I hate to say it, but now isn’t the only time it’s a problem.
This whole “you just need to practice more CBT skills” has been bullshit for like twenty fucking years or more.
I can “check the facts” all I want, if the facts are that things are irreparably and totally fucked and that this irreparability is hurting me directly I can’t “happy thoughts” my fucking way out of it.
I’m really tired of being told “you can’t change other people, so you need to work on yourself” when other people are allowed to be giant assholes their whole lives who never have to put one ounce of work into themselves and it’s me and everyone else who is a halfway decent person who has to spend their lives fucking working on ourselves.
The system is god damned broken and has been god damned broken when we practically reward the worst of us with never having to try to do better while telling the best of us that we just have to do better.
I’m really, really over it.
Overthrowing capitalism is a pretty effective coping mechanism from what I hear.
Isnt that almost impossible? I wonder how many lotteries you would have to win in a row to be as lucky as you would need to convince billions of people capitalism may be worse than another system and to do something about it
you dont have to convince people based on dry theory. revolution does not necessairily mean a momentary violent insurection that overthrows what was. a revolution can be the process in which you create the structures you wish to see in the future, in the here and now. you then convince people by showing them first hand that it works and that it benefits them.
here is a great video on how to construct the revolution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9K6ISx8QEQ
it has a bit of a slow start, and feels academic but its very very insightful. absolute recomendation.
What you need to realize though is that you can only affect so much. Mostly if you need help you should help yourself first. Then if you’re happy and capable, you need to help others. Not the other way around. So get with it and don’t hang yourself up on “shit is fucked”. It is, but it has been worse and it also can get worse. But that doesn’t really matter for now, help yourself first if you need to.
Like ofc it’s not wrong to also help others.
The situation is hopeless and has always been. But that’s not as bad as it sounds and it frees you and me from the burden of the world. Do what you can, that’s enough.
I can highly recommend this video for reflecting on hopeless thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJaE_BvLK6U
I’m not having hopeless thoughts.
I’m having issues with CBT being used as a way to teach people learned helplessness where “you can’t affect other people.” Because, actually, society in aggregate (often called governance) can totally influence, affect, and change other people. We seemingly have given up on holding people who break the social contract accountable for anything while forcing those who do uphold the social contract accountable for everything. Fascism is the end-stage manifestation of that.
In my experience, in practice, it does more to teach people they can’t affect change more than it teaches them they can. It teaches them to be helpless on purpose.
This isn’t what cbt is
Cbt is an extension of equanimity, learning ways to control your emotional response to things. You don’t deny your emotional response, but you moderate it
This is advantageous because what’s more effective? Dwelling in rumination and suffering? Or acknowledging that we are angry and frustrated and moving forward to something actionable when that is possible and moving on with our lives when it is not? This is where we get into more DBT skills and stuff like radical acceptance but it’s similar
This is what happens with these things in the modern context though. They get displayed at surface value with pop psychology social media bullshit and perverted. Then stoicism becomes “just deny your feelings” by right wing dipshits who have never read meditations when it is also about allowing yourself to feel and express feelings but not letting them control you through a practice of reflection.
CBT is essentially just an update of philosophy like this and Buddhism for the modern context with more explicit guidance and some neurology thrown in.
“You can’t affect other people” is incorrect as you say. While we do have to concede that other people’s willingness to change their behavior and perspective is ultimately up to them we can still advocate and influence. At the same time we can recognize that this process can be draining and harmful to ourselves and at a certain point maybe we need to take a step back. You can’t save fix a house with a rotting foundation.
Bad implementation doesn’t make CBT bad.
Just a heads up I won’t be offering any back and forth here, too busy.
But for anyone reading, CBT is not what is being described here. CBT / DBT are effective and should still be explored as viable options.
Mostly if you need help you should help yourself first. Then if you’re happy and capable, you need to help others. Not the other way around
I think you’re not getting what they’re saying. Of course you can only work on yourself, but therapy doesn’t exist in a vacuum and frequently you’re just learning coping mechanisms for the status quo. Which is frequently good, being able to cope with society and remain functional is good, but people often have coping as the goal instead of merely being a step.
This person wants to change the system so coping mechanisms aren’t necessary to deal with society
Of course you can only work on yourself, but therapy doesn’t exist in a vacuum and frequently you’re just learning coping mechanisms for the status quo.
I doubt this is true. This feels like something that I would have told myself before therapy so I wouldn’t have to deal with myself
There are many, many reasons to be upset about the state of the world, but the purpose of CBT is similar to the purpose of stoicism. It is not meant to teach someone how to interface with society, but with themselves. Managing one’s emotional state by managing their cognitive state. This is a valuable skill to have even if in the midst of the apocalypse.
Even if you can change other people, generally speaking you can’t do it right here right now, so CBT is best served to interrupt or redirect cyclical thought processes that can’t actually motivate someone toward any positive outcome.
Having the thought - “This is fucked and I’m going to do X, Y, and Z” - is healthy.
Having the thought - “this is fucked this is fucked this is fucked this is fucked this is fucked” - on repeat in your head when you can’t currently do X, Y, or Z, is not. CBT is meant to help someone break out of the latter, not the former.
There are many, many reasons to be upset about the state of the world, but the purpose of CBT is similar to the purpose of stoicism. It is not meant to teach someone how to interface with society, but with themselves.
Nobody cares for the most part about the intended purpose at the end of the day, they care about the actual impact which is that CBT is a convenient framing to exclude the non-individualist reasons people are miserable.
CBT is a convenient framing to exclude the non-individualist reasons people are miserable.
The rest of my comment addresses this - again, this isn’t how CBT works. CBT does not say “if you constantly feel bad, it’s your fault, not society’s”.
It’s just a strategy to manage unproductive and unhealthy negative thoughts, not negative thoughts in general. It’s totally healthy to feel anger, grief, sadness, etc in response to all types of things. If someone is telling you otherwise, they’re not performing CBT.
This is actually touching on a real new approach to mental healthcare, which is just accepting that “life is shit” and you’re kinda on your own to find meaning in it, or get to the next high-point that makes it worth living.
We have to stop expecting things to be stable, normal and comfortable. We had a good, smooth run, things are going back to normal now.
Humanity having enough power that their mistakes can destroy the world isn’t normal. Our failure tolerances were calibrated in a world where the damage we did to nature was temporary. That’s not true anymore; we either get our act together now or go extinct.
We ain’t going “extinct” and people quite frankly need to realize that “extinction” is an incredibly low bar to clear. Billions will die and millennia of suffering lay before us, but the human species will be a-ok, especially if our industrial civilizations collapse. It’s a fire that’ll burn itself out, and thus history will continue.
The human species isn’t people, but a term to describe our shared code; code that isn’t you or the people you love. We are more than just our long term machinery. If we only focus on the forest, we miss the well being of the trees. I’d rather all our bloodlines end and us live lives focused on ourselves, than have an eternity of worshipping constructs that force us to live for them.
The Earth maintains homeostasis. Past 2 degrees warming, the current homeostasis systems break down. We don’t know where the next homeostasis point is. It’s probably a lot worse. It’ll keep getting worse past the point we stop making it worse. Most of the species on earth will go extinct.
Humanity having enough power that their mistakes can destroy the world isn’t normal.
As someone born in the cold war, I can’t relate. It’s always been this way as long as I’ve been alive, so if something has been a way as long as anyone can remember, I think it’s pretty safe to call it “normal” at least for our species. This is what we do, this is how we operate.
I really believe if we accepted that our human nature gives us a lot of very bad baggage and our entire conscious experience is often an illusion assembled by millions of years of evolution, and that we may never rise above our instincts, we actually might start making progress towards a more equitable future.
Kinda like when you’re an alcoholic or other kind of addict, if you finally accept that you have a problem, you learn eventually that you can’t trust yourself so you make measures ahead of time like hiding your wallet, disabling your credit card, etc. It’s wild that a lot of people consider very successful tactics like this to be a “cop out” and live in this delusion that we “should be better” and can somehow rise above our own natures. Like telling a fish it can fly if it really, really tries hard enough. It’s setting you up for failures and frustrations.
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change what I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
Excellent psychological advice in the form of prayer. The fact that life is shit is one of things ypu cannot change. The wisdom to know the difference is the real skill.
This is an entirely different approach than most people are used to. My advice from a couple of combat deployments is to cultivate a task oriented mindset. What does that mean? It means worrying about the task you are doing right now and nothing else. That doesn’t mean you never look at the bigger picture. But if you’re at dinner, then you’re at dinner and you enjoy that. You can check when the next protest is, after dinner. You take each day like this and before you know it we’ll be voting Trump out of office.
Wow, so this is basically the technique I started when a close family member was dying of cancer.
“But if you’re at dinner, then you’re at dinner and you enjoy that”
I just want to add to this, give yourself permission to fully enjoy it and be happy in the moment. Don’t beat yourself up for feeling joy when you know others are still in crisis.
Make a list on paper or digital and let all the problems wait while you enjoy the moment. It’s okay to enjoy the moment.
before you know it we’ll be voting Trump out of office.
No offense, but this is a weird comment. How are we going to vote him out of office? Are we just accepting that he’s going to run for a third term? We can’t let him do that.
Don’t comply in advance, don’t take it for granted that the next election won’t happen. They want you to cancel that election, don’t do their work for them.
Depressive realism sucks… and the shittiest people are immune to it.
Hey guys this probably isn’t the right place, but I’m new to mental health issues. About two weeks ago I started having crippling anxiety attacks, mostly at or right after work. I do intl logistics for my company so I’ve had a pulse on all this bullshit from the getgo.
At the same time I started having blood pressure issues, and the combination has a vicious feedback loop of anxiety > elevated heart issues > anxiety etc.
My doctor gave me 30 Xanax (and a plethora of heart meds), I’ve looked up self help type stuff to help with the anxiety… Mindfulness, breathing exercises, etc. Daily walks and exercise help the most but I feel so out of control of my emotions I don’t really know what to do anymore.
Should I talk to my GP and get on something long term? Therapist? Keep trying self help?
I’m 38 and otherwise healthy, no depression, slightly overweight but physically active and eating healthy. I stopped all my vices (nicotine, alcohol, most weed I still take edibles CBD) and I don’t know how to cope without being self destructive.
If anyone else is going through this and getting traction just let me know your experience I guess. I don’t know anyone irl as affected as me so I mainly just want validation I’m not alone and there’s a path forward.
I don’t know anyone irl as affected as me so I mainly just want validation I’m not alone and there’s a path forward.
you can have that validation from me. spontaneous panic attacks or anxiety attacks can happen in the face of extreme danger, even if that danger would only be imaginary. in this case, it might be real, though, depending on your situation.
I assume you live in the US, since you didn’t say.
What’s important is that you make a long-term plan (“where do you see yourself in 30 years”) that’s as realistic as possible and also at least acceptable. Every time the panic attacks start just focus on that vision (and on the path to get there). That will calm you down and give you a clearer mind. However, it is utterly important that you make such a plan. Without such a plan, i am deeply convinced people cannot live healthy, happy lives.
SSRIs absolutely make you dependant. Doctors recommend not quitting them cold-turkey for a reason.
A therapist probably wouldn’t hurt to give a try.
You could also take stock of sources of stress in your life, especially any that have emerged/increased in intensity in the last few months. At my previous job, my anxiety took a massive spike due to a crazy boss, layoffs hanging over everyone’s heads and an increasing workload. Even on anxiety meds, I was getting massive headaches on a daily basis and would spend hours on the verge of being ill from it. Once I got laid off, the anxiety went back down to my more manageable baseline, and the medication became a lot more effective for managing it.
Obviously, just entirely leaving the situation isn’t a great option for everyone (heck, I lost the best paid job I ever had in the process, which wasn’t great), but even if that isn’t feasible, it might give you some insight into how you might mitigate the issue.
Also, keep on going when treatments don’t work. There’s no magic bullet here that works for everyone, so while it can be frustrating, keep trying things until you land on something that does the trick for you.
There are already some good suggestions in the other comments, I just want to add a point: Anxiety attacks can be a problem by themselves, but they may also be a symptom of something else. Insofar it is good to sort things out with a professional (therapist or psychologist) who can do the tests to determine what the root cause is.
Having said that, a personal addition: Mental and physical exhaustion can exacerbate mental health symptoms of all kinds and - to me - it sounds worth pointing out that you experience these anxiety attacks at or after work. So anything you can do to reduce the exhaustion may already help a little to alleviate symptoms. If you have a possibility to slow down a bit and ensure that you are well hydrated and that your blood sugar doesn’t drop too much (ie. make sure you aren’t famished) that could already help you to get a better grip on these anxiety attacks.
Either way: Stay strong, friend!
Hi. Long time therapy winner here. So first things first, you should absolutely talk to a therapist, not just take pills. The second thing you need to do is figure out your preferred grounding mechanism. This is usually going to involve one your senses, sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste, or breath. (Even though breath isn’t a traditional sense)
I know people who keep pine bark on a necklace, I know people who list 5 things of a particular color near them, and I know people who listen to a song. Usually breath is combined with whatever else you’re doing. Both as part of grounding and to cue your brain to pay attention to the sense you’re using.
A therapist can help you figure what works for you to get you back from panic attacks as quickly as possible. And you are absolutely not alone.
Ask about propranolol - it’s a beta blocker.
It was prescribed to a family member for stage fright that was causing physical symptoms.
The nervousness is still there, but the control of the body came back.
Imagine trying to play drums or something and your hands shaking so bad you can’t hold the drumsticks…
If the xanax is messing with your thinking or energy, and you are medically cleared, a beta-blocker might help.
Any help is better than struggling alone which is what these people are doing. As someone who actually uses the platform I’ve not had a bad experience and have had the same therapist.
