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.
Reading this post and everyone’s comments made me realize I should probably start seeing a therapist again.
I get angry with myself and hate myself so easily, and yesterday was particularly bad. :/
I’ve tried talking to some incels. I’m a female, but I’ve never had a boyfriend/girlfriend, never had sex. But I tried to sympathize with this certain incel I was having a conversation about feminism, where he insisted that women had it easier because “there’s a bunch of guys interested in you, but women don’t realise that”. So, basically, he insisted that I was just playing dumb and that there shouldn’t be a reason for me to be complaining. He wasn’t interested in learning a different point of view. One that could contradict what they believe in. I guess they got used to living in this vicious circle of sadness, hate and loneliness.
I gave up trying to be more sympathetic with them. I guess not everyone is willing to be as empathetic as you’re trying to be.
One thing I realised, though, was when I said: “I understand what you’re going through, because I’ve been alone for a long time and I still feel like this now and then”, he got defensive, saying “don’t you dare compare your situation to mine”. I wasn’t trying to compare, but rather explain that I know what was his fear, rather than just labelling it as stupidity or blame it on his “lack of alpha male attitude” (I don’t believe in such illogical thing) as many Red Pillers do.
@dcfcfan1 Ehh, I think it’s hard to correlate their physical appearence to their lack of sex. We’ve never seen the face of those who are behind these posts on Incel threads. Plus, physical appearence is not an absolute indicator that a person is attractive. For example, I think Leonardo DiCaprio is sooooo handsome (lmao i’m just fangirling), but whenever I bring this up to my female friends, most of them are like: “What??? He’s not attractive!”
@Giant Stone Head I’m sorry you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts. I’ve been struggling with them a long time, too. Sometimes they just leave me alone, but recently they came back at full force. I decided to seek help and I’m trying to find a therapist for me. I can completely relate to what you wrote in this phrase: “I spent years resisting getting help, determined to do it on my own”. I wish you lots of strength in your hardest times. Also, I’m glad you didn’t become an incel/red pilled dude. It’d be a waste of your intelligence. 😛
@dcfcfan1
Whenever an incel posts a picture of himself, he’s usually rather average looking. It’s not their looks that are keeping them from getting laid, it’s their hate and misogyny.
@Mish
Not a problem! The experience of depression (or any mental illness) can really vary from person to person, so I wanted to point that out. Thought that perhaps my experience as someone who could have gotten sucked into the incel culture could bring a different viewpoint.
@Andy 707
Thanks! The thoughts now are just sort of intrusive thoughts that sort of pop in, rattle around a bit, and then go their own way. I see them as sort of a marker of how severe a depression is getting and thus how I need to respond to it. Mindfulness practice has helped with learning how to deal with all of this stuff.
@Tov01
I guess you could say they’re ugly in a personality sense.
Something else to point out. Hate usually comes from anger, which itself tends to come from fear. Based on my own experiences, I’d say a lot of this comes from a fear of rejection, itself based on a time (or times) they were embarrassed or shamed in some way. Being a metaphor type guy, it makes me think of a tiny splinter neglected that festers into a giant wound.
This of course doesn’t justify treating people badly or wallowing in hatred and all that. That shouldn’t need to be said, but such a disclaimer is always needed when speculating on the causes of bad behavior. And of course it is just speculation. After all, I majored in biology not psychology!
Concerning the looks of incels:
When I was a young woman, one of the TV stars I found the most attractive was objectively ugly. Richard Boone was a fantastic actor, with (to me and a few others at least) a lot of sex appeal, who was just plain ugly.
What you look like isn’t it. Neither is your social anxiety disorder. My nephew is crippled with SAD. I watch him talking to, for instance, cashiers at a store. Some of them practically trip him and beat him to the floor, and he doesn’t notice. And would be terrified if he did. But he knows what his problem is and doesn’t blame it on women.
It’s al very sad, and I would care a lot more about their troubles if they were such hateful little shits.
@Prophet309
Please do! Therapy is tough and (probably) expensive where you live, but if done consequently and regularly with the right doctors, it can help.
Even when I was so depressed that I was bedridden for months, I was never this bitter at others like these Incel types. I kind of like being able to be happy.
Chalk this up as another reason Incels are a death cult, actively stops members from seeking treatment for their problems.
The drugs do work, so why not live?
If I look at this from their twisted social darwinist viewpoint it still makes sense. Citalaphram makes me strong, and the strong thrive. So why not live?
They do not logic well. It is all the contradictory false beliefs I think.
I know some people only get the bad side effects from the drugs. Personally I’ve got nothing but good things to say. I never realised how much anxiety I suffered from until I got depressed and started the SSRIs.
At least, this time, they aren’t cynically excluding themselves from the harm of their fantaisies -_-
Social darwinism and related ideologies like randroidism sure seem harmful. I suspect we could do a law about how when something is called “social X” or a similar combination, we can reasonably suspect it’s neither social nor X.
Warning: suicide attempts, CPR, grief
This is very true. Although I am fortunate enough to never have been depressed in my life, I have talked to many people who are depressed and have tried to kill themselves, because it is my job to try to help them (I am a doctor working at an emergency unit). It can be difficult to convince people to accept help, because they believe that there is no help to get, that nothing will get better and it is for the best of everybody that they die. Sometimes they sound very reasonable: They don’t want to live, and it is their life, isn’t it?
The catch is that if they can get out of their depression, they DO want to live. It is their depression lying to them. Sometimes I must stop them from leaving the hospital, or call the police to search for them if they leave, and weird as it sounds, afterwards some thank me. This is because they are grateful that I did not let them die.
Sometimes things don’t go well. Once I made the decision to cease CPR on a young man who had tried to suicide. He could not be saved, but my decision made it final. Even if I know that I could not have done otherwise, it was not an easy decision to make. The meaninglessness of his death hurt in the depths of my soul.
Imagine a desperate person who doesn’t want live, and tries to find a shiver of hope somewhere, because they do actually, deep inside, want to live. To think they would go online to search for people in a similar situation to get support – and encounter this … Well, that’s just to horrible for words.
These incels are edgier than The Edge from U2 playing Mirror’s Edge, watching Edge of Tomorrow on his Samsung Galaxy Edge and listening to obscure 90s band Edgewater while sitting on the edge of his bed in a little hotel on the outskirts (or edge, if you will) of Edgbaston.
@Giant Stone Head
Hmm, bitter, yeah, but in quite the way they are? Especially with the ones who are older, making it less understandable for any anger to be directed at the wrong cause? I dunno, the fact you did not go down that route that they did, even if you feel like you could’ve, makes me think it’s different. My depression can include bitterness, anger, but it’s based in reality, and still mostly turned inwards.
@Andy
Yeah, I’ve tried it, too. They don’t want to hear that, hey, shy, extremely non-materialistic, geeky, women exist, even if you are one of said women and know more (and they don’t want to hear how artificial their Stacey-construct is, either). Of course, you probably have to look like a Victoria’s secret model to even qualify as a woman to them, but the issue there is their entitlement. I think they actually have better odds of resolving their issues than a woman in the same position would, but resolving them simply is not the point of what they’re doing.
@weirwoodtreehugger
Yup, exactly. So I think economic ideas about value are just not going to change the situation, unfortunately. We won’t be considered valuable enough. I think some people with depression also have radical potential (as depression makes it very hard to tune out how awful things are), which the status quo does not want to include, especially as that might not have the results they want economically. Even our existence, if we’re not able to work, challenges the model.
There’s so little treatment available as-is, and many don’t get any, that I kind of feel if it were going to affect the economy more noticeably, it already would have. If they thought they could get away with it, I wouldn’t even 100% trust the rampant-capitalists not to go with the incels’ ‘kill us all’ suggestion, before replacing us with someone more easily economically exploitable, possibly poorer immigrants/people in more economically disadvantaged countries (and not caring about their mental health either, of course). They also just seem to hate us on an idealogical basis, to the point they will waste money on making us (more) miserable.
I’m reminded of a quote regarding 4chan, and since there’s absolutely spillover into the toxic parts of Reddit from there, it applies here. I don’t remember who said it, but they have a sort of “evangelical nihilism” where it is not sufficient merely to be an edgelord that wants to see the world burn because nothing matters– they must convince others of that view as well, despite the way that it would seem to contradict the base tenet of “nothing matters”. It’s why the Joker gets to be one of their mascots. I hear a lot of that echoed in these, along with the “crab bucket” mentality and other issues.
I’m in the middle of a major depressive episode.
I’ve improved from VERY BAD (had myself commit to prevent me from jumping off my 6th floor balcony) to just bad.
I’m able to actually DO stuff, currently in the last stretch of my reintegration into work and moving to a new flat in a few weeks (2nd floor, no balcony).
This is my fifth(?) episode. I think. I went undiagnosed until I was 31 and actually contemplated suicide for the first time. As in actually making plans. Before that I ‘only’ didn’t care much if I lived or died.
During my time is an inpatient two fellow patients from the ward I was on killed themselves.
The first one day after my transfer from the closed ward, the second a few days after I had switched to the day ward*.
I didn’t know the first one.
I often played board and card games with the second.
We’re currently investigating if an adjuvant dose of lithium would be possible for me. It’s not as if we can make my non functioning thyroid any worse.
I’m also autistic and was only diagnosed for that in January.
And my current episode seems to have stripped away all my filters and I’m having a terrible time coping with the world.
And in all this I never have lashed out at anyone.
*You’re on the ward between 9:00 and 16:00 for various therapies and are allowed to go home every day.
I hope you get better. Life must be better than death, I think.
CN: frank discussions of death, suicide, murder, genocide
@Mike Smith
I’m in opposition to this as rationality has a long history of converging close tho the socioeconomic realities and free will is more often a fetish than an inspiring idea anymore. To put it more bluntly: It can be quite rational and feel voluntary to want to die because the family wants to stop expensive treatment for a sick member. I’ve had similar thoughts because I felt that my family would never accept me as a trans girl and I’m very glad I found some strength in what then still felt like irrationality. It shouldn’t become the acceptable norm to choose death over debt (or shame) and arguing that it’s not the families fault that it costs that much in the first place is quite true but shouldn’t lead to this conclusion.
Since you mentioned feminism, I’m sure you’ll find branches that support this but you will also find lots of voices trying to free the body and its wishes of wellbeing from the oppressive tyrrant that often is the mind, especially when under the influence of external pressure or ideologoy. Assisted suicide for anyone might seem benign but would also mean pitting the western biologos (rationality regarding life) against a single body who could easily fail to voice its objections in the face of a vast, fast paced and fault-tolerant institution like a hospital. Apart from the mind doing the dying this would also mean more stress and mounting cynism on the part of the caregivers. After all, if death can be calmly choosen, who says that the person choosing should always be the one dying? Maybe they would choose death as being in their best interrest but are currently to irrational to do so and would need a little push? Some nurses already seem to think this way and need to be removed from the profession. The case against them would become harder to maintain.
To flesh this out beyond mere speculation: I’ve worked as an intern in a German hospital for my EMT-training. I’ve heard the discussions regarding end-of-life care, I’m no stranger to cynism, I can understand when reanimations are abondoned by doctors because the only thing left to save are some minor bodily functions. Regardless, people loosing respect for death and developing some sort of “Hey I’m just the flesh technican”-mentality give me the creeps. I was disgusted by some doctors questions about what level of procedures we wanted for mom even though I could understand them on a policy level. I would have been horified had care been withheld prior to her death and I think most people would have. Now switch that passive (failing to provide care) to active and suddenly caregivers look a lot less benign. They would be feared and loathed as well as loved and there would probably be some level of worship from patients similar to the dark ages. That’s why there is an ethos deriving from the hippocratic oath that is sworn by doctors and to be observed by other staff. Here in Germany, where lots of doctors had trouble remembering in the recent past, that oath is mandatory. This in conclusion is why institutionalized western medicine has trouble and probably shouldn’t be able to help you in your quest for voluntary death.
Now on a more personal level, I would like to adress the ideology of mental freedom that leads to this conclusion. Not because I’m completely opposed to people ending their life by their own will and also, I would suggest, hand — there are tons of publicly avaiable ways to minimize suffering but others doing the deed is extremly slippery terrain. But because I think I know the place it’s coming from and I think you’ll miss a lot of roses along the way if you give that much of a primacy on your mind. I know, I know it’s standard in lots of western culture, especially the technical and financial part and I neither want to convert you to bhuddism nor practise obscurantism, but I truly think that there is more to live than decisionmaking and regulating feelings and that the body should be a vital part of that. Since I’ve already written half a page and it’s terribly hard to communicate that stuff in this medium anyhow, I can only assume your gender from your username and ask you to try to figure out more about the women (or very alternative guys, lots of enby folk) in your life, because they usually are more capable in this matter as their identification with the more abstract and less vibrant part of logos tends to be lower.
@Tov01, In my opinion, these guys just couldnt get girls. Its about how you deal with it which is important. Nothing wrong with not being able to have sex, everything wrong with blaming women for it and acting like you are entitled.
I really wanted to have a girlfriend and have sex like most guys, but when I got rejected lots and realised it wasnt possible what did I do? I went my own way, my own path. I started to concentrate on my career, my friends, my family. Picking up new things such as reading books, going to the gym and loearning new recepies. What I didnt do was sit there on my computer screen asking for self pity and blaming society for how unattractive I am.
In the end, so what If I cant get laid? Sun will still fucking shine. Not life or death. Being ugly can stop you getting laid, I agree with the incels there. But it doesnt stop you from being a decent human being and having a healthy happy life with goals and ambition
@Kiki
hahahahahahaha well done 🙂
I have some Citalopram left from when the clinical psych I’ve been seeing for the last six months changed my meds to venlafaxine if ‘StarvedOfHumanTouch’ wants them? They helped me deal with my social/general anxiety and severe depression when counselling and other first-line meds didn’t, until I finally got to see the Clinical Psych., who also diagnosed me with Aspergers. I’m getting fully assessed this winter.
Look, incels, I’ve got the things you claim to have, I’m also single and don’t have sex, and yet I don’t hate the world. (Most of the time, sometimes I want to punch prats and Nazis but the meds have got my temper under control these days – oh hair-trigger temper, I remember thee).
Occasionally I have problems with myself but then my friends talk sense into me. The incel reddit is a bad place to be if you are mentally ill, because the people there hate themselves and the world; they are not your friends. They reinforce the nasty lies the depressed brain tells. You incels need to step away from the computer and go for a walk (straight to your doctor’s surgery). Seriously, it’ll help. Even if all the meds do is lift some of the brain fog that is depression and anxiety so you can see a little more clearly, it’ll help. Talking to someone will help too, someone who will listen and not judge.
If you’re in the UK, MIND are an excellent resource, and you can access mental health services for free through your GP. I know it’s hard to ask for help, there’s so much social pressure to cope, to be ‘strong’, especially for men; I’ve struggled for nearly 30 years with my mental health conditions (undiagnosed Aspie/Autism didn’t help, either), and for 24 of those years I pretended I was fine, I was considered the ‘strong’ one because I reacted so calmly to everything. I wasn’t calm, I was numb to everything. I felt nothing because feeling anything hurt too much.
Also, society is ablist as fuck, but suggesting disabled people should be killed is fascism, and people need to stop saying that stuff.
Humans are desperate for some sort of connection, community, and belonging, and are more than willing to sacrifice for it. These guys are extremely lonely and not just for want of a sexual or romantic partner. Their little community of commiserating on their shared loneliness is all they’ve got, (or at least it would seem so from their point of view). Conceivable they could get out and eventually form meaningful friendships, reconnect with family and old friends, and even begin dating in the long term. However they would mean paying an surprisingly deep upfront cost for a hope that they can no longer comprehend. At the very least they would have to dump their current incel identity, community, and way of thinking. They would have to rethink their deepest beliefs (and not just the incel specific beliefs). They would have to confront their greatest fears repeatedly. They would have to change their understanding of what it means to be a person (which in incel land is based on the ALPHA male bs), and then change what kind of person they are.
If UK incels want a “what about the men?”* mental health charity, there’s this one:
https://www.thecalmzone.net
(* in the good sense)
@Leo, your description rings all the bells for me :-s
I suspect that many of us can relate to some aspects of this – the feeling there’s no help to be had for your problems, the feeling that even if there were you wouldn’t deserve it, the terrible urge to reject-test to destruction any offers of help – but of course the fundamental difference lies in their willingness and indeed positive wish to harm others.
(tangent relating to the previous page: when Pratchett’s DEATH joins the (iirc) Quirmian Foreign Legion in Klatch, he goes by the name of Beau Nidle).
@everyone here who has been visited by the Black Dog and/or its friends
Immense respect and support to you. And hugs if they are ok.
@opposablethumbs
*does ecstatic fangirl dance* <3 <3 <3
(no doubt you heard about STP's ten unfinished novels being destroyed by steamroller?)
(Nononononono nooooooo I refuse to acknowledge this reality. Yes, I had seen that on the news. I get that it was his considered wish. I still mourn. I didn’t realise it was ten unfinished novels that is – no, I’m not thinking about it).