Ask Lemmy

I was told by many family members that I need to go to therapy. I suffer from severe fatigue due to my many medical conditions, so I must obviously be depressed (???). I felt fine, but I went anyway, because surely something must be wrong if so many people are insisting.

The therapist started with, "what brings you here?" and I'm like "I don't know, my partner talked me into it." We actually had a decent discussion come out of that. Turns out that my (now ex) partner was controlling and abusive, and the problem wasn't with me at all. I didn't see it because it's apparently really hard to notice such things from the inside, but it's obvious in hindsight.

Leaving my ex improved my mental health tremendously, but probably not in the way my ex wanted. Still tired all the time, but now I'm happier about it, more confident, and actually like myself, without all the constant negging and abuse.

So I guess the moral is, even if you feel fine, therapy can still be helpful in unexpected ways.

It feels like an over correction. Therapy has been long since been badly stigmatised and people realise how much it can help. If someone feels therapy will help then that's great. But it's not a magical solution to every problem. And even if therapy is helping you, you need to do 90%of the work on yourself and therapy helps you untagle the last 10% that's too difficult to handle on your own.

Therapy isn’t for negative emotions. It’s for poor reactions to negative emotions.

If you’re told to go to therapy for “every negative emotion you have” it sounds like there’s more going on here than you just having them.

Sounds like something you should talk over with a therapist.

People don’t see your emotions. They see your behavior. They hear what you say, observe your actions and reactions, and from that they decide if they want to suggest therapy or not.

I don’t know if you need therapy or not because I’ve never met you in person. But if a large number of people you encounter suggest you seek out a therapist, it’s not because of anything you felt. It’s because of something you said or did. And you may be wise to reflect on those moments when they happen.

Negative emotions are human but some people need help to learn to handle them in healthy ways.

Therapy isn’t “just for negative emotions” in the same way the doctor isn’t just for dealing with the occasional common cold.

If you’re being told to see the doctor all the time, and you’re being dismissive of it without a reason past knee jerking, maybe hear them out? You’re positing this openly online so I think you’re already considering this.

Because I went from having 4 to 15 panic attacks a month to being able to count the time between panic attacks in years.

Because my panic attacks went from being because it’s Tuesday to being because I was in situations with actual dire consequences.

Because once I learned that it served no one involved for me to bend myself into an an ill fitting shape to avoid all conflict I was able to have lasting romantic and platonic relationships (married 8 years now and have told my wife I’m glad I met her after doing all the therapy).

Because of the dozens of things I learned explicitly and implicitly through the process. Because I am still using tools offered to me. Because I am actually happier and more fulfilled than I had ever expected I could be.

You need therapy bills to economically quantify your emotional damages so that you can sue somebody for them.

every negative emotion you have, someone tells you to go to therapy? I see two options: you are either having a lot of extreme overreactions that make bystanders uncomfortable, or, you are spending too much time with someone who is probably just trolling you.

Or maybe you just exaggerated a bit here

It depends on how you manage those negative emotions. Not that you are having negative emotions.

Negative emotions are good for the evolutionary niche they developed for.

But when your fight-or-flight response kicks in during an exam, it doesn't help you do the exam, but makes it even harder. To be able to function in the society we've built for ourselves, it's necessary to be able to control our natural negative emotions without bottling them up entirely.

Me personally? Because I experienced childhood trauma that I had no idea was childhood trauma. All I knew was I kept losing friends in my life and had a lot of conflict and I was clearly doing something wrong.

So I decided to try therapy. Turns out, normal people communicate their problems with people around them and try to find a solution. They hold boundaries to keep themselves happy and safe.

They don't manipulate people into doing things. They're not overly helpful and try to fix every problem around them for every person at the expense of themselves. They don't take little meaningless things as a personal attack and they don't expect others to read their mind.

People didn't want to be around me because I was overly helpful and tried to fix them to the point I was manipulating people and situations and causing harm to myself and others. Turns out when you grow up with a narcissist, even if your intent is good, you still have to unlearn all the fucked up lessons of your life.

That's why I personally went to therapy. My life is significantly better after several years of therapy. I might even go back one day. I'm able to have deep and meaningful relationships now. Therapy didn't make me not feel negative emotions. Actually, it forced me to. Because I had been running away from then my entire life.

Therapy is a wonderful tool if you're willing to actually reflect on yourself.

Negative emotions are human!

Sounds like something a therapist would say. Actually, the usual line is something like "if there's a bear, negative emotions are very helpful". (It's always a bear; never a mugger or a giant rolling boulder. I don't make the rules)

It's hard to say over the internet, but either you're in a crowd where they overuse that line, or your emotions have grown to become unhelpful in your life.

Negative emotions are human, but often we arent well equipped to deal with them. If you can deal with them in a mature and responsible manner, congratulations! If not, therapy can get you to that point.

We dont need to journey through everything alone, often a helping hand is necessary to pull you forward.

The clear belief behind your post is that people suggest going to therapy because they think it will relieve you of your negative emotions. This is not what therapy does though, so maybe it would be helpful to start there. Is that what you think therapy does?

Therapy is great because we're a social species who live in a world in which we are growing increasingly disconnected from both each other and the world we evolved to live in. It causes our minds a lot of stress and talking to other people about it is a great way to alleviate it.

Though I do agree with you that negative emotions are human and that we shouldn't necessarily fear them. Sometimes you'll be in situations where you'll be uncomfortable and upset, and you're going to experience things you don't like or you'll have to do things you don't want to do. That's part of the human experience and dealing with it is an important life skill to learn, especially for children.

Therapy is a band aid for the alienation we feel under capitalism. We are an increasingly isolated society. It's every man for himself out there. We're not meant to live like this. We need other people. We need people to share our experiences and feelings with. Therapy fills that role very well. I have been in therapy for 6-7 years and it's helped me a ton. I would recommend it, but I'm also of the opinion that if we ever were able to make to communism, very few people would need therapy.

Now THAT’S an unpopular opinion! Here take my up—wait what sub is this??

Your flawed premise is showing.

Are you American? As a European, it seems that Americans are obsessed with therapy, whereas I don't think it's at all common over here.

Society has been conditioned to treat symptoms instead of root causes. You complain about real problems, and everyone acts like you are the problem.

Then, unless you luck out and find a genuinely good therapist, the therapist just helps you cope. The therapist does not fix anything, does not heal. Instead, they give you drugs and techniques for pretending problems aren't problems, all while the problems get worse and worse.

That has been my experience so far. I'm trying a fifth therapist in a week, but I'm not optimistic. I'm in the United States, everything is a scam.

Therapy is helpful, but you don't need to go for everything, just like you wouldn't go to the doctor every time you have a cold or allergies.

Why have we, as a society, grown to fear them? - Yes, people have been conditioned to ask are you OK but not actually do anything. We have also as a society become more fluffy and less accepting of anger and frustration which are very valid feelings. But you are expected to just to just go be quiet elsewhere. If you make a scene you are called dramatic/karen etc.

I think its great we can talk about feelings, and let them out, we as a society have absolutely gotten better at being able to express...(if politely) but in terms of help and support when fixing that's a bit lacking.

The therapy thing seems a very USA/entitled thing, just pay to have it fixed. Most don't have that luxury. But the bottom line is you may need to work on how you handle things. I know its easily said but anger and resentment can be used to fuel you to do good. Just remember there are people who care, even if its just another internet buddy.