so valuable in its own right that it must be hoarded at all costs.
What is the money you earn for, if not to spend on yourself & make your life better?
Whooo boy.
I have to admit that the posts on incels are the most fascinating to me, in large part because if I had discovered Reddit or 4chan when I was a kid, I likely would have taken the Black Pill and become an embittered asshole filled with self loathing. As a disclaimer, I’m in therapy and on medications. Now anyway. Took awhile.
I disagree with some commenters who say these guys aren’t depressed. When my depression works its way up to the surface, I do get angry and embittered. When my thinking gets warped and thoughts similar to Red Pill thinking start to slip in, eventually leading to suicidal thoughts. I think holding onto bitterness and anger can lead a person to depression, or perhaps some people with the disorder are more prone to it being expressed in a more angry way. And I get where they’re coming from being actively against those trying to help. I spent years resisting getting help, determined to do it on my own. I don’ t know how many long winded conversations I’ve had with people, complaining and bemoaning my life.
Not sure where I’m going with this, other than deciding to chime in as someone who could have become an incel had circumstances been different.
@Giant Stone Head
Being an asshole isn’t a mental disorder. Please read the comments policy. And please, for the love of FSM, don’t sympathize with misogynists in here.
@Giant Stone Head,
I apologise if my comment was one of those you’re referring to – I should have worded it more clearly. I definitely didn’t mean to imply that depression does not do “X” and therefore these ppl are not really depressed.
The one constant about depression is that its experience varies enormously. I meant to align my own experience with what Moggie said. Sorry if I suggested a One True Depression! 😀