Once I said to my therapist "I'm sure you hear this kind of thing all the time", and she said "No, this is like top 5".
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At this point, when they ask, I reply with, "Have you seen The Bear? Season 1, Christmas Dinner? Let's let that simmer."
Wasnāt that in S2? The only episode iāve skipped
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whenever someone suggests therapy, i think about how little i already trust regular doctors and all the horror stories about therapists
You mistrust doctors because they're not educated in psychology. The horror stories are 1. stories and 2. even the ones describing real events are flushed into your feed because they're outrageous. Nobody will upvote a boring story about a therapist doing their job and slowly getting to the bottom of some hyper-specific unresolved issue some random person has.
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Yeah my experience is the same as yours. Every one of the people I've met that studied psychology in university were either mentally lost, crazy, manipulative or a combination of those. But I'm from France and school is free here so there are a lot of people going to university just to try or because they have no idea what to do otherwise, the crowd might be different when you have to go in debt to study.
School isn't free, but we do have a lot of students with rich parents. That might be the psychopath section of my experiences.
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Damme, dama, lady... I believed that "damme" was right (a game manufactured by Chinese used "Damme" in english)
You are not mistaken
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There are other things too, like his motherās habit of weaponized eccentricity where she would give you literal garbage for Christmas presenta because she liked to pretend she was very poor even though she has more money than any of her kids, but she liked to see your face drop when you opened the gift which was trash to anyone else, and just a whole whack of other things. Narcissists are wild.
My significant other's parents gave me a used roll of duct tape one year. This actually makes so much fucking sense reading your comment.
Ah, you understand. She gave my BIL a sandwich baggie of used golf tees that were all chipped and dirty, that she picked up off the public golf course near her house. She gave me HER OWN very used bathrobe that was so threadbare you could poke holes in it with your finger. She gave her ONLY grandchild an old vitamin bottle filled with dish soap and a bubble wand she found in the park or something. We would have all forfeited presents happily if she just spent a bit of money on her grandchild, but no. She also volunteered at a Catholic secondhand store, so would just take home anything that suited her fancy, and give us these cardboard boxes, unwrapped, full of used crap nobody wanted, and grandchild would get a stained old dress or a sleeping bag that smelled like smoke.
Some people would perceive this as a poor person who means well and is trying, but she got a ton of alimony every month, had more money than any of us, and was reassured routinely that it was ok to just celebrate at dinner and just buy a present for the kid. But the whole point was to make you feel like she was insulting you by giving you garbage.
These people cannot change and don't want to, and it's not worth trying.
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You mistrust doctors because they're not educated in psychology. The horror stories are 1. stories and 2. even the ones describing real events are flushed into your feed because they're outrageous. Nobody will upvote a boring story about a therapist doing their job and slowly getting to the bottom of some hyper-specific unresolved issue some random person has.
I've cried at my psychologist place multiple times but each time was not because of her. It was welling up of deep, un-addressed feelings, or a sense of relief of some kind, or sometimes pure catharsis.
Sessions were often exhausting but because of being emotionally engaging and being about things that were deeply emotional to me. I apologized several times for becoming overwhelmed, feeling weird as a chubby grown man breaking down, but she always reassured in a way that made me feel safe, un-judged.
Her goal was always to help me work through last traumas and keep improving living on my own. And she helped tremendously.
There's definitely some crap therapists out there, and some who are great at some things but terrible with others. Then there's some who have studied thoroughly and keep up-to-date to help people, because even if it's taxing for them, their passion is in helping people.
Don't dismiss horror stories or the fear; dismissal isn't helpful. Guiding instead with positives, with some good to help ease the fears, is far more helpful.
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I was describing my insane in-laws for the record.
I had a psychiatrist tell me he'd keep seeing me weekly until he gets bored of me.
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whenever someone suggests therapy, i think about how little i already trust regular doctors and all the horror stories about therapists
Probably you hear more of those stories because if you have a bad experience you tell everyone, while if you have a good one you don't tell ot that much.
I had a good experience doing therapy. The psychologist was a professional that applied modern psychology techniques for my case and they worked within what's expected.
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my surgeon wanted me to donate my body for research. he retired before i died (we expected me to survive ten years something like thirty years ago) but there's a small corpus of research out there on me. seven or eight papers from various doctors. it's kinda weird.
My sister in law was written up in the New England Journal of Medicine for surviving a massive overdose of malaria medication she was given by mistake. It was something like 20x what any human has ever survived.
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Oh, get over yourself. It was in no way an insult unless you're looking for it to be one. We all have our challenges - some more significant than others, of course - which makes being able to laugh at ourselves an important means of relieving the stress of those challenges.
I have ADD, depression, & some other mental challenges of my own. My spouse has several physical health issues (which cause additional mental health issues). Nobody understands or cares & we just have to deal with it.
I get the sensitivity to an extent, but you need to learn to distinguish between malicious intent versus those just trying not to take things too seriously (or in this case, trying to encourage someone else not to). None of us are perfect, and that includes you.
The important thing is that we try our best to not only get through this crappy excuse for a life ourselves, but also to help others do so when we can. My attempt to inject some mild humor into a situation where someone was being a bit overly condescending, while also having fun with the accidental double-post of a comment was just that - some light-heated poking of fun at something being taken too seriously.
Sorry, I didn't mean to strike a nerve. Also sorry to hear you and your spouse have some difficulties with mental and physical challenges in today's world. I hope you can find some understanding people to cooperate with.
Intent deducing should also go both ways, I did interpret your posts in a somewhat light-hearted manner in line with the comm vibe, but it also just doesn''t sit right with me using real disorders people have as an insult. I replied in it in the same format as you did but you seemed took offense when I did it even though you used the same format in your comment.
Anyway, I wish you good luck in your journey and thanks for reading.
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Wasnāt that in S2? The only episode iāve skipped
Fair point. The seasons I've watched kinda blur together. When I first started watching it, I barely made it through the first episode, but by halfway through ep2 or 3 later that week, I caught myself going full prey-animal: pulse racing, skin tingling, little hairs standing up, the works.
Let's just say that all I care to recall about the Christmas episode is that it was a holiday dinner with his family, and something about seven fishes.
I'm, of course, done watching the series. I know what happens after one opens a restaurant by the skin of your teeth while also cramming down an emotional Vesuvius, etc. I'm good. -
I was describing my insane in-laws for the record.
People aren't even pretending to post memes anymore...
I await the "hurr durr everything's a meme" comments.
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I was describing my insane in-laws for the record.
Therapist here. Iāve had clients say this āIām sure you hear this all the timeā line to me before. Itās always a little surprising to me, because while, yes, we do hear a lot of the same type of traumatic stories, weāre trained to regard every single patient as unique. And thatās because they are. No oneās story is like any otherās. There may be similar elements, but theyāre ultimately all very different due to the details. Just as you regard everyone you know as highly different, we see our patients the same way.
Donāt ever be afraid that your therapist sees you as ājust another X-type person.ā And if you get the sense they do, get a different therapist.
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I was describing my insane in-laws for the record.
Was telling what I thought was a common story of my upbringing. She burst into tears.
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People aren't even pretending to post memes anymore...
I await the "hurr durr everything's a meme" comments.
Be the change you want to see grumpy person!
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One of my first sessions with my therapist, I said something that made them crack and go "WHAT". They apologized almost immediately for losing their composure but I've been chasing that high ever since.
Is it like correcting your kindergarten teacher, and being right?
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Unfortunately, the ethical implications of this would be troubling. Refunds would have the effect of reinforcing whatever the patient did that session. If doing or making up wild stuff is what gets you a free session, some people are going to realize that. If other patients catch wind of one person getting a refund, they may end up doing and saying wilder things, too. Patients' best interests would take a backseat to the entertainment of the therapist, and that's pretty messed up if you think about it.
Yeah, ethical therapy person gotta ruin the fun. Sorry guys. But there is potential in a refund model. It could go far if it's used to reward positive things, like putting the most effort into working out an issue, or making the most personal growth over a period of time.
And double pay for lazy depressed people!
/sj
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Therapist here. Iāve had clients say this āIām sure you hear this all the timeā line to me before. Itās always a little surprising to me, because while, yes, we do hear a lot of the same type of traumatic stories, weāre trained to regard every single patient as unique. And thatās because they are. No oneās story is like any otherās. There may be similar elements, but theyāre ultimately all very different due to the details. Just as you regard everyone you know as highly different, we see our patients the same way.
Donāt ever be afraid that your therapist sees you as ājust another X-type person.ā And if you get the sense they do, get a different therapist.
Honestly the only time Iāve said this it was a relief to know that the answer was yes, because while it sucks others are hurting it made me feel far less alone and obscure.
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Like she could have you bend over and she'd put a paper on your back and write on it?
Must be in therapy for self esteem problems.
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When I used to smoke, I started bumping into this therapist in D.C. outside my building on a busy street downtown. She had actively tried to get on some Bachelor-esque reality show (it may have actually been The Bachelor). Eventually, she told me about the time she pissed in a boss's coffee mug. Or my favorite: the time she did blood magic to prevent rain from ruining her and her friends' beach weekend. She eventually said she needed to stop meeting me for smoke breaks, because she was dating someone, and if we kept it up, "she would take what she wanted." Therapists, man. Definitely very stable.
...and that is how I quit smoking.
