Social class and anti-validation: Gaslighting without realizing it

When looking at the world of therapy and mental health needs, one area that is often criminally overlooked is the role that Socioeconomics play on our mental fragility. The lower the class you come from, the more the communication style changes. If you are middle class or lower middle class, you tend to find more demand put on to you than others of a different class might. Its expected that you have to work harder and know how to do more things than those around you and that you at all times are closer to failure than anyone else. And only you alone understand this and bear this burden.

This is an isolating truth to wrap our minds around but, if you have experienced this and are honest with yourself, you know this feeling intimately. Why is that? Lots of reasons really, but one I want to focus on anti-validation in communication. To put it another way: Any time you do something that you enjoy that doesn’t add up to social gain, its presented to you as a character flaw. Want to play video games because you enjoy it? You are made to feel like something is wrong with you. Want to learn a new skill that (likely) isn’t able to be turned into profit? Wasting your time. Want to learn to play an instrument without intents of becoming a professional musician? You must be distracting yourself from your real calling - work.

And this emphasis to this group of people is often abusively gaslighting. They carry this feeling with them constantly - the only value they can ascertain is work. This is not due to a character flaw - though it is presented to them that way. Its due to a mindset of the people around them, like parents, who are supportive (sure you can do that) but is anti-validating (but you are wasting your time). So now everything that individual does that isn’t about sustaining themselves or working is actually a burden to carry or a shame to hide. And that sort of psychic damage adds up.

And getting out of this is not easy. How do you undo decades of programing? It takes a lot of work from the individual and surrounding culture. For the individual you have to build an awareness of how you are promoting this system in yourself. Begin drawing attention to the repeating cycle of downplaying or gaslighting your own wants and needs. Begin to build a new view that sees things like personal creative endeavors, taking in entertainment, or simply doing nothing as both valid and fulfilling in themselves. They are not just something to be earned to be enjoyed but can also be a part of being human. As Bernard Suits puts it in his book “The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia” - 'playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles’. Relaxation and work are one in the same. Taking the steps of action and changing the rhetoric around this takes focus and will. Talking about it more is a great step in changing this and finding a more enjoyable and thus more fruitful life.

Socially for those of us who did glean this insight and knowledge and were not given the burden of work as our only value, I’d make an argument that a change in rhetoric is a necessary one. We can’t go around just telling others that ‘self-care is important’ since we now know that the people receiving the message are feeling guilty for doing self-care. Out rhetoric must shift to one that sees the demand of self-care as placing yet another burden. We must dignify the underlying feelings of the people receiving this message. We must hear their words, know the struggle of the lower-middle and middle class workers, and act on their behalf. For them self-care feels like an act of defiance and an action that is against their survival. Social supports - legislation and community engagement - is part of the answer here. But individual recognition that there are class differences and not living there are class differences can be just as gaslighting as any of the previously mentioned actions. Begin by making these a part of your casual conversations. Ask questions of your struggling friends like “what was it like growing up where you grew up?”, “Do you find it hard to relax sometimes?” or “What was it like for you as a child?”

This is a problem that takes both personal and social work. We can’t do it together unless we do it alone. And we can’t do it alone unless we do it together.

The Mental Health of Men

There has been a profound change in the acceptability of mental health issues in men. Turn the clocks back a generation or two and you will find a profoundly sad and secret problem: Men supposedly didn’t have mental health problems. The mental health problems of men were primarily relegated to the ideas of weakness, laziness, or simply not being man enough. So men were forced to relegate their issues of anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc. in other ways. This could manifest as a drinking problem, closeted abusiveness, or in a much more normalized way, simply being emotionally distant from family. A man’s provision was formerly seen under the simple lenses of economic success and work-ethic drive. Ask anyone who grew up under a father who was like this and the first thing they will tell you is “dad loved me but he showed it in distant ways”. It is best to realize that many of these men were doing the best they could with what they had but what they had was at best short-sighted.

But as we have understood that mental health is real and that men are affected by mental health issues just as much or more so than women, there have become some pressing questions about how these issues might manifest differently in men. If we can look at some of the specific visualizations of mental health issues in men in terms that feel native, then we can further help a generation of people make incredible life changes. I’m painting with a bit of a broad brush here and can by no means offer something that is all encompassing but I will do my best to offer a few examples of how mental health issues can be affecting men differently.

1. While we might have found men dealing more with issues related to anger, at least historically speaking, it’s best to remember that depression often manifests itself as an anger expression. We used to think men were just naturally angry and this had to do with a “wartime mentality” that was innate in men. However research finds that anger expressions have more to do with feelings of powerlessness, inadequacy, loneliness, and feelings of inferiority. After all anger can be viewed as depression faced outwardly.

2. With the historical repression of men when it comes to the expression of thoughts and feelings, men today face a difficulty in truly confiding in friends. In certain masculine cultures, vulnerability can be viewed as weakness instead of trusting. This makes for an increased challenge for men to find a relationship that feels safe enough to confide in. On top of this since men are generally less emotionally aware and less educated in intuitive/emotional reasoning, men are more likely to find that the counsel of male friends tends to be more action oriented. This is not always a bad thing but if a core component of change is feeling heard and accepted, then the process of change will not come about by simply relaying action-oriented information. Men need relationships that are compassionate and understanding that also speak of these issues in a language that specifically masculine.

3. Mental health issues directly tie in to socially-supported roles that men have traditionally played. For example: many men feel an incredible pressure to provide fiscally for their family. What happens when that role can’t be fulfilled for one reason or another? Can bringing in less money contribute to a deflated sense of self, sense of purpose, or mark a man as a failure? This could be depression in expression, anxiety in expression, or others. If a man feels there is a role he must play and he finds that he cannot fulfill this role, mental health issues will manifest (or make themselves manifest) and the underlying beliefs must be personally addressed along with the manifesting mental health concerns. Put simply: when men have a role they feel they must fill that they cannot live up to it, mental health issues will be quick to follow.

These are just some of the ways that mental health issues can be somewhat unique in the expression of men. Of course these are not limited to or even felt by all men. In fact many women may find that they identify with some of these specific concerns. These are just some ways that some men may find an intersection between mental health and their place in the world. With that said therapeutic help for men has to be distinct. Men may need extra emotional intelligence cultivation and acceptance-orientation before addressing core concerns. The identities and values of men have to be given extra respect and attention as a part of wholistic therapeutic change. If a man feels that work is a core part of him, then therapy will have to help the man either accept or effectively challenge this belief in a way that is experienced as authentic. Finally mental health interventions for men have to pay special attention to the increased social risk of isolation for men. Men are significantly less likely to have a supportive or encouraging social group and this is a core component to lasting change. Therapy is truly a wonder and amazing gift but without external structures and supportive communities men are at incredible risk of falling back to what societal scripts have historically reinforced.