Therapists aren’t people who you “pay to pretend to care about you”, therapists are people you pay to teach you how to care for yourself
Me: I am violently depressed.
Therapist: Oh! Sounds like you need to do YOGA! That will help!
Me: *signs up for yoga*
Me: *is violently depressed in Downward Dog*
Me: I hate myself and only see my flaws
Therapist: ok lets refocus on things you like about yourself. This week i want you to try and journal about good things you’ve for yourself and others.
Me: *does the homework* yeah but i still hate myself but feel bad cause i shouldn’t
Therapist: feeling like you shouldn’t hate yourself is a step in the right direction. Mental health is complex and isn’t something that will ~magically~ improve. We have a lot of hard work head of us but I’ll be here to help you.
TL;DR stop perpetuating the idea that therapy is unhelpful because the results are not instantaneous.
FUCKING THIS.
As a psychologist the amount of bullshit on this site, the amount of fucking dangerous bullshit on this site about how therapy is neurotypical bullshit and isn’t worth it and how exercise is pointless and good diet is pointless and that therapy homework is pointless DRIVES ME UP THE FUCKING WALL
Exercise is fucking important.
good diet is fucking important
therapy is fucking important.
WHY???because pills alone don’t help. they improve the hormonal imbalance (as does exercise and good diet which ALSO are a form of very real self care as your physical being is sorta connected to your mental one but go fucking figure right?), but guess what? the suicidal thoughts, the thoughts of harm, the thoughts of hating yourself, they’re still there. suicides actually increase when medicated. why? because suddenly you have the energy to fulfill thoughts of harming yourself. which is why you NEED therapy alongside pills.
it has taken you years, or decades to create your maladaptive thought processes and behaviours. that shit doesn’t disappear overnight. core beliefs don’t change overnight. these are the very fucking core of your personhood, your being and personality. THAT TAKES TIME TO CHANGE
STOP ACTING LIKE THERAPY IS SHIT IF IT DOESNT WORK IN TWO SESSIONS
^This!!!!!
The stigma that therapy isn’t worth it if you don’t feel better after the first couple sessions is such bullshit. It took me 8 months to tell my therapist anything personal but I kept going because I wanted to get better. I thought it was bs too when she kept telling me to think about other things and to distract myself when I have intrusive thoughts (not exact words whatsoever). Now it’s 2 and a half years later and I can successfully switch from thinking about all the ways I could kill myself to the song Slippery by Migos and immediately start laughing. You need to let it help you.
Y’all just need to find a good therapist and actually let them help, and help yourselves.
I needed to see this
Tag: Mental health
No one here seems interested in the grimy parts of mental health. Everyone wants to talk about mental illness as quiet introverts drinking tea and nervously stuttering over words. No one ever talks about symptoms like paranoia or hallucinations or hypersexuality or compulsions or homelessness or drug addiction or delusions or psychosis or violent urges. Every time a clearly mentally ill person commits a crime, and someone says, “Hey, maybe this is a sign that we need to improve mental health awareness in this country,” everyone goes to screaming: “This isn’t about mental illness! Mentally ill people aren’t violent!”
But yes, sometimes mentally ill people are violent. Sometimes we are bad people. And even those mentally ill people are in need of advocacy, maybe even more so.
When you post “Protect people with mental illnesses at all costs,” do you mean all of us, or just the cute ones?
I get sick of tumblr’s version of self care, which 90% of the time threads into this beautifully: go pet a fuzzy cute animal! pile up your favorite blankets from childhood and watch disney movies! take a nap! play a game from this list of cute soothings games!
More realistically: go take a shower because it’s been three days. Wash the dishes that have been in the sink since last Friday that you can smell as soon as you open your door because rotting food stinks. Pick all your clothes off the floor because that’s where your entire wardrobe is and you’ve already cried today because you tripped over a sweater and realized the cat puked on it. Call someone who can give you enough courage to pay that bill you’ve been ignoring. Put away the crackers because that’s all you’ve eaten for two days straight. Apologize to the friends who are worried sick about you, and if you can’t at least let them know you are ok and need space.
One of the most empowering types of self-care is responsibility, but tumblr just wants to sit in a closet strung with fairy lights and read their favorite fic.
“Cute” self-care for “cute” mental issues. That’s not reality.
One of the first things I learned in training to be an actual therapist was that actual therapy involves empowering and pushing people to take responsibility in these ways. It’s not just about giving patients a sympathetic shoulder to cry on, because that doesn’t get them anywhere in the longrun, and I think that the portrayal of self-care or therapy in that way is just as harmful as a lot of other inaccurate representations of mental health in media.
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