I’ve told you on more than one occasion that your pain matters — of course it does. Everyone’s pain matters. But you’ve built your entire identity around yours and wear it like a second skin. You’ve made it your avatar on Medium and in life. That doesn’t serve you or anyone else, for that matter. It doesn’t help you and it doesn’t change anything.

I work with heterosexual males all the time in my life coaching practice — not as many as I do women because most men are reluctant to take themselves on in that way. But when they do, I care about their problems and I help them to figure out how they want to move through them. And no, I don’t tell them what to do from my perspective, or a feminist perspective or whatever else you were thinking of asserting. I help them find their own way forward in the way that works for them. I’m a facilitator, not an advisor. But part of facilitating people’s forward movement is to help them see how they are standing in their own way. We are all our own worst enemies, but loving your pain like you do really takes the cake!