I don't really know where to begin. I work as a firefighter now for 2 years, got on at 24, now I'm 26 years old. I've seen a lot of bad things happen. I've seen a lot of people die in just 2 years of my career so far. It's one thing to see it on the movies "woah! Look at his head split open!" Or playing video games "dude did you see that thing explode?!" But once you actually see a dead body, watch someone die in your hands.. it kills a part of you.
You come home after trying to cut a man down from a tree because he hung himself, you do your job, knowing he's already dead, you still try, and your family asks you "how was your day?" You respond "today was great! You know the usual."
When you read about male suicide statistics and how suicide is the top 10 killer of men. It's true. I've seen 2 hangings and 1 self inflicted gun shot wound to the head, all of them were men just from last year.
I probably have PTSD. I haven't spoken to a therapist and I don't want to. I don't talk about these things. You might ask why don't you talk about it? I don't know.. just.. people don't understand, you know? They might judge me, tell me to man up, or say "other people have it worse." Sometimes my mom would tell me "just let it go." I wish it were that easy. I wish I could make the nightmares go away and the aniexty to disappear. She doesn't understand. A lot of people don't.
When you spend 30 mins performing cpr on someone's father. You're doing everything you can, their family is waiting across the street, you know he's dead already but you keep going.. the call is made. You stop. You tell the wife "I'm sorry for your loss..", you see in her eyes how her world is falling apart. You get in the truck, exhausted, take a deep breath, trying to keep your composure together. You see the mother walking her sons over to the house. Lost their father at 40.
We men don't talk about how things don't bother us but they do. Deep within us, a wound bleeds. We eat, drink, do drugs, jerk off to porn. Act out. Fight. Arguments. Just so we don't have to face the guilt within us. It festers and cuts deeper within our soul until we become a broken shell of a human being. Than... boom.. suicide.
I thought about killing myself a lot the last couple of months. I would stay up all night long, can't sleep, anixety through the roof. Thinking about the people that died, how I'm sorry I couldn't save them, just.. guilty. I was trained to save lives and.. all you can do is do your best.
The Redpill gave me hope that my life will get better. For a long time I thought I was trapped.. that my life would never get better. That I had no control over my life. The nightmares and anxiety would never stop. That I was fucked forever.
Than I realized the only thing I can control is me. I stopped abusing the drugs, stopped drinking to escape, stopped eating junk food, stopped jerking off to porn. I stopped numbing myself. I faced my demons, I faced the truth. The truth is I did everything I could, I did my job, and I should be proud. The next time something bad happens, I wanna be there because I have the experience to help those that need it. I know I'm gonna see worst things further in my career and I wanna be there.
I didn't let the guilt bury me, I didn't let the nightmares haunt me, I didn't let the anixety overwhelm me. I conquered myself. I'm proud of myself.
This is what it means to be a Man. To struggle, to endure, to survive, to fight and win your life!
There's some bad days and there's some good days. Lifting has become my therapy. Nothing is better than to feel the iron around your hands and your muscles swollen after a good workout.
I just wanna say thank you to this community for giving me hope. In a world where men don't have a voice. Thank you for being here. You saved a lot of lives and mine included. I want to contribute to this community and transform my life as an example to all Men, life does get better.
Massive-Prolapse 2y ago
We're all human and there's only so much we can do to affect our environment which includes other humans. Death, agony, and suffering has also been here from the beginning, so remind yourself that you are not alone. You're experiencing the same things people 1000 years ago did. That isn't meant to reduce the seriousness of your situation by any means.
I feel there are multiple factors to why the reality of life is hitting you (and others) as hard as it does these days. I have a theory that one of them is the over-sheltering of parents starting with the ww2 baby boom generation. Since that generation there has been an increasing cultural direction to shelter children from the harshness of life. In the short term this might avoid the children suffering from uncomfortable and emotional situations. However in the long run when the child grows up and inevitably encounters these unpleasant situations they are completely unprepared and overwhelmed by them.
A small example would be parents who prevent their children from seeing their parents die/dying and make them absent from the funeral. The fact that the child was never exposed to/understood death up close means when they inevitably encounter it later they will be overwhelmed and/or unable to cope.
mattyanon Admin 2y ago
Dude....... I can't imagine.
One thing though...... talking about it really can help. You probably do have PTSD. You said you're a firefighter right? They'll know professional counselling outfits that are trained to help people in your position. You can even ask your firefighters.... the older ones ..... hey... do you ever need to talk about this stuff? Who do you go to?
Professionally your organisation may offer this.
Point is..... there's nothing to lose from trying. You aren't obligated to continue something that isn't helping you. It's not about the other person having had similar experiences to you and therefore understanding... it's about them being able to help you.
Try it... it might help.
As regards "this is what it means to be a man".... yep, you're right. But you're taking on too much, and it's pushed you too far. See if there is someone around who can help you.
Meanwhile....... we're all here, rooting for you.
YourOwnDisaster 2y ago
Let's just say I'm in a similar but different line of work. 15 yrs on now. The key is to disassociate yourself with the happenings at work. It's gonna happen regardless if you're there or not. That's what worked for me at least.
Spend your time off doing things you look forward to with the people you enjoy. I know the stigma that counseling would have if you accepted, but it's better than taking the lead train downtown, ya know.
You're absolutely right that coming out of a dark place is what it is to be a man. Keep your head up and don't hesitate to reach out for anything brotha.
whytehorse2021 2y ago
I can relate. I've put the gun to my head when I was a teenager. I've had those thoughts of doing a school shooting and had the gun and trench coat. All of Rollo's work is based on suicide prevention after he lost his brother and a good friend. He just did a show recently called "why you don't have friends" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_KLe-q2Ivo . He points out that suicide is related to men not having friends, and men don't have friends because they're taught to socialize like women plus women don't allow men to get together because it's a threat to the gynocentric social order. Pretty profound insights.
I think what we're doing here is helping men. Nobody gives a damn about us so we might as well give a damn about ourselves. In my mind firefighters have always been heroes and I have the utmost respect for them. If there's anybody that other men want to be and women want, it's firefighters. You guys are the true alphas in the male hierarchy. I live right next to a fire station. I'm gonna go over there and make some friends now that you've indicated they are at high risk for suicide, PTSD, etc. Maybe go on a ride-along or something.
One thing that keeps getting in the way is the blue pill brainwashing. I tried to befriend my physical therapist and couldn't because he's married and blue pilled. Sigh...We have lots of common interests and lots to talk about and I think he's interesting and he thinks I'm interesting but the wifey comes first. The whole "MY LIFE FOR YOU!!!" crap. Women are keeping men isolated and they're killing themselves. So is technology. Bros before hoes. Always.
Anyway, if you're in tri-cities, WA let's go grab a beer. I haven't hung out with any heroes since I was in the military. Just the wife and female family members. If not, learn how guys socialize and make as many guy friends as you can. It may save their lives and is good therapy for you.
BPasFuck 2y ago
One thing I've noticed is the severe lack of fraternal bonds out there as I get older. I think about my grandfather, who was all wrapped up in probably a good half-dozen different organizations that all pretended to do some kind of charitable giving, but in retrospect, I think the charity was just an excuse to get the boys together and screw around and have fun and just be men.
That's all changed. Guys don't associate with each other any more. Not in any real way. They bury themselves in their wives and their families and then wonder why the wife runs away, complaining she's being smothered.
whytehorse2021 2y ago
It's by design. Men gathering is a threat to the gynocentric social order. I take my son to an MMA gym... female instructor and girls in the class. I take my son to school, 75% female teachers. It's like you can't go anywhere without women invading male spaces too. Even here in the forum there are women. When I was in the military, women. At least in the barracks we could fraternize. Perhaps college fraternities still have something going on. I went to join the freemasons where I live and it was all blue pilled older men and you're not allowed to talk about women. The Bangkok freemasons had a bunch of younger guys my age(at the time) and did fun things but expats are kind of already red pilled.
FrancoAP 2y ago
It is pretty interesting your insight about making male friends; as you said it is just about never giving up