How Do I Stop Feeling Like A Monster Just For Existing?

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Hi Dr. NerdLove,

I’ve stumbled upon your blog and account every now and then. I always end up reading at least one of your posts, sometimes more. Never as a subscriber though because some of this stuff gets heavy. Anywho, I realized after reading today’s piece that I too can ask for advice. Like, that is a possibility! So, this is me doing that.

I don’t know how to go about it really but the thing I struggle with is the fact that I feel like a Monster because I am a man. With all the high-profile cases of abuse you see, the casual sexism and misogyny in online spaces from random, to seeing men in my own life just being shitty to women, I just can’t help but feel that I am a monster because I am a man. And this isn’t me putting the blame on women, that’s not what I feel, nor is it the intent of me expressing what I’m feeling here. This is very much an issue that stems from patriarchy and a mix of other things, at least in my mind. But yeah, I feel like a monster who should never love because doing so can only mean hurt and I have no intention of hurting anyone.

I’m sure that I haven’t been the best man to women as I was growing up and despite me recognizing and acknowledging that, there is no way for me to prove that I’ve grown for this and nor should there be, I simply just have to because I want to and not because it would please others, although I am a people pleaser but that’s a different thing I feel? Maybe not, I don’t know.

What comes with this feeling of being a monster, is this profound feeling of loneliness and shame. I feel very alone because I don’t have companionship, even though in my mind I should never seek it because I would just be a bad partner. There’s a shame that comes from things like self-pleasure, the notion of even imagining what it would be like to feel loved and just existing as a man. I don’t like both these things.

I’m not into the whole manosphere shit, I think it’s mostly wolves leading sheep in wolves clothing but the harm they do is real and fundamentally impacts our modern day society in many ways. I’m not like them, at least, I think I’m not. I think what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to be like those dudes.

I go to therapy and talk about this and I keep getting reassured that I shouldn’t be thinking like this from her but that feeling is rooted so deep, it just doesn’t go. It’s always there, lingering.

But yeah, I don’t know what to do about this feeling of being a monster. Current plan is to isolate myself from feeling love forever and just put on a happy face. Any advice?

This Man, This Monster

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve gotten one of these.

Ok, TM2, I’m going to say this as gently as I can: you have what sounds a LOT like a personality disorder and you need to be talking to a doctor about it. And quite possibly  a different one than you’ve been seeing, since you don’t seem to be getting any relief or help from your current therapist. If you haven’t talked to them – or they haven’t talked to you – about the possibility of all of this being a symptom of something like borderline-personality disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder (especially with the intrusive thoughts you’re experiencing), then that should probably be on the top of your to-do list. If there’s a history of trauma with your family that could be influencing this, that could also be a factor that needs to be discussed. You should also talk to them about looking into alternative therapies, since what you’re currently doing clearly isn’t working.

But beyond the fact that you should be talking to your therapist about different approaches and therapies, there’s something else at play here that I think is important.

I’m going to go off on a bit of a tangent but stick with me for a second. Back in the Before Times, the Long Long Ago (aka the 90s), as second-wave feminism was giving way to third-wave feminism, there was a particular trope of the Overly Sensitive Male Feminist. Much like with the weird anti-“woke” strawmen of today, the details would vary somewhat (and somewhat inexplicably would often involve Alan Alda or Phil Donahue – ask your parents, kids), but the overall image was of a man in his 30s or so, weeping and wailing, gnashing his teeth and rending his clothing at the horror of being A Man and all the horrors that being A Man meant that they were responsible for.

Whenever The Overly Sensitive Male Feminist was portrayed, there were always tears and self-recrimination and over-the-top proclamations about how awful they were and how much they wished they weren’t born male and so on and so forth. The idea, of course, was to mock the idea of men who thought that maybe feminism had a point and that striving for a more equitable and just society without artificial, hegemonic strictures based around gender was a good thing were, frankly, performatively whiny little babies who bought into the beliefs of the Straw Feminists that many self-proclaimed defenders of The Natural Order would tilt against.

It was very much a case of cultural backlash, trying to push back against what a lot of people in power saw as an overreach and – as is so often the case – trying to leverage toxic ideas around masculinity in order to shame people into falling in line. The message to men was “the only people who believe this are whinging little beta cucks and you should be ashamed for being even vaguely like them,” and that apologizing or feeling bad for being a man made you weak and pathetic.

Now here’s the thing: this is a case of “being somewhat right, but for the wrong reasons”. Not because Real Men Don’t Cry or Men Who Agree With Feminists are Gender Traitors, but because this is not about being sorry for being a man. If we accept that people like you, TM2 or other cases in the “I respect women so much I avoid them entirely” genre are being honest and legitimate in their sorrow at what their gender has done, then what they’re doing isn’t harm mitigation or trying to make amends; it’s centering their performative sadnessin a discussion about the actual issues regarding gender equality and undoing actual harms that institutional sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia have done. It’s very akin to the dudes who, upon seeing someone complain about what a man or men had done to them, would leap into the conversation to proclaim “#notallmen”. If they weren’t just trying to derail the discussion, they were demanding special cookies and head-pats for Not Being The Worst and acknowledgement that they were One Of The Good Ones.

What they weren’t doing was, y’know: actually trying to make things better.

So, if we take it as given that this isn’t strictly a mental health issue and that this is coming from a place of regret or excess empathy, here is my question for you TM2: what good is any of this doing? How is beating yourself up like a flagellant monk changing the world for the better? How is hiding yourself away like The Beast, declaring that you don’t deserve to feel love helping to push back against the same forces you decry?

If you aren’t causing harm already – and let’s be honest, just existing isn’t causing harm – then this is just maintaining the status quo. Your isolating yourself and making yourself miserable for the sake of being miserable doesn’t manifestly change anything. Simple absence isn’t creating a net-positive, and you don’t even get that sweet-ass Jean Cocteau castle in the bargain.

If, again, we go with the idea that this isn’t a mental health problem, then all of this is really just an abdication of agency at best, a refusal of responsibility at worst. You’re coming to this from the assumption that your existence is inherently harmful – it’s absolutely not, but that’s the belief you seem to be holding – and there’s nothing that can be done about it. That, in and of itself, is basically just an objection mindset. It’s functionally your saying “well, I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas”, and that ain’t how we roll ’round here.

So let me ask you, TM2: what sins do you think you’ve committed and what atrocities do you think you’re responsible for? You don’t list any and you pepper your description with qualifiers like “I’m sure that” and “I feel that”, which tells me that this is a feels-not-reals sort of situation. For that matter: what are you hoping to gain here? Are you looking for head-pats that you are, in fact, the worst? To inspire a screed from me about how men are evil and you’ve got the right idea?

Or maybe, just maybe,  you’re hoping that someone will help you recognize what’s wrong and walk you back from the ledge? 

If that’s the case, then maybe it’s time to stop with the flagellation and start actually thinking about what you’re actually doing.

Now, there’re two things in your letter leapt out at me that I think is important. First, there’s this: “[…] I simply just have to because I want to and not because it would please others, although I am a people pleaser but that’s a different thing I feel?”

Let me stop you right there. No, this isn’t a different thing. People pleasing is the sort of behavior that sounds neutral-to-good – you want to make people happy – but quickly can become malignant. A lot of chronic people pleasers have weak boundaries and a tendency to take on responsibility that isn’t theirs; they feel like they have to because… well, because. Your behavior is emphaticallypeople-pleasing taken to an absurd extreme; you just think that the key to pleasing people is to avoid everyone because that’s the only thing you can do to make people happy.

This, in and of itself, is the sort of thing you should be telling your therapist, not assuming that “nah, this must be some other thing entirely.” It’s a perverse way of trying to prove your value to others, working from the assumption that you’re a black hole of worth, a singularity so dense that no amount of self-compassion, pride or confidence can escape.

But then there’s this: “there is no way for me to prove that I’ve grown for this and nor should there be”. This prompts a whole host of questions; prove what and to whom? You’re already saying that you assume you have committed sins against others, but you don’t bring any up. It seems like a safe bet that you can’t actually name any, which makes it all the weirder. I mean, going by your letter, I’m willing to wager five bucks American that you can’t be more than 25. What unforgivable crimes could you supposedly commit as a child that you seem to be unaware of?

For that matter, who is the judge that you would be pleading before? Other women who didn’t know you back then? What is this impossible-to-prove issue? That you’ve grown and changed past who you were when you were younger? Are you seriously saying that there’s no difference between the person you are now and the person you were in, say, middle-school? What do you think you would need, a signed affidavit from every woman and AFAB non-binary person you ever met? Why would “I don’t act like I did when I was 14” not be an example of having grown or changed? And why shouldn’t  there be some way of demonstrating that you’re different from when you were younger?

Obviously, none of this is logical, but we’re not dealing with logic, as us Earth mortals would understand it; we’re dealing with emotional weirdness, and trying to apply logic to it is missing the point. If we took what you say seriously, we’d have to assume that you’re doing an IRL Dark Urge run and you shouldn’t be trusted to breathe free air. Hell, if we took it all as being true and accurate and extended the logic to its natural endpoint, really the only answer would be a Ra’s Al-Ghul-style campaign of extermination, wiping out men like a zealot trying to kill all the other Bhaalspawn before committing ritual self-sacrifice to end the line for good.

But we’re not taking it seriously, because none of that’s true. This you saying “there’s no such thing as growth, improvement, redemption or making things better, not for me”, rather than making any sort of coherent point. You’re not a monster wearing a fleshsuit or the spawn of a dead god of murder; you’re a guy who’s talking about punching yourself in the face because you think you should be punched for the sin of having a face. And that suggests to me that this is less about other people, and more about just beating yourself up because FUCK YOU, THAT’S WHY. And honestly, that’s exhausting for me to read about; I have to imagine it’s even more exhausting for you to live with.

So what do we do about this? I really should get a macro to reply to letters like this automatically, because once again, the first and most obvious answer is: get the fuck off social media. I mean, I’m not exactly shocked, shocked to see all the hints that your FYP roll on TikTok is a toxic stew, and I would bet more cash money that half your social feed are reels of people doing stitch-replies to the grievance-peddling masculinity grifters who think choking on cigars and acting like dicks is a substitute for a personality. Deleting all your social media profiles would probably be the best thing you could do for yourself; at the very least, an algorithmic cleanse, a timeline high-colonic and follow list detox would at least cut down on some of the emotional knives you have available for all the psychic self-harm you’re doing.

The next thing I would suggest is maybe instead of smacking yourself in the face over and over again with a rolled-up photo of Andrea Dworkin, you might want to, y’know, just work on being the kind of man that Mr. Rogers – Steve or Fred, dealer’s choice – you could be. There’re lots of ways to be a man, after all, from Mr. Rogers’ love and acceptance to Bob Ross’ pastoral creativity, gentleness and calm; Steve Rogers’ courage as protector of the weak and helpless to T’challa’s nobility, duty and honor; Steve Irwin’s enthusiasm and environmental stewardship to LeVar Burton encouraging a love of reading and exploration… the list goes on and on.

The same thing would apply to actually understanding issues regarding patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Instead of rending your clothes and pulling your hair about it, maybe start by reading  bell hooks’ The Will To Change or watching The Mask You Live In.

Do you want to make the world a better, safer place for women and push back the toxicity of a patriarchal society? Now’s a good time to volunteer with a rape crisis hotline or warmline for LGBTQ people who’re under threat and dealing with the understandable terror of shitheads who’re trying to legislate them out of existence. Sign up to be an escort at a reproductive health facility and be the shield between vulnerable people needing health care and assholes trying to scare them, trick them and roll back their rights. Find the mutual aid organizations in your area and help people connect to networks that serve the most vulnerable. Join the organizations that’re doing the hard work of pushing back against the tidal wave of choleric bullshit the current administration is trying to generate. Phonebank with others to keep pressure on your elected representatives, including on the state and municipal level and demand that they take a stand for truth, justice, freedom, reasonably priced love and a hard-boiled egg.

I can already hear the objections coming from you so let’s put this to bed right off the bat: none of these actions would be your buying carbon offsets for your supposed sins. If you genuinely feel that your existence is harmful because of your gender, then you shouldn’t be trying to “prove” anything; you should be out there doing the work to make the world a better place, simply because it’s the right thing to do.

But like I said: this really is a disorder that you’re struggling with, and you need to treat it like one. Talk to your therapist about how this current treatment isn’t working and what your options are. Ask about the possibility that you’re dealing with something like OCD or BPD and whether you need to look into getting a formal diagnosis.

That’s going to help far more than throwing your hands up and declaring that you’re an abomination in the eyes of God and Man and there’s nothing to be done about it.

All will be well.