Therapy doesn’t fix any of the most pressing issues I have. I’d wager about 85% or more of my stress is economic or environmental in nature. My big three worries are how am I gonna afford a house by myself, how am i going to be able to retire on little money and without kids, and is the envrioment going to lose the ability to sustain human life while I’m still alive and on nothing more than a fixed income.
I don’t need to journal my thoughts and pretend the outside world doesn’t exist, I need some damn material security in my life.
The thing therapy has helped me with in regards to that is feeling okay despite it all. Being content despite not having all of our wants and needs fulfilled is a valuable skill.
Being content despite not having needs met feels like a skill thats more valuable to my boss than me. Nah im gonna get my needs met.
There’s only so much that can be done to meet one’s needs. There will always be wants and needs that go unfulfilled, it’s just the nature of being human. Being able to exist with that, without it causing you extreme distress, is a very valuable coping skill that’s lost in a lot of people.
This doesn’t mean eschew meeting your needs completely, but simply acknowledging that some may be actually impossible to fulfill right now, at least safely, and working on an actual viable plan, instead of panicking and doing whatever short-term fix seems handy.
There will always be wants and needs that go unfulfilled
That’s not what ‘needs’ means.
Im glad working on a viable plan and panicking are mutally exclusive for you, but they’re not for me. This is why my therapist started suggesting I simply stop paying attention to everything outside of my immediate daily view. My brain also failed to make itself happy through that kind of ignorance. Not to mention I couldn’t simply make that information unexists from my day to day social interactions. I was encountering at work what my therapist told me to avoid and since it was word of mouth it was less reliable than if I had just read it myself.
Actual doctors have tried, years have been spent and by the time I stopepd going id been going on about a year of weekly visits where I was no longer being taught anything new, simply checking in and making sure I was doing all the things I already learned. Copays were eating away at my actionable steps to fix the other problems in my life and I was no longer learning anything new or noticing positive behavioral change.
Sounds like a therapist that just didn’t mesh with you. If they’re just doing routine maintenance and not suggesting ways to improve either they’re not suited to your situation, or there’s something else confounding the situation.
You don’t have to completely put on blinders to be content despite being without. You can see all of the things you’re missing, or actively working towards but not at yet, and not be thrust into the middle of an emotional response. This is simply the point of my statement.
Ive been to multiple therapists, usually I switch when I get to the maintainace phase, except the last time when I just decided to save the money all together. This isn’t something that happend in isolation, and like I said last comment literal doctors have also intervened in some of these areangements. Please stop acting like you posses some truth I have yet to find. ‘Emotional response’ or not, having needs going unmet causes mental and physical duress and side effects, necessarily. No matter how happy you pretend to be about it.
I never said they didn’t. And I never said you have to be happy in the face of it. There’s a distinct difference between “content”, the word i used, and “happy”, the word you seem to hear.
Society fuckin sucks for the majority of people, I think we can all agree on that bit. And yet, a lot of people manage contentedness despite these absolute facts.
There exist things outside of our ability to control, directly or otherwise. Often, these things get in the way of our needs. You have 3 options in this case. Give up, ram into it with everything you have and fuckin hope it works, or accept it and find a way to be content despite the roadblocks.
I want to commend you for what you’re doing. It doesn’t feel good, but you must remain effective. You can’t re-align schemas through Internet comments however, don’t burn yourself out.
Hey, man, thanks for the kind words! I enjoy these kinds of conversations, I like to think I’m working towards making the world a better place, no matter how small. If one person resonates with what I’ve said, I feel accomplished.
I think it is worth pointing out that while therapy can certainly help you manage stress better and be more content maybe, if you are truly struggling and falling further behind here in the US, no amount of therapy (which you can’t afford anyway) is going to make you stop being hungry, sleep deprived, heal severe injury or illness, or give your home back. And going without food, sleep, or housing can lead to death.
Those items are a bit trickier for sure. There’s a biological need for them and so they can be pressing. There’s a certain bare minimum that yeah, you can’t just not have. Anything past that, though, past the absolute critical for life level, is something you can learn to be content with, learn to not desire more than, and instead just be thankful for the excess above starvation that you enjoy in this moment.
Yeah that mentality is exactly why things are as bad as they are
What part of that mentality, exactly? Break it down for me.
Being content despite all of it.
We shouldn’t be striving to be “content” we should be livid, pissed, terrified, motivated.
Being content while the world is falling apart is madness and the more people that are “content” means more people unwilling to actually make the changes necessary to fix the problems we have.
Apathy is death.
“content” doesn’t preclude any of that.
“Content” simply means you feel as if you could live life with what you have. It doesn’t mean you can’t WANT more. It doesn’t mean you can’t hate how badly the system is bending you and others over. It’s simply a state of being that is, “at the end of the day, none of this is unbearable. I will continue living, and as such, there’s no need for an extreme emotional response.”
Drive, desire, fight… all of it can exist, and you can still maintain contentedness.
there’s no need for an extreme emotional response.
That’s the part I’m having issues with. There’s very much a need for extreme emotional response.
Idk clearly I’m not picking up what you’re putting down and I apologize for seeming so hostile. I’m just at the point of wanting to commit acts of terror because the people in charge are making protest illegal.
I just don’t see how that’s any different from “it is what it is” in the first place.
UK? Yeah that shit is scary. I am gobsmacked they’re pulling that authoritarian crap.
I’m probably full of shit but here is what I’m thinking. Some things like employers not paying enough and treating employees like shit in various ways-- that is depressing if we are totally helpless. If we can form unions and protest in effective ways, that actually get some reforms going, then it feels like maybe there is some hope.
Content isn’t the right response. Neither is giving up in despair. Being able to channel anger and frustration productively seems lots better.
If you’re lonely for a bit, or some things aren’t going great you can learn to live with that, for now while also working on fixing what you can. Spinning your wheels fretting and self-pitying doesn’t help but taking action does.
Some things will always be outside of my control.
It is probably best to find a way to accept those things. Rather than stewing about them. Because all that does is make me feel worse.
Man, I get it. I’m at that point, too. In a lot of ways society has failed all of us.
Society is also a large vessel that takes lifetimes to change. Essentially, the kind of thing one man can do barely anything about. Not that we shouldn’t try, but… Well, to quote Stephen King, “pray for water, but dig a well while you wait.”
I think the best way to describe it is, if I feel content, it’s a sense of stability within myself - a sense that I’m grounded, and going to get through. Some of my needs right now are going under-fulfilled, but that won’t be eternal. I’m uncomfortable now, but discomfort doesn’t mean I’m in a situation where I should panic and start grasping at the first possible way to fulfill my needs. Instead, I can be comfortable in my discomfort, think about what my needs actually are, and create a plan to fulfill those needs in a more healthy and sustainable manner.
Or in other words, “it is what it is”.
It is what it is, with more steps, some emotional processing, and some self-analysis to find out why it being what it is is so annoying to you, maybe.
If you are content without a need being filled, it does not fit my description of need.
So again you are saying it is what it is
You have needs that go unfulfilled all the time. You’ve never been hungry without any immediate food? Part of being content is being able to go without needs for a certain period of time, being safe in knowing that it ISN’T going to be forever.
This, of course, doesn’t mean you can forego every need forever. Yeah, being without food or water too long can and will kill you, but that doesn’t mean you have to have that need 100% met 100% of the time.
Of note, I’m not saying that people just shouldn’t eat. That’s the kind of need that we as a society should have figured out by now, truly. But going without SOMETIMES okay, and learning that is huge.
That last thought is Maslow’s hierarchy in action.
True. It’s also a good formula for PTSD. When your traumas have to take a back seat to material needs, disorders develop.
What if your needs take a back seat to your trauma? That can’t be good either.
Once you’re aware of the phenom it’s a balance act, but you’re ‘balancing’ what you can afford to deprive yourself of depending on the circumstances.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks.
Therapist: you need to focus less on the things that are outside of your control, and come to accept the fact that there are some things you just can’t change.
Me: crying you mean some things just be what they be?
It do
That’ll be $1.000
Meh, fist-size drywall repair kits are cheaper.
$1,000
(For the US folks)
The few times in my life I’ve been to therapy or counseling on times at very different ages in my life for wildly different reasons, it’s interesting that every single time, it amounted to them nicely asking me to let it go. Just stop letting whatever IT is affect you. Thanks asshole. How is that a fucking career?
Better than my experiences.
Which involved one laughing at me, and telling me to stop being silly and be serious when I was being serious.
and the other one being a christnut that, in their christlike duty, decided to bilk me for a few thousand dollars before telling me I needed to go to church and submit to jesus, because being a godless heathen was why i had my problems.
edit.
Not tryin to gate keep ya or play who has the best misery, to be clear. Just sympathizing.
Where do you live? I’m asking because my experience couldn’t be more different and I’m in Germany.
I’m also a man, went to therapy and my therapist was just fantastic! She could relate to me, gave excellent advice etc., really changed my life for the better.
PS: of course I didn’t have go anything or so, just if I’d miss a session ^^ (in theory, but even 30m late to a 50m session was still fine hehe)
Not the person you asked, but I’m from Spain and I’ve had a fairly similar experience.
Go to therapist.
Therapist says it is what it is.
exactly! this is my experience… that and “you can have drugs to deal with your drug problem if you want.”… i didn’t want and glad i that’s the decision i made. it is what it is
and then… how does that make you feel?
Toxic masculinity and autism makes it hard to open up to loved ones, let alone strangers.
It can be worth it to push through. It might just be for a sanity check. However, often, what is a huge issue to you, is far smaller to others. Once you start breaking it down, with someone who knows what they are doing, the problem ends up a lot smaller than it seemed.
It can be so worth it. Sometimes I’m stressing about this great nebulous cloud of bullshit that just seems insurmountable and existential, but then when I explain it to someone, it’s like… 3 things. And yeah, those things may legitimately be a source of stress, but knowing that they are finite and number, and probably solvable, makes daily life a lot less daunting.
It can also be a cliff you just jumped off
Why have 3 mental health and no monies, when I can have no mental health and 3 monies!? taps head
i genuinely hate that phrase, it’s usually used by people to get you to stop complaining about a valid issue
I know a female supervisor that uses it daily to demean her employee’s valid concerns and needs. She was nicknamed The Witch and she has witch paraphernalia and decorations all over her office. She knows how far she can push and abuse people without raising any alarms to the executive staff.
I mean, that’s pretty much exactly what all three of my therapists told me
Psychologists after the pandemic: that’ll be $250 AUD out of pocket after the Medicare rebate.
Me: Yeah I’d rather be depressed and anxious than pay that once every 2 weeks thanks 👍
https://openpathcollective.org/ provides a long list of therapists that work on an affordable, sliding scale. I know it’s just a meme, but if you think you would benefit in any way, please seek support for your mental health
‘So it goes’.
getting Ray Bradbury vibes from this comment
You might misremembering it, as it’s more akin to Kurt Vonegut. This phrase is frequently used in his Slaughterhouse-Five, one of my favorite pieces of fiction.
Dang, I was misremembering it. It’s been a while since I read Slaughterhouse 5
No problem, really. Even better, reading it now can bring you even better experience and understanding of these themes. I didn’t have it in my school’s curriculum and I read it in my 20s, and I don’t believe I’ve exhausted it at that time in my life. There’s something magic sense in his prose I do feel I won’t find until I have me hairs completely gray. So I find it perfectly okay to reread it and maybe find new thoughts you haven’t got before to enrich thyself. See if you can give it a chance. In some contexts it just huts different.
Shrug.
It is what it is.
It’s better to fix problems by ourselves than give money to therapist and pretend it’s helping.
I’ll be right…
I’m going to my second session in a few hours :)
After a few years in jobs where violence is expected and treated as “bad ass”, I’m finally seeing how my exposure to it has frayed my sense of self.
