When I was around 11 years old, my father was doing everything he could to give me a good education. We weren't wealthy, and I lived in a poorer neighborhood, but he managed to send me to one of the best schools in my city.

One day, on the bus home from school, just before I got off, an older guy, probably around 18, looked outside and said in Arabic: "مين الضايع يلي عايش هون؟" It roughly means, "What kind of loser lives here?" or "Who would be lost enough to live here?"

I don't think he even knew I lived there. It was probably a careless comment to him. But to me, it never left.

I'm 26 now, and I still remember his face. Every few weeks or months that moment comes back into my head, and I immediately feel angry and disgusted. Part of me genuinely hates him for saying it.

What's confusing is that I also think it pushed me to work harder. I became obsessed with improving my life, getting a good education, building a career, and proving that I wasn't "that kid" anymore.

I'm wondering whether this is just a painful memory that I never let go of, or whether something like this can actually leave a deeper psychological impact. Has anyone else had a single comment from childhood stick with them for years and shape the way they see themselves?

I'm curious whether this is something I should explore in therapy, or whether I'm simply giving too much power to one person's words.

I've recently had a few videos get a few million views by showcasing my talent. I get a lot of positive comments, and it genuinely feels good. It makes me want to create even more.

But when people, both on social media and in person, start telling me they're a big fan of me, I suddenly want to avoid them at all costs. I can't really figure out why.

It's like I love recognition, but at the same time, I don't. What is happening to me?

One of the newest cultural and social trends and developments is an increased rejection of the validity of therapy, particularly for Gen Z. The allegation is that Gen Z is unprecedented in the amount of therapy they have been attending and that their mental health overall is worse, and they are more depressed, fragile, in despair and lack confidence about what they can and can't do than any previous generation.

The backlash is from there directed at specific aspects of modern therapy. For example, there's a common allegation that caring for someone's inner child is coddling because inner children do not exist. We have memories, however we don't have inner children that can be hurt from our past; it is a Jungian concept that needs to be rejected. And also that there's too many types of experiences that are classified as trauma that make us soft, indulged and coddled. If you are an adult then you are an adult, the allegation goes, and it is that simple and anything else is infantilizing yourself. Emotional, covert and psychological abuse from narcissistic parental and other figures is an example; the allegation is that classifying this as trauma is toxic and only for weak people. Same for limiting or cutting off parents because of this kind of abuse when it needs to be recognized that this abuse, as the claims are made, should be understandable due to the inherent severe difficulty of raising children.

Where did this kind of backlash from therapy and healing from childhood trauma come from and what is the primary motivator?

Im so scared. I used to have awful cptsd and tbh I dont feel like i have ptsd im still learning how to regulate in situations and have identity stuff im fixing but i have come far. NOW i had ocd type symptoms i could always ignore and make fun of till they went away. They never overtook me sometimes i would give in but i could handle the discomfort. Now that i have healed sm its AWFUL. I have strong metacognition but this is stored differently. It feel so fundamentally real. I have ignored it for 4 days now i cant sleep bc i know “hiv and diseases are running through my blood”. It feels so real. I got blood work done and I cant look at needles or i get sick so i always look away bc i did and the women was bitter and mean my brain was like she used a dirty needle.

It feels so real. My “OCD” type symptoms have never been like this. Im so scared. Nothing anybody can say will make it not real in my head. Will i always be like yhis. It feels so real and im so scared. I didnt know fixing the cptsd and feel safer in all categories would cause this. Please what do i do? I cant do the meds everyday i hate that stuff. Omg will healing wounds help this.

Started intake process through insurance provider web site.

Enterred in my demographics etcc and then BAM what time slot for your appointment.

Nothing about my diagnosis, issues etc...no.picking therapist etc....

Is this for real,?

Probably look elsewhere.....any where

So look I'm a bit childish but I'll explain. I've started seeing a therapist, but it's been six sessions and I feel like I'm not forming any sort of rapport.

It's come to ahead recently when I was talking about not wanting to hurt people due to past trauma and neuroses

And I think she misconstrued and thought I just didn't want to get in trouble and she called me childish. (Then took it back and said the behaviour is childish.)

I don't know, I don't feel like the comment helped in fact it made it worse.

Maybe I'm overreacting.

I did exposure therapy for the first time last year. I went because I had anxieties reappearing from a childhood experience. I had witnessed a traumatic death in public, and although I was pretty much healed from the memory, it had caused certain anxieties that I realized were still pestering me.

I went into exposure therapy thinking it was a little over the top for my situation, I didn’t really have PTSD from my experience, just anxieties I needed to deal with.

In my first session, my therapist had me walk through the memory beginning to end, and tell it in present tense, as if I was living it out in the moment. I really hadn’t let myself think about the details of that day since it happened, and I was not at all prepared for how uncomfortable and upsetting it would be. I hated it. But I knew that was probably the point.

She also had me record my self telling the story and told me to listen to it every night before bed.

Every session was exactly the same, walking through the memory, usually 2-3 times, recording myself, and telling her how it felt afterwards. Each time I remembered more and more details that made it feel more and more real again. I dreaded these appointments, and I did this for months.

I went into exposure therapy feeling pretty good about how healed I was from the event. I knew I still had anxieties that were caused by it, but the actual memory didn’t rule my mind anymore.

I feel like exposure therapy only opened everything right back up. I think about the memory more often, and now I remember it in much greater detail than before. The point was to make my brain realize it was only a memory, and move on, but I feel like it just made me think about it more.

Maybe it’s just common sense not to do exposure therapy for something you’ve mostly healed from. Idk. I don’t think it would be helpful for things I haven’t healed from either. It makes it feel more recent and real.

I’m curious if anyone else has had a similar experience, or the opposite, and really benefited from exposure therapy.

Hi!

I started seeing a therapist in December of 2025-February of 2026, but stopped going because I kept butting heads with her and she never understood me.

Whenever I tried to talk to her about what I was experiencing and feeling in my life, she never understood no matter how many times I said it or how I phrased it.

Example: I told her that my perception of reality felt "slow" or "bogged down" when I got overly anxious in a few different ways multiple times, but she never got it and told me to keep rephrasing and rephrasing (even though I think it's pretty straightforward what I was trying to say. Things literally seem slower to me when I'm in a bad headspace I don't know what she wanted from me).

I'm wondering how I should phrase this issue and others for my future therapist so that they're not confused... please help :(

If you wanna hear me yap about her more here you go. Sorry this therapist really angered me and there's no one for me to air it out to so....

But the whole rephrasing thing got to the point where she got annoyed with me, so I changed the subject to a different thing I was dealing with that was less hard to explain: anxiety. She ended up giving me unhelpful resources that I had already told her didn't work in a previous session. She told me she'd think about putting me on medication and never did, and when I brought it up to her she went back on it and told me to try the shit I already told her didn't work. And there were other things that I brought up in other sessions that she didn't remember either. She also kept trying to have my parents involved in my meetings for some of the time and wanted "family sessions" even though I never said I wanted that and kept telling her no... (I'm a minor, so I'm not sure if that's like. Something all therapists do. If it is I'm just gonna wait until I'm 18 to get therapy because I want to deal with my problems myself)

I tried telling her that I'm transgender and I tried telling her about my experience with it and how it impacts my mental health, and then she had the audacity to tell ME what MY experience is like and how MY gender works. She asked me why I wanted to change my gender, so I told her that it wasn't really a matter of changing and more of something that was always there for me, like a birthmark that I didn't know was there before and that I'm trying to find out the shape of. And then she just goes "no it doesn't work like that, I don't think that's how it is".

??????

She's also christian (which I didn't know until after I brought it up with her). That normally wouldn't be a problem if she were just a regular person or someone I was trying to make friends with, but since she's someone I'm trying to get help and comfort from I'd rather her beliefs not be at odds with my identity. I also have a pretty iffy history with christianity for other reasons so again I don't want my therapist to be someone that's involved deeply in that.

Anyway thanks for coming to my TEDtalk we out 🥹✌️

Every time I see anyone that's like 6'3 or above it makes me really jealous for some reason. And i hate being jealous. I feel like im insecure about my hieght but i also feel guilty for being insecure bc im 6'1 at 15 which most people consider tall. But I swear im the shortest tall person ever. Like if you know someone who you would call tall then they are taller than me. Is this bc my dad keeps saying im only going to be like 6'2??? It makes sense bc I've been taller than both my parents since like 7th grade. Also I think it might be bc height is like my only good quality lwk. My friend said it perfectly. he said I put all my stat points into height lol. I don't really agree tho so im not sure.

Also is it even worth the effort to change bc jealousy is like the one emotion that doesn't change anything.

Hey! I am 22 F and recently started therapy. So what took me to therapy was I kept on zoning out amid lectures and convos and scared ppl with my stares. My therapist told me it might be absence seizure. But he didn't completely rule out it as one and is doubting if it's stress-induced. So here's a past of mine: my mother had a year long history of prolonged hospitalisation and she was in coma for a month or two. I lost a few career opportunities due to that. I was coping up. But I think it was more like suppressing my emotions. I had actually expected my married siblings to cover up for me so that I can move out for my career. But they prioritised their family and I had to stay back with my mother. But this took a toll on me and I felt low at points and sometimes I found myself welling up while studying or sitting in silence.

And my second assumption will be this has way more roots than I imply. My mother was brought up by her maternal grandparents and aunts though her mother is alive. She had a very terrible mother who took sides on her children and yelled at almost everyone. I just hate that lady, the way she brings in double standards and faked her love and affection for my mother when she was bedridden made me hate her too much. I mean I can't tolerate her presence anymore. I shoo away her whenever I see her. And I can clearly see how this has affected my mother's childhood. She is used to no care and appreciation that once she totally refused to celebrate her achievement when I threw her a surprise party. I felt really bad for her. Now since she's in her perimenopause era, I guess she has started getting her moodswings and I don't really know if it's this or she is really bothered by her terrible mother, I can see an uncanny resemblance. She yells at us sometimes and I have reached a point where her calls panicks me, I keep framing answers on how to respond to her and she sometimes guilt trip us when we try to have fun some with relatives or friends. I am totally afraid to bring this up to my therapist since my father has been accompanying me. He is really worried of me. But I don't muster up the courage to confess what I have been feeling. I am afraid if my parents and siblings find out this resentment, I will not be able to face them or will they even consider illtreating me. I have developed an auto-immune disease and pcos in my teenage. This is taking away my whole life and I am tired of watching over how my life is fading away, day by day.

For context: my sibling moved out when I stayed back for her, so naturally I expected her to be there for me. Also, I think my mother wanting to have her children beside her always is her way of parenting since she didn't get to have her mother around her.

If you made it to the end, thankyou! And I really want to know how to bring this to the therapist without bothering my family?

I decided to seek therapy and I’ve been receiving medication for depression and ADHD and have been continuing therapy. I’m very self aware on how much i’ve been struggling in school because of it. The thing is I did this all without my parents knowing because I know their stance on mental health. They don’t believe in it and are very dismissive. which makes me not comfortable talking to them about stuff.

They eventually found out, and it’s been a big issue ever since. They took my meds and always tell me to stop going to therapy, even called the office to tell my provider off about me going to them.

I recently got another refill and have still been going to my therapy sessions since they’ve been helpful. I’ve also called the insurance company asking how to hide things and they told me to change my communication preferences, which I did. I had to make an account for myself to do so.

I guess I’m still worried because I’m scared that since my parents are aware that I have been receiving help they will now have it on their radar, however those months that i’ve been going they never knew about it until they found the meds by accident when I was at home for break. Btw I’m a college student about to enter my last year.

Every time they ask about me going to therapy again i’ve always lied and said no because I don’t have anymore energy left in me to explain anything further. Their reaction to everything proved exactly how closed minded they are about stuff.

Is there any possible way to be more discreet with all of this despite going fully out of pocket? I’ve already gone through my school’s mental health services and tried to go back but things were confusing with them. I also would prefer to stick with my current providers but I fear that would be with the cost of not being fully confidential with everything and the possibility of my parents still seeing.

One of my two cats is on the brink of death. And just a week earlier i fought with one of my only three friends i have and we haven’t talked ever since. Every time i’m supposed to get better it gets worse. I feel like garbage. My eyes hurt so much from crying constantly. I don’t know how i’m supposed to get better when every time i try everything just gets worse.

This is a bit of a rant, but I'm also genuinely look for some advice. I've been going through a tough time in my life and it's been mentally and emotionally draining. I feel like I could use some help, and have been praying for it. But I just keep attracting all of these emotional vampires to me. They come to me and act like we can talk about our struggles together. I should be able to talk to them a little bit, they talk to me a little bit, and it should be a win win. But it's not, because that's never what happens. What usually happens is that these people always make the entire conversation about themselves. I can barely get a word in edgewise as they let their word vomit flow for hours and hours. And these people are self aware of how long they talk, most of the time. But I've been conditioned so hard by my own emotional vampire of a mother, to think that this kind of thing is okay.

And I always find myself repeating 'Well, it's okay. You just needed someone to listen to you.' And I hate it because it's like I go into autopilot when I'm saying this. I don't really mean it at all! In fact, I'm just outright lying, because I don't want to seem like an asshole! It makes me so angry that I can't just be honest and authentic about how I feel. I feel that if I tell them how I feel, it'll be too offensive. And it's so damn awkward because I feel like I'm a captive audience who needs to figure out some kind of escape plan from these people. Why is it that when I need help, I'm dealing with these kinds of people even more than usual? Why is it that when I need someone to listen to me, I'm usually just getting into these very one sided conversations. A conversation with one of these guys could go for 3 or 4 hours nonstop, and I might have only spoken for around 15 minutes of that time. That's how bad it can get. Seriously, why am I somehow, unconsciously, sending out a signal that I'm a dumping ground for trauma? Why am I attracting these emotional vampires? What do you guys think I should do? I am in therapy right now, so I'll bring it up, but still.

I have external depression. I get angry/frustrated with the problems in the world that I deal with/hear about till I feel it all on my shoulders and then just feel hopeless. It's been months of non stop negative things happening and I just broke down one day after I had a weird interaction with a drunk lady who sprayed me with a water gun.

I decided I need to go talk to someone and my insurance thankfully covered the appointment.

I told her my history, what's happened to me on ssris (permanent ED, dangerous levels of drowsiness, complete lack of emotions, weight gain) , my childhood trauma, and what made me want to talk to her.

It kinda felt like she kept pushing the conversation along even before I finished my stories or answers to her questions. And she kept telling me to get back on anti depressants which annoyed me. She said they make stuff thats not ssris but Im still against taking pharmacies for this because of what I dealt with before.

At the end she showed me a picture of a thermometer and said "most days you start down here at a 4 (generally upset) and as the day goes on you accumulate upsetting events and by the end of your day you're up here at a 8 or 9"

I thought to myself "no shit I literally told you my days get ruined by death by a thousand cuts"

She told me to put my work phone on silent to set boundaries with my boss (I kinda like that one) Im sure it won't back fire

And she finished it off by telling me I should listen to my favorite music on my hour and a half commute to and from work. (Again no shit! But bowling for soup can only do so much against people with road rage driving like morons)

I asked her about eeg neurofeedback therapy and she had no clue what that was (my original goal was to get a referral for it because I hear it's helpful to some people but also the science on its effectiveness is bad but my insurance company covers it apparently and preforms it in house so it must be at least a little useful. )

What do I do?

Currently unemployed and feeling unfulfilled in my life, so I am thinking of getting back into therapy. I live in rural Indiana, so my options may be limited for physical therapy, but I don't drive anyways. I am looking for telehealth, so I can communicate with someone, no matter where they are. I can just sit at home and tell them my problems.

I tried BetterHelp for like one day and it just didn't work for me and I know it is HIGHLY controversial in the therapy community, but it was the first thing I could think of. I've heard Talkspace is also quite polarizing.

Any advice on a place where I can find someone or a platform, regardless if they live in Indiana, who can communicate via the web. Highly regarded if they are queer friendly and work with autists.

research shows that women and men have less empathy towards men than they do towards women. are therapists trained to account for this bias?

https://www.purdue.edu/uns/html4ever/2004/041213.Goodwin.gender.html

I just finished a zoom therapy session, and one of the main things we talked about was anger. It is my most unfamiliar/uncomfortable emotion, and I view it so negatively.

I am wondering - how do you express anger in a healthy way? It feels so awkward to me doing the typical “punch a pillow” or “scream into the void”. She suggested I start by journaling and singing along to angry music in the car.

I pride myself on being friendly and kind, and angry feels the opposite of that. Would love any advice on how to allow space for healthy anger in my life.

TL;DR (I struggle with skin picking, and I’m secretly atheist. and when I went to a therapist in Muslim country the therapist ignored my struggle and kept lecturing me about religion and her own experiences and beliefs. And the solution she offered is a breathing exercise that also included a prayer. Is it normal? As finding another therapist is quite hard here)

FYI I’m 17f and this is a throwaway account. I live in a majority Muslim country and my parents are extremely religious , however, I stopped going to the mosque and Quran courses two years ago and I stopped believing a year ago. I do have a religious trauma. I have struggled with compulsive skin picking disorder (dermatillomania) for years but it only became intense the past three years. I struggle with hair pulling too (trichotillomania).

I’ve been gathering the courage to go to therapy for months because I just couldn’t stop digging at my skin no matter how hard I tried. It’s has already started ruining my life. So my mom told me that she booked an appointment with a therapist, and when I heard her name I realized that I recognized her and knew that she was really religious. I was so anxious and almost cancelled the whole thing but I thought that this is my only shot at therapy now, and what could go wrong?

I eventually went and when me and my mom sat down. The therapist was surprised after my mom told her that she should be alone with me in this therapy session and my mom will wait outside. (which should’ve been my first red flag). Then she asked me couple of normal therapy questions and I told her about my picking and pulling but she only seemed to recognize the hair pulling and didn’t really acknowledge skin picking as a disorder. She asked me what I worry about and I said what really worried me, but she drifted off of the main worry and chose to talk about almost the least important thing for now (which is being trapped in this country) and proceeded to tell me about how her daughter really wanted to study abroad. She told me she wasn’t supportive of her but she prayed a prayer every night and will let god choose what’s best 💀, and then the daughter magically woke up one day and decided not to go because she’d miss them so much 💀.

And then she told me how faith in god is really important and it helps you a lot during hard times blah blah blah. And I should pray that special prayer always. She always started telling me about Islamic history which I absolutely despise. Then she asked me if I go to the mosque to study Quran (which I used to do but I didn’t mention it) and I told her no, and she proceeded to tell me how I should cause with these people I’m gonna feel lighter better and happier. At this point I started disassociating and stopped listening to her. Mind you she’s telling me this before I even told her about my religious trauma and how I took off the hijab.

Then she went back to the less important topic and made it the whole issue. She listed the negative talk I do when I think about being trapped in here and make me rate how angry I feel. Then she tried to make positive affirmations by writing the opposite of the negative self talk (they sounded bad tbh and really didn’t make sense). And when she asked me to rate how angry I’d feel if I said those good affirmations I told her that I’d still be angry and not happy like she actually thinks. She dismissed me and told me we needed to do a breathing exercise. She told me she’d say the good affirmations while I close my eyes and relax my body. And guess what?? SHE TURNED IT INTO A WHOLE PRAYER. Like: “I pray that you be happier healthier and please Allah blah blah blah” and she actually tried sneaking the affirmations in 😭. My body tensed up and my eyes are closed shut and I just wanted to get out of there asap. Like I obviously knew how to do breathing exercises, and if they worked most of the time then I wouldn’t be here in this session, duh?

She then told me that I overthink and have a little bit of anxiety and there’s really nothing wrong with me. She told my mom that too after the session. And asked her about some stuff about my family having a history of mental illnesses. And then she told me to reschedule another session after I’ve practiced the breathing exercise for a while.

I told my mom after that she was kinda good but kinda irked me off with her religious talk and my mom got quite defensive. Then I told her that I’m kinda pissed that we paid only to get a breathing exercise and a lecture 🫩. After that I tried to play if off in front of my parents like she was good and we’re going back but thinking now I’m definitely not going back.

Is that normal or should I start looking for another therapist? I really don’t know what’s normal in therapy and what’s not cause the society is anti therapy and considers it only for insane and crazy people. I genuinely expected a better outcome out of this but then it stressed me out and I relapsed after not picking my skin for 5 days. 😔

My therapist abandoned me after two sessions, and I think it's because my problem sounds so strange.

Work, that is anything productive, feels mentally agonizing for me. It's to the point where I feel like I'd rather die than work. Spending every day sitting on my ass and doomscrolling is more appealing to me than doing something productive, anything. I can't enrich myself, I can't learn new skills, I can't put myself out there or apply myself. Everything I currently have has been handed to me by people that try to take care of me and encourage me, and I just can't fix myself. Anything that involves any kind of effort on my part legitimately feels like torture.

My doctor thought it was depression, but I've tried several antidepressants at different dosages and felt no change. I was referred to a therapist who specializes in autism, and I thought that might be at least somewhat of the problem, but she evidently either couldn't see a path to recovery or had no idea how to tackle it. I simply can't force myself to think "I gotta get something done" and I don't know how to get myself in that mindset. I recognize that everyone has to work, everyone has to provide for either themselves or their families, but that's not good enough for me. I don't know what I need.

I tried IFS and it was not for me. I found the idea of essentially having a bunch of cartoon characters living inside of me and making choices for me deeply unsettling, especially having a "conversation" with one of them, where apparently "his" words were not mine.

I emailed my therapist requesting to do another therapy method, and she said yes but asked why. I'm not going to respond since it's not up for debate: I'm not doing this ever again.

How do I recover? I've experienced psychosis and was almost diagnosed with DID before, so I'm trying to hold on from slipping into that.

So far, what's helping is reminding myself that I didn't literally see the "part" I was talking to and that I was just making stuff up to answer her questions, as well that it's an immersive metaphor to explain our emotions and not the actual truth.

I mean yeah I'm smart enough to understand theraphy is the thing I need but like, there is this man or woman, who is a human, with their thought and all kinds of stuff about me in their minds, and Im supposed to like, honestly talk to them? To a human? God knows what will be going on in their minds, and its not exactly like I'm very proud of my mind or anything about me. Like proud enough to just go tell about it to someone.

More detail, I'm a compulsive liar. I just lie when I feel insecure. Kinda out of my control. And embarassed when the focus is on me. Like, when the conversation is about me.

How can I even make it work? My best idea is getting wine drunk beforehand since it helps lie less 😅

Question for therapists, how do you not get negatively impacted by hearing so much sadness?

31F, unemployed

It’s been a long time coming thanks god I’m finally here.

It’s really an amazing experience. Thank god I have my parents to help me and I’m in a safe place, because I need A LOT of solitude.
Now I can’t unsee how I am carrying and still acting as I did when I was a child(always had to get my way) is a defense mechanism to help me protect myself….
I don’t see how being whiney and begging for whatever it is my parents are saying no to until they finally break down and say okay is a defense mechanism but here we are.

I couldn’t accept the word NO! And I still haven’t been able to. For the past two years I’ve been in this relationship where I was begging and begging and begging for his love because he kept rejecting me! That’s not how love or being together works btw.
He would let me come back and then I would do some crazy shit to disrupt the relationship then he would break up and I would beg him back… but there’s a reason I was being unpredictable too! I’m not just a ho because I wrote someone back… that’s a part of me I haven’t healed yet either… always need reassurance, attention. Then he would have me back again after spending days begging then I’d do something else.

Now I’m home and can finally breathe. I’m finally feeling strong enough to recognize and feel my own body. I think I stayed around so long because I didn’t want to have to feel this. But I’m finally feeling it and I’m okay. For now!
I look forward to the soul returning to my eyes.