jaythearrowace:

maraudere:

Josh Thomas talks about male suicide

My mum always yelled at us crying when we were younger, to the point where my younger brother wouldn’t cry even if he was hurt. Because boys don’t cry.

She always forces societies standards on us, and this was a major one: she didn’t want us to express emotion. Because boys don’t cry.

Then when I first went on the internet and seen some sad stories, I seen the comments and people said they cried. I thought they were exaggerating. Because boys don’t cry.

Then I seen more and more stuff like this and how people were crying. I thought they were crybabies. Because boys don’t cry.

Later, I started making internet friends. They shared some posts and said “I cried when reading this.” I thought they were just trying to make a point. Because boys don’t cry.

When I joined this site and I saw the “boys are taught from a young age to not cry” post I researched into it. Surely it wasn’t something I was taught, wasn’t it? You can’t teach someone to bottle up emotions? Because boys don’t cry.

I researched into it more. It was my mum. Constantly denying us the right to express our feelings. Making me bottle all my anger up and explode over the smallest little thing. Because boys don’t cry.

I was taught all my life to never cry except in extreme circumstances, such as close family passing away. That has caused me to bottle up my anger and sadness and release it all at once over the most trivial things. No pizza left? I’m not speaking to anyone and I’ll respond with death stares for the next week. Forgot to charge my phone? We’re not leaving the house. Also I’m going to start yelling at everything and getting mad and frustrated for a while. But never crying. Because boys don’t cry.

And no, I didn’t cry while writing this post. I couldn’t. I’ve been so harmed by that small statement, even writing about being unable to cry doesn’t help. Boys should be able to cry but we can’t. We are literally unable to, thanks to our upbringing.