a therapist I had helped me rethink problems in terms of pragmatically adjusting my environment or conditions to nudge my behaviors rather than relying on willpower or behavioral changes that were slow or simply not happening
a small example was moving my computer out of my bedroom and developing a night-time routine that included reading a book before bed to help reduce compulsive computer use
realizing I am somewhat deterministic in my behavior, and my behavior is caused by conditions I have some influence over, was a helpful insight and got me past just constantly failing to live up to my expectations for myself and never moving past that - I can treat my psychological problems like puzzles to solve
+1 learning to parent yourself
I had to self-teach myself that once I hit adulthood. Things like “if left to pay a bill at some specified time (not immediately), I will fail. So all bills go on autopay.” It’s burned me a few times, but not nearly as often as constantly being burned with late fees and such.
Also, when my wife met me, she met someone who led a Spartan existence, with all my no-furniture belongings fitting in a piece of luggage. She thought it was preference, and completely blew off me constantly complaining about clutter and mess in the house. Once I explained (ten years in) that I can’t have many things without it becoming a huge unmitigated mess (like having “pathways” through the clutter), so having a whole lot of stuff is shitting on my coping mechanisms and stressing me out, making me constantly uncomfortable in my own home. She understood, and stopped giving me shit for it… not that it changed the clutter, but at least when i complain I don’t get hand-waved, I get an apology. Which is something, I guess (until I snap and the dumpster and donation center get a ton of bags).
It’s ok to look back at a painful event and have empathy for that younger person, then you can either stay there or accept any wisdom to be learned and write the next chapter but you can’t live in both places at once.
Learn to identify what you’re feeling.
Allow yourself to feel something first.
A really big part of therapy is learning how to communicate what happened, what is happening, and what you are feeling.
It takes a lot of time to organize it all into words that another person would understand, and doing so helps you.
The therapist might aslo reccomend what to do going forward but 9/10 times you already know that.
If you think you picked a bad partner because there’s something wrong with you because of how you were parented, actually a bad partner sought you out because they saw those vulnerabilities in you.
Be the leaf
deleted by creator
What is is an anchor for what can be.
That one’s from Adam Savage
Also, know that you have no control over the choices of others.
Oh you can have control
“JulieLemming announces they will be running for the next presidential race”
Every day is my personal presidential race. Vote me up bitches
Inside every man are two wolves…
Not even kidding. I had a therapist tell me this story once. I promptly found a new therapist.
Did you get GPT Therapisted?
This was in January of 2023, right when chat gpt was becoming popular. So it’s possible, but I think it was just a crappy therapist, it was free through my employee benefits. ~6 sessions per year were free, I never used any more, found a real therapist.
Pain is relative. Yes other people may have it worse than you. The worst pain you’ve felt in your life is still the worst, for you. So don’t write it off so easily.
Someone, not a therapist, told me pain isn’t a competition. I don’t have to wait for my pain to be worse than the pain of the people around me before I go get help for myself.
In this case, I had physical pain I put off getting checked because it wasn’t worse than what why partner deals with daily. Turned out I needed antibiotics for a bad infection.
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“You don’t have to be mad at yourself for that any more”
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“What good does worrying about that part of your past do your current self?”
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“Come on, now. You know that’s not true”
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"Don’t reply to messages from your ex’
Thanks, I needed that.
I hear these and I’ve had some therapy but I don’t know how to believe the lines and not dwell.
Therapy isn’t a single sentence, and we talked over these things for weeks for me to get to this place. It also had to come from me, one thing I talked about is that dwelling on misery/mistakes is, for me anyway, a guilty pleasure and a little addictive, so I had to be truly sick of living that way and genuinely want the change in my heart of hearts.
“You don’t have to be mad at yourself for that any more”
“What good does worrying about that part of your past do your current self?”
For these ones I don’t really have control over that. My brain gets itself all worked up before I have any say in the matter.
These are some of the most common problems people seek therapy for, and there are several methods therapists teach to address these, such as meditation and mindfulness. It takes practice, but they have a lot of potential to help with intrusive, snowballing thoughts. You can practice anytime and mostly anywhere, but doing it is the hard part.
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I won at therapy a few months ago. My doctor threw up his hands and went “I don’t know what to tell you. Your situation is so fucked up that I can’t even offer advice. Just keep on keeping on, I guess.” And that actually made me feel better.
you’re here and that’s a good thing
Look at that ! It kinda makes me feel a little better, too !
Best advice I got about my all time present self criticism was:“Imagine the self criticism or self hate in the voice of someone you don’t like and don’t respect. Donald Trump for example.”
It makes the voice in my head that says:“You are a worthless piece of shit.” entertaining at least.
There has never been a more worthless piece of shit and let me tell you I know everything about shit and being worthless someone I know and they are very smart told me that you are the best worthless piece of shit they’ve ever seen and there has never been a shittier piece of worthless ever and I would know.
“If someone met your expectations would you be mad?”
“No”
“Then maybe your expectations are too high?”
A friend of mine thinks we’re due for a revolution, but isn’t going to start anything unilaterally. Does that constitute “a danger to himself or others”?
A danger to fascists presumably, which I’d say is a good thing
Not if your therapist tells the fascists!
perhaps they’re being realistic?
a revolution is really over due and not just in the US, mind you but whoever starts one is prone to being hunted down and used as an example…
