The Vulnerable Victim

This is for everyone…but mainly the lads.

Fellas…we swung too far.

Men used to say nothing. We buried everything.

Grief, shame, fear. We hid behind humour or silence. Ignored the signs of rot until it spilt over. And when it did, it was ugly. Domestic violence. Substance abuse. And in many cases death. I don’t need stats. I speak from a lived experience as a man and as a witness to what happens when it goes untreated.

Then came the correction.

The era of “It’s okay to talk about your feelings.” For a moment, it helped. We saw a lot of men growing as fathers, partners and friends. For a period there, we saw men reach out when they were struggling. It didn’t happen overnight, but it was happening. And it seemed it was on the right track.

But then it happened: We overcorrected.

Suddenly everyone was talking. Too much. Trauma dumping on anyone who would give them the time of day. Suddenly cameras were rolling next to rolling tears…with cinematic lighting and captions just in case you couldn’t hear the sad story behind the sobs. We went from Silence to Performance. Bottling up to Broadcasting. Stoic to Spectacle.

Brave to Bitch.

The pendulum didn’t land in balance. It swung too far and slammed into another wall.

The Slide

When someone opens up…there’s this delicate balance. Vulnerability requires acknowledging hurt without camping out in helplessness. But it’s easy to slide from “I’m sharing a pain to find a solution” into “my trauma explains why I can’t get up .”

What makes the line so thin is that both start from the same place: A real wound or difficulty. The divergence happens in what comes next:

Vulnerability says: “I’m struggling. I need support” and leaves room for possibility.

Victim mindset says: “This is hard. I’m powerless. Others must fix it. The world must accommodate it indefinitely.”

The Shift

Most men don’t realise how quick the shift happens. You start by opening up and talking about what’s been sitting in your chest for years. But after a few understanding nods and sighs of sympathy , you start bathing in it. Every sentence becomes, “because of what I went through.” Before long, you’re constantly seeking your next dopamine hit of pity.

You can talk about your scars. Just don’t start worshiping them and using them as beacons for attention.

The Act

You don’t have to record your pain to prove you’re human. You don’t need to explain your struggle in poetic captions. Sometimes the most masculine thing you can do is:

Shut up. Feel it. Process it. Fix it.

It doesn’t need a hashtag, and it doesn’t need to be filmed. It doesn’t need subtitles, audio or lights. Stop lying about trying to help others who may be going through something similar. You’re marketing and weaponising trauma knowing damn well there’s a market of consumers you can exploit.

The Company you Keep

People around us can push it one way or another too.

Some will hold space for you to share without shame while offering the truths to help you move forward. They’ll help you to your feet as you build resilience without ridicule.

But others will either enable your feelings of helplessness or expose your pain for their own vanity. That desperate need to belong and be heard will often blind you to the truth.

The Way

In general, I do not trust people who whinge. I especially don’t trust men who whinge. It is arguably the most disgusting trait a man can have. Is this toxic ? I have zero fucks to offer, and I am unapologetically ten toes deep on this hill.

The average person today is out of shape, emotionally unstable and morally compromised. Evidence? Easy eye test will prove this. Accountability is a superpower. Ask someone how their day is going, pull out the popcorn, pull up a chair and set aside 30min. A socially handicapped population of entitlement. We went from one extreme to the other.

Should we revert back to the days of old where we buried feelings? No. We’ve seen the results and they’re as ugly as the ones we’re seeing today. Do we continue down the path of oversharing? No because now we have a society of bad times created by weak men.

Stop treating your pain as content and start treating it as fuel.

Open up but don’t open shop.

The goal should be integration: Feeling deeply without drowning. Sharing honestly without performing. Acknowledging wounds without making them your whole identity.

Vulnerability doesn’t ask for pity. It doesn’t demand accommodation, and it doesn’t excuse inaction.

It simply says: “This is where I am. This is what I’m working with. And I’m still moving forward.”

Do the work off camera before sharing the lessons online. Offer value through solutions instead of begging for validation through likes. Stop seeking scapegoats for your inability to own your bullshit. Get off the merry-go-round of pity.

That’s literally it.

A line.

Cross it intentionally.