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Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans

Technology
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  • Would you mind giving the community a name where it can easily be found? Such as /c/mental-health-men or sth.

    Ah well, unfortunately the community name is set, there's no changing it after it's created. Maybe I should've made it more searchable but hopefully we can spread it by word of mouth enough where it'll take off. Also I kinda wanted it less intimidating clinical sterile sounding and more just a homey place where people can feel safe to talk openly, just a li'l reprieve from the outside world.

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    Ironically, i am feeling attacked right now..

  • Well those sound like people who aren't good to open up to.

    I do sympathize though, I pretended to be a guy for several decades, and my wife put exactly the same kind of duality on me that men put on women.

    I was expected to be sympathetic and nurturing in some contexts and aggressive, jealous, and demanding in others, and I was just supposed to know when to switch.

    And there was an amount of vulnerability I was able to display, but beyond that I'd get told to suck it up.

    I think somebody needs to come up with an ad campaign that's Therapy For Men. Big sweaty hairy guys with thick beards looking after each other's mental health like BROs. It worked to get men to use soap.

    (Seriously, I think counseling is too female-coded for a lot of men to be comfortable with it unless they're fucking the person, or they start to want to fuck the person because they're unused to talking about things).

    I dealt with the same thing in all my relationships. Nothing got my gfs hotter than when I acted like a complete asshole towards other people. They got off the duality of me being shit to people and the being this 'sweet man' to them. And they'd get super jealous and bitter if I was kind towards anyone else other than them. It was Toxic AF. It made me hate myself and made me depressed. To know that i had to be a shithead to get my girlfriends to like me.

    I'm so much happier single. I'd rather not get laid then have to be a POS asshole like they wanted me to be. Soooo many people get off on anti-social behaviors. I'm also so glad I never got married or had children with these ladies who have such a horrible Zero Sum way of thinking about the world.

    They wanted me to be vulnerable, but only in the sense that I was some heroic figure overcoming the odds. If i said I was sad when my dog died or my dad died, then I was a giant pussy to them.

    When shitty people only validate your shitty emotions... well that's why so many women only date shitty men. Because they are turned off sexually by men who are more complex or behave outside of their per-determiend 'what a man should be' image. Especially when you reject them for sex... holy shit. Way to see what a lady really thinks of a men when a man turns her down for sex.

    In my many years single now, I do a lot of volunteer work. Giving back here and there w/ kids and adults and community building. I've never met or a dated lady who thought it was cool. They all think it's weird to be kind to strangers and/or I'm secretly homosexual if I do so. If it comes up they always get 'suspicious'.

  • Probably the closest space any guy could get is AA or NA meetings.

    what do these abbreviations stand for?

    Alcoholic Anonymous

    Narcotics Anonymous

  • Therapy is just littered with bad therapists, that do more harm than good and give the practice a bad name.

    For every 1 good therapist, there are probably 10+ bad ones.

    It can be a fucking ordeal to navigate, financially and emotionally, to try and find the one good one.

    My worst experience was a therapist which charged me 300 dollars a session to do nothing but talk about how amazing they were, and that I need to just suck it up and be amazing like they are, afterall, it was so easy for them.

    I am on my fifth therapist. The first one I was seeing I kinda stopped going and then he retired, then I had a GF cheat on me and that was super brutal so I started going again.

    First therapist was the stereotypical "feelings are okay!" kind of therapist, second one she just automatically assumed it was my fault and was basically telling me that cause I'm a man I should have done better, and the third just immediately jumped to medication like halfway through my first session.

    Ended up with my current therapist and she's great. I really like her because she regularly tells me that I'm just straight up being stupid or ridiculous and just need to handle my shit. Which works amazing for me.

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    I'm totally against what companies are calling "AI", but I understand that many men still have a negative feel on therapy inherited from society, their family, their friends, and the people around them. Now add that with the fact that therapy sessions cost a kidney, I don't blame them. Even mental health has to be monetized in capitalism, and the capitalists (more specifically liberals) are still wondering why suicide rate is so high, I wonder 🤔

  • This comment section is nuts.

    Men #1 issue is lack of empathy, TOWARDS women. Not each other.

    There's your solution.

    “I’m the one who’s correct, everyone else here is wrong.” – You

  • I disagree. I had depression pretty bad, I didn't leave my house for two years.

    Empathy is definitely what made me feel different, not 100% better but different and different is the first step out of depression I think.

    “The way I do things is how everyone should do things, because what works for me will unquestionably work for everyone else.” – You

  • It’s is effectively self-treatment with more steps.

    And for many people it's better than nothing and likely the best they can do. Waiting lists for a basic therapist in my area are months long. Shorter if you pay out of pocket, but that isn't affordable to average people because it's like 300-400 for a one hour session.

    I get it, but I'm not sure that "something is better than nothing" in this case. I don't judge any individual for using it, but the risks are huge, as others have documented. And the benefits are questionable.

  • “I’m the one who’s correct, everyone else here is wrong.” – You

    Everyone else is blaming women for how men act. You disagree?

    One guy said women raise boys, so it's their fault.

    Another said therapy only works for women and suggested women aren't under any social pressure.

    You think those are intelligent, well thought arguments? Because they're stupid.

  • No that's ridiculous and hilarious to say. I'd agree there is enough to blame everyone but you're not, you're blaming women.

    I've never been told to man up by a woman, only men. Ridiculous to say that.

    Is it really that ridiculous? Biologically seen, men's properties are mostly due to genetic selection by women over thousands of years, if they are conscious about it or not. Men that are more attractive to women are preferred partners, and the selection pressure is mostly on men, since women have a much higher biological cost in pregnancy, therefore they are much more "picky". That is pretty proven science, and this pressure is also found in culture: men have the attributes that women want them to have to give them an advantage.

    It would only take 2-3 generations of women AND men doing child care to fix those issues by reinforcing openness and acceptance, but that takes education, esp in the human sciences, and education for the masses in the US has been dismantled long ago even before the current razing.

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    Morons, giving all their personal information and insecurities to companies.

  • I'm totally against what companies are calling "AI", but I understand that many men still have a negative feel on therapy inherited from society, their family, their friends, and the people around them. Now add that with the fact that therapy sessions cost a kidney, I don't blame them. Even mental health has to be monetized in capitalism, and the capitalists (more specifically liberals) are still wondering why suicide rate is so high, I wonder 🤔

    You should blame them because the AI is not a solution to their problems, it will only create more problems and worsen their current ones.

  • I'm a therapist who works almost exclusively with men. Here one pattern I've seen often:

    • Man is conditioned from a young age not to identify, process or express his feelings
    • Man doesn't share his feelings with anyone - friends, family, partners - for years
    • Man sees woman as safe, caring and validating
    • Man confides in woman only and continues not sharing feelings with others
    • Woman becomes overwhelmed, resentful, dismissive
    • Man gets the message that he never should have opened up in the first place

    It can be true both that men need to open up more and should not treat their partners as therapists. We all need support systems because no one person can always be available to give us everything we need. It's not wrong to confide in a partner, but if that partner is the only confidant it's precarious for both. And I want to emphasize this is not the fault of a man, or men as a community. This is the result of generations of conditioning from both men and women, and both men and women play a part in the solution. I also want to recognize that many of us don't have a network of people we could open up to even if we wanted to, and many more can't afford therapy.

    If anyone reading this can afford therapy, I highly recommend it. It's a place to undo some of that conditioning, to sit with someone who's committed to listening, caring, and not judging.

    man is conditioned from a young age not to show feelings

    I feel like you skipped over this part way too quickly. Myself and other men have been hearing things like "it's not manly to cry", "whining isn't going to do anything for you", "being weak is girly", and countless other things for my entire memorable life

    And it's not just men telling me this. It's men, women, adults, my classmates, teachers and mentors.

    It's not a good thing. And it's changing now, which is so good. But man hearing that from your earliest memories makes it really set in.

  • Probably the closest space any guy could get is AA or NA meetings.

    what do these abbreviations stand for?

    AA = Alcoholics Anonymous

    NA = Narcotics Anonymous

    Both are treatment programs for their respective addictions.

  • Ironically, i am feeling attacked right now..

    If you gave all your personal details and vulnerabilities to a corporation's chatbot then you fucking should feel attacked rn. You know these AI have been in the news for telling people to commit suicide for a while now, right? Either get real professional help or go browse some public discord/matrix channels about your interests to find somebody to voice chat to, fr.

  • You should blame them because the AI is not a solution to their problems, it will only create more problems and worsen their current ones.

    Ok, so the solution to men feeling too scared to open up about their mental health enough to rely on something as unreliable as ChatGPT is for you to victim blame them?

  • What the fuck? Can you read?

    Coping Skills are not gender specific. What a dope.

    You just blamed all his so-called issues on him being a man. The question is can you read your own comment or do you just type out sentences that you yourself don't understand?

  • Ok, so the solution to men feeling too scared to open up about their mental health enough to rely on something as unreliable as ChatGPT is for you to victim blame them?

    If some men thought the solution to loneliness was fucking a toaster I'd think less of them too, yeah. At least find a tool that suits the purpose, talking to the AI is just self harm.

  • This comment section is nuts.

    Men #1 issue is lack of empathy, TOWARDS women. Not each other.

    There's your solution.

    You seem to lack empathy.