Category: masculinity

The Unmasking of a Highly Sensitive Person

“GET YOUR GLOVE ON THE GROUND!” This was the refrain from my little league coach. At 12, I had just spent my first year in school, in the small town my parents had moved us to. During my brief number of years, I had lived and breathed baseball. Nobody needed to tell me to make sure my mitt was touching the dirt, when fielding a groundball. You have to keep the ball in front of you. It’s a fundamental rule. That day, however, I had let a string of five or six grounders go between my legs, to the aggravation of my coach. The more I told myself not to let the next one through, the more anxious I became. Eventually, I lost my composure and just started crying. I had tried to hold it back, but the harder I tried, the more difficult it became.

In retrospect, this is the first time I remember being confronted with an undeniable truth; I was a sensitive person. I spent the next 30 years trying to change what I, and apparently others, believed was a fault. I was too sensitive, especially for a guy. I did not like the fact that I felt deeply about some situations and struggled in environments that my peers did not seem to struggle with. I wasn’t about to tell anyone about how I cried when I watched the movie E.T. There was no way anyone would know how devastated I had become when I first experienced a broken heart in high school. As a police officer, how could I tell my peers that sometimes at the end of my shift, I would just sit in a dark room and cry until my body physically prevented me from going on. I didn’t let on that I couldn’t stand to look at photos of crime scenes or autopsies, at the risk of becoming sick to my stomach, not with disgust, but with empathy. I was battling what we now know as the Toughness Myth. 

In 2014, I stumbled upon the book The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron. While reading it, I immediately identified with nearly every indicator of a highly sensitive person. I struggled with receiving critical feedback. I became overwhelmed in certain environments. I took on the feelings of the people around me. I was easily moved by emotion. All of the characteristics I had come to believe were my faults or defects, were listed out right in front of me, clear as day. I was hopeful that the book would give me suggestions on how I could become less sensitive. If I had the right tools, I could surely learn to stop taking things so personally. After finishing the book, I was initially disappointed because it offered no practical ideas on how to stop being sensitive. It seemed as if this trait was simply a part of who I was. However, there was some comfort in hearing that about 20 to 30 percent of the world’s population are also classified as highly sensitive. 

Unfortunately, knowing that I was highly sensitive provided me little solace. I still felt compelled to mask my sensitivity, due to the Toughness Myth. In 2015, I left public service to start working in the private sector. Part of me thought that leaving the world of law enforcement and child welfare behind, the Toughness Myth would be less prevalent. I was mistaken. When receiving feedback from my leaders or peers, it all centered on one central point. I could become too emotional. I tried to explain that when I felt deeply about something, it could come across as being possibly confrontational, when in fact it was just deep feelings about things that others may not feel deeply about. Unfortunately, the more my motives were misunderstood, the more frustrated I would become. It seemed that trying to tell people about my high sensitivity was actually having the opposite effect. This, in turn, caused me to keep my sensitivity hidden safely away from all but those closest to me. Knowing that my sensitivity was something I could not change did little to prevent me from continuing to see it as a fault and a liability. 

Fortunately, I am a man of self-reflection. I have a rich and vibrant inner world of thought that I use to navigate the world. It’s no surprise that this is also a trait of highly sensitive people. I started learning more about highly sensitive people. I put a name to the Toughness Myth. I began to take the advice of other highly sensitive people and stop trying to change the fact that I was sensitive, unable to do so any more than I could change my height. I’ve come to recognize that the very trait that has caused me so much frustration in the past, is also responsible for some of my greatest gifts. The same sensitivity that causes me to dislike many stereotypical male endeavors (e.g. violent movies and extremely violent sports) is responsible for my ability to empathize with others so easily. My deep feelings about fairness, that others perceive as me being overly emotional, are what has allowed me to connect with those I’ve led, so effectively. That same sensitivity has allowed me to see beauty in the world, when others may only see chaos. I feel deeply, and that’s just who I am. 

So, why am I sharing this information with you? There’s no one, singular reason. It is partly due to the desire for people to better understand me, and other highly sensitive people. It also offers me the opportunity to reach other highly sensitive people, with a message of hope. After all, it’s likely that 1 in 3 people who read this are also highly sensitive people, whether they realize it or not. It is equally as likely for men to be highly sensitive as it is for women, breaking another leg of the Toughness Myth. And of course, with most of my writing, it serves as a cathartic experience for me. This is the next step in the acceptance of my sensitivity.

So there it is. The mask is off. I am a highly sensitive person. It is not a character defect. It is, like with all other natural gifts, imperfect. Of course, it is not superior to other gifts people may have. Being highly sensitive is no better or worse than what would be classified as a “normal” level of sensitivity. It is simply a part of who I am and how I experience the world, as is the fact that I’m an introvert and that I have fair skin. It is responsible for my appreciation of nature and all things beautiful. Some people may not understand the concept, whether because of the Toughness Myth or lack of a frame of reference due to their own level of sensitivity. But it should not be squirreled away. The world needs more sensitivity, not less; and I am here for it.

What Makes A Man A Man?- Separating Myths Of Masculinity From Societal Responsibilities

What makes a man a man?  Wow, is that a loaded question.  It’s a question I’ve been exploring for many years now.  In that search, I’ve come to a few basic conclusions.

  • Gender is a human-made social construct, different than the sexual classification of human beings based on the reproductive organs they are born with.  In essence, gender and all of its verbiage (eg. man or woman) are fluid and largely self-prescribed, influenced heavily by social stereotypical classifications. Whether you were born with male or female (or both) reproductive organs are a static classification.
  • Because gender is based on societal definitions and society changes, there is no definitive set of criteria to answer the question of what makes a man a man.  At best, we have grossly ambiguous and unwieldy ideas of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman.
  • Human beings who lean towards more definitive, concrete thought processes often will struggle with the ambiguity associated with some societal constructs like gender.
  • I’ve discovered that the essence of being a man is not exclusive to being masculine.  It is universal and applies across all humankind.

Perhaps this would be a good time to point out that I am not an expert anything relevant to the world.  These are my conclusions and I own them.  I also own that I have been wrong about a lot of things in life.  Facts have been known to change my mind, and I’m certainly not done learning in this life.  These are my observations and you’re more than welcome to disagree with them.  You’re more than welcome to help me learn and keep me on my toes.

With that admonition, let me expand just a bit on my bulleted observations above.  I identify as a man.  I am a male.  I am confident that there are both biological and societal influences that factor in my self-identification as a man.  Others classify me as a man as well, as I have presented myself this way in the world.

Though I am a man, I don’t like or embrace everything society has prescribed as masculine stereotypes.  While I love sports and barbequing meat, you won’t catch me working on a car or framing a new addition to my house.  I have the physical finesse of a giant lumberjack, relying on brute force as a means to an end, yet I thoroughly enjoy the theater. All of these attributes are integral to what makes me uniquely me, yet they have a loose relationship with my identification as a man.  Just because I enjoy the scent of fine leather, the warmth of dark mahogany woods and other masculine accouterments doesn’t make me a man.  In fact, all of the attributes I’ve described could just as easily be shared by a 10-year-old boy or girl.

All of this has led me to the conclusion that what makes a man a man (or a woman a woman) has far more to do with maturity and fulfilling social responsibilities than it does with the identification with masculine attributes.  To be a man (or a woman), one must be accountable to each other and must strive for alignment between their words and their actions.  They must care for the people in their lives and be good stewards of the world around them.  These attributes are neither masculine nor feminine.  They are merely human.

I am not ashamed of my masculinity.  In fact, I embrace it.  I’m comfortable with it, even if I don’t embrace all of the attributes generally classified as masculine.  I also appreciate my traits that society has classified as feminine in nature.  My ability to be a nurturer or to enjoy a classic Jane Austen novel is not in conflict with my identity as a man.  It is a compliment to it.  I’ll write about masculinity as the dark side that can accompany some of those attributes.  But these attributes have little to do with me being a man.

These are my observations as I enjoy my 47th trip around this sun.  As I continue to evolve and learn, I can predict that my observations in the future will also evolve.  That is what learning is of course.  Maybe with your help, we can learn together.  Maybe some of these words will resonate with you.  Maybe grand and important dialogue will come as a result of this exploration together.