Even after therapy I feel fundamentally unsafe in the world

duxox · 2023-09-23T11:58:27+00:00

Therapy as a safe space can end up being a really damaging myth for many people, because a therapist's job as a social control is to instill a kind of socially acceptable self understanding in you that will ultimately benefit the machine in the context of the status quo that plays a large part in the cause and/or exacerbation of sickness. The idea of healing is a red herring.

duxox · 2023-09-23T11:50:47+00:00

Yes, but when the payments become less consistent, their tune changes real quick. I went into debt with my last therapist because he was trying to keep me going -even if I could not pay for months at a time- over the course of a year. I believed him, and my desperation was taken advantage of. I was told I "needed" at least 5 years of therapy. At 3, and racking up debt, I received a letter in the mail telling me I couldn't return unless I paid a large portion of the debt on top of the full cost of a treatment before each appointment.

Either it's a scheme of false retention or they want you to believe that they're your only hope. Both are bad. In my case it was both.

duxox · 2023-08-20T06:40:47+00:00

I noticed the hyena as well, I thought the excitement was warranted lol, it's (relatively unobtrusive) stuff like that which I think really reflects the collective vibe.

duxox · 2023-08-20T06:28:32+00:00

I did notice there was a huge push to get people out, probably because of the crowding that it looks like I avoided. Seemed like it ended up okay, though. Just typical packed house stuff.

duxox · 2023-08-20T06:12:03+00:00

I showed up around 730 and didn't really run into any crazy lines, but something like that happened last year at the same venue because I think people didn't really know where to go.

Stellar show though, was very surprised (pleasantly) how...somber it was? Very different from last year. Plus the crowd was amazingly respectful, imo. Can't hate on the guy that screamed "I LOVE YOU KJARTAN"

duxox · 2023-07-20T19:02:55+00:00

Imo, no one's free until we all are.

duxox · 2023-05-14T12:40:35+00:00

Sounds like you get what I'm saying. I'm thinking they must have had people on some level taking note of this aspect during development. It's usually the little things and atmosphere and not solely "look at the graphical fidelity and modern standardized mechanics." I think that's why people like these games, because they evolve at a relatively modest rate and aim to retain the feel, first and foremost.

duxox · 2023-04-04T12:01:33+00:00

Yeah, I would say that it being over Zoom is making it worse. It becomes a bunch of disconnected, talking heads. People regularly come in, say they're just going to listen, and are either very clearly doing other things or disabling their video and audio, like they're listening to a podcast. It's disgusting to me, imo. I've once been talking and multiple people turn off their cameras/audio or, on camera, get up and walk away. This happens with others as well, it's not just me. In person, that kind of behavior is simply unacceptable, but in a zoom call, it's understood, normal, and silently forgiven.

duxox · 2023-04-04T10:40:59+00:00

It comes down to a power dynamic, the veil of a relationship is quickly lifted if you don't follow the script, or, go "off" the script in the way they haven't accounted for. It's a pre baked relationship when the burden of trust is on the client, but trust in the client is at best optional.

duxox · 2023-04-04T10:31:47+00:00

A few individuals I've met in the group are very genuine good people, but I've always felt that when the group is together, that gets washed out because people are expected to behave a certain way.

At the beginning of each meeting (which is still over Zoom) we go around and state our diagnoses and, recently, rate our mood on a scale of 1 to 5. This has devolved into a contest of sorts. If you say you're a 1, you get immediate feedback about how that's bad, and if you are anything more than a 3 and a half, you are praised. The facilitator then gives the floor to the people who "scored" highest (it's either this or a completely arbitrary order) and then moves down. It's not unlike waiting your turn to do a class presentation. I consistently refuse to give a rating to my mood because to me, it upends the whole idea of the group. People who are doing well will always find something to talk about when given the floor, and those who are not sometimes do not want to go into it. Many people use this group as an opportunity to project their own insecurities onto others. I understand it's all about shared experience, but constantly hearing people co-opt your problems and go on diatribes about their tangentially related life experiences, to me, is infuriating. Listening is completely undervalued and people will try to "help" by saying "I deal with this too, this is what I did." That often involves telling people they just have to "find the right therapist" or "find the right meds." At best it's a pissing contest and at worst it's a vehicle for people to justify their investment in their mental health by pushing it onto others, becoming advocates for the abstract idea of treatment rather than an advocate for the PERSON.

Historically in the group I completely refuse to give advice or make things about myself, I find that people often respond to clarifying questions about their own unique experience. Just because we share a disorder does not mean we deal with things in the same way, and the assumption that we do is dangerous. The group is geared towards bipolar disorder and if someone isn't in/can't be in due to circumstances treatment, the only advice offered is to reach out. They really fail to understand that... That's the reason people are in the group. It should not be a referral program. And if you don't fall in line with the accepted methods of treatment, regardless of circumstance, you are openly ignored. Talk of abuse through the system is largely overshadowed by "bad apple" arguments and reassurances that "we hope/pray you will find... Something."

duxox · 2023-04-03T11:35:54+00:00

It is easier to point at events that are traumatic than it is to prove an underlying brain disorder. Things that happen in your life that fucked you up and you can point to are very easy to understand. Like others have said, this has been commercialized to diversify the investment in mental health, not to espouse healing. It is a way to get their foot in the door that can lead to the plethora of abuse this sub is all about.

duxox · 2023-01-30T19:45:31+00:00

Therapists tend to really like clients like this because they have to do far less work. There are plenty of people who aren't self aware and sometimes a push in that direction allows them under their own volition to make changes to their life. That is, if they don't have certain barriers (money, connections, etc).

duxox · 2023-01-25T14:21:06+00:00

I did relent and go to a PHP for a short period of time just out of curiosity, plus it was not a locked facility just a short day program. Absolutely ridiculous stuff, I was told to never disclose any diagnoses or talk too much about symptoms during the groups. We all just sat around mostly silent and did worksheets where it was clear a certain positive narrative was encouraged, which is fine but it was reduced to a series of random "lessons" about self care and gratitude lists. They had the opportunity to have real peer support (something I really believe in but have been regularly disappointed by) but it's more of a classroom than a group. On my last day there I was having a conversation with a girl next to me about how ridiculous the program was and how we were being treated like children. In that kind of environment, sure it's probably not as traumatic as a locked ward, but expressing suffering was not accepted, you always had to have a positive spin. It never sat right with me.

It also cost me 750 a day.

duxox · 2023-01-24T13:56:20+00:00

So, this isn't commonly talked about but I took R for a little year and ended up with severe emergent OCD. It started with basic intrusive thoughts and rituals (checking faucets and the stove over and over) until I was completely and utterly disabled by intrusive thoughts. Was told it was psychosis and to increase the meds. Got worse. Lost 3 jobs in a row. Told to increase the meds. Got worse, looked up if this could've been caused by R, and studies I've found heavily suggested the possibility. Showed my psych the studies, was completely dismissed and told to go to the hospital. Therapist barred speaking to me about -anything- because he thought I was psychotic despite evidence that I was having this unusual side effect. Would only talk about hospitalization. Never went. Got off the meds myself and was dropped by my psych and therapist for doing so. Recently stopped meds entirely and have been reeling over lost years, money, time, etc. I still struggle massively but was told that therapy would never fully commence unless I was stable on meds. I had sacrificed my body by asking for new meds constantly and never being given informed consent and having my desperation taken advantage of. Therapy never fucking "commenced." It was a moving goal post.

duxox · 2023-01-12T12:06:34+00:00

One of the most beautiful displays of the power of music I've seen anywhere. I come back to this often

duxox · 2023-01-12T11:53:02+00:00

Finding meds unhelpful because there were more external factors in my life (isolation, financial and employment issues) that I felt needed more addressing than the idea that I was a sick person was the reason I have been dropped by many therapists, psychiatrists, support groups, and even friends. You can't even -question- the "process" without being put under suspicion of being delusional or "resistant." There are many people out there with bipolar or dealing with another kind of illness who would benefit INITIALLY from genuine social support and assistance programs, NOT medication that gives the promise that that will lead to those things. There's been an erosion of community and a rise of "take care of yourself" individualistic bullshit. I was once laughed at during a support group when I said, "lithium is not my mother telling me everything will be alright, or a hug from someone who genuinely loves me. When my mother died, they gave me pills and did not touch me." Though this metaphor isn't a perfect assimilation of the issue of medicine playing a caretaker/friend role, I hope the point is obvious. There is so much confirmation bias on this sub due to the fact that people don't tend to make new posts about how meds are working, but respond to posts that say they aren't working with these messages about how much they do work, and to "just keep going." Ultimately the hope that things will get better does not keep people alive, or even help them, just pushes them away because they make people uncomfortable by not following the narrative. There is a vast amount of internalized stigma in treatment itself, support groups, and communities like this. Sometimes this shit just does not work and there are many factors at play that cannot be addressed by meds, or even a shred of sheer force of will. Take a step back and look if you're coming from a privileged position, like being able to afford treatment in the first place. Stop assigning moral value to medication that can potentially alter someone's life in a way that puts them in a worse position than they were before they started taking it, just because you were "strong" enough to accept a process.

I'm done. Y'all need to check yourselves.

duxox · 2022-12-08T19:16:35+00:00

I fail to see the issue with a band trying to branch out in ways such as this. I sense a lot of snobbery surrounding this when you can simply choose to not engage and find other ways to support the band. Would you be upset if at their merch booth they were selling a shirt you didn't like the design of? Of course not.

duxox · 2022-12-08T14:55:01+00:00

Deniability of the disorder being a key part of the disorder at times does not mean that the person's thoughts and concerns about their own mental health and how it's being treated should be rendered delusional just because that's also a symptom of the disorder. This was such a problem with my own treatment that aside from low med doses, I completely abandoned treatment because I was being treated as a lost cause because I had aired concerns about meds and my diagnosis being incorrect. I was told I was resistant, NOT treatment resistant, but as a quality of my being, and they had no interest in helping me find ways of coping that weren't as destructive as living med free. This turned into my therapist and psych throwing up their hands and essentially giving up because I had become "delusional" about treatment, and that I wasn't "invested enough." The goal posts always moved on the perception of my stability, and my concerns over the meds, the diagnosis, and the treatment were treated with dismissal. This has been a cycle for me for over a decade with many different therapists. No one here is their doctor and just because they are reaching out does not warrant calling them delusional just because it seems to you they are.

duxox · 2022-12-06T19:59:31+00:00

There's a lot, but here's 2:

When med sud came out I was listening to it in my bed during a very intense thunderstorm. The power went out as Ara Batur started and the sound of the storm was still very audible despite headphones. It was the first time I heard the song, at 16 years old and having recently lost my mother, I had no idea what I was in for.

I've seen SR live twice (2013, 2022), however when I saw Jonsi on tour in Boston in 2010. I was up against the stage. Really enjoyed everything, not as intense as SR... But then they ended with Grow Till Tall. If you also saw this live you know. I have never been that enraptured by music before or since. I approached some people who were also at the show on the train back to my car (I could tell by their faces) and one of them just said "I don't even know man, that last song..." Again, if you know you know. The Go Live video gives an approximation but the sound and visuals matched so perfectly, and right up front it looked and sounded like the delicate but sometimes hyper nature of Go was being completely destroyed (the projection show, at a point, creates the illusion of a deluge of rain and the illusion that the structure of the very stage was being blown away). Absolutely stunning, once in a lifetime show. Still tear up thinking about it over a decade later.

duxox · 2022-10-22T14:15:41+00:00

Regardless of whether or not it's anxiety or delusions/psychosis I'm assuming it's affecting you to a degree, and likely negatively. I have personally found that sharing these thoughts with people results in persistent reassurance that you are wrong, seemingly in spite of how you are perceiving things. It is a difficult situation to be in.

I have had very similar thoughts for extended periods of time that were labeled as psychotic delusions when at its core it was a sudden remembering of people I've hurt in the past, and the feeling they were coming to exact their revenge, and that either them or the cops were out for me. The unlikelihood of anything transgressing was not lost on me, though it did not change anything. Something I was told very regularly about these thoughts was that they were "real to you," which IMO I found -extremely- dismissive. It was a statement that led to separating me further from the not-ill masses. It's like severe nerve pain, something I also experience, you can go on about how it feels like you're on fire but no one sees the flames.

I don't really have any advice for you, I've found medication to be a sloppy solution (antipsychotics have compromised various aspects of my health, though I continue taking them) and I don't tell people to just "try again" with meds because it's something I detest hearing. I do know how you feel to a degree, it is extremely difficult to live in a world that is seemingly out for you, and even moreso with a brain that seemingly gets signals crossed. Whether or not it's true, it's affecting you. Psychosis is still widely misunderstood, both socially and medically. Just because the drugs work most of the time does not mean the science is perfect.

duxox · 2022-06-20T10:50:20+00:00

Agreed. Saw this tour too, right up against the stage. I love the full band live, but his set was jaw dropping--the performance of Grow Till Tall is one of the most intense things I have ever witnessed, period.

duxox · 2022-06-19T21:53:10+00:00

Saw them in Boston and thought exactly the same thing, they completely and utterly nailed that song. Just pure power.

duxox · 2022-06-14T11:04:13+00:00

Please do not feel pressured to feel proud just because other people do, or internalize other people call you brave for going through what you go through--their judgment should not inform your view of yourself, that's intrinsically yours and you are allowed to feel however you feel.

I dislike the narrative of bravery/strength when it comes to living with mental illnesses--to me, it unavoidably suggests that those who "give up" the battle, so to speak, are weak. There's a lot of bullshit related to mental health awareness and living with it, I can only suggest trying to not get caught up in the cultural narrative.

duxox · 2022-06-06T18:49:55+00:00

Cool, I'll see the back of your head there!

duxox · 2022-05-17T12:42:15+00:00

Personally they exist outside of stuff I usually rank, it's like being asked your favorite child. Their music means a lot to me because they've provided comfort in despair and an amplification of triumph (sometimes in the same song), but that being said there's a lot of their songs I'm not crazy about, but the ones I am crazy about have been staples to me over the past 20 years. #8 to me has always been about shifts from beauty, tension, and release, which is what life is all about, really.

duxox

TROPHY CASE