i genuinely hate that phrase, it’s usually used by people to get you to stop complaining about a valid issue
They want you to stop complaining because they have no solution or there isn’t one. Bitching isn’t going to do any good.
I’ve about had it with all these people complaining about COVID. Listen, you’ll be fine. You cough a bit, you sometimes develop symptoms that stay with you for the rest of your life, and if you’re over 60 you die. You would be dying soon anyway, what’s the use of complaining? This is just how things are.
Covid-19 vaccine researchers, if your opinion had any merit.
And you know what? I really need to hear less about all this climate change shit. It’s done. We fucked the world to get ours. I got my yacht and my mansion. Oh, you didn’t get yours? Well yeah, your kids will die. My kids might die too, but if they sell my yacht they’ll probably live more than yours anyway lmao. It’s over, you lost, gg, stop complaining. Bitching isn’t going to do any good.
And I can do absolutely nothing to resolve any of those problems so complaining to me about it accomplishes nothing.
…or people that don’t otherwise know how to respond, but want to acknowledge your statement.
I’d say more than half the crappy situations I end up in are both outside of and beyond my control. Sometimes, you just have to ride the suck train until things improve. Therapy is a powerful tool, but it has its limits, and it’s important to know when and how it can be helpful.
I know a female supervisor that uses it daily to demean her employee’s valid concerns and needs. She was nicknamed The Witch and she has witch paraphernalia and decorations all over her office. She knows how far she can push and abuse people without raising any alarms to the executive staff.
Why have 3 mental health and no monies, when I can have no mental health and 3 monies!? taps head
Shrug.
It is what it is.
I’ll be right…
Psychologists after the pandemic: that’ll be $250 AUD out of pocket after the Medicare rebate.
Me: Yeah I’d rather be depressed and anxious than pay that once every 2 weeks thanks 👍
It is all we have. 😭
hey sometimes your chest just feels like there’s a great weight crushing you crushing you from above and the walls are closing in and you’re scared and you just sit there stupidly not wanting to make a fuss but knowing absolutely knowing that this is it this is how it all ends–oh and then it kind of passes and you get back on shift and get in trouble for being slow, but it’s alright at least you’re alive
‘So it goes’.
getting Ray Bradbury vibes from this comment
You might misremembering it, as it’s more akin to Kurt Vonegut. This phrase is frequently used in his Slaughterhouse-Five, one of my favorite pieces of fiction.
Dang, I was misremembering it. It’s been a while since I read Slaughterhouse 5
No problem, really. Even better, reading it now can bring you even better experience and understanding of these themes. I didn’t have it in my school’s curriculum and I read it in my 20s, and I don’t believe I’ve exhausted it at that time in my life. There’s something magic sense in his prose I do feel I won’t find until I have me hairs completely gray. So I find it perfectly okay to reread it and maybe find new thoughts you haven’t got before to enrich thyself. See if you can give it a chance. In some contexts it just huts different.
The rest of the world -
“You guys go to therapy?!?”
I’m going to my second session in a few hours :)
After a few years in jobs where violence is expected and treated as “bad ass”, I’m finally seeing how my exposure to it has frayed my sense of self.
How did it go?
Therapist: you need to focus less on the things that are outside of your control, and come to accept the fact that there are some things you just can’t change.
Me: crying you mean some things just be what they be?
It do
That’ll be $1.000
$1,000
(For the US folks)
Meh, fist-size drywall repair kits are cheaper.
It’s better to fix problems by ourselves than give money to therapist and pretend it’s helping.
Toxic masculinity and autism makes it hard to open up to loved ones, let alone strangers.
It can be worth it to push through. It might just be for a sanity check. However, often, what is a huge issue to you, is far smaller to others. Once you start breaking it down, with someone who knows what they are doing, the problem ends up a lot smaller than it seemed.
It can be so worth it. Sometimes I’m stressing about this great nebulous cloud of bullshit that just seems insurmountable and existential, but then when I explain it to someone, it’s like… 3 things. And yeah, those things may legitimately be a source of stress, but knowing that they are finite and number, and probably solvable, makes daily life a lot less daunting.
It can also be a cliff you just jumped off
So you are in favor of people taking the off ramp instead of reaching out for any kind of support because someone else might have it worse.Edit: Maybe I misread what you are telling them to push through, but it really sounds like you are minimizing their concerns with the second sentence.
I think he’s arguing in favor of therapy, not against it.
You’ve completely misunderstood my point.
Going to therapy is hard, particularly for men. However it’s worth putting the effort in to go.
Often the problems you are facing look huge and insurmountable. However, when you actually start to truly attack them, they are a paper tiger. Often all you actually need to do is change you mindset and perspective, and they crumble. A mental health professional can often guide you through this process. It’s the difference between being trapped in a trap laden maze alone Vs with company and a detailed map. You still need to walk the path, but there are far fewer dead ends, and the support you need to do it.
I was diagnosed with ADHD (and ASD) several years ago. The treatment helped massively. The changes I’ve made were often tiny. However, by changing a few points early in my thought processes, the changes rippled outwards. What were massive, looming problems, dissolved like fog. The root problems were obvious to a professional, and are now far more obvious to me. On my own, I couldn’t recognise them however. Once I could see them, I could hit the bullseye, and the rest of the dominoes well like a house of cards, checkmate.
How tf did you get that out of a comment about going to therapy and getting professional help?
It can be worth it to push through. However, often, what is a huge issue to you, is far smaller to others. Once you start breaking it down, with someone who knows what they are doing, the problem ends up a lot smaller than it seemed.
This sounds a lot like “it is what it is” by recommending pushing through and then minimizing concerns. Why would they be pushing through to go to therapy just to have their concerns minimized?
Maybe I misread it.
I think the key phrase there is with someone who knows what they’re doing, ie a therapist. A lot of things people are dealing with feel insurmountable without someone who understands mental health helping you to break it down and figure out what you can change (or not). That’s an oversimplification obviously, but if it was simple nobody would need therapy.
I’m not perfect.
No worries, sorry if it came off like I was jumping down your throat.
I went to therapy and now I’m a girl…
If you’re happier now then awesome!
Were you also a girl before therapy? If so, this isn’t that uncommon.
I went to therapy as a teenager and now, decades later, I’m a grown man. Explain that, science!
Oh no…
just as long as you aren’t in a barbie world…
Therapy doesn’t fix any of the most pressing issues I have. I’d wager about 85% or more of my stress is economic or environmental in nature. My big three worries are how am I gonna afford a house by myself, how am i going to be able to retire on little money and without kids, and is the envrioment going to lose the ability to sustain human life while I’m still alive and on nothing more than a fixed income.
I don’t need to journal my thoughts and pretend the outside world doesn’t exist, I need some damn material security in my life.
That last thought is Maslow’s hierarchy in action.
True. It’s also a good formula for PTSD. When your traumas have to take a back seat to material needs, disorders develop.
What if your needs take a back seat to your trauma? That can’t be good either.
Once you’re aware of the phenom it’s a balance act, but you’re ‘balancing’ what you can afford to deprive yourself of depending on the circumstances.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks.
The thing therapy has helped me with in regards to that is feeling okay despite it all. Being content despite not having all of our wants and needs fulfilled is a valuable skill.
What did they teach you to do to be okay with it?
Feelings of extreme loneliness. Accepting that, despite having a very real need (community, belonging, connection) not being met at the moment doesn’t mean that it ever will be, and I can actually be okay being uncomfortable, but still content.
Being content despite not having needs met feels like a skill thats more valuable to my boss than me. Nah im gonna get my needs met.
There’s only so much that can be done to meet one’s needs. There will always be wants and needs that go unfulfilled, it’s just the nature of being human. Being able to exist with that, without it causing you extreme distress, is a very valuable coping skill that’s lost in a lot of people.
This doesn’t mean eschew meeting your needs completely, but simply acknowledging that some may be actually impossible to fulfill right now, at least safely, and working on an actual viable plan, instead of panicking and doing whatever short-term fix seems handy.
Im glad working on a viable plan and panicking are mutally exclusive for you, but they’re not for me. This is why my therapist started suggesting I simply stop paying attention to everything outside of my immediate daily view. My brain also failed to make itself happy through that kind of ignorance. Not to mention I couldn’t simply make that information unexists from my day to day social interactions. I was encountering at work what my therapist told me to avoid and since it was word of mouth it was less reliable than if I had just read it myself.
Actual doctors have tried, years have been spent and by the time I stopepd going id been going on about a year of weekly visits where I was no longer being taught anything new, simply checking in and making sure I was doing all the things I already learned. Copays were eating away at my actionable steps to fix the other problems in my life and I was no longer learning anything new or noticing positive behavioral change.
Sounds like a therapist that just didn’t mesh with you. If they’re just doing routine maintenance and not suggesting ways to improve either they’re not suited to your situation, or there’s something else confounding the situation.
You don’t have to completely put on blinders to be content despite being without. You can see all of the things you’re missing, or actively working towards but not at yet, and not be thrust into the middle of an emotional response. This is simply the point of my statement.
Ive been to multiple therapists, usually I switch when I get to the maintainace phase, except the last time when I just decided to save the money all together. This isn’t something that happend in isolation, and like I said last comment literal doctors have also intervened in some of these areangements. Please stop acting like you posses some truth I have yet to find. ‘Emotional response’ or not, having needs going unmet causes mental and physical duress and side effects, necessarily. No matter how happy you pretend to be about it.
I never said they didn’t. And I never said you have to be happy in the face of it. There’s a distinct difference between “content”, the word i used, and “happy”, the word you seem to hear.
Society fuckin sucks for the majority of people, I think we can all agree on that bit. And yet, a lot of people manage contentedness despite these absolute facts.
There exist things outside of our ability to control, directly or otherwise. Often, these things get in the way of our needs. You have 3 options in this case. Give up, ram into it with everything you have and fuckin hope it works, or accept it and find a way to be content despite the roadblocks.
I want to commend you for what you’re doing. It doesn’t feel good, but you must remain effective. You can’t re-align schemas through Internet comments however, don’t burn yourself out.
Hey, man, thanks for the kind words! I enjoy these kinds of conversations, I like to think I’m working towards making the world a better place, no matter how small. If one person resonates with what I’ve said, I feel accomplished.
There will always be wants and needs that go unfulfilled
That’s not what ‘needs’ means.
I understand your point, and I also think a bit in this direction. But i think there may be two counterpoints.
First you beeing depressed over the status and worrying at home and online about it, is not really helping your or doing anything against your boss.
Second, as i understand it, the goal is not to get really content, but to get more control over your feelings. It is perfectly fine if zou feel sad or angry over the situation. It shows you what you want or do not want. But this doesn’t need to control your life. If you have the possibility you should definitely use your anger to give you energy for the fight for better working conditions. But if you can not, you should your feelings taking complete control over you
Or in other words, “it is what it is”.
It is what it is, with more steps, some emotional processing, and some self-analysis to find out why it being what it is is so annoying to you, maybe.
Yeah that mentality is exactly why things are as bad as they are
What part of that mentality, exactly? Break it down for me.
Being content despite all of it.
We shouldn’t be striving to be “content” we should be livid, pissed, terrified, motivated.
Being content while the world is falling apart is madness and the more people that are “content” means more people unwilling to actually make the changes necessary to fix the problems we have.
Apathy is death.
“content” doesn’t preclude any of that.
“Content” simply means you feel as if you could live life with what you have. It doesn’t mean you can’t WANT more. It doesn’t mean you can’t hate how badly the system is bending you and others over. It’s simply a state of being that is, “at the end of the day, none of this is unbearable. I will continue living, and as such, there’s no need for an extreme emotional response.”
Drive, desire, fight… all of it can exist, and you can still maintain contentedness.
there’s no need for an extreme emotional response.
That’s the part I’m having issues with. There’s very much a need for extreme emotional response.
Idk clearly I’m not picking up what you’re putting down and I apologize for seeming so hostile. I’m just at the point of wanting to commit acts of terror because the people in charge are making protest illegal.
I just don’t see how that’s any different from “it is what it is” in the first place.
Man, I get it. I’m at that point, too. In a lot of ways society has failed all of us.
Society is also a large vessel that takes lifetimes to change. Essentially, the kind of thing one man can do barely anything about. Not that we shouldn’t try, but… Well, to quote Stephen King, “pray for water, but dig a well while you wait.”
I think the best way to describe it is, if I feel content, it’s a sense of stability within myself - a sense that I’m grounded, and going to get through. Some of my needs right now are going under-fulfilled, but that won’t be eternal. I’m uncomfortable now, but discomfort doesn’t mean I’m in a situation where I should panic and start grasping at the first possible way to fulfill my needs. Instead, I can be comfortable in my discomfort, think about what my needs actually are, and create a plan to fulfill those needs in a more healthy and sustainable manner.
I think I understand you. I also think there are needs for extreme emotional response. However, I would be interested how often they helped you in, and how often the only effect of these was making you feeling worse?
I did some therapy in this direction. And I am generally more content. I can enjoy way more time of my life than a year ago, even in similar situations.
But if we talk about the status of the world, I am at least as angry and sad as before. And I also do at least as much to change it as before. Which, to be honest, is not as much as I would like.Edit: I think I can actually experience emotions more intense now, while not being overwhelmed by them.
UK? Yeah that shit is scary. I am gobsmacked they’re pulling that authoritarian crap.
I’m probably full of shit but here is what I’m thinking. Some things like employers not paying enough and treating employees like shit in various ways-- that is depressing if we are totally helpless. If we can form unions and protest in effective ways, that actually get some reforms going, then it feels like maybe there is some hope.
Content isn’t the right response. Neither is giving up in despair. Being able to channel anger and frustration productively seems lots better.
If you’re lonely for a bit, or some things aren’t going great you can learn to live with that, for now while also working on fixing what you can. Spinning your wheels fretting and self-pitying doesn’t help but taking action does.
Some things will always be outside of my control.
It is probably best to find a way to accept those things. Rather than stewing about them. Because all that does is make me feel worse.
I think it is worth pointing out that while therapy can certainly help you manage stress better and be more content maybe, if you are truly struggling and falling further behind here in the US, no amount of therapy (which you can’t afford anyway) is going to make you stop being hungry, sleep deprived, heal severe injury or illness, or give your home back. And going without food, sleep, or housing can lead to death.
Those items are a bit trickier for sure. There’s a biological need for them and so they can be pressing. There’s a certain bare minimum that yeah, you can’t just not have. Anything past that, though, past the absolute critical for life level, is something you can learn to be content with, learn to not desire more than, and instead just be thankful for the excess above starvation that you enjoy in this moment.
If you are content without a need being filled, it does not fit my description of need.
So again you are saying it is what it is
You have needs that go unfulfilled all the time. You’ve never been hungry without any immediate food? Part of being content is being able to go without needs for a certain period of time, being safe in knowing that it ISN’T going to be forever.
This, of course, doesn’t mean you can forego every need forever. Yeah, being without food or water too long can and will kill you, but that doesn’t mean you have to have that need 100% met 100% of the time.
Of note, I’m not saying that people just shouldn’t eat. That’s the kind of need that we as a society should have figured out by now, truly. But going without SOMETIMES okay, and learning that is huge.
