As I currently sit in the aftermath of yet another instance of hateful abuse from a man that I once cared a lot about, and on the better end of a mental breakdown, I’m thinking about how this all started. Where did it come from. Why are we like this? Guys. It’s not wrong for us to be emotionally vulnerable. It’s not ‘unmanly’ to hurt, and to show that you’re hurt. You are not a bad person, or less of one, for being in pain. Being a ‘victim’ does not mean that you are powerless, it means that you have been targeted. Being wrathful, being cruel, inflicting that pain on others isn’t ‘alpha’ or ‘chad’ or doesn’t make you more or less of a man, it makes you just as bad as the person who put you in this situation in the first place, but unlike that person, who is long in your rearview mirror, I hope, you have a choice. Don’t just let it fester until you’re doing it to the people around you. Don’t internalize it into something worse. Don’t let your traumas warp you into a twisted image of the beautiful, wonderful man you already are. Please, ask for help. Talk to someone. See a therapist. Do something, anything. Just because you are in a cycle of abuse doesn’t mean that you have to perpetuate it. Cycles can be broken.
