181 points

Sounds like a form of therapy in and of itself.

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98 points

Sharing your enjoyment with others. Work you can take pride in. Preserving history. Sounds pretty great for mental health.

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51 points

And probably cheaper.

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14 points

I can guarantee it’s not cheaper

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21 points

Depends on if you’re in America, or a real first world country.

One won’t be cheaper, the other has a high likelihood of being cheaper.

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4 points

Yeah, restorations aren’t cheap, and the bigger the parts get, the more expensive they get. And it’s not like you can hit up ye olde fireboxes-r-us anymore.

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4 points

steam equipment is definitely not cheaper than therapy, you get a cracked cylinder? Better hope you have literal tons of iron/steel sitting around, and or something/someone to pay for it, as well as someone to machine it, because none of that exists anymore.

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33 points

Yeah, I was gonna say that these men DID go to therapy.

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16 points
*

That was my thought.

Men got themselves a hobby they enjoy, and gets to share with others. Two amazing things for someones overall mental health. Sounds like someone living the dream.

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8 points

Yeah, most people today meed therapy because they feel isolated from their work, unappreciated, and are stressed about finances. A hobby where you work towards a common goal with no real world consequences is what most people need in their life right now. ~~~~

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5 points
1 point

Honestly, if you think about it, therapy did kind of replace the support structures formed in tight knit communities…

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91 points

OR, they’ve already been through therapy and found some decent medication, and are keenly aware that personally enjoyable hobbies are an essential part of self care.

Not that I know anything about that.

  • throws food into back yard koi pond *
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9 points

I want a koi pond to use their poop to fertilize my gardens, any tips or resources for a newbie?

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4 points
4 points

I have no information to offer. I just want to say that koi ponds are beautiful, and I wish you the best of luck.

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1 point
*

Oh boy, where to start. I’d say first, read up on the nitrogen cycle because that’s the most important part of filtration. Read up on KH (carbonate hardness too).

Then make sure you’re going to have more filtration than you need.

When designing the pond, keep predators in mind. I’m a fan of making the sides go straight down, and having the whole pond be deep. No places to walk into the water.

Plus, that kind of design means more water volume. More water volume means either more fish, or more stable water parameters and more room to grow. And along the same lines, build it to be as big as will fit! It’s a big cliche in the hobby that it’s never big enough, and here I am this year upgrading my ~3000 gal pond that’s 30” deep, to 6000+ gallons and about 5 feet deep.

If you install a bottom drain in the pond (recommended) gravity fed to a settling tank before it gets to the pump, you could vacuum all the fish poop out of that and get the majority of it very easily.

For the pond liner, you want 45 mil EPDM rubber. It is kind of expensive, but it is the standard for a reason.

And that’s not all the information obviously, but I think I’ve run out of steam, lol. I enjoy spreading the love with this hobby though, so please message me with future questions.

Edit to add: look up photos of bogs for ponds. They can be part of your filtration, but you can also plant a bunch of plants in it and the ones that can handle the wet roots will grow like crazy, eating nitrates and other nutrients directly from the water.

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67 points

Why would someone assume these people needed therapy in the first place?

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-27 points
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because men are bad, and women are good.

and the only way for men to get good is to spend $1000s of dollars talking to therapists, who are predominantly women.

or maybe… the apparatus of therapy is woman-biased and therefore it negates and legitimatizes men’s emotions and their expression. and the positive things men do in the world with their emotions must be shame and ridicule because they should submit to our belief that talk-therapy is the only legitimate form of emotional outlet…

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9 points

You can flip that around and suggest that it’s normal and accepted for men to put effort into a hobby as a mental release, and this should be perfectly fine for women as well, but sometimes it’s not amd they are in the past seen as weird, abnormal, or hysterical for having interests.

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20 points

But it isn’t normal and accepted for men to put effort into a hobby? It is common and clichéd to mock men endlessly for their interests? Like in this very post?

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2 points

amd they are in the past seen as weird, abnormal, or hysterical for having interests.

I don’t think it’s ever been considered more weird, abnormal, or hysterical to crotchet as a gal than it has been to build bottle ships for guys. That is, sure, there’s been lots of BS around the type of hobby, it not being “gender-adequate”, but women not allowed to have hobbies? At all? What? Being too poor to have hobbies, sure, but that again is not a gendered thing.

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7 points

Ok buddy, I think you pushed it a bit too far…

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5 points

Would’ve been more productive to keep it at “male depression and anxiety is underdiagnosed”, maybe also say “because therapists only learn about female-pattern symptoms”, YMMV on that being pushing a bit too far.

I will not comment on comments talking about men’s mental health getting downvoted in a post about men’s mental health and, should a definite pattern emerge, let that speak for itself.

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4 points

You realize you can just get a male therapist right?

They do exist and a lot of them will relate to male emotional expression where it isn’t just outright toxic.

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-33 points
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The vast, vast majority of men (in the US, can’t speak to other cultures) need therapy. Just getting over internalized phobias is something the entire culture needs. Really, everyone needs therapy at some point and very few have a chance to get it, and fewer take it.

But in regards to this meme: men tend to need therapy more. The patriarchy (what society pushes as male “culture”) heavily represses emotional expressions and few men have an outlet to talk to their friends or family about their feelings. This leads to a lot of repressed emotions, lashing out, etc.

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42 points

These guys are not lashing out, though. There is no discernable connection between somebody taking an interest in trains and avoiding therapy lol

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-16 points

I think they’re lashing out. Coal is very harmful to the environment and to other people. They should pick a less violent hobby.

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-18 points

the disconnection is that they are spending money on trains, not on therapists.

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-23 points
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It’s impossible to tell. But my statement that pretty much everyone needs therapy, especially men, still stands.

That and it’s a joke meme not a personal attack. Because often men do engage in distractions instead of dealing with their feelings. Everyone does, but men have less-encouraged avenues to pursue dealing with it. This is meant to convey that many men are disadvantaged at dealing with issues, know the solution, but still refuse to try to fix it. It’s a common enough occurrence that this is a meme.

Edit: lol. Lemmy is really full of insecure men.

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15 points
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Really, everyone needs therapy at some point

What we need is a society and environment that aligns with human nature.
Yes, I’m in therapy and I take meds. But I sure as fuck didn’t need any therapy and meds during the 6 months I worked as a hiking and horseback riding guide in a Provincial Park in British Columbia.

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3 points

Agreed. Most of us need therapy because we are in an aggressively hostile society. In a humane society, we’d only rarely need therapy when traumatic and rare events occurred, or similar instances.

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2 points
Deleted by creator
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2 points

i think it’s less that men need therapy, though older men, particularly those above 30 probably do, the problem with young men right now is not therapy, it’s a lack of societal engagement from them, presumably because society doesn’t really know what to do with them, or doesn’t really understand how to deal with shifting tides.

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2 points
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the problem isn’t engagement, it’s the lack of the fulfillment of the social contract.

what is the point in engaging for them if they aren’t going to be rewarded with good jobs, homes, families, and a sense of progress and security? there isn’t any. so they give up. at least the bottom half do. For the top quartile of men, those things are still on offer.

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58 points

As a mental health worker, if a client got involved with something like this, I’d be thrilled. This sounds like it provides purpose and community to all involved. Good for them!

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29 points
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Deleted by creator
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10 points

I actually agree with you in many aspects. Something new that is being taught in therapy training is that we have to be aware of systemic issues that are contributing to someone’s mental health.

Example: someone is suicidal and feeling hopeless. Do they have clinical major depressive disorder? Maybe, but if we ask “how are your finances doing?” And they say they work full time at Walmart and get paid $10 per hour and have 3 kids… Yeah it makes sense why they feel helpless and suicidal.

For this reason, therapists and mental health workers have a duty to advocate for progressive social policies.

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7 points
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It would be like if were constantly maiming and injuring people and saying the problem was not enough people going to physical therapy.

In that I kind of agree with you. Many problems can be traced back to societal issues. Hell is other people. That’s why we need to do better.
Sending those, damaged by society, to therapy is necessary, but we wouldn’t be there if several root causes wouldn’t exist.

Like if we just took blackrock’s real estate and put homeless people in it the mental health crisis would just be like 80% solved. I’m not even kidding.

Oversimplification, imo. But this is surely a contributing factor.

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3 points

In one of my psych courses the professor noted a study (not sure of the source, this was closing in on twenty years ago now) that while psychotherapy had pretty good efficacy for certain things, it was equivalent with “talk openly with your friends about it” in most metrics. A therapist is great for providing specific strategies to address particular challenges (for issues like PTSD, for example, a therapist can help to manage an exposure therapy approach) but after a point you’re kinda just paying through the nose for somebody to professionally emulate you having a healthy friendship with a well-adjusted person.

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54 points

That is therapy

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41 points
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Doing something you enjoy ✅

Doing something with a community ✅

Doing something different to your normal routine ✅

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9 points

therapy is anything you want it to be. there are 100s of styles, varieties, and etc.

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3 points

therapy is whatever makes life worth living, in a broad sense, in a more narrow sense it’s whatever improves your being day to day.

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4 points

and according to some folks in this thread the only thing making life worth living is seeing a therapist… and you can’t possibly be well adjusted if you don’t.

that is what we call ‘projection’.

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3 points

I’ve witnessed these old boys hanging out tinkering and chatting. The best kind of therapy.

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0 points

That is a hobby. A lovely one, but still a hobby. That is not therapy.

I’m not saying you can’t gain insights into yourself or situations while doing that. It can most definitely help and be therapeutic. But therapy it is not

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0 points
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No offense to you, but I definitely don’t think this will address quite a few things that therapy can.

If all you are suffering from is a lack of direction in life, then this absolutely will help. You could even see improvements in social anxiety and social aptitude.

Anger problems, though? Alexithymia? Chronic episodes of mental dissociation? I don’t think working on the train crew’s gonna help

At the same time, It’s definitely been conjected that therapy is mostly woman-focused and isn’t as effective for men for various reasons. That kind of lines up with a few of my previous therapists, who felt like worthless experiences for me. I have heard of some new therapy styles implemented in certain places, though, that do sound to be genuinely helpful to dudes.

Edit: “social anxiety and social anxiety” woops

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2 points
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You make a decent point and illustrate by your “woman-focused” that there is a decided lack of professional therapists geared to male issues. This is why we have learned to find inner peace through creative activities. It lets us focus on the task instead of stewing on things over which we have little if any effect or control

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0 points
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I think most men have not learned to find inner peace and still suffer from closeted issues. The rate of suicide amongst men is still so high. There’s definitely a bias we dudes who find hobby communities, where we assume that most dudes have found these spaces. I’d argue most dudes in the US are still suffering from isolation.

I don’t think the fact that many therapists are ‘woman-focused’ is a reason to avoid therapy. You can still find a therapist that really helps. It may just take several tries. As I also mentioned, there are efforts to create methods that are more effective for men, and you can seek out those groups as well.

There is also still a strong stigma against seeking therapy, and I definitely see that argument about therapy being ‘woman-focused’ being thrown out as an excuse not to try therapy at all.

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