this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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Mental Health
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Mental health care and psychiatrics are traditionally rationed for the professional managerial class anyway.
"Take your SSRIs and exorcise your guilt at doing this soul-sucking job to a professional anxiety reliever" is for rich people.
"Take your weed gummies/cheap booze and watch enjoy some AI-generated wish fulfillment slop" is for poor people.
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In my experience therapy is something my therapist and I do together. My therapist isn't giving me water. The two of us together are finding water that was always there.
I've had the same experience, therapy is about teaching a man to fish not giving a man a fish
Well, all the fishing knowledge in the world won't help when the fish are all gone.
Taught to catch fish but all that's left are crabs
A therapist is not here to help you, they are here to help you help yourself. You cannot expect someone who you see once a week to fix your life, only you can do that.
hi, i have problems in the most complicated organ in all of existence that I have accumulated for my entire life, complicating it every day for the past 20 years. I'd like you to press the off switch for it please.
what do you mean there is no switch? WHAT A SCAM
I don't think ill of therapists, but the fact so many issues come down to money doesn't endear me to the idea of therapy needing to take another chunk of it for dubious gains until you find the right therapist for you, and possibly even after that. Again, blame the system, not people, but hearing folks tell me I must pay people to fix me as the system grinds onward is tiring.
Been in therapy quite a bit for most of the last 8 years. I just canceled my future appointments because I'm actually doing OK at the moment, but I've seen the toll the last few months have taken on my therapist (since the election) despite her best efforts to hide it. I feel terrible for these wonderful people that help shoulder the burdens of others. They are the shock troops bearing the brunt of defense in the current culture war.
My wife is a mental health therapist. It is a very high turnover job due to the emotional toll it takes on them. For the good therapists it's not something they can do indefinitely. It's also not as high paying as many seem to think. The majority of the money goes to insurance and then insurance a lot of times strings them along and it can take months sometimes to actually get money from insurance.
Thank her for me. I don't know how they do it. I talked to my therapist about my fear of causing her emotional distress working with me through my issues, and she assured me that where she is, they have plenty of resources to get their own help when they need it. But that doesn't mean it isn't hard as hell on them.
I will. I can't speak for your therapists situation, but not all of them have access to necessary resources. There are all too many companies/orgs/whatever out there who see mental health as just a cash grab and hire therapists in and trap them financially and professionally (for lack of better description) into holes they can't get out of. Not saying all of them obviously. Just be sure to check out the company thoroughly. A lot of them have some of the same worries and traumas you do, and honestly a simple thank you goes way further than you think. It happens far less frequently than you think and I know my wife always gets a boost when she hears a simple thank you or saying how much help she has given.
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I should add “as a therapist in the US.” I have a lot of gay and trans clients, and it’s… bleak.
I know I should go to therapy but then I feel bad burdening a therapist with things like, "I'm so angry that the only thing that helps me sleep is imagining the entire current administration getting hit by a very localized meteor," because like, this shit is too big and we all have our coping mechanisms, right? At least mine isn't substance abuse or self harm.
Oh, I encourage my clients to imagine stuff like that if it helps. Totally valid way to cope.
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I see a therapist who mostly specializes in trans and queer clients (and is non-binary themselves). This last session was a worry fest of my anxieties and them going "honestly? Same" so it was validating, but I'm not sure how much therapizing we got in, lol. Not to say they don't do a good job, just like, there's only so much y'all can say or do right now.
And we're not even American so I cannot imagine. Hang in there.
it's still good to know you're not alone and your concerns are valid, and even warranted. you're not crazy.
My sister is trans and getting all of her forms of ID because she's 18 (and needs a job), and we lost it in a move across the country. I have to be there along with two other people to prove she's a person. She just wants to exist like anyone else, and people are shitting on her because she's a girl. I want to strangle the world.
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lol there's definitely a few clients like that. how many of them are holding the kerosene?
How many of them have to swim through kerosene uphill both ways to clock their time at the kerosene factory so they can afford to have a little food and a kerosene-soaked roof over their heads?
cues the Monty Python Yorkshiremen skit
Completely vulnerable moment
As a person long overdue to get some mental help. I've been really motivated to get myself better since early last year. Had some events happen where I was like, yeah I need to handle my shit.
I'll say the process so far is my biggest hurdle. Took ages to get a referral, once I got the referral took ages to get seen. When I finally was seen it was the wrong fit. Now I'm waiting until next week to start again and push for different referrals, all so my insurance covers some of it (maybe).
Meanwhile I'm doing the best I can, but certainly think about just throwing in the towel and drowning myself in drugs again. Which worked a long time until it really really didn't work. But the thought of finally getting my foot in the door to spend months and thousands trying to even find a root cause just feels utterly pointless. Also now raw dogging life without anything to dull it but some doctor prescribed sleeping pills is challenging to say the least.
Still the worst part is explaining the laundry list of my past trauma to strangers just to get them up to speed. Hopefully to help pinpoint where I need to focus my efforts on getting better. Last fellow just had to say "well you made it this far and seem to be doing better than most of my patients". Essentially call me back when you have a full blown meltdown, because I only deal with extremes. That shit was deflating, sorry for being proactive and trying to get help before I get committed somewhere?
I've spent a really long time keeping my issues in check, I've become very good at what to say or not say that is bouncing around my skull. Now that I can't do it anymore it seems to throw a lot of people for a loop.
Anyhow feels like some sort of shitty race to see if my mind breaks first or I get help before that happens. Than when I do get to the right step 1 there will be this slow trial and error I need to go through. Which I completely understand is necessary, but it's not giving me much hope.
That person on fire is probably like that because the healthcare system just kept dosing it with gasoline before they stepped foot in the office.
Idk if it will make you feel any better, but you're not alone. I have a few people in my life who struggle the same as you are, and it emotionally fucks with me. As someone who is somewhat put together myself, to see these people I care about genuinely try to get help and do the right thing to get better - all to be mistreated and counted as another number hurts so bad. I can see it in their tear soaked eyes, and I can hear it in their cries and desperate pleas for help that they feel so helpless and feel like nothing is working no matter how hard they try. I try to listen, to comfort, and to maybe give advice and motivation to keep trying, but it's all so hard.
The mental health care system in the u.s. is abysmal, it's gut-wrenchingly bad. It fails people every day. Every day people relapse because they feel like it's the only way to cope with whatever it is they're dealing with. I wish I could help more people, I wish I could help you all.
Thanks it helps.
Just started with a therapist after a decade or two of mistrust in them, and yeah, getting them up to speed on all your past and trauma is time consuming, especially when you only get an hour a week to walk through your life story and try to get techniques that help you feel less like shit.
i feel this so much.
i have a referral on the table to begin sessions with a new therapist and have been putting off making the appointment because of the tedium of "getting it all out there" only to find out months from now that (for whatever reason) it was a wasted effort.
i honestly don't know what progress would look like. does it make sense for me to get my expectations in order before making the appointment?... or should i just jump in?
I feel like this the blind leading the blind. But I settled on trying to push for a psych evaluation instead of jumping into sessions. I've also been journaling my mental state and sleep daily, so I can be prepared this time. Roughest thing I did was physically writing out my past trauma/history, but figured I'd have that on hand too so I had a checklist of things I can remember to talk about. Maybe disconnect it when I talk about it.
Figure with all that at least I can get a baseline opinion out of it and if I don't like the person this time I have some actionable items I can plug in for people that specialize in what might crop up.
My issues though are not clear so I'm just struggling to find the right path. I hope you keep at it, just as much as I do.
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I'm reminded of the scene in Office Space where Peter goes to his therapist to "transfer" his negative energy, and the therapist has a heart attack on the spot.
Peter is my spirit animal.
Hypnotist iirc, but still relevant
...that will be $300 thank you.
If you've been burnt to a crisp, even that tiny splash of water can feel like finding an oasis in the desert.
Thank you for your service.
That’s great to know! And thank you.
Looks like you need a psychologist to put out the fire then go to the therapist to tame any random flare ups.
I went for years of therapy and they would take the dropper and miss me completely. I don't know what the fuck I did but this angel dropped out of heaven claiming to be part of my benefits and started checking in on me every week to help orginize my healthcare needs. She got me in therapy, then got me to a psychologist. The psychologist was able to treat me within a few sessions and everything got easier.
I honestly could never get the therapist part to work, I don't really need someone to give me advise. I need someone to make me feel sane and stand me back up. I haven't found that yet.
As for the angel, she found a new job, passed me off, and the new guy wasn't as concerned with me.
I don't know, really it was the work of that random benefits person that saved me. It's so overwhelming to have suicidal idealation and constant anxiety/panic attacks and then have to deal with a broken healthcare system. What ever that fuckkng service was I cannot praise it enough.
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