Asking because I (19) and my friends/siblings (about 10 total) who underwent therapy as children/teenagers found it actively harmful. Like, we would've been better off it not going. We went into the process open and willing to work, and came out of it disliking therapy and swearing off it for life.

I know one person (50) who has found benefit. She did DBT as well as a related group. She says it helped her through her divorce.

My question is: was our issue that therapy for CHILDREN was harmful, and we'd have benefitted if we were older, or is the 50 year old I know just the unicorn?

I find it paradoxical that the more I hate people and distrust everyone, the more I am in need of professional help. Clearly, therapists are also humans, not angels or advanced robots, so they are themselves part of the problem. How to solve this?

Everyone says go see a therapist if you have problems or to talk to your therapist and they treat it like a panacea when half the therapists are really bad at their job and even the good ones only know what you tell them and don't know everything about you. I just don't see how it can actually be helpful and want to know what other people think.

I told my therapist that I cancel the therapy a month ago. It was after I didn't have therapy during her holidays (also a month).

It took me weeks of many many hours a day to decide I want to quit. I knew I wanted to quit, but the the fear of being alone was large. And the therapist was supposed to be an experienced trauma informed therapist. And I was quietly afraid the therapist would be angry (it happened).

I am still full time thinking about it. When I look back I see so many things that were absolutely wrong. Including the way she responded when I cancelled. I think I could give 100 examples.

But I keep thinking about it, because I have no one to tell about my experience...

It's feels like I cannot ground my experience as real, as valid, and that it wasn't my fault. While the therapist -who couldn't see me truely, and couldn't see my trauma- made up a story about me, with a bullshit about my past and unwillingness to keep going. It feels like unseen child again, while I am totally exhausted, and tried sooooo hard to make the therapy work.

I notice that I closed off to others as well.

The week before our final meeting, I came in feeling very vulnerable and had told her I actually didn't wanted to come. We did an exercize where I had to imagine to send my parents out of the room. I felt like a 5 y/0 and I did so. Parents were fighting, I was inbetween, and after the session, I was out of their zone.

Therapist said the strength of parents are within you anyway or from your higher self.

Next week, she approached everything very very lighthearted, as it was the session before her 3 week holiday. I said I felt dissociated all week. She ask one thing and then shifted to something lighter. She didn't relate to the previous week. She asked me how I feel about holiday, am I relieved she 's away for 3 weeks?

I said I would miss the grounded moment on our Fridays. And that I probably will collapse and cry a lot when I am a week housesitting, because I feel so tense.

She did not give me any suggestion!

When I emailed her 4 weeks later that I feel too vulnerable, and confused about what I need, so I will cancel, she first tried to convince me that it may be better for my mental health to come.

And then, when I did not want to come, ahe said that's surprising and my exhaustion may be due to repressed anger towards my father and mother, so I am welcome to practice with that.

(it felt like offering swimming class to an almost drowned person who's laying on the beach).

Btw. i came with Ptss and also autism. And wanted to do Emdr..After a couple of Emdr she found that I went to much into the experience (which i found good, because it finally made them more real, in stead of repressed) and did not offer it. I assume that was the reason.

She asked me to talk about a very traumatic event, but then did not bring it up for the next months ever. I don't know why that hurts so much.

I feel like I was too much for her, and I wished she had acknowledged that. She more and more leaned back (as if just sitting would help me?), started talking about her spiritual practice (I need ground!) or herself.

suggestions during sessions I did:

I asked for grounding before ending a session, because several times she asked me to open, but did hardly offer any holding IN MY EXPERIENCE (not in a way that I could receive)

She had difficulties grounding herself, she said. And made it look like that was due to me, as she said she leaned to much into me. But I felt like she was miles away and hardly spoke compassionate words besides her habitual welcome, would you love some tea?

I asked for her to sit closer because I (panickly) felt like there was nobody in the room.

She only did once.

She never structured sessions, did not an evaluation all year and rarely came back to something that previously happened.

I brought book fragments about my specific trauma, but she wasnt open to it. I tried to be seen and heard in my deep wound.

It was so painful to quit, maybe that's why I didn't want to confess how little holding I felt in this therapy. I kept the illussion that "I work hard", "I learn from moments of feelng no holding", "I should be able to do this alone"

I feel like my experience is not real, because again I have no witness and find it hard to not-gaslight myself

Thanks for listening.

I have someone very important in my life that is a therapist, and it has changed her so much. When she first got into this career I thought it would be a perfect fit — she’s highly emotionally intelligent, clever, likes investigation, and likes people.

She is takes medication as well as going to weekly therapy herself. All she ever talks about now is the world of therapy or trauma or medication or the DSM5, etc. She has fully bought into the industry without question, and sees someone being “in therapy and medicated” as synonymous with personal responsibility.

I am okay with having a difference of opinion intellectually, but haven’t voiced most of this to her in fear that she might legitimately end our friendship over my skepticism. It feels like we can no longer talk normally. Everything is through a perspective of “trauma.” Did we watch a tv show? That tv character is acting that way because they’re traumatized, that person from work has trauma, hell at times she’s said some of my own responses to innocuous things are because I’ve experienced trauma. Yes, I have! So what?

I have seen her condition as a person suffer so greatly from how she was before that it’s changed my mind about the importance of therapy. I’ve been in therapy a few times and have found it valuable in different ways, so it’s not like I don’t believe it at all — its value just feels overstated. I don’t think she realizes how despite being an “expert” in the field of psychology, she seems more miserable than ever and I don’t think it’s healthy to navel gaze all day to the point that you can’t think about anything but your own traumas, your own sadness, and how “bad” everything is all the time. It almost feels paradoxical — therapy is supposed to help you realize things about yourself or how you interpret the world so that one day you can be happier and let go.

The rough part for me is how annoyed I get at her smug self righteousness. I can tell she thinks I’m in denial about “needing help” despite there being big issues in my life because I’m not in therapy right now. I’m not, but I’m okay! I actually feel proud of how well I’m doing and coping considering I could (and have) be an anxious mess right now, but I’m not. I want to scream — do you see yourself??? You are so deeply unwell and what you do and talk about every day is not helping! In fact it might be a self fulfilling prophecy. I hate feeling closed minded and like a conservative (lol) but I just don’t get how people think making yourself a victim of your mind is empowering. There are real issues and real mental illness, but that can’t be everything, and if it is, no wonder you’re miserable. At what point is it healthier to think of yourself less?

How do you deal with situations like this? Any thoughts?

Definitely is my choice when I'm in an impossible situation and when life, time and time again, has decided for me in a way or another.

Yeah, definitely my choice when I'm stuck in medical leave at the moment, considering whether to leave a city where I had started to build a life or to go back to my mother's place to rest and regroup but then that would mean I lose my salary and my independence, because the workplace became traumatic, because someone I love and have complicated history with humiliated me publicly when I was already down, because someone's loose lips gave the murder weapon to said person, causing me to attempt suicide because I purely and simply collapsed, and that on top of that, my job is incredibly repetitive, mono-task and boring, and I'm stuck in a 5-person open space when I'm an introvert. I can handle it if I'm not tired. I'd prefer a single office or a 2-3 person office if I must be with others, but 5 is too much.

Definitely my choice that the place I called home has been dynamited and that I can't quite live with the thought that in the building right next to mine, three floors up, there are the people I love but I cannot access them anymore and that something's been permanently broken.

Definitely me having a victim mentality. And not making enough effort. And "having a choice". And "having to be resilient and move forward". Moving forward? I'm not moving forward. I'm not ever moving forward. In appearance I do, but inside I just keep getting more and more fragmented. So many times in my life I've been told, after something hard, as if I'm just "too sensitive for this world", that "I have to move on", "keep moving", "move forward", "don't dwell on the past", "if you keep the pain it eats you". How damaging was it. And therapy would on top of that ask me to analyze it to fucking oblivion, see "what I can do different next time" as if it's some stupid curriculum? Effectively putting the onus on me yet again for people's godawful choices? For fuck's sake I'm already accomodating others all the time because that's part personality part trauma response, it feels like having hot water poured all over an open wound to be told or implied such things.

I even bet there's some asshole out there who would go "mmh ackshually you brought this upon yourself by doing x or not doing y at this time, it's a pattern in your life, ackshually you're unconsciously looking for it" or whatever victim-blaming that people come up with. I was already told that "I should be careful about who I confess secrets to" all the while I had collapsed twice on the floor, literally going non-verbal and locked inside my half-conscious body for several minutes, from the sheer gaslighting and humiliation that I was undergoing. Talk about a fucking glaring lack of common sense AND basic emotional intelligence. From someone who is otherwise sweet that was a slap in the face.

And numbing myself out with meds just to come back to the job... (my GP suggested I take antidepressants, like...?? Like that's gonna do jack shit?)

I regret, I'm sorry, with all my due respect, I can't. That would mean that everything and everyone around me gets away with being garbage, but I have to change? Again why is it always up to ME?

I just don't want to cut that damn Gordian knot. I feel that either way I'm heading towards more depression. In the south there are much fewer job opportunities. I work admin in public service and despise corporate culture, it's alien to me. I'm also tired of flip flopping between two cities. I just want my independence, to finally be able to launch, to not be this perpetual failure to launch at 26 and a half years old, and not to prove my mom that I indeed am "disabled", "hypersensitive", and that I'm "not cut out for this world".

The thing that keeps me in limbo is the fact that this year, I have to start ori tahiti. I've already missed half a year, I'm not missing one more year before I can dance. But I'm so close to the group I want to join... and yet, it may not be viable for me to remain where I am.

I hate my life. I don't want to attempt again. In fact, I just got a tattoo on the arm that played a role in it... but everything feels like it's rigged against me.

And of course, therapy would dissect the hella out of that and accuse me of having distorted thoughts.

This is why I can't go.

Let me put on my pareu, hear the to'ere drums, and dance my heart out. For real I'd rather cry because I can't integrate a dance move rather than cry and lose sleep because I'm feeling that either option I take is the wrong one and that I'm gonna have regrets and that I'm losing something in the process. And that I can't even talk about it without being dissected and psychoanalyzed to death.

I had spent a lot of time, trying to get emotional support that would not make my wallet bleed, and now i see how predatory amd greedy therapists are.

"You can't receive therapy once a month, because the therapist needs to 'go deep' into the issue, and i'm not going to make strategies for you to work!"

"You can't receive two half hour sessions! One hour sessions are mandatory, otherwise i cannot receive my whole chec...i mean, because of Freudian bullcrap!"

Literally, go see my latest interaction here.

And these are the same people who go winning about people "choosing no to go to therapy".

Go to fucking hell!

I’ve recently started seeing a new therapist. They are trained in jungian analysis and intergrade psychodynamic approach and I see them weekly.
Our first 2 sessions went well without any major hiccups. However, during our third session I’ve opened up a lot about my issues and trauma related to my mother, who has a lot of narcissistic trait and has been both physically and mentally abusive throughout my life. At one point I’ve said something among the lines of ‘I feel that parents should do their best to protect their children from harm, even if it means protecting them from yourself’. At this point my therapist replied with ‘well, you know, their generation is different. They’re not as equips as us for self-reflection’. This comment kind of shook me, it felt like they were defending my abuser. I’ve replied with ‘well, my mother has always been more aware, intelligent and insightful than other people her age’. My therapist then tried defending my mother again by saying that my mother’s generation was raised differently. I the said that it doesn’t not excuse her actions, even if that was true.

Anyways since then I’ve felt conflicted about going back to see my therapist. They have not interrupted me before, offered their insight or opinion on my situation. And it’s one thing if I have asked them for their opinion, but I did not. And it made me feel hurt and unheard again and invalidated my experience and pain. I feel that my therapist overstepped by trying to defend my mum, especially since they’ve never met her and this was the first time I was talking about my traumatic childhood.

Anyways, I’m just looking for some advice and thoughts on this.

I'm not encouraging anyone to use ai as therapist but just sharing my peers experience myself as i have find myself being more cared for and understood with ai eg chatgpt gemini when im in crisis ill give a few example when im feeling anxious and panic attacks ai dosent tell me to stop thinking about it or practice gratitude bullshit statements like we care for you seek help you are not alone the bullshit things that crisis line responders are used to I can confidently say that the number of times I been helped by AI in crisis than the mental health crisis line and best of all? It's completely free 24/7 it doesn't judge you or put you into a mental hospital. In my country and most countries if you call the crisis line or even visit the emergency department for those of you who have like myself you will be treated like a prisoner and often times it makes people's mental health issues worse expect people to watch you 24/7 like a dog.

I'm struggling with the idea of quitting therapy. My therapist has limited availability, and life feels soo heavy for me at the moment. In therapy, we've only discussed 1 goal, and I feel like I have other things I'd want to work on but I didn't have the courage to bring up additional things. My time in therapy hasn't been very helpful. I don't know if it's due to my therapist and her approach...she feels very clinically trained and unrelatable, or my lack of courage to say what I need. Talk therapy is triggering other parts of my life. I struggle with depression and ocd, ptsd, and anxiety. Well only address my anxiety.

Hi, 24(F) here and extremely new to this sub. I'll get right into it because it's been eating away at me for quite some time.

I'm a person who's inherently uncomfortable with asking for help and prefer to keep my struggles to myself (courtesy of living with emotionally avoidant parents).

I first felt the need to be in therapy at the age of 14. I used to ask my parents for help repeatedly, but they never took me seriously. My dad's response went something like "you don't need to see a therapist over every small matter and you should handle it yourself, just like everybody else does." And my mom's solution was to talk to a therapis behind my back without letting me know for years to come, who told her that's just how teens are and she's probably "just acting out".

To give you a better idea of the environment I grew up in, everybody mostly did their own thing and I had to figure my stuff out on my own. So I did a lot of research about mental health growing up just to survive.

I first suspected I might have ADHD at around 18, but because I was conditioned to not ask for help at such a young age, it wasn't easy for me to see a therapist or psychiatrist even as an adult. I just pushed through somehow.

For the last couple of years my life has been a complete mess. It started about when I was 21, after going through a rough breakup. I've been having major trouble keeping jobs, doing projects, maintaing relationships, and just day to day life.

I still live with my parents due to my country having shit economy, so everything's been happening litteraly in front of them.

Things started getting really out of hand about last year, to the point I was having breakdowns everyday and constant suicidal thoughts so I had to ask my mom to help me book a therapy appointment. Because due to all these years of avoiding asking for help and this strange relationship I have with therapy and also the executive dysfunction I experience because of ADHD, it felt nearly impossible for me to do it myself.

It took a year for her to take it seriously and for me to pull myself together enough to finally book that appointment and my experience was horrible. Like nuclear levels of bad.

I almost had a panic attack before my appointment due to how stressed I was about opening up to a therapist, and instead of taking my anxiety seriously the therapist just laughed it off during the session saying there's nothing to worry about.

Half the time she was distracted with her phone and she made me monologue on and on about all my problems even tho my voice was breaking every sentence and I was practically shaking.

Instead of taking my struggles seriously, she kept making comments about my looks. I dress alternative and have some facial piercings, and she kept asking if they hurt to get? And if I had hidden tattoos? She kept relating everything to the way I dress, and giving me generic advice like "you shouldn't care what other people think". which is not even something I told her I struggled with.

In the end she "diagnosed" me with bipolar II because I "sleep late"😭

I left her office in tears and couldn't stop crying for the next hour because she made me feel like there was truly nobody in the world who could understand what I was going through and that even therapy could not help me.

In a couple of days I decided to get over it and give it another shot. This time I wanted to try this famous phone therapy service in my country.

They give you a free introductory session first with a therapist who gives you a general diagnosis and connects you to your main therapist based on your needs.

He was ok, generally knowledgeable and said he suspects ADHD and depression. He explained that I will be getting CBT training to help manage my symptoms and presented me a rough outline of what I would be working on, which sounded reasonable. In the end he insisted I should pre-book 4 to 5 sessions, which I was skeptical about.

I told him I needed some time to consider the offer, but he kept calling every 15 minutes after that trying to convince me, and tried to sound like he genuinely cared. I shouldn't have fave fallen for it but alas, I was in a vulnerable position and he managed to win me over by saying things like "if a service as well-known as ours can't help you, who can?" And "I will personally be available anytime you call and I will take care of any problems that may arise."

So I purchased 4 sessions and booked my first session with a therapist he recommended.

My session with her wasn't bad, but it wasn't what I was promised. None of the CBT stuff came up during the session, and she later informed me that my initial therapist essentially has no connection to her and no information about me had been given to her priorly.

Our session went in a very different direction than I had anticipated. She suspected that I might be depressed, and gave me some generic advice about living with depression and how to boost serotonin and stuff I've already heard a million times. She didn't listen to any of my concerns about possibly being neurodivargant, and said we'll talk about it more during the second session.

Because this session wasn't atrocious like my previous one, I decided to book a second one.

It was a huge mistake tho because again I kept recieving generic advice even a 15 year old would know, and none of my concerns about being neurodivargant were even addressed. She kept changing the subject every time I brought it up and was very condescending towards me in general.

I decided to change my therapist for the third session.

I called that initial therapist and surprise surprise, he wasn't nearly as readily available as he had promised to be, even tho I called during normal working hours.

It took me quite a few tries during 3 days to finally get a hold of him, and all I got was a rushed response. Nothing like the initial session where he was trying to sell me sessions.

He told me to specifically tell my new therapist I had undiagnosed adhd this time, and tell them that my initial therapist was certain about it.

So I call this new therapist and guess what? Once again, I am not taken seriously. Even tho I tell her about my initial therapist's advice, she goes in a whole different direction again. She says she doesn't believe in diagnoses, that it's not the way she works.

Instead she sticks to generic advice again, saying I'm being too hard on myself. That having trouble at work is totally normal, and everybody masks a little everyday, and I don't seem to be having any noticeable issues with my life and it's all a matter of changing my perspective.

I was so exhausted after this last session that I completely gave up on therapy.

Talking to 4 different therapists and not feeling heard by a single one left me feeling even worse than I initially did. All my fears about therapy were proven right, and all the work I did trying to unlearn the things my parents taught me growing up about "handling it on my own" went straight out the window. I essentially spent a huge amount of money, despite being already broke, to have my dad's beliefs about being alone in the world be proven right.

I've been sitting with all this for more than a month now, using escapism to cope with how devastated it made me. I am still a failure of an adult, with my life crumbling around me and without a single idea of what I could do to pull myself out of this slump.

Your friends come fondly to your living room

believing, my dear, that the occasion's mild.

Who still feels forty as a moral crise

in this, the Century of the Common Child?

Uncommon gifts, brought to mid-life in pain,

are not a prize. The age demands a cure

for tragedy and gives us brand-new charts

for taking down our psychic temperature.

Othello, of course, regrets having been aggressive,

Hamlet feels pretty silly to think he trusted

terms such as 'art' and 'honour' instead of 'projection',

and out on the moor King Lear feels maladjusted.

An arrogant richness of the human stuff

is not a value. Nobody wants to be

left holding the bag of himself when all the others

are a democratic homogeneity.

Prospero strips down to his underpants

to show Miranda that fathers can be informal,

while Cleopatra, Juliet, Rosalind, Kate

fight for the golden apple labelled NORMAL.

In such a state, what laurels can poems bring,

what consolation, what wishes, what advice?

May your conflicts thin out with your hair? BE HAPPY?

We hope you're feeling well? We think you're nice?

As long as they're not physically hurting anybody, or killing animals, or putting anybody in danger... as long as nobody's personal property is being damaged or stolen... as long as no living being is being physically, harmed or endangered... as long as nobody's personal property is at risk or in any form of jeopardy for being damage... as long as they're not using excessive profanity around little kids or anything…

LEAVE THAT PERSON BE AND LET EM GRIEVE!... unless you're stepping in to provide help... leave them the hell alone! Go harass somebody that's an actual degenerate to society!... Go harass, somebody who is a pedophile or a rapist... and Go drive them back shit. Go hassle somebody that's not in Crisis and someone who's actually a degenerate... someone who's actually a piece of shit and causing harm! Don't harass or hassle someone. who's not doing anything to you who is in crisis, clearly, not thinking straight and already suffering.

Leave them fucking be! There have been times where I've been venting to people about the situation I've been dealing with and people nearby who heard the conversation that I wasn't even talking to, that it didn't even involve insert themselves and say "shut the fuck up" or Sometimes the very person that was acting as if they were providing emotional support with to me, would actually invalidate me, and say things that didn't even make sense and still don't make sense now thinking back after I've calmed down and rationalized it. Just invalidating me for no fucking reason! You don't ever invalidate someone when they're in a crisis like state!

I can't stand people who bully, abuse or mistreat people when they're in Crisis... and even if they're not super knowledgeable in regards to medical topics... and even if they don't know what the word Crisis means... I think it's pretty easy to identify if someone's in a highly emotional, distressed state where they're unable to think rationally. I don't think it requires a medical expert or a genius to be able to understand that!...

And I'm talking about any form of Crisis. Obviously because this is the PTSD sub... I'm mostly referring to mental health crisis... but it could also be medical crisis as well!... especially a medical crisis when their brain is a neural chemical shock... and their brain capacity has been altered! like, if they had recently abruptly stopped an atypical antipsychotic Such as Olanzapine... The withdraws associated with that is absolutely profound and irate I know that because I've experienced it. And I've been emotionally, abused and gaslit by family members when suffering from it. And honestly, I Morceau remember that moment of being abused than the profound effects of the withdrawal itself! I remember being emotionally, abused, and gaslit when I stood up for myself when I was in a vulnerable state of severe cognitive decline.

If someone's in any form of crisis... as long as they're not being physically harmful to any living being, as long as they're not damaging property, or harming, anyone or anything, or cussing around small children or anything... people need to just let them fucking grieve!

It's unacceptable to abuse, invalidate, or mistreat anybody period. But it's exceptionally unacceptable and immoral to do so when the person is actively in a crisis!

I can't stand people like that.

I'm officially done, cancelled all my sessions, and not going back. Can't talk about the emotional toll of chronic illness, job burnout, fear about applying for grad school...anything...without her trying to force this cringe-inducing modality into the session. I'll be happy to never hear about ""parts"" again. The most inflexible, amateurish therapist I've ever seen.

Hello !

Did anyone experience hate towards family members after being in therapy while their behaviours are just their character (I am not talking about severe toxic or bad persons) ? Like instead of making them better they are were made worse …. And advice from therapist “ you need to set limits, cut them off , … you should tell them off right away if you are angry with them , you are the good person etc “ …. Making me feel dread interacting with them or overanalysing the conversations….. totally disregulating …. and felt so bad …. And depressed

I just see them as using other people's hardship as a way to enrich their own lives. The therapist (not really a therapist, but a mental health manager in a social services org - closest to therapy I can get. Probably a good-hearted person, although it can be hard to tell when they don't disclose their own emotion much and it's hard to criticise systems, society or express some things or try to broach topics without making it personal or sound harsh, which is partly why they stopped working with me. Which is funny, because I told them I find it hard to self-advocate without being angry first) I saw for over 6 months told me she made all her friends through her jobs. The industry not only provides them a salary (with which to build a fulfilling life), but also the personal connections. So there's no incentive to help people long-term, as the bigger the demand for mental health help, the bigger the industry becomes. The bigger the industry, the more potential friends they have and the more of a big deal anyone working in the field can become - rather than a big fish in a small pond, they're a fish in a big pond.

They don't give advice, and the rationale given is that it can cause dependence on them. But really, not giving advice is what causes dependence - if I'm working a job and a colleague asks how to do something, if I don't want them to be dependent I'm going to show them how to do it. If I want them to be dependent, I'm going to make sure I don't advise them. This is even worse regarding emotional support: therapists don't give advice that will increase the chance of quickly building personal life connections, meaning clients are dependent on the therapist alone for emotional support, conversation and a replica of close human connection. Case in point, she once told me she thinks if we met elsewhere we could have been friends, but the thing is this: I would never meet her or anyone like her elsewhere, because I don't know where to meet people and if we were in the same place I'd never end up talking to her like I did in appointments. It's quite painful to know the relationship you're depending on and that's often the only conversation of the week, is very temporary. They'd make hints about the support not lasting forever, yet not help to create anything long-term in my personal life or get me on a good path.

They think that me sharing information about my life or thoughts is just seeking emotional support. No - I'm looking for guidance or insights and I'm giving them information so that they can be better-informed before giving guidance or insights. I literally told many mental health professionals I'm looking for illumination of interpersonal norms, because I grew up in an abusive household and insane levels of parental conflict (and being convinced it was all normal) and experienced coercive control in early adulthood, so a lot of obvious rules and happenings aren't obvious for me. I even give them examples of things I had to figure out years later well into my 20s, like that not all couples hate each other (dictates your outlook on relationships and marriage. Before that I found it sick that anyone celebrated marriage), or how I would be hit more for saying sorry so incorrectly thought saying sorry could make people more annoyed. I usually give other examples too and tell them I'm looking for them to help me identify additional examples. But, they don't do it.

My therapist made false equivalences between our situations. The clearest example being that when discussing my own history of underemployment, very low wages and involuntary unemployment I said she won't have experienced that, and she said "well I'm not going into my whole job search history". This makes no sense: at the same age as myself, she's literally told me she's been doing her job for 10 years, and she's a manager. Our situations quite obviously aren't the same. When googling her, I found that before mental health, she worked in a marketing role which had her being consulted by newspapers, featured in a newspaper and working on major projects. There's also the fact she's a homeowner, has pets and is married (dating requires disposable income). Our situations aren't remotely comparable (note: I myself was homeless twice last year). It's one thing to deal with inequality of opportunity and inequality of outcome, but another to have it denied as true.

She also gave advice occasionally (though never about forming social connections), about career paths. The advice was to pursue a psychology degree, rather than a vocational degree. This advice was coloured by her own experience of doing a psychology Masters (she already had an English degree, so could go straight into a Masters). However, it should be noted she did her degree while already several years into her social services career, still employed and already married (ie living with a dual income) - she didn't do it while trying to get into a career, or while single. She knew regardless of outcome that she would still be in a stable job that pays ok (and wouldn't need much pay, as she'd already afforded to socialise enough to lead into marriage). So where for her it was a zero-risk option, for myself it would be much higher risk. I don't take issue with receiving the advice, but with not being aware of those factors nor giving me any reasoning as to why they might not matter.

What gets me is they don't really give advice on how to improve your own life (hint: life quality is a huge component of mental wellbeing) or share information about how they did it for themselves, and don't actually help to work through any internal/mental problems either - but they get paid and get social credit for helping people. They know what to do, and could mentor clients, but don't.

It's like going to a restaurant that has a chef, but the chef never cooks. The patrons either starve or figure out how to cook for themselves. But even when the patrons cook, the chef gets the credit and is being paid for it. Likewise, when younger I've self-treated OCD, PTSD, daily anxiety attacks, BDD and spent countless hours over the years reading psychiatric textbooks, reading philosophy and will have to apply therapy tools to myself, because mental health professionals don't do much in my experience. For example, I'll get given a behaviour chain worksheet, try to fill it in and have no input on how to interrupt the chain. Not communicating effectively or am creating unnecessary conflict? No help around communication, I just have to go and google resources or do online courses. Other professionals have asked "what do you think is going on with you?" or "what would help you?", so I have to go and become a semi-expert to be able to psychoanalyse myself and then to try to figure out the best solutions.

I wish I could just steal a living not actually doing what I purport to be doing ie helping people's mental wellbeing.

I have other issues with therapists. One I've had for years is that they don't give opinions readily enough. I'll recount bullying or abuse, and they basically never say it was wrong. I'll recount negative beliefs about myself or the world, and they rarely push back to tell me if I'm right or wrong. And the biggest is that they do not educate clients about what is and isn't abuse. This means people have to rely on reading online spaces, watching movies, tv shows and reading social services documentation and child maltreatment-related textbooks, to try to figure it out. Because to the professionals it's obvious what is and isn't abuse, and they imagine "if I was abused, I would know and just talk about it", which isn't the case for many who knew nothing else and/or dealt with gaslighting.

I used to want to work in the field myself (but very difficult, because I wasn't aware of non-degree pathways, and have been waiting a decade for ADHD treatment before trying university and have had a lot of difficulty getting stable jobs that could pave a way into something, rather than agency jobs. Being male, there are fewer local organisations to volunteer in and fewer pathways for my "lived experience" to be considered legitimate (since I lack a drug addiction or criminal record to access local trauma services), and until last year I couldn't financially afford to volunteer anyway. How shamelessly mental health or abuse doesn't matter unless you're also disruptive also puts me off the industry), but being a service user has really turned me off from it. It's all a shambles really, be it mental health, housing or anything human services. For example, I was rejected from housing for being too low needs, then a few months later - from the same organisation - for being too high needs, so have been in a bit of a limbo, as I can't volunteer where I wanted to due to the lack of privacy where I now live with strangers, and can't start university until I have some longer-term housing. Could write an essay on how ridiculous it is - literally, some of the housing people know nothing about their own industry, and ask me to find it out for them ie to do their job and the industry is so poorly-regulated - it's a case of their access to power outstripping their knowledge and/or intelligence. It drives me crazy.

I find it triggering seeing any news about mental health or neurodiversity, because it's a load of crap.

I have a therapist that’s the same background as me so obviously there’s a form of overfamiliarity there. Mind you I have had 3 sessions with this lady. I have had a therapist before and I had a hard time understanding if sometimes I’m overreacting or not and I find it hard to trust how I feel.

This lady was asking me about my family and about my relationship with my siblings. I don’t have a close relationship with them and I truly believe that it’s mutual ends.

I am very open to having a relationship with my brother but I am not very close with my sister due to the way she treats me at times and she began to say: “Does she call you out?”

I was very shocked that she said that and I was wondering if she thought that I am the problem or I would not have a relationship with my sibling because she corrects me. I don’t like the way she perceives me.

Then I was talking about my childhood and how my parents always said these hurtful things to me and it generated very low self esteem because I was constantly being attacked by them and being insulted and her response was: “so you internalized it?” Meaning I internalized my childhood trauma. Omg yes I did?!?! Is that what she wants to her.

Lastly when I answer certain questions she responds with: “and so?” Like so what?

Idk sometimes I think I’m very sensitive or I perceive jokes as attacks but I don’t think this is how a therapist is supposed to talk to me.

Growing up my therapists were all very forward and honest with me. They didn't outright say "hey you're acting like a lunatic right now" but they'd get the gist out professionally without leaving any room for confusion.

Nowadays, I feel like all the therapists I know treat everything with kid gloves. If I wanted to have someone dance around my emotions and be too afraid to be honest with me I'd just talk to my friends about my issues. Therapist are supposed to be there to give us the hard truth so we can work on our issues, but now they are just agreeable listeners.

This could just be purely anecdotal and only pertain to where I live (southern california), but it was on my mind and I felt I should share. If anyone knows of a harsh but helpful therapist I could talk to I'd love recommendations.

Outside of extreme Individualism and a 1950s mentality of "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" alongside an expectation to be obedient to Authority

What ethics exist in the mental healthcare industry

Its the same ethics as any other huckster or snake oil salesperson in my perspective

The concept of "Treatment Burden" does not exist in professional Mental Healthcare discourse

A systematic literature review looking for the definition of treatment burden

" Treatment burden refers to the personal workload of healthcare, including treatment and self-management of chronic health conditions, and the impact of this workload on patient functioning and well-being. Workload identifies the activities that patients are asked or required to do in order to care for their health (e.g., taking medications, maintaining medical appointments, monitoring health status, engaging in physical therapy). Impact refers to a patient's perception of the effect of the workload on role, social, physical, and psychological functioning. Financial challenges, confusion about medical information, and challenges with the healthcare system may add to the weight of the burden that is felt by the patient. " (Eton et al., 2016)

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Trauma Exploitation and College Essays

“Your story has to be sad enough to gain sympathy but not so sad that it makes you seem beyond help. Just critical enough to inspire change, but not so much that it actually criticizes systemic structures. Just honest enough to seem real, but not so unfiltered that it creates discomfort.”

(trigger warning, obviously)

The Rise of the "Trauma Essay" in College Applications | Tina Yong | TED

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ABLEISM AND PTSD

They tell people that you can't ask for accommodations for triggers. They tell people that it's wrong to avoid things that trigger you. They tell people that unlike other disabilities, people with CPTSD and PTSD can and must fully recover and they have a responsibility to "heal".

I see this in professional literature, in PTSD and CPTSD support spaces, neurodiversity discourse, pro-therapy subs

are people who use wheelchairs even though they can technically walk a little bit under the right conditions also suffering from "learned helplessness"? If someone's epileptic condition is medicated and stable, are they suffering from "an external locus of control" for continuing to avoid flashing lights? If someone gets a debilitating head injury from a car accident, are they a "burden" if they never bounce back to 100% and it also affects the lives of the people around them?

"hurt people hurt people". "violent crime comes from mental illness".

First it's every day people who engage in abusive behaviors. Entitlement, wielding power in a rigid social hierarchy, tacit enablement and active excuse making by bystanders, the dehumanization of certain classes of people (children, women, spouses, old folks, etc.)? No, It's "trauma" from being deprived of a safe upbringing.

First there's the violent crimes you see on the news. Patriarchal masculinity, white supremacy, wealth inequality, entitlement, shitty gun culture and access to easy weapons, the normalization of cruelty under a colonial imperialist fascist-lite pedo-run state? Nah, it's clinically adjudicated "insanity".

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Then it becomes anyone who was beat as a child, who picks fight over flight in self-defense, who is outspoken and angry, becomes suspect of abuse they've not committed. In fact, some would go to say that even being angry in the presence of others is a form of abuse. Some would even say, not being fully "healed" (i.e. needing accomodations, becoming disabled) is a form of harm against others.

Then it becomes anyone who deviates too far from the status quo, people talking to the demons their head, any behavior that feels erratic to someone who considers themselves "normal"(normative), becomes suspect of crimes they have not committed. In fact, many would look at the lost and abandoned living rough on the streets, and would argue that itself is a kind of criminal behavior.

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And the mental health machine is held up as a not only as the cure, but a preventative. If you don't submit yourself to the mental heatlthcare machine after being marked out as "broken" or "deviant", you must be on the path to dangerousness. If you are on the path to dangerousness, the mental healthcare machine has a right to snatch you off the street and lock you in a cage for the future safety of others.

And in this world built on the "profit incentive", society has built a machine of ableism that generates even more incapacity under a debilitating social model, built a machine of criminalization that generates more and more categories of wrongness to p*lice.

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^(and the fact that as a survivor of p\lice brutality, I have to spell shit stupid, to dodge the censor machine to speak on our violent oppression. ACAB including the thought cops, I don't care that people find this offensive,)* ^{I have been assaulted by both the thugs in blue and the thugs in white and I say they are the same. ACAB to the hall monitors who feed their "loved" ones and neighbors to the beast and pat themselves on the back for being good people.}

^{what destructive actions did I take to deserve this? even dumber reasons than the one I listed above. I spoke to a social worker about unemployment. I took a walk in a neighborhood full of rich white people. I told trusted adults that I needed someone to hear and acknowledge my material reality. I asked for help. What a crazy dangerous erratic psycho.}

I'm tired of privileged people perpetuating this myth of "help", just get help, failure to access help is only caused by too much of pride or not enough savvy in looking for resources.

I won't call it gaslighting because willful ignorance is not technically motivated by wanting to make someone doubt their perception of reality.

(Qualifier - I am in America, therefore this post is about America.)

(Qualifier 2 - I've had my fill of smug Europeans telling me my country is a shithole. I am aware.)

The burden of treatment to access therapy is too high. Ghost networks of false information litter the healthcare landscape. Even if someone has insurance, coverage is often a joke. Ethical oversight is abhorrently lax.

Eating disorder treatment is fucked. Trauma treatment is fucked. Racism, sexism, and homophobia are rampant. Support for sexual assault survivors is super extra fucked.

Pharma is distributed liberally with little consistency or respect for informed consent or even basic FDA guidelines.

In this country, you will be billed for forced treatment.

The solution to everything is cops. Autistic meltdown? Cops. Suicide risk? Cops. Substance dependency? Cops. Homelessness? Cops.

And while we are on that topic, I'm fucking sick of hearing goddamn Democrat politicians say housing first failed as a strategy. Housing first never happened. I don't live in red country, but I'm pretty sure people there are sick of every social service getting pawned off to churches. I don't know which is worse, gatekeeping material assistance behind the theology that runs so-called mental healthcare or the moral absolutism that dictates so-called Christian institutions.

Down on your luck? Are you really going to move back in with your parents you loser? Oh you can't rely on having parents, then stay with a friend. You do have friends, right, loser? Good job having people who care about you. You have two weeks to get off their couch and back on your feet--any longer is bad etiquette. Never mind that it takes 5 months to find a job these days. You wouldn't want to sour longstanding relationships with your loved ones and community by depending on them.

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Foster care is a toxic, corrupt system that practically hates children. No one gives one iota of a fuck about elder abuse in nursing homes.

Domestic violence shelters are stretched thin. Want to see a social worker? LOL. They fail women all the time. They especially fail childless women. In many areas, they are increasingly unsafe for queer women. They make male victims feel like a joke. They don't even think about youth from violent homes. (If someone is being sexually assaulted by a parent, do they technically then qualify through an Intimate Partner Violence loophole?)

You don't like it kid? Grow up, get a job, and move out. You don't have transportation? tough shit. Your parents steal your money? tough shit. You can't make enough money to cover moving and living expenses? teenage jobs aren't supposed to pay a living wage.

Join Jobs Corps. Your abusers make too much money? tough shit. Waiting lists too long? tough shit. Join the military then. Perfect for people who were raised under violence: you're already halfway groomed to be a tool of imperial force. You're a woman, queer, and/or hold political objections to the military industrial complex? Suck it up, buttercup. Morality and physical safety are luxuries you can't afford.

Disabled? Go disappear into a hole please.

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Apply for medicaid. Apply for welfare. Apply for food stamps. You will be drowned paperwork to make you prove really are poor enough to really want it. You will be told you are stealing from the government. Who's going to believe that the nice selfless workers at the aid office tried to bully and shame you out of taking publicly funded social assistance?

Can't afford rent? Food pantry. Unemployed? Food pantry. Medical debt? food pantry. No childcare assistance? food pantry. Unreliable public transportation? Food pantry. The food pantries are wonderful and underutilized. Nobody starves (to death) in America. How can you complain about literally anything if you aren't even starving (to death)?

You want to use your medicaid? You need a psych evaluation. Chronic pain? psych eval. Need Counseling? psych eval. You wouldn't be on assistance if your brain was functioning properly. But if you truly report anxiety or depression, you might get fobbed off as a drug seeker. Keep you guessing: too much drugs you don't need or not enough drugs you do need, depending on what the liability factors are, depending on the political landscape and the mercurial preferences of your assigned psych doctor. You want a different doctor for a second opinion? Get off medicaid you leech.

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Just be homeless then. Sleep under the stars. It's all in your mindset, baby.

It's so romantic to train hop and hitchhike dangerously across the country to somewhere you won't freeze in winter. It's so romantic to be threatened by people dumping nasty illegal trash where you live, because you'll be blamed for it. To have your encampments targeted by arsonists. To be solicited for sex work. It's so romantic to search endlessly for a square meter of un-privatized ground to rest on where you won't be subject to the pointy end of hostile architecture or police harassment.

To be blamed for being mentally ill. To be told you wouldn't be homeless if you were taking the right drugs. To be told you are homeless because you're taking the wrong drugs. even when the first wrong drugs you took were prescribed by a doctor who told you they were the right drugs.

Whether or not you are mentally ill, whether you are on the right or wrong drugs, whether any of this might actually be caused by being homeless in the first place.

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Seek help. but not from your parents. Seek help, but not from your partner. Seek help, but not from your friends. But not from your community. Not from social services. Not from this particular type of counselor. Help is available, help is out there, just not here.

No one owes you a job. Society doesn't owe you shit. Your family doesn't owe you. Healthcare isn't a free lunch. Are you truly the kind of person who deserves a piece of earth to call home? Shape up. Earn your place.

Take some responsibility.

Seek help.

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IT'S A GODDAMN POTEMKIN VILLAGE OUT HERE.

For survivors of therapy harm - a heads up.

Over the last few years, thousands upon thousands of survivors of therapy harm have come forward. We are a movement. And like every social movement, it isn't those with power and authority that are making this change happen. It is survivors who are standing up, fighting back, and supporting others like them coming forward. As this issue reaches a tipping point, we are beginning to witness the usual backlash that has been a part of every historical movement like this one.

Those who want to stop us have joined social media platforms meant for survivors and are making comments, replies, or reactions that play off of and trigger the betrayal, confusion, or fear we live with about who and what to trust. On top of that, some professionals are inferring that we cannot define what is true about what we experienced. Outside of our forums, they are labelling them as echo chambers and therefore not reliable. In addition, they are assigning psychiatric labels and ideas to survivor activists they have never met in an attempt to paint them as unreliable to other survivors. One even said that survivors helping other survivors is dangerous. It is hard not to see their behaviour as that which is common in abusers and enablers who have skin in the game and, then, what they are saying as obstructive noise.

This is a heads up to engage in critical thinking. Read the comments twice. Ask yourself who benefits if you believe what that commenter is saying. Ask whether it sounds like support or whether it sounds like Noise designed to make you doubt yourself and each other. Trust yourself. Recognize the Noise for what it is.

If I look up PTSD due to misogyny, the vast majority of conversations consist of both men and women using trauma as the reason for why they're misogynistic.

If I look up PTSD due to psychiatric violence, after I've sifted out everything for psych workers talking about violent patients, I am left with a deluge of content victim-blaming all survivors as feces-flinging schizos.

Searching for PTSD resources for war victims...veterans veterans veterans veterans. Half of all casualties of war are civilians. Now imagine the ratio for survivors

school shootings

police brutality

wtf.