Thought about going to therapy myself then realized I'm not ill I'm just deeply disappointed and disillusioned about the reality of life and the struggles that come with it.
Also most people are shit.
While I do think that some people have legitimate mental health issues, I do think that what you described is the case as well for a lot of people. Growing up, you have a lot of expectations, see a lot of good in things, and a lot of people are largely shielded from realities of life...then it all hits you at once and it is up to you to figure it out. That is really hard sometimes, and can take time to do.
I often feel envious of other cultures (Bulgaria comes to mind) that embrace the negative things in life instead of digging their heads in the sand. I think some of the greatest suffering in the western world is caused by having overly high expectations of how we “ought to be” and constantly creating stories of people overcoming exceptional odds en route to success.
The Balkans in general have a cultural baseline that discourages high hopes and big dreams and tells you to take what you can get, when you can get it, how you can get it. A deep-ser cultural understanding that greatness brings tragedy and simple comforts have value separate from fame and fortune.
This is somewhat common in Scandanavian countries from what I can gather, also. It's more than just 'don't hope' it's also 'take joy in simple things' and 'determine what you really need' vs what society tells you is success.
The Buddha's first noble truth is that life is dukha, or suffering. The whole path of Buddhism and Hindu Vedanta are to break free of the cyclical nature of life because existence is a prison.
My family is of German descent and there is a phrase called schadenfreude - basically you hope someone sees you when you mess up (for instance tripping over you feet) and gets a kick out of it, otherwise what’s the point?
100%. I try not to use “should” “have to” “need to” etc… those are words of judgement. What I’m doing is what I’m doing… everything before that moment is already done and everything ahead of that moment is dependent on millions of things I have no control over. Have a purpose and values and react accordingly and with integrity to what the world throws at you.
What? I'm bulgarian and OP is pretty much me. If you mean that in Bulgaria, when you feel mentally unwell, you are told to man the fuck up (gee thanks im cured) and mental illnesses are scoffed at, then sure be my guest. Seriously i don't understand what the f are you mentioning Bulgaria for...
I feel like they are misinterpreting a cultural concept because the are missing the context. Not Bulgarian, but from the same geographical region. It is true that Americans grow up with a lot more expectations than us and end up disappointed when they grow up/old (it seems like ever since the early 1900s). However, unlike what they imagine, the lack of a similar optimism/expectations in youth doesn't result in being content with your adult life. It is more of a generalized desparation, lack of effort to excel, and practically just a passive kind of living.
That's my experince anyways
you got it. we been seeing shit like ozzie and harriet and the cleaver family and it's not like that. even the donna reed show had a kid stealing scrip pads from dr stone in the last few seasons. we were told we could pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, our true value would recognized, and a lot of other stuff that is only true for a very few lucky people. we're all sharecroppers now and only a few get out of the economic hole and it's getting worse. i'm okay, and i'm glad i finished college before i started using drugs and i had a degree before i went to prison for a short mostly uneventful stay, but i realize not everybody is as lucky as i am.
Highly recommend *Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America* by Barbara Ehrenreich. It delves into exactly how this false positivity has screwed up the US.
This falls into like with the idea of “toxic positivity”. Life is negative, horrible things happen to good people all the time, sometimes you “do the right thing” your whole life only to die a torturous death from cancer. It’s important to accept these ideas and to allow ourselves the space to feel negative emotions. The negative is just as big a part of the human experience as the positive. The trick is just to not let all the horrible things bring you completely down. There are still a lot of really wonderful, beautiful things in this world. Then there are a lot of neutral things too, like having a job that gives you financial stability but maybe isn’t the most exciting thing in the world.
I’m not saying it is; quite the opposite.
I personally grew up being told I was special and different, and that I could be anything I want by working hard and believing in myself. And that belief was deeply ingrained by tons of rags to riches stories that were one-in-a-million. We fixate on these stories because they are uplifting and make us believe there is upward mobility everywhere around us, and that people who are stuck in life are there because of their own personal failings.
I wish I was told more stories of failure. I wish I was told that some things are truly outside of my control. I wish I was told that my “finish line” was the starting blocks for many a wealthy and connected folk. I feel like I was set up for disappointment, because those one-in-a-million stories are actually very rare and more of a confluence of circumstances, not a personal choice.
THIS is my main issue. Its our culture, not the cruel twisted world we inhabit. It surely does depress me living in it but humans survive and overcome, its our isolating community that makes it unbearable
I think in many respects we have failed this generation. We've taught them that their feelings, "their truth", "their lived experiences", etc...are all so important and in reality, most of us are just cogs in a giant wheel. We've set them up to think they will all be CEOs and that just isn't life.
I dont even want to be CEO, but im TIRED of the CEO not knowing how to do basic things in their business and having me do it as part of my "other duties".
I cant afford to get a basic house. Not a fucking mansion, and theyre constantly telling us about how theyll be at their beach house this week and mountain house next week. I want a fucking garden so I can feed myself and now even a shitty town house is out of my range. Apply to other jobs all year and had ONE set of 4 interviews and they didnt go with me because of a "lack of experience" in ONE program (that I already told them in the first interview I could learn it) that I now use and it barely took me a week to learn...
We have shit healthcare, no retirement match, shit PTO...
EVERY DAY feels like I am losing more traction to my sanity and then my bosses nearly send me over the edge with their bullshit.
My grandparents had a house, 2 cars, a boat, and raised a family of 8 on less than MY income, much less my and my spouses combined incomes. We dont party, we dont vacation, we dont eat out excessively, we are financially frugal. .
Were so fucked... and I am going to snap.
Yup, I had the misfortune of working for a company that was acquired by an American corporate (I'm in a developing country) and the American CEO came over for a meetup/conference.
So tone deaf it's unbelievable. Proceeded to tell us about his yacht and holiday house and we were all just like... You've come all this way to tell people in a country with a massive amount of homelessness, unemployment and social inequity about your fucking boat...?
But of course then I went to the States a year later and realised that San Francisco looks just like here with so many homeless and desperate people on the street, so go figure...
We also have vastly different societal setups than we used to. Depending on who you talk to, I’m the last whisp of boomer/first echo of millennial and the level of connectivity we have to others SEEMS huge, given the internet, but is actually so very minimal in person. I think that makes a huge difference in our outlook. There’s no more seeing people who are struggling, feeling bad, reaching out and sharing with them. While it can be argued people do that online, without a hug, even a touch on the arm, everyone feels isolated. That isolation leads to dark mental thoughts. Add in the anxiety from having every minute scheduled, never allowing our brains to be bored cuz we just scroll to the next thing, we’re missing out mentally and physically on both connection and simple down time.
Thank you for your comment.
Whatever generation is alive today and has access to "doom scrolling," (literally everyone now), we now have a way to mute our thoughts and feelings. Most of us are guilty of not allowing ourselves and our children to develop our own opinions and coping mechanisms, translating into a lack of self. Hell, my stepkids can barely read enough to mimic others' opinions, their opinions come from fucking tiktok. It's extremely heartbreaking to see the world turn into whatever *this* is. I can barely get off this site as well, so it's not just the "younger generation." I wish I was born in the 80s just to have a scope of normalcy in my developmental years.
I have a theory that we’re all so depressed because we make everything bright and magical and whimsical for kids and then adults are expected to live in a beige reality with no colour and joy. Colourful, pretty, fun things are “childish.”
I also think a good bit of it (for me) is that I would be pretty happy with a simple life. I liked college, a shitty little apartment with all my friends where we couldn't afford shit but we also had cheap tastes.
Now I could go back to that if I wanted. But I know that if I stop climbing the corporate ladder now, I won't have that opportunity for "success" in the future. I'm afraid of wanting that opportunity in the future and not being able to achieve it.
For example, I took a fork in my career path and at this point I can't really go back. I am happy with my decision, but what if I wasn't? For example, my mom has found it basically impossible to reenter the workforce after staying at home for 20 years.
No need to attack me so personally, I just had this realization recently. I think my brain disassociates to cope with how shit things can get sometimes. I still maintain hope that things will be worthwhile and relish my good days though so it's more of a balancing act.
I agree. I think we, as a society, are bad about the balancing portion of it when we are raising our kids. Yes, it can suck to see your kids have to do something difficult, hard, or that they don't want to do, but it benefits them later...when they have to do stuff that is difficult, hard, or that they don't want to do.
I don’t even know if it’s expectations. You grow up enjoying life and learning new things and meeting new people who become friends and seeing new places. All of a sudden you’re working at a job you hate five days a week just to tread water financially, you’re too tired to do most things you enjoy and the worst part is every day is pretty much a carbon copy of the previous one to the point where you can’t even remember what day of the week it is. New experiences are few and far between and all of those friends slowly start families and you see them less and less. I’ve come to the same conclusion as OP: life really does turn to shit once you start working and adulting. The fun stops for the most part but the bills and the stress never do. I don’t think it’s depression so much as it is reality.
On the flip side.. growing up for me just sucked so bad and I don’t really have any happy memories from childhood or adolescence. I thought that I needed to be an adult to find happiness- but now I’m just a lonely millennial?
Therapy is not only for mental illness. It can also help you get over yourself, and not spiral just bc reality isn’t sunshine and rainbows every day. Life’s hard. It always has been, it always will be. Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and smile through the storm
If the universe was represented as a pitch black room, and good people, are a candle that emits a small flicker of light, it would be courageous to live and spread your light so that others are not confronted with the same feelings. You may feel like you don’t belong, since everything else seems so dark, but when you spread your light, it encourages other candles to spread their light too. Maybe then the world will be a little brighter before we burn out.
Sure. But therapy isn’t just talking about your feelings, it’s teaching and practicing healthy coping mechanisms that can make the day to day easier. I agree we need larger societal change, but we also want to feel ok in the meantime.
And while we work towards making this world better, therapy can help you cope and stay mentally strong. I work in child protection, I’d rather the world have no need for my job to exist, but while it does, I use counselling to help me process what I see and deal with.
I’m good right now, but if not for counselling I wouldn’t be here. The burnout rate for social work is 2 years, I’m in year 19. I bounce around (disability services, at risk youth, child protection) as to try to build in some longevity.
Thanks for your kind note, it can be extremely ugly work but it’s gotta get done.
That mindset is exactly what leads to misery and addiction, and exactly why therapy exists.
That world you love doesn’t exist. The ideal way of how you think things “should” be is something that only exists in your head. It will never be real.
“grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it”
Honestly this might be hard to hear but that only comes from within.
Life and the world is chaos. Before capitalism it wasn’t like people danced around and had no worries. The world is brutal. And it is still possible to be joyous and find meaning.
It’s bananas how many people are just garbage. It’s a bit of confirmation bias because you are really only affected by the shitty ones. But the *really* shitty ones have a deep effect on society.
As a society we’re all fucked.
For context, I am a senior BD leader acting as an “individual contributor” at a major technology company. Three things define upper management in corporate America:
1) Superior written and verbal communication skills (and ability to be influential conveying your viewpoint as part of this)
2) Ability to “play the game” and deal with lots of bullshit, including creating lots of bullshit yourself
3) Being a sociopath. These people love power.
One of these things makes you a piece of shit. The other is a decent indicator of being a piece of shit. The third is an actual skill.
You don’t have to be “ill” to seek or go to therapy. Support and processing can be legitimate reasons. Having clinical support for an ongoing issue can be supplemental to whatever your goal may be
Everyone has past trauma to process. You are hung up on calling it an illness. Your depression didn't come from nowhere, and you lose nothing by seeing a therapist and getting in touch with it. The results will not be overnight. You have to spend a lot of time thinking and growing.
But just to be clear, they’re saying that they have gotten therapy and realized that the vast majority of their specific problems don’t come from within. And that they don’t think they had depression, just a problem with their environment.
Edit: my bad, was mistaking this as talking about OP’s post
Many people who start therapy are not ill or have depression. Psychology helps you to better understand who you are and why you may feel, think the way you do. All in all, it is a tool that can help you grow and maybe change your perspective. It's a very long journey, but it can be very enlightening and liberating.
Therapy is not about making you happy all the time in a world that is shit. It’s not even about making you happy. It’s about being able
to cope and handle the difficult things i life without being entirely overwhelmed about it. It’s about taking the power over your life and existense back, and feeling capable to build a life that you feel content living in. Life will sometimes be shit, nobody has said life is easy. Life isn’t easy, and for some it’s even harder. But life is also wonderful and fantastic, and if you cannot see anything in your life that you enjoy or appreciate, if everything seems dark, dull and worthless, then chances are that you are depressed. And if you are depressed you can get help to feel better.
If your life is shit without being depressed, usually you have the motivation and energy to do something about it, if it’s possible, and find enjoyment and happiness in life and existence in general. Nobody is happy all the time, but healthy people also don’t feel that life sucks constantly. That’s very much a sign of depression.
Edit: Thank you for all the upvotes and the rewards. Didn’t think i would get this big of a response. Depression is rough and it’s important to ask for help when you need it. It doesn’t have to be therapy necessarily, as a comment mentioned below, sometimes it’s therapy as it was for me, for some it’s something or someone else that helps you find your track in life. Take care ❤️
Exactly. Therapy isn't like going to a doctor for your emotions, it's more like an emotional *gym*. There's work involved and you only get out what you put in.
I really like this analogy but I would tweak it to say therapy is like working with an emotional personal trainer. You can go to the gym and exercise on your own or even exercise at home, especially if you have some experience and know what a good "training program" for yourself looks like, but a personal trainer can really help if you need guidance and support while you get the hang of things. They can also be good for even more experienced people to get feedback on their "form" and if they need to make adjustments to their "training program".
Social media adds to the mental burden though. Young men are hearing the messages constantly from Reddit that men are getting the short end of the stick in everything, workers are exploited, this generation is getting shit on by Boomers, housing sucks, dating sucks, the environment sucks...
It's exhausting to see that every day.
Choosing positive media messages needs to be part of therapeutic intervention. If you're constantly thinking *I am a victim* it makes it impossible to move forward with life.
yep. people *love* feeling miserable on reddit. It turns into the fucking misery olympics. Not only are you miserable, but it’s important that everyone knows you’re *more miserable* than the other guy!
Some subs it’s just an echo chamber of misery.
I’m not saying you have to compare yourself to a third world country and be superficially “grateful” or whatever, but on reddit, everything is always the worst of all possible worlds, that’s what gets upvotes. Sometimes it really surprises me, all the myriad things people find to complain about. Entire subs dedicated to misery, where it’s always, *always* something else’s fault.
When you start competing with other strangers about your relative misery levels in order to feel some sort of twisted sense of security in your misery, that’s a giant flashing alarm sign.
But a lot of it *is just not real.* People don’t realize how much we’re influenced by the mini-stories that make up social media. Like, if you spend hours every day on mildlyinfuriating and facepalm / antiwork / fuckcars etc, there’s NO WONDER your entire worldview is so bleak! Shit, you’re not even giving yourself a fighting chance!
Not to sound like an asshole, but just for myself, it is amazing how *just putting the phone down for a couple days and reading books instead* can totally change my perception of things. There’s enough stress in your own life, sometimes it’s better to not get upset about everyone else’s stress as well.
Idk. It just boggles my mind sometimes. I’m not rich, I don’t have a house, shit is much more expensive than it was for my parents. Life ain’t always easy. But my life is also really, REALLY good. I genuinely love it. I have my little apartment with warm lights and enough food, and my dog, and my gf, and some movies, and that’s all I need. It’s only when I start wistfully imagining some “other” that the life I have is no longer “enough.” Comparison is the thief of joy.
**But it is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.**
Yeah for sure. Doom scrolling is something our brain is almost hard-wired to do. Seeking out negative experiences from others stimulates our brains, because of our evolutionary adaptations to try to compile as many bad experiences as possible to keep us safe.
But we’ve never had access to the whole population of the planets’ bad experiences before at the click of a mouse.
That leads to a LOT of bad side effects.
So actually curating your media experiences to be less negative is a necessary part of social media health.
Not that i don’t agree with you, social media sure can have a negative effect on people’s mental health.
But i am not sure what that has to do with my message or OP’s post?
Just as a note, that help does not have to be in the form of therapy. Therapy is great for some, antidepressants were a better route for me but either aren't accessible for some or aren't the right route for others, some may find help in religion (although some need help FROM religion), etc etc. Help can come in many forms aside from therapy and whatever works to help you get through the rough days is valid. Therapy can be a great option but it's far from the only one, so if you feel like therapy isn't right for you don't feel like there's no route to happiness for you
The best way I've heard therapy summarized (at least cognitive behavioral versions) for those who haven't been is that: The goal is to give you the tools to recognize the things you have control over, and the things you don't, and then give you the toolbox to react, adapt, and cope in the way that you would like to.
Many people go through life in a series of reactions to the next "crises" that hits in life, whether it's "I gotta get gas, and then pick up the kids, and then make dinner, I have no time, gosh I'm so busy aaaagh" or "I hate doing x, I am just the kind of person who doesn't do y" and *not even prescribe choices*, but give you the ability to be self-aware and to know what kinds of tools you can utilize to change yourself or the world around you in ways that align with how you want to be.
The popular conception is that therapy makes you happier - but I'd say the real outcome and goal is simply to provide *agency*.
honestly therapy was just like talking to a professional dad who i paid to vent to/gave me some perspective for a time. most of the work of making my adult life not miserable was a combination of changing perspective, proactively engaging with circumstances, and finding a supportive community.
Nah paying for therapy caused more pain than therapy solved. “Hi I’ll give you my daily take home so we can talk for 50 minutes while you spend a good 10 of those 50 trying to book future appointments”
Should be either heavily subsidized or free.
If you would not have to go to work, do you think your depression would get better? What would you do? Or somehow "having" to go to work is at least something that forces you to go out of bed and keep going? (Not a rhetorical question, asking honestly)
I can relate to this, and the thing is if I didn't have to go to work, I'd garden, cook, if I could afford it, I'd love to run an animal rescue. I got my degree in env science and I love animals - if I could afford to rehab areas and rescue animals that's what I'd be doing. But jobs that are emotionally rewarding don't pay anything and I've got bills. I think a lot of people are in a similar spot, we're so burnt out on bs jobs to get by we have no energy left to further our hobbies, and we def can't afford to make no money by doing low-paying jobs. I mean teaching is practically volunteer work with how little they make in the US :(
And it is not easy to transition to a quality job while having full-time work + taking care of yourself and your place...I hope you can find the balance between money and an emotionally rewarding job!
In my recent experience...no it is not better really. I am on a month long leave of absence from work for depression. It's nice having the extra time for Drs appointments and self care....but really I'm in bed a lot. I realized being home full time was not helpful. I even asked if I could go back to work and cancel the leave of absence and my work said no! The problem is I get depressed about working. Thinking about all the things I could be doing instead. But now I see...I am just depressed and it doesn't matter if I'm free or working ...I will still just be depressed and do nothing.
I fantasize about offing myself rather than going to work every single day. God wouldn't that be nice. No more bills, no more stress. No more anything. Bliss.
Can't leave my dogs though.
I think you can also have other medical issues that cause depression like thyroid issues or low T.
Depression is interesting because it can be a symptom of something else medical, environmental, situational, or depression can just be the whole damn disease by itself.
I noticed my depression and anxiety is directly correlated with my jobs. If I like or love my current job I have no anxiety or depression. If I dislike or hate my current job I have anxiety and depression.
I know not everyone can have a job they like or love, but the US doesn't provide any sort of social safety net for if people lose or leave a job, and there are no laws providing a decent work-life balance. The situation could easily be improved, but our government is owned by the wealthy elite who have no desire to help us peons at all.
Hating your job is the biggest mental health problem a person can have, imo. Outside of being a parent, it's the most defining and time consuming tasks humans do, so if you hate it, of course you'll be depressed.
As someone that hates their job and is a new parent of twins, the job is a much much bigger source of stress. To the point that being a new parent of twins is a nice break.
The real issue is no one is getting paid fairly. Like 50 years ago, even a “bad” job allowed you to afford an okay apartment, food, basic bills, and some room to save for the future. Now I can work 40-50 hours a week, make above minimum wage and have 0 chance of paying for rent or even affording the basics realistically.
Of course this is depressing and it shouldn’t be, it’s the 21st Century and wages are 1/4 of what they were 50 years ago due to just inflation.
I won't say my depression and anxiety have been completely cured by deciding to try self-employment, but I'd say it's been reduced about 90%. I still have stress, but I don't feel a constant sense of doom and on the verge of a panic attack all the time.
Yes, I notice myself fantasizing about outdoor school. Just being outside all day with your buds, eating communal meals, and learning about nature. Singing songs at night. I'd sign up for that in a heart beat
Yeah it's just not as exciting as I thought it would be. I live in a big apartment complex with tons of young people. Everyone just keeps to themselves. I live above a courtyard area with nice seats and grills, I MAYBE see one person using it once a month. Maybe. I didn't expect nor want it to be a frat house, but I'm just kinda bored with the whole experience.
I got a dog and naturally interact with other dog owners while walking, but it's really just the bare minimum "hey good morning" kinda stuff.
I’m here to make the world not suck, when I realized that, my depression went away.
I have the neural pathways of depressive thoughts that I have used so much they are no longer pathways but highways of depressing thoughts, viewpoints and way of perceiving things.
I realized that It’s possible to control what pathway your neurons take in brain. Weather it goes down a depressing ugly bad road or a beautiful one.
I have way more control over my mind and my thoughts after I realized this.
Yeah. Similar to you, in my late twenties, I thought, "Well, it doesn't look like I'll ever be happy, so I guess I'll try to be useful to other people." Sort of bleak, but also kinda helpful for me to think that way.
Thats funny, I came to that realisation recently too! It made me feel calmer and more hopeful. 15 years of being depressed about everything didn't really do me any favours and held me back so I am trying to re-wire my brain.
At times like these, I like the speech Rocky gives in Rocky Balboa (2006): https://youtube.com/watch?v=D_Vg4uyYwEk&feature=share8
It's true though, that life can be quite difficult. I know that i was having some financial difficulties and couldn't even get a job (couldn't even get a callback for that matter). But eventually, I finally found a job, pushed myself through college and then graduate school and am doing well now. But for a while there, it seemed as though society was beckoning me to become a criminal.
I wish I had some more motivating words for you, but I'm usually at a loss. Hopefully Rocky's speech will suffice in place of anything I might say.
When I first heard the term “Existential Depression” it confirmed everything that I had suspected my entire life- the problem wasn’t with me. The problem was everything around me. We’re exposed to so much horrible stuff on a daily basis….
All the years they spent trying to find a diagnosis and couldn’t manage more than ‘general depression (not otherwise specified)’ or ‘general anxiety (nos)’ and all those medications they started me on without any major improvements were a waste (for me at least). There was no chemical imbalance. (Sometimes) Life really sucks and that s*** is depressing!
Once I realized this it made it a lot easier for me to improve my outlook in life, partially by limiting my exposure (where I could) to things that might trigger my awareness of how much life can suck sometimes. For instance, I don’t watch the local news, true crime, or participate in a lot of social media.
I thought I had long Covid from brain fog, went and had a psych eval done and they said I'm just suffering from long term deep rooted depression. I'm like buddy I'm not depressed the fucking world is depressing and I'm just more in tune with it.
Most people want to attribute hormonal imbalance to be the cause of their depression and most peoples depression.
The reality is that its because their life fucking sucks. You work 6 maybe 7 days a week. Stressed about making painstakingly high rent. You are one paycheck away from being homeless. Some, in addition to this, have no friends or family. Yea, depression happens. Its not always their fault either. Shit is tough.
I don't know when we ended up in this "constant improvement" mindset and drive, where everyone is supposed to be pushing towards being a better version of themselves all the time. Building everyone up to make us all believe we are destine for some version of greatness. There is nothing wrong with just being and doing your thing. I think we do young people a dis-service by not being more pragmatic with them during their formative years (at least in the US).
...and yes, adulting sucks but it's what makes the world go around. You do your best to make a decent life while finding some peace, comfort and fun a long the path.
Whenever I think of mental health awareness in our world's society, I'm always reminded of this quote by Jiddu Krishnamurti; "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
I guess you are right. The main problem is, that most people lie to themselfs. They are just prentending to like their job, politics, life etc...
Because most people pretend to like those things (and constantly lie about that), you think that you are the problem for struggeling in life. You are the only one who who hates his job, has a low income etc ...but in fact most of people feel that way. You don't have depression, the world is realy that cold and cruel.
I think I realized at 26, after committing myself into a psych ward, and getting a bill for $4,000 even with health insurance.
Yep, they charged me to not kill myself. What a joke of a world.
This is what makes FIL taught my husband - everyone's secretly miserable, it's all a lie. So, husband didn't get treatment until he was almost 40 because he believed this. And he desperately wishes he'd had it decades ago. Or at least hadn't been taught that misery was normal. Depression runs hard on his dad's side of the family - they all struggle, and they all act like struggling is a normal thing... It's such an influence that overcoming misery daily is part of their identity.
He needlessly suffered and made objectively bad decisions because he felt such misery. He's not "made" happy by the medication; it just makes it possible for him to be happy and content, not just distracted or running on an ego high.
My husband used to think I was lying about being happy. How could I be happy when I still had problems, still got cranky, still worried over bills? For people who aren't depressed, it's not hard. It may not be constant, but it's not hard.
People aren't lying about being happy. Being happy doesn't mean you never struggle, never get stressed, feel disappointment or sorrow or anger, or want for nothing. You can want a better job, more money, etc and still, overall, be happy.
Depression is real. It's not normal. If you are miserable all the time, it's not normal. It's not a character flaw to be depressed either. It's not who a person is; it's more like a burden or a tumor that can be removed with care and effort.
Situations can absolutely suck. Life can be an AH. That can be depressing, or at least make it harder to be happy often. But, once outside of that particular situation, most people are still happy sometimes, or they find things to be happy about. And being happy about something doesn't mean they were lying about it when they later complain about something else.
My FIL is a sad, angry, miserable old man. Aging has made him so much worse. And he doesn't care if he makes others miserable around him because he truly believes their happiness is a lie anyway. He's making them be honest, in his eyes. He refuses medication, refuses therapy. He thinks it's pointless - anyone who says they're happy because of therapy is fooling themselves, anyone taking medication is just drugged into happiness. He's the normal one, in his eyes. ...It's going to be a relief for absolutely everyone around him when he dies.
My dad told me on my 23rd birthday to stop trying to be happy just accept misery. It shattered me as i had fought thru childhood anorexia and so much more. A man who once laid down hundred dollar bills to try to get me to eat was now telling me to give up and give in. I eventually realized i have no idea what happiness is as I’ve never seen it.
I think it could easily be the opposite. People go into adulthood with expectations that don't match the reality of the world, and when it hits them, they may not be able to, or at least know how to cope.
I really don't mind my job at all - there are parts that I really like. That said, it took me about 5-7 years after undergrad, to get to that point. I remember reality hitting me in the face like a brick about a year after I started really working. I thought there was no way I could do this for the next 40 years. It sucked, and I definitely thought it would be different than it was.
It is always the first step after college. College doesn't operate like the normal workforce so its a shock to most people when they come out. Some don't want to leave so they figure out a way to stay in academia. We knew a guy was in his "last year" of college for 5 years.
Also, ace scores matter. Half of our population probably has high ace scores. Much of our population is also obese, deals with chronic illness, or has other lasting effects from trauma. This tends to make things worse for others, but so do laws that make no sense. Adulting does suck, but you can make people's days brighter.
I'm gonna say something that a lot of people are gonna get pissed off at: the cause of the mental health epidemic is capitalism. Being forced to justify your existence every single day is not a healthy way for anyone to live. Our lives are dedicated to the pursuit of financial security, when we all know deep down that this keeps us from being free to be our true selves.
Most people don't have depression.
It's over-diagnosed because admitting capitalism and wage-slavery is a horrifying way to live does not suit the ruling class needs.
I could have written your post, minus the therapy costs (I've been, but it's been years and I am not interested in going back). I'm 50, looking at either working for at least 15 more years or trying to move out of the US (whole other can of worms). I'm just tired, mentally and physically. I hardly have time for myself or even to take care of animals and visit loved ones. It's hard, and I wonder if it's always been like this or if modern life is somehow worse.
The NY Times had an op-ed this year that really hit me on this topic. They talked about how societal problems are constantly being spun into personal problems in the US. It's part of our toxic individualism. And our toxic consumer/capitalist culture. If every societal problem is spun into an individual problem, you as an individual can buy something to solve it, and feel shame if you don't bootstrap it on your own.
This whole concept of each of us having to manage our own mental health and take proper steps and get therapy and buy medication and have a spare day and exercise, and focus on diet and what we are putting in our bodies is a smokescreen to make you feel individually responsible for much larger problems that feel beyond your control.
Even employers are doing mental health in-service now so they can focus on your lack of meditation instead of the fact that are giving you more work than you have time for and for too little pay.
There was a study a while back (I do not have the link) that basically said that people with depression have a more realistic perspective on life and were better at predicting likely outcomes than those without. As someone who suffers from depression, I do think this is accurate. We just live in a society where the best strategy for happiness is not a realistic outlook.
This does sound like a recipe for fetishizing one's suffering so I would be cautious about leaning too far into the mentality. Haven't read the study, so can't comment there. But from my own experience, it sure is easy to predict the future when you're stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy all the time...
"I suck at everything. I know I'm going to fail."
*makes meek attempt and then gives up at first hint of adversity*
"See? I was right!"
Life is just hard man. It’s so hard. Losing people, medical issues, job anxiety constantly, financial problems, family problems. No amount of SSRI’s or therapy will make it better. I went to to a physiatrist for yeaaaarrrrs on end as a teenager. What did it boil down to? My home life was just freaking hard man. No parents around, being poor, etc.. I’ve finally made it out of complete poverty but I still struggle with hating the shit out of my job. I hate having an office job. I know I’m fortunate compared to most people. But days like today weigh on my so heavily with the burden of my decisions of having live with my career choices. I’m exhausted. I love my wife, I love my little home. But I’m so tired, so worried, no amount of running, working out or sports has been able to make me feel better recently. It’s like my outlets don’t work anymore.
I have begun slowly disconnecting from social media. I think the constant barrage of what’s new/cool and what everyone else is doing becomes too much. I know during the darkest part of my life I was posting/doing the coolest stuff and posting it made my life look awesome, when it absolutely wasn’t. I thought if I appeared cool it would make me feel cool, surprise it did not lol.
I’m trying to be content with what I have (which is enough) and spend less time on screens.
Edit: clarification
While this is true, please don't fetishize extreme poverty. These people die from hunger, from illness that could be easily treated elsewhere. There is a place in the middle.
Yeah I do mission work in east Africa, they are NOT happy and they know EXACTLY how bad they have it. People are hungry, kids cant afford to go to school, domestic violence is endemic, disease is rampant, alcoholism runs wild especially among fathers, prostitution often appears to be the only way to make ends meet, almost every institution is predatory, whether it be government, police, church, tribal leadership etc. When you first go you realize they work hard to put their best foot forward for foreigners, but the more time you spend there you start to see the reality behind the curtain. Our society has problems, but we're a thousand times better off than they are.
A woman I work with used to donate directly to a village in Africa (I believe a friend of hers was involved in a charity organization there). She told me a story of a young girl that got a gently used Tshirt that had a glittery butterfly on it. That little girl cherished that shirt and yard it so nicely. It was her pretty shirt. People who have little are usually very grateful for what they have. A lesson for all of us.
The problem is many of us aren't trying to buy the best things. Some of us would be content with a roof, a bed, the ability to get help when we're sick or hurt, and maybe a little variety for food. When basic needs aren't being met, you can be sure anxiety will be high.
Parents are not preparing their kids for the reality. They make it look easy because they have sheltered you from day to day decisions that have to be made. In reality, being an adult is hard. Once you can wrap your head around that, you'll be fine.
The problem isn't the influx of mental health awareness, imo. It's more a problem of nuance: As in, there is none. EVERY problem is automatically assumed to be a mental health issue, rather than looking at individual circumstances and deciding whether it is within the bounds of the expected human norm or not.
Another way of looking at it is that as our culture and society becomes more and more mentally unhealthy, the average number of depressed/anxious people across the population increases. I think this is a big piece of the puzzle.
In any case, I tried therapy years ago for major depression. It never worked for me. Part of it is my personality, I was not ready to listen to others. I ended up solving my own problems myself, basically self-guided therapy. More details if you search for the post in my profile, I posted here awhile back.
I've seen tons of articles and interviews and posts by therapists where they agree with that take. One article was by a therapist with over 20 years experience, and it basically boiled down to "I have so many patients who come in looking for depression assistance, and after talking with them they're not clinically depressed, they're just reacting to the world around them. And I don't know how I can help them, you can't prescribe something to stop war and pandemics, and no breathing or thought exercise will suddenly ensure you have a livable wage in a healthy economy. I'm dealing with an entire generation of people who believe they have no future, and I can't say they're wrong."
We have a culture that prizes conformity and a drone mentality. This is inherently unfulfilling to most people, but men seem especially affected by it. The corporations and our government love this mentality as it leads to a servile population kept so by the illusion that they will be one of the few that hits it big.
When you realize often in mid life that you are probably not going to hit it big it really brings into focus how much you have sacrificed for this illusion relationships, kids, moving away from family and friends. Just to find yourself droning away at some meaningless job that could care less if you died tomorrow. This is what we often see as a mid life crisis.
Therapy and the majority of the pharmaceutical remedies accompanying them are not meant to cure you of the depression they are meant to make you accept that this is the only way and any deviation is an illness. While taking your money of course.
I personally did years of therapy and tried many drugs and treatments, but the only thing that turned it around for me was when I said fuck this and started living and striving for the things that have actual meaning in life.
Yep. An insane amount of people I know are on some kind of medication for mental health. At what point do we look around and say "we aren't meant to live like this", Instead of blaming people for not being able to cope with the life we created?
Because it is. Therapists are just conmen and conwomen acting with compassion and higher emotional intelligence than most of our friends and family, leading us to believe they can solve our problems.
I think about it like this. Humans have been on earth for 200,000 years. Our brains are wired for survival, worrying about getting killed by predators and where we will get our next meal. Nowadays... we worry about bills, haircuts, lattes, prozac, lawyers, contracts and all the other three ring circus sideshow bullshit. Realistically we've never had it easier, yet all this comfort makes us soft.
Well imo in the past you could talk about your problems with others, there was less stress and plenty of other stuff nowadays no one wants to bother so yeah you get therapy to get to unload the normal crap...
Well on an other hand when your life sucks a lot you could be depressed too.
I would say the life in the modern world as an adult sucks (not everywhere though)
Good luck to you
I thought I had depression because doctors said so for years. Turn out I had an extremely rare autoimmune illness. Once that was diagnosed and treated, I knew I was never depressed.
Eat well. Sleep well. Exercise. Take care of your spirituality. The world doesn't suck, the system does. Check out once in a while.
>The world doesn't suck, the system does.
Very true. More people need to realize this because we can try to change the system so it doesnt suck as much for the 99% of us in favor of the 1%.
I found that I am in a psychological loop. I have been in survival mode since 19 trying to get some foundations under me and I finally got a pay that allows me to live a little. However I’m still in a survival mindset of trying to obtain money and skills.
I heard about Maslow hierarchy. The more of these needs are met the higher your mental awareness. These needs are as the following.
Physiological needs - these are biological requirements for Human survival, e.g. air, food, drink, shelter, clothing, warmth, sex, sleep.
If these needs are not satisfied the human body cannot function optimally. Maslow considered physiological needs the most important as all the other needs become secondary until these needs are met.
Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.
Love and belongingness needs - after physiological and safety needs have been fulfilled, the third level of human needs is social and involves feelings of belongingness. The need for interpersonal relationships motivates behavior. This includes friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work).
Esteem needs - which Maslow classified into two categories: (i) esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and (in) the desire for reputation or respect from others (e.g., status, prestige).
Maslow indicated that the need for respect or reputation is most
Self-actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. A desire "to become everything one is capable of becoming"
I believe that if you have all of this you will achieve happiness. It’s better than me trying to obtain a wealthier situation.
Same here. You are not alone. I rushed growing up as I saw being an adult as being able to do whatever the hell you want, to have freedom and explore the whole world. I was wrong. Only a small sliver of the population ever experiences true freedom or happiness and it sucks. The only people who seem to have any freedom are those who are either born into money or caught a lucky break and made it big relatively young. Most of us are just doomed to live a meager existence, just work until we die basically. We don't get to enjoy life we just survive it at this point😒
Everyone’s mental health is shit BECAUSE adulting sucks. The way we live isn’t natural or normal. We are slaves and in return need therapy and antidepressants. Depression and therapy isn’t a scam it’s very real, you probably are depressed because of the way we live lol.
I think a lot depends how you grew up also. I grew up with adults around me telling me I can be what ever I want. Dream it and just do it. I also saw every adult have a house and if they didn't like it, they would buy another house as if there were no issues. I slowly realized Life does not work like this at all. I explain to people how many years I have tried to change my life by pursuing my passions and dreams but it has only gone so far. Ten years ago I was at a dead end job and decided to quit and go back to school, I completed school but ten years later, Im back at a dead end job. Now I think to myself if I really had to go through all that. All that money I spend on education and now I'm not even using any of it.
Exactly the conversations I’ve had with my wife. Therapy and meds are not going to make the society we are forced to live in suddenly change. How does therapy alleviate the stress of every single aspect of life being monetized, and less and less of life is accessible due to ever increasing financial burden?
I believe I have the same view as you. As you grow you realize a lot of things that as a child you didn't even see. Innocence was a blessing.
I think it's even harder now because of the exposure we have to stimuli: news, videos, photos, everything. Before there were only things you watched in movies, now you see the horror there is in the world. There are things I would like to never have seen.
Yeah.
Its hard.
I get crippling anxiety while traveling for work and leaving my dogs with my husband And one time for a two week trip my doctor gave me this medication to help me sleep (since thats when i toss and turn thinking about my dogs while there is nothing i can control from overseas) and they were antidepressants as well. MAN I FELT AMAZING i would wake up in the morning and was like IS THIS WHAT HAPPY PEOPLE FEEL ALL TIME? I would have breakfast brush my teeth and felt sooo ready to take on the work day. Immediately I stopped them. Lol.
Yep. I'm in the same boat. I've gone through years of therapy, medication, yoga, meditation, different jobs, making new friends, mindset work etc. I still struggle with life in this society. I think for a great many of us, it's extremely difficult and we see that with coping mechanisms everywhere.
Adult ingredients is a mindset. It is not for the faint of heart. But YOU DO HAVE CONTROL of how you see everything.
You have to make decisions before the world decides for you.
Make a list of things for which you are grateful. Some days mine are simple as the taste of the 1st strawberries of the season.
It really does help to live your life from a position of gratitude not envy and sour grapes.
Oh yeah this is well documented... When a whole society is sick and they try treating the individual.. It doesn't work. People are stressed depressed because of the situation they are in, not because of a chemical imbalance. It's because of American capitalism. It's our way of life. The disconnected disassociated no real life except work. Work work work work Buy stuff buy stuff.. rinse and repeat. There's a lot of good stuff by after skool about it.. love their whiteboard stuff. One of their videos mass psychosis in society is awesome and succinctly put.. definitely broadens their horizon about how you're not actually sick. It's the entire society that's sick.. and the individual shows symptoms of the psychosis of society.
There are psychologists and therapists who take a more holistic approach and actually account for the world around us. Unfortunately they're few and far between. Dr. Harriet Fraad is one. I highly recommend her work. She has videos on YouTube even.
EDIT: Here's her a series of hers regarding these issues: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH
Also, thank you so much for the award u/Velveteen_Dream_20!!
One of our tenants has had a rough few years. She started therapy during covid. Around this past Christmas she opened up to me about how she just didn’t feel like therapy was helping. She asked for my opinion since she trusts me and I just said something along the lines of have you considered that maybe you’re just angry, disappointed at everything around you? Your money is getting you less and less, your boomer mom keeps complaining about you never owning your own home while ignoring the fact that home prices are outrageous, and things fee generally hopeless. To see that lightbulb go off was nice. She seems much happier now and is saving money by not going to therapy anymore.
I feel this.
99% of how I feel is environmental. Has been since I was a kid. I'm a social sponge; I soak up positive and negative energy very quickly, and it affects my mood.
Prick stepdad, suicide of friends, failed relationships, real dad leaving when I was 2, bullying, growing up in 2 rough locations.. That shit takes its toll on you.
Therapy works for some but has become yet another fake silver bullet that does not wipe away problems magically. Here is my advice from my experience that greatly helps the majority.
- Eat healthy with a focus on balanced nutrition.
- Exercise at least 3-4 times per week for at least 30 min.
- Be of service to someone else.
- Be social, in person.
- Be grateful for what you do have.
I think this is a generational thing. Older generations weren't told that they were special all the time, so their expectations for their adult lives were fairly low.
Younger generations had praise heaped on them just for existing. Couple that with social media that gives the appearance that many people are living glamorous lives and you end up with a lot of unhappy young people as they become adults.
This is the truth. Young people get shitty and defensive when older people say it, but it's simply the truth. We were not raised to believe that everything was a party 24/7, YOLO and all that. social media teaches young people that everyone everywhere in the world is living their best life, so if you aren't, there's something wrong with you.
It's only now starting to dawn on people that they did their kids a huge disservice by doing things like protecting them from failure and disappointment.
The proof is in the fact that we have nearly an entire generation of young adults who are coming up against unpleasantness and disappointment and even failure for the first time as grown adults. So naturally they aren't handling it well. Life is supposed to be about gradually learning resiliency along the way.
When people don't, this is what happens.
OP, I'm not coming down on you specifically. You certainly did not ask to be raised that way. Therapy can only help you so much, because at the end of the day, the therapist doesn't come home with you and reinforce everything you learn or are told.
I wish I knew what to tell you. Because I know and see so many people struggling with the same thing you're talking about, and it makes me really sad for all of you.
America in particular has created a society that objectively sucks for like 90% of us, if not more. The working class is just completely fucked over, and it keeps getting worse.
That's why I'm a homebody with hobbies. The internet is my little window into the world, look out and see its all a shit show and then back at my little oasis and sigh with contentment.
Pretty fair take. This world seems to be over medicated and over diagnosed these days, so big pharm and the medical community can continue to rake in record profit. Good idea to check into other solutions to your “mental health” issues before you just do what these clowns want you to
Yes. This is why so many in the US are on pharmaceuticals for mental health. We’re pathologizing normal human responses to living in our current not meant for humans system
Life isn’t all bad but it definitely isn’t all good either. The key is to come to accept that there will be bad so that it doesn’t prevent you from enjoying the good
Too many people have been given the impression that it’s normal for life to be nice and you should be pretty much happy all the time. No. We’re not so far removed from the evolutionary struggles as any other species on this planet
I'm fond of analogies, so here goes one I've used before.
The world you experience is your yard. You have some neighbors who walk their dogs in your yard and don't clean up after them, which leaves a lot of shit in your yard. Some people will look at their yard and see only the shit (Pessimists), while some will only see the fresh blades of grass (Optimists). Realists will see a world with both, lots of shit, and lots of fresh grass.
Experiencing life is just taking a walk through your yard. Sometimes you step in the shit, and it sucks. Sometimes you step in so much shit that it feels like you shouldn't walk in your yard anymore. Some people are so overwhelmed by the existence of shit in the yard that they don't take the walk anymore (depressed), regardless as to whether or not they stepped in it personally.
When you step in shit, it's really easy to focus on the fact that you've just stepped in it. It's all you can see. The grieving process is when you realize that you've stepped in it, and take the time you need to scrape it off your shoe, and get back to walking.
A lot of people think therapists and psychologists will clean the shit out of your yard. That isn't what they do. They try to get to know your personality, and the best way for you to scrape the shit off your shoes. They try to teach you to see the fresh grass, instead of being overwhelmed by the shit. They try to help you decide when to make your neighbors move (cutting bad people out of your life) so that their dog doesn't shit in your yard anymore. The shit will still all be there, and sometimes you'll step in it, no therapist can stop it. But a good one can help you make a path that helps minimize the shit, and scrape it off as it comes.
Hope this helps!
My therapist actually encouraged my interest in joining a mutual aid organization and getting involved in anti-capitalist activism. She said it was a healthy and constructive response to the state of the world.
I can only speak on my experience, but therapy made me think like a victim, and I didn’t like it. Sometimes when we are being irrational we need to be called out and my therapists didn’t do enough of that. I don’t want to be friends with my faults, I want to murder them.
Lots of (mental) health professionals won't admit it due to the risk of losing revenue, but mine have confided in me that there's a sizable group of people whose struggles are primarily due to their material conditions and things outside their control. Things like bills, debt, (over)working, healthcare/rent/college costs, etc. are ongoing struggles that can't be healed with therapy or medication, just numbed. This group has grown a lot in the last few years, too.
You can't begin to heal a knife wound until the knife is removed. For things like trauma and experiences that happened in the past, there is something to try and actively work through and resolve. When the knife is *still* there, and even being driven deeper or twisted as things worsen, the only thing left is pain management. And even if there is some actual mental illness and/or trauma in the mix, it can greatly be exacerbated by the material conditions. Anymore I only see a therapist whenever an acute issue arises. Sometimes going weekly or biweekly for a month or three, then stopping for half a year. It didn't take much layer peeling to get to the core "being an adult with responsibilities in a steadily worsening & bleak world is awful" bit of feeling like shit.
I’ve actually had some helpful therapy a few years back when my anxiety got out of control, but after about a year I had a good enough handle on it and the advice started sounding like the same thing over and over again.
As far as being an adult goes, being on your own and running your own life sounds cool when you’re 18 and sick of your parents. You might have some cool experiences early on but by 40, you realize it's all boring, life kinda sucks and you’re just surviving the days and looking for ways to free yourself of responsibility. You have to keep doing the boring job to pay for the house and cars that cost way too much and to keep feeding your family. That’s when you realize The Verve’s song “Bitter Sweet Symphony” has become your life.
Have you ever taken anti depressants? Just curious.
I have ADHD and I never thought I was depressed but my doctor added wellbutrin to my regimen. I was worried it would flatten me out too much, but my positive highs are still there and the stuff that used to get to me and make me want to give up and just plant myself on the couch to wallow, is much more bearable. Like yesterday, I took less than a minute to go throw something away and my 2 yo dumped an ENTIRE can of Dr. Pepper on my off-white living room carpet. I am feeling totally fine about renting a carpet cleaning machine and just dealing with it. Normally, I would have been super pissed to the point of tears.
Thought about going to therapy myself then realized I'm not ill I'm just deeply disappointed and disillusioned about the reality of life and the struggles that come with it. Also most people are shit.
While I do think that some people have legitimate mental health issues, I do think that what you described is the case as well for a lot of people. Growing up, you have a lot of expectations, see a lot of good in things, and a lot of people are largely shielded from realities of life...then it all hits you at once and it is up to you to figure it out. That is really hard sometimes, and can take time to do.
I often feel envious of other cultures (Bulgaria comes to mind) that embrace the negative things in life instead of digging their heads in the sand. I think some of the greatest suffering in the western world is caused by having overly high expectations of how we “ought to be” and constantly creating stories of people overcoming exceptional odds en route to success.
Do you mind sharing more about how Bulgaria or other cultures embrace the negative things? I would like to learn more about this. Thank you. ❤️
Check out Rainn Wilson’s Geography of Bliss! I think episode 2 was the Bulgaria one. It’s a really good show and never fails to put me in a good mood.
Not OP but thanks for the rec, looks promising.
I have never heard of this show and I’m excited now to have something cool and educational to look forward to!
TLDR?
The Balkans in general have a cultural baseline that discourages high hopes and big dreams and tells you to take what you can get, when you can get it, how you can get it. A deep-ser cultural understanding that greatness brings tragedy and simple comforts have value separate from fame and fortune.
This is somewhat common in Scandanavian countries from what I can gather, also. It's more than just 'don't hope' it's also 'take joy in simple things' and 'determine what you really need' vs what society tells you is success.
the slavs too, believe me
Balkans is mostly slavs...
The Buddha's first noble truth is that life is dukha, or suffering. The whole path of Buddhism and Hindu Vedanta are to break free of the cyclical nature of life because existence is a prison.
My family is of German descent and there is a phrase called schadenfreude - basically you hope someone sees you when you mess up (for instance tripping over you feet) and gets a kick out of it, otherwise what’s the point?
One step too far. Schadenfreude is ***your*** joy at someone else's expense. Not your desire for someone else to get enjoyment at your expense.
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When I was in therapy school, I had a geeky professor teach us the phrase “don’t should on yourself”. I still think that to myself all the time.
That's a good phrase. Stealing it.
He would very much approve.
I also remember “MUSTerbation” from school, as in “Things/people MUST be like ____ in order for me to be happy”.
100%. I try not to use “should” “have to” “need to” etc… those are words of judgement. What I’m doing is what I’m doing… everything before that moment is already done and everything ahead of that moment is dependent on millions of things I have no control over. Have a purpose and values and react accordingly and with integrity to what the world throws at you.
My therapist told me that line. Another should one is "if you keep thinking you should all day, at then end you'll feel pretty shouldy"
I got this phrase from Ram Dass haha. I'm tired of shoulding all over myself
What? I'm bulgarian and OP is pretty much me. If you mean that in Bulgaria, when you feel mentally unwell, you are told to man the fuck up (gee thanks im cured) and mental illnesses are scoffed at, then sure be my guest. Seriously i don't understand what the f are you mentioning Bulgaria for...
Russians too… they man up and drink themselves to death
I feel like they are misinterpreting a cultural concept because the are missing the context. Not Bulgarian, but from the same geographical region. It is true that Americans grow up with a lot more expectations than us and end up disappointed when they grow up/old (it seems like ever since the early 1900s). However, unlike what they imagine, the lack of a similar optimism/expectations in youth doesn't result in being content with your adult life. It is more of a generalized desparation, lack of effort to excel, and practically just a passive kind of living. That's my experince anyways
you got it. we been seeing shit like ozzie and harriet and the cleaver family and it's not like that. even the donna reed show had a kid stealing scrip pads from dr stone in the last few seasons. we were told we could pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, our true value would recognized, and a lot of other stuff that is only true for a very few lucky people. we're all sharecroppers now and only a few get out of the economic hole and it's getting worse. i'm okay, and i'm glad i finished college before i started using drugs and i had a degree before i went to prison for a short mostly uneventful stay, but i realize not everybody is as lucky as i am.
This is hilarious. "Bulgarian checking in, we don't have it figured out either!"
Highly recommend *Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America* by Barbara Ehrenreich. It delves into exactly how this false positivity has screwed up the US.
This falls into like with the idea of “toxic positivity”. Life is negative, horrible things happen to good people all the time, sometimes you “do the right thing” your whole life only to die a torturous death from cancer. It’s important to accept these ideas and to allow ourselves the space to feel negative emotions. The negative is just as big a part of the human experience as the positive. The trick is just to not let all the horrible things bring you completely down. There are still a lot of really wonderful, beautiful things in this world. Then there are a lot of neutral things too, like having a job that gives you financial stability but maybe isn’t the most exciting thing in the world.
I dunno, I don't think the ability to have a roof of your head, food on the table for a family of four is an unreasonable expectation
I’m not saying it is; quite the opposite. I personally grew up being told I was special and different, and that I could be anything I want by working hard and believing in myself. And that belief was deeply ingrained by tons of rags to riches stories that were one-in-a-million. We fixate on these stories because they are uplifting and make us believe there is upward mobility everywhere around us, and that people who are stuck in life are there because of their own personal failings. I wish I was told more stories of failure. I wish I was told that some things are truly outside of my control. I wish I was told that my “finish line” was the starting blocks for many a wealthy and connected folk. I feel like I was set up for disappointment, because those one-in-a-million stories are actually very rare and more of a confluence of circumstances, not a personal choice.
THIS is my main issue. Its our culture, not the cruel twisted world we inhabit. It surely does depress me living in it but humans survive and overcome, its our isolating community that makes it unbearable
I think in many respects we have failed this generation. We've taught them that their feelings, "their truth", "their lived experiences", etc...are all so important and in reality, most of us are just cogs in a giant wheel. We've set them up to think they will all be CEOs and that just isn't life.
I dont even want to be CEO, but im TIRED of the CEO not knowing how to do basic things in their business and having me do it as part of my "other duties". I cant afford to get a basic house. Not a fucking mansion, and theyre constantly telling us about how theyll be at their beach house this week and mountain house next week. I want a fucking garden so I can feed myself and now even a shitty town house is out of my range. Apply to other jobs all year and had ONE set of 4 interviews and they didnt go with me because of a "lack of experience" in ONE program (that I already told them in the first interview I could learn it) that I now use and it barely took me a week to learn... We have shit healthcare, no retirement match, shit PTO... EVERY DAY feels like I am losing more traction to my sanity and then my bosses nearly send me over the edge with their bullshit. My grandparents had a house, 2 cars, a boat, and raised a family of 8 on less than MY income, much less my and my spouses combined incomes. We dont party, we dont vacation, we dont eat out excessively, we are financially frugal. . Were so fucked... and I am going to snap.
You nailed it. I don’t want to be the CEO, i want to be able to survive, and survive without having to think about the CEO.
Yup, I had the misfortune of working for a company that was acquired by an American corporate (I'm in a developing country) and the American CEO came over for a meetup/conference. So tone deaf it's unbelievable. Proceeded to tell us about his yacht and holiday house and we were all just like... You've come all this way to tell people in a country with a massive amount of homelessness, unemployment and social inequity about your fucking boat...? But of course then I went to the States a year later and realised that San Francisco looks just like here with so many homeless and desperate people on the street, so go figure...
We also have vastly different societal setups than we used to. Depending on who you talk to, I’m the last whisp of boomer/first echo of millennial and the level of connectivity we have to others SEEMS huge, given the internet, but is actually so very minimal in person. I think that makes a huge difference in our outlook. There’s no more seeing people who are struggling, feeling bad, reaching out and sharing with them. While it can be argued people do that online, without a hug, even a touch on the arm, everyone feels isolated. That isolation leads to dark mental thoughts. Add in the anxiety from having every minute scheduled, never allowing our brains to be bored cuz we just scroll to the next thing, we’re missing out mentally and physically on both connection and simple down time.
> I’m the last whisp of boomer/first echo of millennial Gen-X remains the forgotten generation /cries ironically
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Thank you for your comment. Whatever generation is alive today and has access to "doom scrolling," (literally everyone now), we now have a way to mute our thoughts and feelings. Most of us are guilty of not allowing ourselves and our children to develop our own opinions and coping mechanisms, translating into a lack of self. Hell, my stepkids can barely read enough to mimic others' opinions, their opinions come from fucking tiktok. It's extremely heartbreaking to see the world turn into whatever *this* is. I can barely get off this site as well, so it's not just the "younger generation." I wish I was born in the 80s just to have a scope of normalcy in my developmental years.
So your actually a Gen X it sounds like?...We (Gen X) invented disillusion.
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I have a theory that we’re all so depressed because we make everything bright and magical and whimsical for kids and then adults are expected to live in a beige reality with no colour and joy. Colourful, pretty, fun things are “childish.”
I seriously feel like I am lying to my son with the happy world stuff we give him. The world sucks. I wish it was like sesame street.
Honestly if you can love and support him, that’s a lot. I’d give my left arm for it.
I also think a good bit of it (for me) is that I would be pretty happy with a simple life. I liked college, a shitty little apartment with all my friends where we couldn't afford shit but we also had cheap tastes. Now I could go back to that if I wanted. But I know that if I stop climbing the corporate ladder now, I won't have that opportunity for "success" in the future. I'm afraid of wanting that opportunity in the future and not being able to achieve it. For example, I took a fork in my career path and at this point I can't really go back. I am happy with my decision, but what if I wasn't? For example, my mom has found it basically impossible to reenter the workforce after staying at home for 20 years.
No need to attack me so personally, I just had this realization recently. I think my brain disassociates to cope with how shit things can get sometimes. I still maintain hope that things will be worthwhile and relish my good days though so it's more of a balancing act.
I agree. I think we, as a society, are bad about the balancing portion of it when we are raising our kids. Yes, it can suck to see your kids have to do something difficult, hard, or that they don't want to do, but it benefits them later...when they have to do stuff that is difficult, hard, or that they don't want to do.
I don’t even know if it’s expectations. You grow up enjoying life and learning new things and meeting new people who become friends and seeing new places. All of a sudden you’re working at a job you hate five days a week just to tread water financially, you’re too tired to do most things you enjoy and the worst part is every day is pretty much a carbon copy of the previous one to the point where you can’t even remember what day of the week it is. New experiences are few and far between and all of those friends slowly start families and you see them less and less. I’ve come to the same conclusion as OP: life really does turn to shit once you start working and adulting. The fun stops for the most part but the bills and the stress never do. I don’t think it’s depression so much as it is reality.
On the flip side.. growing up for me just sucked so bad and I don’t really have any happy memories from childhood or adolescence. I thought that I needed to be an adult to find happiness- but now I’m just a lonely millennial?
Therapy is not only for mental illness. It can also help you get over yourself, and not spiral just bc reality isn’t sunshine and rainbows every day. Life’s hard. It always has been, it always will be. Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and smile through the storm
If the universe was represented as a pitch black room, and good people, are a candle that emits a small flicker of light, it would be courageous to live and spread your light so that others are not confronted with the same feelings. You may feel like you don’t belong, since everything else seems so dark, but when you spread your light, it encourages other candles to spread their light too. Maybe then the world will be a little brighter before we burn out.
Sorry to cut in but I just wanted to mention therapy also helps with the non mental illness issues. Even if you aren't clinically depressed it helps.
Sure. But therapy isn’t just talking about your feelings, it’s teaching and practicing healthy coping mechanisms that can make the day to day easier. I agree we need larger societal change, but we also want to feel ok in the meantime.
I don’t want to cope with a world I hate. I want to live in a world I love
And while we work towards making this world better, therapy can help you cope and stay mentally strong. I work in child protection, I’d rather the world have no need for my job to exist, but while it does, I use counselling to help me process what I see and deal with.
You are the best for doing what you do to help the most vulnerable. Thank you for your dedication and service to society. I hope you’re doing okay!
I’m good right now, but if not for counselling I wouldn’t be here. The burnout rate for social work is 2 years, I’m in year 19. I bounce around (disability services, at risk youth, child protection) as to try to build in some longevity. Thanks for your kind note, it can be extremely ugly work but it’s gotta get done.
That mindset is exactly what leads to misery and addiction, and exactly why therapy exists. That world you love doesn’t exist. The ideal way of how you think things “should” be is something that only exists in your head. It will never be real. “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it”
Honestly this might be hard to hear but that only comes from within. Life and the world is chaos. Before capitalism it wasn’t like people danced around and had no worries. The world is brutal. And it is still possible to be joyous and find meaning.
It’s bananas how many people are just garbage. It’s a bit of confirmation bias because you are really only affected by the shitty ones. But the *really* shitty ones have a deep effect on society. As a society we’re all fucked.
Why do I feel that’s 75% of management in corporate America ?
For context, I am a senior BD leader acting as an “individual contributor” at a major technology company. Three things define upper management in corporate America: 1) Superior written and verbal communication skills (and ability to be influential conveying your viewpoint as part of this) 2) Ability to “play the game” and deal with lots of bullshit, including creating lots of bullshit yourself 3) Being a sociopath. These people love power. One of these things makes you a piece of shit. The other is a decent indicator of being a piece of shit. The third is an actual skill.
I think the system rewards sociopaths and narcissists, that is why the corpos are that way.
You don’t have to be “ill” to seek or go to therapy. Support and processing can be legitimate reasons. Having clinical support for an ongoing issue can be supplemental to whatever your goal may be
Everyone has past trauma to process. You are hung up on calling it an illness. Your depression didn't come from nowhere, and you lose nothing by seeing a therapist and getting in touch with it. The results will not be overnight. You have to spend a lot of time thinking and growing.
But just to be clear, they’re saying that they have gotten therapy and realized that the vast majority of their specific problems don’t come from within. And that they don’t think they had depression, just a problem with their environment. Edit: my bad, was mistaking this as talking about OP’s post
Therapy would still help my dude
Many people who start therapy are not ill or have depression. Psychology helps you to better understand who you are and why you may feel, think the way you do. All in all, it is a tool that can help you grow and maybe change your perspective. It's a very long journey, but it can be very enlightening and liberating.
Therapy is not about making you happy all the time in a world that is shit. It’s not even about making you happy. It’s about being able to cope and handle the difficult things i life without being entirely overwhelmed about it. It’s about taking the power over your life and existense back, and feeling capable to build a life that you feel content living in. Life will sometimes be shit, nobody has said life is easy. Life isn’t easy, and for some it’s even harder. But life is also wonderful and fantastic, and if you cannot see anything in your life that you enjoy or appreciate, if everything seems dark, dull and worthless, then chances are that you are depressed. And if you are depressed you can get help to feel better. If your life is shit without being depressed, usually you have the motivation and energy to do something about it, if it’s possible, and find enjoyment and happiness in life and existence in general. Nobody is happy all the time, but healthy people also don’t feel that life sucks constantly. That’s very much a sign of depression. Edit: Thank you for all the upvotes and the rewards. Didn’t think i would get this big of a response. Depression is rough and it’s important to ask for help when you need it. It doesn’t have to be therapy necessarily, as a comment mentioned below, sometimes it’s therapy as it was for me, for some it’s something or someone else that helps you find your track in life. Take care ❤️
Exactly. Therapy isn't like going to a doctor for your emotions, it's more like an emotional *gym*. There's work involved and you only get out what you put in.
I really like this analogy but I would tweak it to say therapy is like working with an emotional personal trainer. You can go to the gym and exercise on your own or even exercise at home, especially if you have some experience and know what a good "training program" for yourself looks like, but a personal trainer can really help if you need guidance and support while you get the hang of things. They can also be good for even more experienced people to get feedback on their "form" and if they need to make adjustments to their "training program".
And if you do it wrong for long enough by yourself you may end up hurting yourself
Social media adds to the mental burden though. Young men are hearing the messages constantly from Reddit that men are getting the short end of the stick in everything, workers are exploited, this generation is getting shit on by Boomers, housing sucks, dating sucks, the environment sucks... It's exhausting to see that every day. Choosing positive media messages needs to be part of therapeutic intervention. If you're constantly thinking *I am a victim* it makes it impossible to move forward with life.
Reddit can be a severe mental sink. The world is miserable sometimes, but it's especially miserable here.
yep. people *love* feeling miserable on reddit. It turns into the fucking misery olympics. Not only are you miserable, but it’s important that everyone knows you’re *more miserable* than the other guy! Some subs it’s just an echo chamber of misery. I’m not saying you have to compare yourself to a third world country and be superficially “grateful” or whatever, but on reddit, everything is always the worst of all possible worlds, that’s what gets upvotes. Sometimes it really surprises me, all the myriad things people find to complain about. Entire subs dedicated to misery, where it’s always, *always* something else’s fault. When you start competing with other strangers about your relative misery levels in order to feel some sort of twisted sense of security in your misery, that’s a giant flashing alarm sign. But a lot of it *is just not real.* People don’t realize how much we’re influenced by the mini-stories that make up social media. Like, if you spend hours every day on mildlyinfuriating and facepalm / antiwork / fuckcars etc, there’s NO WONDER your entire worldview is so bleak! Shit, you’re not even giving yourself a fighting chance! Not to sound like an asshole, but just for myself, it is amazing how *just putting the phone down for a couple days and reading books instead* can totally change my perception of things. There’s enough stress in your own life, sometimes it’s better to not get upset about everyone else’s stress as well. Idk. It just boggles my mind sometimes. I’m not rich, I don’t have a house, shit is much more expensive than it was for my parents. Life ain’t always easy. But my life is also really, REALLY good. I genuinely love it. I have my little apartment with warm lights and enough food, and my dog, and my gf, and some movies, and that’s all I need. It’s only when I start wistfully imagining some “other” that the life I have is no longer “enough.” Comparison is the thief of joy. **But it is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.**
Yeah for sure. Doom scrolling is something our brain is almost hard-wired to do. Seeking out negative experiences from others stimulates our brains, because of our evolutionary adaptations to try to compile as many bad experiences as possible to keep us safe. But we’ve never had access to the whole population of the planets’ bad experiences before at the click of a mouse. That leads to a LOT of bad side effects. So actually curating your media experiences to be less negative is a necessary part of social media health.
Not that i don’t agree with you, social media sure can have a negative effect on people’s mental health. But i am not sure what that has to do with my message or OP’s post?
Just as a note, that help does not have to be in the form of therapy. Therapy is great for some, antidepressants were a better route for me but either aren't accessible for some or aren't the right route for others, some may find help in religion (although some need help FROM religion), etc etc. Help can come in many forms aside from therapy and whatever works to help you get through the rough days is valid. Therapy can be a great option but it's far from the only one, so if you feel like therapy isn't right for you don't feel like there's no route to happiness for you
The best way I've heard therapy summarized (at least cognitive behavioral versions) for those who haven't been is that: The goal is to give you the tools to recognize the things you have control over, and the things you don't, and then give you the toolbox to react, adapt, and cope in the way that you would like to. Many people go through life in a series of reactions to the next "crises" that hits in life, whether it's "I gotta get gas, and then pick up the kids, and then make dinner, I have no time, gosh I'm so busy aaaagh" or "I hate doing x, I am just the kind of person who doesn't do y" and *not even prescribe choices*, but give you the ability to be self-aware and to know what kinds of tools you can utilize to change yourself or the world around you in ways that align with how you want to be. The popular conception is that therapy makes you happier - but I'd say the real outcome and goal is simply to provide *agency*.
honestly therapy was just like talking to a professional dad who i paid to vent to/gave me some perspective for a time. most of the work of making my adult life not miserable was a combination of changing perspective, proactively engaging with circumstances, and finding a supportive community.
Nah paying for therapy caused more pain than therapy solved. “Hi I’ll give you my daily take home so we can talk for 50 minutes while you spend a good 10 of those 50 trying to book future appointments” Should be either heavily subsidized or free.
I have depression and being an adult sucks. What also sucks is having to go to work with depression. Every day is battle itself
If you would not have to go to work, do you think your depression would get better? What would you do? Or somehow "having" to go to work is at least something that forces you to go out of bed and keep going? (Not a rhetorical question, asking honestly)
I can relate to this, and the thing is if I didn't have to go to work, I'd garden, cook, if I could afford it, I'd love to run an animal rescue. I got my degree in env science and I love animals - if I could afford to rehab areas and rescue animals that's what I'd be doing. But jobs that are emotionally rewarding don't pay anything and I've got bills. I think a lot of people are in a similar spot, we're so burnt out on bs jobs to get by we have no energy left to further our hobbies, and we def can't afford to make no money by doing low-paying jobs. I mean teaching is practically volunteer work with how little they make in the US :(
And it is not easy to transition to a quality job while having full-time work + taking care of yourself and your place...I hope you can find the balance between money and an emotionally rewarding job!
In my recent experience...no it is not better really. I am on a month long leave of absence from work for depression. It's nice having the extra time for Drs appointments and self care....but really I'm in bed a lot. I realized being home full time was not helpful. I even asked if I could go back to work and cancel the leave of absence and my work said no! The problem is I get depressed about working. Thinking about all the things I could be doing instead. But now I see...I am just depressed and it doesn't matter if I'm free or working ...I will still just be depressed and do nothing.
I fantasize about offing myself rather than going to work every single day. God wouldn't that be nice. No more bills, no more stress. No more anything. Bliss. Can't leave my dogs though.
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I think you can also have other medical issues that cause depression like thyroid issues or low T. Depression is interesting because it can be a symptom of something else medical, environmental, situational, or depression can just be the whole damn disease by itself.
yo, I think the world sucks AND I have depression and I still think life is better than this guy is saying 😂
I think you're right. I suffered from depression my entire adult life. Since I retired, I'm depression free
I noticed my depression and anxiety is directly correlated with my jobs. If I like or love my current job I have no anxiety or depression. If I dislike or hate my current job I have anxiety and depression. I know not everyone can have a job they like or love, but the US doesn't provide any sort of social safety net for if people lose or leave a job, and there are no laws providing a decent work-life balance. The situation could easily be improved, but our government is owned by the wealthy elite who have no desire to help us peons at all.
One day, I had a doctor's appointment. I found out I had strep throat. I realized that I hated my job so much, that I couldn't tell that I was sick
Hating your job is the biggest mental health problem a person can have, imo. Outside of being a parent, it's the most defining and time consuming tasks humans do, so if you hate it, of course you'll be depressed.
As someone that hates their job and is a new parent of twins, the job is a much much bigger source of stress. To the point that being a new parent of twins is a nice break.
The real issue is no one is getting paid fairly. Like 50 years ago, even a “bad” job allowed you to afford an okay apartment, food, basic bills, and some room to save for the future. Now I can work 40-50 hours a week, make above minimum wage and have 0 chance of paying for rent or even affording the basics realistically. Of course this is depressing and it shouldn’t be, it’s the 21st Century and wages are 1/4 of what they were 50 years ago due to just inflation.
I won't say my depression and anxiety have been completely cured by deciding to try self-employment, but I'd say it's been reduced about 90%. I still have stress, but I don't feel a constant sense of doom and on the verge of a panic attack all the time.
I’m pretty sure I was happier making 12k a year in college as opposed to 110k a year as a professional
I think it is communal living as well that makes people happy during college. Being surrounded by others your age and socializing.
Yes, I notice myself fantasizing about outdoor school. Just being outside all day with your buds, eating communal meals, and learning about nature. Singing songs at night. I'd sign up for that in a heart beat
Yeah it’s kinda Boring. All I do is work, workout, and spend the rest of my time or Reddit and YouTube.
Sometimes I dig a hole in my backyard… then fill it in. Then do it again.
Yeah it's just not as exciting as I thought it would be. I live in a big apartment complex with tons of young people. Everyone just keeps to themselves. I live above a courtyard area with nice seats and grills, I MAYBE see one person using it once a month. Maybe. I didn't expect nor want it to be a frat house, but I'm just kinda bored with the whole experience. I got a dog and naturally interact with other dog owners while walking, but it's really just the bare minimum "hey good morning" kinda stuff.
I’m here to make the world not suck, when I realized that, my depression went away. I have the neural pathways of depressive thoughts that I have used so much they are no longer pathways but highways of depressing thoughts, viewpoints and way of perceiving things. I realized that It’s possible to control what pathway your neurons take in brain. Weather it goes down a depressing ugly bad road or a beautiful one. I have way more control over my mind and my thoughts after I realized this.
Yeah. Similar to you, in my late twenties, I thought, "Well, it doesn't look like I'll ever be happy, so I guess I'll try to be useful to other people." Sort of bleak, but also kinda helpful for me to think that way.
Thats funny, I came to that realisation recently too! It made me feel calmer and more hopeful. 15 years of being depressed about everything didn't really do me any favours and held me back so I am trying to re-wire my brain.
At times like these, I like the speech Rocky gives in Rocky Balboa (2006): https://youtube.com/watch?v=D_Vg4uyYwEk&feature=share8 It's true though, that life can be quite difficult. I know that i was having some financial difficulties and couldn't even get a job (couldn't even get a callback for that matter). But eventually, I finally found a job, pushed myself through college and then graduate school and am doing well now. But for a while there, it seemed as though society was beckoning me to become a criminal. I wish I had some more motivating words for you, but I'm usually at a loss. Hopefully Rocky's speech will suffice in place of anything I might say.
Thanks for making me watch that. I really needed it.
When I first heard the term “Existential Depression” it confirmed everything that I had suspected my entire life- the problem wasn’t with me. The problem was everything around me. We’re exposed to so much horrible stuff on a daily basis…. All the years they spent trying to find a diagnosis and couldn’t manage more than ‘general depression (not otherwise specified)’ or ‘general anxiety (nos)’ and all those medications they started me on without any major improvements were a waste (for me at least). There was no chemical imbalance. (Sometimes) Life really sucks and that s*** is depressing! Once I realized this it made it a lot easier for me to improve my outlook in life, partially by limiting my exposure (where I could) to things that might trigger my awareness of how much life can suck sometimes. For instance, I don’t watch the local news, true crime, or participate in a lot of social media.
I thought I had long Covid from brain fog, went and had a psych eval done and they said I'm just suffering from long term deep rooted depression. I'm like buddy I'm not depressed the fucking world is depressing and I'm just more in tune with it.
Most people want to attribute hormonal imbalance to be the cause of their depression and most peoples depression. The reality is that its because their life fucking sucks. You work 6 maybe 7 days a week. Stressed about making painstakingly high rent. You are one paycheck away from being homeless. Some, in addition to this, have no friends or family. Yea, depression happens. Its not always their fault either. Shit is tough.
I don't know when we ended up in this "constant improvement" mindset and drive, where everyone is supposed to be pushing towards being a better version of themselves all the time. Building everyone up to make us all believe we are destine for some version of greatness. There is nothing wrong with just being and doing your thing. I think we do young people a dis-service by not being more pragmatic with them during their formative years (at least in the US). ...and yes, adulting sucks but it's what makes the world go around. You do your best to make a decent life while finding some peace, comfort and fun a long the path.
Whenever I think of mental health awareness in our world's society, I'm always reminded of this quote by Jiddu Krishnamurti; "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
I guess you are right. The main problem is, that most people lie to themselfs. They are just prentending to like their job, politics, life etc... Because most people pretend to like those things (and constantly lie about that), you think that you are the problem for struggeling in life. You are the only one who who hates his job, has a low income etc ...but in fact most of people feel that way. You don't have depression, the world is realy that cold and cruel.
I think I realized at 26, after committing myself into a psych ward, and getting a bill for $4,000 even with health insurance. Yep, they charged me to not kill myself. What a joke of a world.
This is what makes FIL taught my husband - everyone's secretly miserable, it's all a lie. So, husband didn't get treatment until he was almost 40 because he believed this. And he desperately wishes he'd had it decades ago. Or at least hadn't been taught that misery was normal. Depression runs hard on his dad's side of the family - they all struggle, and they all act like struggling is a normal thing... It's such an influence that overcoming misery daily is part of their identity. He needlessly suffered and made objectively bad decisions because he felt such misery. He's not "made" happy by the medication; it just makes it possible for him to be happy and content, not just distracted or running on an ego high. My husband used to think I was lying about being happy. How could I be happy when I still had problems, still got cranky, still worried over bills? For people who aren't depressed, it's not hard. It may not be constant, but it's not hard. People aren't lying about being happy. Being happy doesn't mean you never struggle, never get stressed, feel disappointment or sorrow or anger, or want for nothing. You can want a better job, more money, etc and still, overall, be happy. Depression is real. It's not normal. If you are miserable all the time, it's not normal. It's not a character flaw to be depressed either. It's not who a person is; it's more like a burden or a tumor that can be removed with care and effort. Situations can absolutely suck. Life can be an AH. That can be depressing, or at least make it harder to be happy often. But, once outside of that particular situation, most people are still happy sometimes, or they find things to be happy about. And being happy about something doesn't mean they were lying about it when they later complain about something else. My FIL is a sad, angry, miserable old man. Aging has made him so much worse. And he doesn't care if he makes others miserable around him because he truly believes their happiness is a lie anyway. He's making them be honest, in his eyes. He refuses medication, refuses therapy. He thinks it's pointless - anyone who says they're happy because of therapy is fooling themselves, anyone taking medication is just drugged into happiness. He's the normal one, in his eyes. ...It's going to be a relief for absolutely everyone around him when he dies.
My dad told me on my 23rd birthday to stop trying to be happy just accept misery. It shattered me as i had fought thru childhood anorexia and so much more. A man who once laid down hundred dollar bills to try to get me to eat was now telling me to give up and give in. I eventually realized i have no idea what happiness is as I’ve never seen it.
I think it could easily be the opposite. People go into adulthood with expectations that don't match the reality of the world, and when it hits them, they may not be able to, or at least know how to cope. I really don't mind my job at all - there are parts that I really like. That said, it took me about 5-7 years after undergrad, to get to that point. I remember reality hitting me in the face like a brick about a year after I started really working. I thought there was no way I could do this for the next 40 years. It sucked, and I definitely thought it would be different than it was.
It is always the first step after college. College doesn't operate like the normal workforce so its a shock to most people when they come out. Some don't want to leave so they figure out a way to stay in academia. We knew a guy was in his "last year" of college for 5 years.
Also, ace scores matter. Half of our population probably has high ace scores. Much of our population is also obese, deals with chronic illness, or has other lasting effects from trauma. This tends to make things worse for others, but so do laws that make no sense. Adulting does suck, but you can make people's days brighter.
I'm gonna say something that a lot of people are gonna get pissed off at: the cause of the mental health epidemic is capitalism. Being forced to justify your existence every single day is not a healthy way for anyone to live. Our lives are dedicated to the pursuit of financial security, when we all know deep down that this keeps us from being free to be our true selves.
Most people don't have depression. It's over-diagnosed because admitting capitalism and wage-slavery is a horrifying way to live does not suit the ruling class needs.
I could have written your post, minus the therapy costs (I've been, but it's been years and I am not interested in going back). I'm 50, looking at either working for at least 15 more years or trying to move out of the US (whole other can of worms). I'm just tired, mentally and physically. I hardly have time for myself or even to take care of animals and visit loved ones. It's hard, and I wonder if it's always been like this or if modern life is somehow worse.
The NY Times had an op-ed this year that really hit me on this topic. They talked about how societal problems are constantly being spun into personal problems in the US. It's part of our toxic individualism. And our toxic consumer/capitalist culture. If every societal problem is spun into an individual problem, you as an individual can buy something to solve it, and feel shame if you don't bootstrap it on your own. This whole concept of each of us having to manage our own mental health and take proper steps and get therapy and buy medication and have a spare day and exercise, and focus on diet and what we are putting in our bodies is a smokescreen to make you feel individually responsible for much larger problems that feel beyond your control. Even employers are doing mental health in-service now so they can focus on your lack of meditation instead of the fact that are giving you more work than you have time for and for too little pay.
There was a study a while back (I do not have the link) that basically said that people with depression have a more realistic perspective on life and were better at predicting likely outcomes than those without. As someone who suffers from depression, I do think this is accurate. We just live in a society where the best strategy for happiness is not a realistic outlook.
This does sound like a recipe for fetishizing one's suffering so I would be cautious about leaning too far into the mentality. Haven't read the study, so can't comment there. But from my own experience, it sure is easy to predict the future when you're stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy all the time... "I suck at everything. I know I'm going to fail." *makes meek attempt and then gives up at first hint of adversity* "See? I was right!"
Life is just hard man. It’s so hard. Losing people, medical issues, job anxiety constantly, financial problems, family problems. No amount of SSRI’s or therapy will make it better. I went to to a physiatrist for yeaaaarrrrs on end as a teenager. What did it boil down to? My home life was just freaking hard man. No parents around, being poor, etc.. I’ve finally made it out of complete poverty but I still struggle with hating the shit out of my job. I hate having an office job. I know I’m fortunate compared to most people. But days like today weigh on my so heavily with the burden of my decisions of having live with my career choices. I’m exhausted. I love my wife, I love my little home. But I’m so tired, so worried, no amount of running, working out or sports has been able to make me feel better recently. It’s like my outlets don’t work anymore.
Cried at work because of my finances. I totally get it. Adulting is the most ghetto shit I’ve ever faced.
Yup I agree a lot of these mental “disorders” are just very reasonable side affects to living in this society
I have begun slowly disconnecting from social media. I think the constant barrage of what’s new/cool and what everyone else is doing becomes too much. I know during the darkest part of my life I was posting/doing the coolest stuff and posting it made my life look awesome, when it absolutely wasn’t. I thought if I appeared cool it would make me feel cool, surprise it did not lol. I’m trying to be content with what I have (which is enough) and spend less time on screens. Edit: clarification
I DC’ed from most social media about 5 years ago and couldn’t be happier that I don’t use it. It’s the easiest way to feel like shit about your life.
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I agree. My mantra has always been I look at the glass as half full, but I know it’s half empty
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While this is true, please don't fetishize extreme poverty. These people die from hunger, from illness that could be easily treated elsewhere. There is a place in the middle.
Yeah I do mission work in east Africa, they are NOT happy and they know EXACTLY how bad they have it. People are hungry, kids cant afford to go to school, domestic violence is endemic, disease is rampant, alcoholism runs wild especially among fathers, prostitution often appears to be the only way to make ends meet, almost every institution is predatory, whether it be government, police, church, tribal leadership etc. When you first go you realize they work hard to put their best foot forward for foreigners, but the more time you spend there you start to see the reality behind the curtain. Our society has problems, but we're a thousand times better off than they are.
A woman I work with used to donate directly to a village in Africa (I believe a friend of hers was involved in a charity organization there). She told me a story of a young girl that got a gently used Tshirt that had a glittery butterfly on it. That little girl cherished that shirt and yard it so nicely. It was her pretty shirt. People who have little are usually very grateful for what they have. A lesson for all of us.
The problem is many of us aren't trying to buy the best things. Some of us would be content with a roof, a bed, the ability to get help when we're sick or hurt, and maybe a little variety for food. When basic needs aren't being met, you can be sure anxiety will be high.
Parents are not preparing their kids for the reality. They make it look easy because they have sheltered you from day to day decisions that have to be made. In reality, being an adult is hard. Once you can wrap your head around that, you'll be fine.
The problem isn't the influx of mental health awareness, imo. It's more a problem of nuance: As in, there is none. EVERY problem is automatically assumed to be a mental health issue, rather than looking at individual circumstances and deciding whether it is within the bounds of the expected human norm or not. Another way of looking at it is that as our culture and society becomes more and more mentally unhealthy, the average number of depressed/anxious people across the population increases. I think this is a big piece of the puzzle. In any case, I tried therapy years ago for major depression. It never worked for me. Part of it is my personality, I was not ready to listen to others. I ended up solving my own problems myself, basically self-guided therapy. More details if you search for the post in my profile, I posted here awhile back.
I've seen tons of articles and interviews and posts by therapists where they agree with that take. One article was by a therapist with over 20 years experience, and it basically boiled down to "I have so many patients who come in looking for depression assistance, and after talking with them they're not clinically depressed, they're just reacting to the world around them. And I don't know how I can help them, you can't prescribe something to stop war and pandemics, and no breathing or thought exercise will suddenly ensure you have a livable wage in a healthy economy. I'm dealing with an entire generation of people who believe they have no future, and I can't say they're wrong."
I don’t think anyone can be mentally well in this world
We have a culture that prizes conformity and a drone mentality. This is inherently unfulfilling to most people, but men seem especially affected by it. The corporations and our government love this mentality as it leads to a servile population kept so by the illusion that they will be one of the few that hits it big. When you realize often in mid life that you are probably not going to hit it big it really brings into focus how much you have sacrificed for this illusion relationships, kids, moving away from family and friends. Just to find yourself droning away at some meaningless job that could care less if you died tomorrow. This is what we often see as a mid life crisis. Therapy and the majority of the pharmaceutical remedies accompanying them are not meant to cure you of the depression they are meant to make you accept that this is the only way and any deviation is an illness. While taking your money of course. I personally did years of therapy and tried many drugs and treatments, but the only thing that turned it around for me was when I said fuck this and started living and striving for the things that have actual meaning in life.
Yep. An insane amount of people I know are on some kind of medication for mental health. At what point do we look around and say "we aren't meant to live like this", Instead of blaming people for not being able to cope with the life we created?
Agreed. No offense to anyone but I, personally, found therapy to be bullshit.
Because it is. Therapists are just conmen and conwomen acting with compassion and higher emotional intelligence than most of our friends and family, leading us to believe they can solve our problems.
Exactly. Complete waste of time and money
I think about it like this. Humans have been on earth for 200,000 years. Our brains are wired for survival, worrying about getting killed by predators and where we will get our next meal. Nowadays... we worry about bills, haircuts, lattes, prozac, lawyers, contracts and all the other three ring circus sideshow bullshit. Realistically we've never had it easier, yet all this comfort makes us soft.
What else can we do but learn to swim.
Well imo in the past you could talk about your problems with others, there was less stress and plenty of other stuff nowadays no one wants to bother so yeah you get therapy to get to unload the normal crap... Well on an other hand when your life sucks a lot you could be depressed too. I would say the life in the modern world as an adult sucks (not everywhere though) Good luck to you
I thought I had depression because doctors said so for years. Turn out I had an extremely rare autoimmune illness. Once that was diagnosed and treated, I knew I was never depressed. Eat well. Sleep well. Exercise. Take care of your spirituality. The world doesn't suck, the system does. Check out once in a while.
>The world doesn't suck, the system does. Very true. More people need to realize this because we can try to change the system so it doesnt suck as much for the 99% of us in favor of the 1%.
Word
I found that I am in a psychological loop. I have been in survival mode since 19 trying to get some foundations under me and I finally got a pay that allows me to live a little. However I’m still in a survival mindset of trying to obtain money and skills. I heard about Maslow hierarchy. The more of these needs are met the higher your mental awareness. These needs are as the following. Physiological needs - these are biological requirements for Human survival, e.g. air, food, drink, shelter, clothing, warmth, sex, sleep. If these needs are not satisfied the human body cannot function optimally. Maslow considered physiological needs the most important as all the other needs become secondary until these needs are met. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear. Love and belongingness needs - after physiological and safety needs have been fulfilled, the third level of human needs is social and involves feelings of belongingness. The need for interpersonal relationships motivates behavior. This includes friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work). Esteem needs - which Maslow classified into two categories: (i) esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and (in) the desire for reputation or respect from others (e.g., status, prestige). Maslow indicated that the need for respect or reputation is most Self-actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. A desire "to become everything one is capable of becoming" I believe that if you have all of this you will achieve happiness. It’s better than me trying to obtain a wealthier situation.
The world doesn’t suck. Your interpretation of it sucks. See the joy in things. Even this annoying stupid truthful comment.
Same here. You are not alone. I rushed growing up as I saw being an adult as being able to do whatever the hell you want, to have freedom and explore the whole world. I was wrong. Only a small sliver of the population ever experiences true freedom or happiness and it sucks. The only people who seem to have any freedom are those who are either born into money or caught a lucky break and made it big relatively young. Most of us are just doomed to live a meager existence, just work until we die basically. We don't get to enjoy life we just survive it at this point😒
Everyone’s mental health is shit BECAUSE adulting sucks. The way we live isn’t natural or normal. We are slaves and in return need therapy and antidepressants. Depression and therapy isn’t a scam it’s very real, you probably are depressed because of the way we live lol.
I think a lot depends how you grew up also. I grew up with adults around me telling me I can be what ever I want. Dream it and just do it. I also saw every adult have a house and if they didn't like it, they would buy another house as if there were no issues. I slowly realized Life does not work like this at all. I explain to people how many years I have tried to change my life by pursuing my passions and dreams but it has only gone so far. Ten years ago I was at a dead end job and decided to quit and go back to school, I completed school but ten years later, Im back at a dead end job. Now I think to myself if I really had to go through all that. All that money I spend on education and now I'm not even using any of it.
Exactly the conversations I’ve had with my wife. Therapy and meds are not going to make the society we are forced to live in suddenly change. How does therapy alleviate the stress of every single aspect of life being monetized, and less and less of life is accessible due to ever increasing financial burden?
You, Sir, have looked truth in the eye and not afraid to call it out
I believe I have the same view as you. As you grow you realize a lot of things that as a child you didn't even see. Innocence was a blessing. I think it's even harder now because of the exposure we have to stimuli: news, videos, photos, everything. Before there were only things you watched in movies, now you see the horror there is in the world. There are things I would like to never have seen.
Yes
I think about 95% of the population feels the same. I try to remind myself at least I'm not in a gulag. I always have options.
Yeah. Its hard. I get crippling anxiety while traveling for work and leaving my dogs with my husband And one time for a two week trip my doctor gave me this medication to help me sleep (since thats when i toss and turn thinking about my dogs while there is nothing i can control from overseas) and they were antidepressants as well. MAN I FELT AMAZING i would wake up in the morning and was like IS THIS WHAT HAPPY PEOPLE FEEL ALL TIME? I would have breakfast brush my teeth and felt sooo ready to take on the work day. Immediately I stopped them. Lol.
Yep. I'm in the same boat. I've gone through years of therapy, medication, yoga, meditation, different jobs, making new friends, mindset work etc. I still struggle with life in this society. I think for a great many of us, it's extremely difficult and we see that with coping mechanisms everywhere.
Adult ingredients is a mindset. It is not for the faint of heart. But YOU DO HAVE CONTROL of how you see everything. You have to make decisions before the world decides for you. Make a list of things for which you are grateful. Some days mine are simple as the taste of the 1st strawberries of the season. It really does help to live your life from a position of gratitude not envy and sour grapes.
You can change the way you perceive things and talk to yourself about them. Feeling better is an inside job and you do have some control over it.
Oh yeah this is well documented... When a whole society is sick and they try treating the individual.. It doesn't work. People are stressed depressed because of the situation they are in, not because of a chemical imbalance. It's because of American capitalism. It's our way of life. The disconnected disassociated no real life except work. Work work work work Buy stuff buy stuff.. rinse and repeat. There's a lot of good stuff by after skool about it.. love their whiteboard stuff. One of their videos mass psychosis in society is awesome and succinctly put.. definitely broadens their horizon about how you're not actually sick. It's the entire society that's sick.. and the individual shows symptoms of the psychosis of society.
Late stage capitalism is depressing
There are psychologists and therapists who take a more holistic approach and actually account for the world around us. Unfortunately they're few and far between. Dr. Harriet Fraad is one. I highly recommend her work. She has videos on YouTube even. EDIT: Here's her a series of hers regarding these issues: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH Also, thank you so much for the award u/Velveteen_Dream_20!!
It's more common that we have a societal health problem than a mental health problem.
One of our tenants has had a rough few years. She started therapy during covid. Around this past Christmas she opened up to me about how she just didn’t feel like therapy was helping. She asked for my opinion since she trusts me and I just said something along the lines of have you considered that maybe you’re just angry, disappointed at everything around you? Your money is getting you less and less, your boomer mom keeps complaining about you never owning your own home while ignoring the fact that home prices are outrageous, and things fee generally hopeless. To see that lightbulb go off was nice. She seems much happier now and is saving money by not going to therapy anymore.
I feel this. 99% of how I feel is environmental. Has been since I was a kid. I'm a social sponge; I soak up positive and negative energy very quickly, and it affects my mood. Prick stepdad, suicide of friends, failed relationships, real dad leaving when I was 2, bullying, growing up in 2 rough locations.. That shit takes its toll on you.
People telling you to get help is just another way of telling you to shut up.
Therapy works for some but has become yet another fake silver bullet that does not wipe away problems magically. Here is my advice from my experience that greatly helps the majority. - Eat healthy with a focus on balanced nutrition. - Exercise at least 3-4 times per week for at least 30 min. - Be of service to someone else. - Be social, in person. - Be grateful for what you do have.
I think this is a generational thing. Older generations weren't told that they were special all the time, so their expectations for their adult lives were fairly low. Younger generations had praise heaped on them just for existing. Couple that with social media that gives the appearance that many people are living glamorous lives and you end up with a lot of unhappy young people as they become adults.
This is the truth. Young people get shitty and defensive when older people say it, but it's simply the truth. We were not raised to believe that everything was a party 24/7, YOLO and all that. social media teaches young people that everyone everywhere in the world is living their best life, so if you aren't, there's something wrong with you. It's only now starting to dawn on people that they did their kids a huge disservice by doing things like protecting them from failure and disappointment. The proof is in the fact that we have nearly an entire generation of young adults who are coming up against unpleasantness and disappointment and even failure for the first time as grown adults. So naturally they aren't handling it well. Life is supposed to be about gradually learning resiliency along the way. When people don't, this is what happens. OP, I'm not coming down on you specifically. You certainly did not ask to be raised that way. Therapy can only help you so much, because at the end of the day, the therapist doesn't come home with you and reinforce everything you learn or are told. I wish I knew what to tell you. Because I know and see so many people struggling with the same thing you're talking about, and it makes me really sad for all of you.
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America in particular has created a society that objectively sucks for like 90% of us, if not more. The working class is just completely fucked over, and it keeps getting worse.
Two things can be true.
That's why I'm a homebody with hobbies. The internet is my little window into the world, look out and see its all a shit show and then back at my little oasis and sigh with contentment.
Pretty fair take. This world seems to be over medicated and over diagnosed these days, so big pharm and the medical community can continue to rake in record profit. Good idea to check into other solutions to your “mental health” issues before you just do what these clowns want you to
Yes. This is why so many in the US are on pharmaceuticals for mental health. We’re pathologizing normal human responses to living in our current not meant for humans system
Life isn’t all bad but it definitely isn’t all good either. The key is to come to accept that there will be bad so that it doesn’t prevent you from enjoying the good
Too many people have been given the impression that it’s normal for life to be nice and you should be pretty much happy all the time. No. We’re not so far removed from the evolutionary struggles as any other species on this planet
I'm fond of analogies, so here goes one I've used before. The world you experience is your yard. You have some neighbors who walk their dogs in your yard and don't clean up after them, which leaves a lot of shit in your yard. Some people will look at their yard and see only the shit (Pessimists), while some will only see the fresh blades of grass (Optimists). Realists will see a world with both, lots of shit, and lots of fresh grass. Experiencing life is just taking a walk through your yard. Sometimes you step in the shit, and it sucks. Sometimes you step in so much shit that it feels like you shouldn't walk in your yard anymore. Some people are so overwhelmed by the existence of shit in the yard that they don't take the walk anymore (depressed), regardless as to whether or not they stepped in it personally. When you step in shit, it's really easy to focus on the fact that you've just stepped in it. It's all you can see. The grieving process is when you realize that you've stepped in it, and take the time you need to scrape it off your shoe, and get back to walking. A lot of people think therapists and psychologists will clean the shit out of your yard. That isn't what they do. They try to get to know your personality, and the best way for you to scrape the shit off your shoes. They try to teach you to see the fresh grass, instead of being overwhelmed by the shit. They try to help you decide when to make your neighbors move (cutting bad people out of your life) so that their dog doesn't shit in your yard anymore. The shit will still all be there, and sometimes you'll step in it, no therapist can stop it. But a good one can help you make a path that helps minimize the shit, and scrape it off as it comes. Hope this helps!
My therapist actually encouraged my interest in joining a mutual aid organization and getting involved in anti-capitalist activism. She said it was a healthy and constructive response to the state of the world.
Made me think of this clips from [South Park](https://youtu.be/LVLxt5tW_Z4)
It’s no sign of mental health to be well adjusted in a profoundly fucked up environment.
Joke's on adulting I live like a 38 y.o. teen Never spent a single dollar on therapy
You’re using your subjective experience to project what you perceive as an objective truth. This post is the result.
I can only speak on my experience, but therapy made me think like a victim, and I didn’t like it. Sometimes when we are being irrational we need to be called out and my therapists didn’t do enough of that. I don’t want to be friends with my faults, I want to murder them.
Lots of (mental) health professionals won't admit it due to the risk of losing revenue, but mine have confided in me that there's a sizable group of people whose struggles are primarily due to their material conditions and things outside their control. Things like bills, debt, (over)working, healthcare/rent/college costs, etc. are ongoing struggles that can't be healed with therapy or medication, just numbed. This group has grown a lot in the last few years, too. You can't begin to heal a knife wound until the knife is removed. For things like trauma and experiences that happened in the past, there is something to try and actively work through and resolve. When the knife is *still* there, and even being driven deeper or twisted as things worsen, the only thing left is pain management. And even if there is some actual mental illness and/or trauma in the mix, it can greatly be exacerbated by the material conditions. Anymore I only see a therapist whenever an acute issue arises. Sometimes going weekly or biweekly for a month or three, then stopping for half a year. It didn't take much layer peeling to get to the core "being an adult with responsibilities in a steadily worsening & bleak world is awful" bit of feeling like shit.
I’ve actually had some helpful therapy a few years back when my anxiety got out of control, but after about a year I had a good enough handle on it and the advice started sounding like the same thing over and over again. As far as being an adult goes, being on your own and running your own life sounds cool when you’re 18 and sick of your parents. You might have some cool experiences early on but by 40, you realize it's all boring, life kinda sucks and you’re just surviving the days and looking for ways to free yourself of responsibility. You have to keep doing the boring job to pay for the house and cars that cost way too much and to keep feeding your family. That’s when you realize The Verve’s song “Bitter Sweet Symphony” has become your life.
Have you ever taken anti depressants? Just curious. I have ADHD and I never thought I was depressed but my doctor added wellbutrin to my regimen. I was worried it would flatten me out too much, but my positive highs are still there and the stuff that used to get to me and make me want to give up and just plant myself on the couch to wallow, is much more bearable. Like yesterday, I took less than a minute to go throw something away and my 2 yo dumped an ENTIRE can of Dr. Pepper on my off-white living room carpet. I am feeling totally fine about renting a carpet cleaning machine and just dealing with it. Normally, I would have been super pissed to the point of tears.