There’s also the “Oh yeah, same situation” crowd. People who feel the same way, who agree about the state of the world, and also struggle to get by.
Which in itself, isn’t a bad way to respond - it’s honest, after all. However, it makes the idea of “reaching out for help” worse than pointless - not only won’t I get any help, but I’ll get more validation that I was right to feel hopeless in the first place.
What do you expect others to help you with in this situation?
I don’t expect anything anymore, that’s why I stopped speaking out. People ask how I’m doing and I just keep it light, because there is nothing that can be done on an individual level when the issues that drag down life are systemic (unless everyone bands together to revolt, but I’m not holding my breath on that.)
I work with people experiencing homelessness, and I’ve worked inpatient psych where I saw the full gamut of socioeconomic statuses, and can confidently tell you people who attribute their depression to external factors that are out of their control universally fail in treatment. There are a ton of people on the street who aren’t depressed, and a bunch of rich people who want for nothing who are depressed. Sometimes, depression is caused by a neurotransmitter issue and meds work, but more often the issue is a pattern of thinking and perception, and the only treatment is learning new ways to think.
they don’t even know.
i had girlfriends with these issues… they just often lack the emotional maturity/forethought to realize that there isnt’ anything other folks can do, and they vaguely expect like other people to just magically make their problems go away, and they resent you for not being the ‘cure’ to their problem.
it doesn’t necessarily have to do with mental health, it could be physical, or just a job they don’t like, or a ton of other things.
the issue is the person suffering, is looking for a solution outside of themselves and their own actions, and refuses to acknowledge the solution requires them to change themselves or their circumstances, and often like change habits or lifestyle or etc.
i remember being a suicidal teenager and I just wanted it to stop, i wanted the bad feelings to stop. i had no clue how to get them to stop because they just kept coming at me. some people just… are like this their entire lives and they often self-medicate because that is a way to get them to stop temporarily. but getting them to stop systematically… is a much larger challenge, and there is no guarantee the problem won’t come back.
and yeah one option is to join a community or have friends who just validate the shit out of your bad choices or share your frustrations and complaints with. because those folks won’t ask you to change or try something new, they will just agree with you that you’re fucked and there is nothing you can do.
Some people like to vent though too. I’ve been told, hey, I’m not looking for answers, just an ear. I always try to offer some help or advice, but I realized that isn’t necessarily what the other person wants, it’s what I want. So I try to listen, try to say more than just “That sucks,” and if I get asked for help, I’ll see what I can do.
But sometimes, it’s just “That sucks,” and that’s usually because you made your bed and now you need to lay in it, but that’s kinda mean to say to someone who’s already not feeling so great.
there is nothing wrong with venting.
however for too many people venting is all it ever becomes. and those people are always the same folks who won’t let anyone vent to them. because everything becomes about what hapless victims they are and nothing can ever change their life.
way too many folks just want to vent vent vent vent vent and never ever address the problems. they refuse to change their job, refuse to try new things, refuse to meet new people, etc etc. and their entire identity becomes their misery. so yeah, they end up only being able to socialize with folks who endlessly validate their toxic attitudes and just get stuck like that for years or their entire life.
or they get stuck in a cycle of exploiting kind people who just eventually get sick of their shit and their poor miserable lifestyle. can’t tell you how many of my exes, and how many people i date before i even get into a relationship, theri entire life is this cycle of misery and refusal to change and self-medication.
like you know how many first dates i go on where the person just vents at me for 45m about how they hate their life? like 2/3 of them. And yeah, as total stranger it’s not my job to help you, it’s to get the fuck away from you because you clearly lack the maturity and self-control to not dump your problems on a stranger. not to mention, most of the ‘venting’ done at me by these people are ‘problems’ like they can’t afford first class plane tickets, or they can’t afford a Porsche and it’s not fair.
anyway, these are the same folks who demand others be ‘emotionally mature’ as in, validate them and never challenge them. because you know, it’s everyone else’s fault that you don’t like your job, your ex was mean to you, your parents suck, etc etc. and they are supposed to fix it for you, otherwise they are worthless assholes. it can’t be that maybe you’re the worthless asshole who needs to fix your shit and make changes if things in your life are pathologically making you unhappy.
and as for you, sounds like you just are getting off on yourself by being a ‘helper’. the truth is, you aren’t really helping, you are more than likely enabling and validating shittiness. would you ‘help’ an alcoholic by buying them alcohol? plenty of victims of alcoholics fall into this trap of enabling and being abused by the person, that’s the reason things like Al-anon exist, because folks who refuse to help themselves almost always end up dragging everyone else down with them.
Or the ones who play Misery Olympics and try to 1-up (1-down?) you.
I have been getting this argument the past few years, in person, that growing up in a poor family with uneducated parents makes me more privileged than people who grew up with doctors for parents in elite/rich places, and that means I had it better than they did and my life is better than theirs and I should have empathy for them and their lower privilege and more difficult lot in life.
and who do you think makes that argument? yeah…
i love people who think everything is a competition. it results in those of us who lead extraordinary lives clamming up and kicking out those of you who think that by us sharing one of our smaller events, we’re trying to one-up you.
The problem doesn’t need to be solved in order to help others. There are plenty of unsolvable problems that people need help with. That response is a direct way to show empathy and let’s the other person know that you can share things you’ve done to mitigate the problem that did or didnt work. Even if it’s not a solution, it can help skip steps where one might fumble.
But to be fair. Regular exercise and hydration can help with mild symptoms of depression. Clinical depression makes it difficult to even attempt these things, which is why we all should have access to effective mental healthcare
Have you tried elevation ?
Let me tell you how depressed I am instead, and how much more justified my depression is, and how your situation is bullshit by comparison.
That’ll cheer you up. Probably.
But have you?
A relative dropped their wii fit balance board on me. Unironically started drinking water and noticing a more grounded feeling by trying to impress my wii fit waifu. On days I skip, I notice a dip in my mood and energy.
Both of these things can only help. Meditation also helps
Seriously – in clinical trials, light exercise resulted in significant improvements in ~80% of depression cases.
I realize that going out and doing that while depressed is extremely difficult … but nobody said that getting out of depression would be easy. And the only person who can do it is you. A little taking care of yourself goes a long way – even if it’s very difficult, maybe at least try a little?
I found this out in the opposite direction. Whenever my health flares and I can’t leave the house for a few weeks I get really down and irritable. A 15 minute walk a day keeps the depression away
I walk 2-3 miles every day. I’ve been doing that for six months. Still incredibly angry and unstable. Guess I’m just fucked, eh? Or maybe I’m not doing it hard enough? Maybe I should just do nothing but cardio all day, huh? Would that be enough? No, it’s never fucking enough for you people.
Still incredibly angry and unstable.
I can see that.
Guess I’m just fucked, eh?
Well, I guess you might be part of the ~20% for whom exercise doesn’t help.
And you’ve already tried it, which is as much as I’ve ever asked for. So I guess it’s time to try something else? What does your doctor recommend?
The sad truth in this world is that, apart from your close friends, your partners and your parents (if you’re lucky), nobody cares too much about you in general. This can be devastating, but it can also be liberating.
i stopped sharing or trying to reach out a long time ago. its much easier to keep people around if I just do unhealthy “habits” and try and hide evidence than risk losing more people.
i trust nobody anymore. safer.
The sad truth in this world is that
apart from your close friends, your partners and your parents (if you’re lucky)nobody cares too much about you in general.I’ve learned that if I open my mouth and admit I’m struggling or a little depressed, the relationship ends very quickly. Even if you aren’t noticeably depressed, it doesn’t affect them at all and they only know it because you admitted to it, it’s like they think it’s contagious. Now, no matter what it’s big happy smile and I AM ABSOLUTELY GREAT LIFE IS GOOD HOW ARE YOU? My therapist is the only person I will ever tell when I’m having a rough time and even then sometimes it’s really hard to admit it and not keep pretending everything is good.
My depression often tells me those people don’t care that much either. But, my parents are dead, I don’t have a partner, and maybe my friends aren’t “close” enough.
I mean, I think more people than that do care about your immediate a safety and well being. If you collapse to the floor in the middle of your bowling league, they will call an ambulance. And if you break down on the side of the road, odds are someone will stop to help you out eventually.
But if your problem is “I’m sad”, then… what am I supposed to do about that?
That and in your first example you’re calling for professional help because you yourself are unable to help and that person can’t help themselves.
For depression that person can get help themselves (though of course that can be difficult to get the nerve to see a therapist/doctor) and anyone else, again, is not really qualified to treat/help you. Hence the advice in the meme.
Something I had to learn is that they’re not trying to ask for help or treatment. It’s one of those times where you’re supposed to listen and commiserate, but not offer a fix. They likely already know that you’re unable to help, and they likely already know that there isn’t really a way to “fix” it, only ways to make it easier to deal with. And one of those ways is to talk with someone about it, which is probably why they brought it up. Ironically, you’ll be helping so long as you don’t offer help, just company.
Coming from the receiving end of this, it really does help to just talk to someone. Being in your own head and just heading down detrimental trains of thought is something I’ve struggled with so it’s nice to have a third party just say what you’re saying doesn’t make sense or just say yeah that sucks life isn’t fair sometimes. It’s why ‘having a shoulder to cry on’ is such a common phrase I think.
Yeah therapy should most likely be part of a long term solution to dig into things and for some people just reiterating therapy is nothing to be ashamed of is reassuring. But yeah if someone is calling therapy is not what they need at that moment. I know when I was younger I would hide the fact that I was going to therapy because I thought, based on stereotypes from media, that doing therapy makes you weak-minded or something.
When the “someone” mentioned in the second panel is a mental health professional and the question from the third panel, after my hour-long infodumping about current geopolitics, current technological enshittification, spiritual beliefs (i.e. my hatred against Demiurge, my devotion for Lilith), the ongoing anthropogenic climate and ecological catastrophes, the human history going back all the way when some hominid fell from a tree during a heavy storm and stumbled upon the fire from the lightning strike back in Paleolithic, etc…, is a dismissive “But have you been eating and pooping regularly? How’s your sleep?”.
That’s why I stopped taking my existential issues to psychiatry and psychology.
Same here, I got the impression that therapists aren’t interested in that sort of stuff and when we kept focusing on the shallow lifestyle stuff I felt like it wasn’t getting anywhere and stopped going
When they tell me it’s time to pray and leave it up to God is when I realize two things:
- I’m super-fucked, and
- I need a different therapist
I didn’t think that was a thing that actual licensed therapists said unless they were specifically affiliated with some kind of religious organization.
See for me it’s been therapists thinking that if I just got a job, I’d stop being depressed (this was in the wake of being canned for a bullshit reason after a long absence due to cancer – I’m better now, at least in terms of cancer). This is to say nothing of the fact that the things I was upset and complained about were not at all pertinent to a job search (mostly relationships, loneliness, fear over the fascist takeover, etc).
Multiple different therapists came to this same conclusion, and you know what? I have a part time job now! And it didn’t cure my depression at all! Fancy that – contributing to the Trump economy has not made me meaningfully happier, or even meaningfully less poor/more able to afford things I’d enjoy! wow! who’d have guessed.
I am somewhat increasingly convinced that professional therapists (or at least the ones my insurance covers) are just bullshitters that have turned bullshit into a career, like chiropractors. Maybe there are some that aren’t, but I’d rather have a psychiatrist, at least they’ve actually got some means of fucking doing something (even if that something is just throwing SSRIs at the wall and seeing what sticks – so far, nothing has, but I could be proven wrong any day now!).
They can help. My wife is currently undergoing DBT for trauma and the results have been very noticeable, including on her depression.
And unfortunately the thing is, sometimes those answers do help. When I’m unemployed I fall into a depressive funk. When I don’t exercise I don’t have the mental energy I need to live my best life. I forget to drink water. These are low hanging fruit of mental health, and so they can be good to try first. You just need therapists who can do more than just that. No amount of exercise was going to do enough for my anxiety and abandonment issues, but CBT worked miracles for them.
I’m so glad you survived the cancer. Fuck cancer and fuck chiropractors (fuck cancer more, though)
Or my parents’ go to, “You gotta stop thinking about those kinds of things, try being more positive”. What the actual fuck?
I get the same shit. Like look around the fucking world has gone insane.
Have you tried heavy drinking?
On it thank you. But can’t due to working too much
If you just want someone to listen to you and be supportive you should say so. A lot of people, especially autistic people, jump to trying to find a solution to fix it. Communicate better, say you just need a compassionate listener and both parties will be better off.
Not sure why this was downvoted. I mean if this was Lemmy shitpost, I get it.
Yeah. Lot of people on the spectrum see everything as problem/solution. Like if you’re venting, say so.
What else could I do for you, besides saying, “that sucks, friend”? Asking seriously.
- I can offer you advice based on my own experience, that may or may not work for you.
- I can refer you to talk to someone who has a professional degree in studying feelings, who may be able to help you with better advice than me or prescribe drugs.
- I can sit, nod, pat you on the back through words.
If it is someone I know in person, I’d try to send them care package based on what I would think they liked.
Saying “that sucks” is probably fine to say but it’s not my first choice.
Really the best thing you can do is show that you’re listening while they open up. I interpret that as listening mostly and making brief comments (something you can say in 5 seconds) relevant to their story.
Guess that’s basically point 3 in more detail.
The practical stuff is cool too. It shows you care
I’ve found Brené Brown’s way of describing empathy, and imo answering this question, helpful:
Thanks, that is helpful.
The most important thing is empathising, and if you express that by saying “that sucks” that’s pretty good.
“Have you tried not being depressed?”
“Thanks, I’m cured.”
At a bare minimum i always appreciate an attempt to help, even if their ideas aren’t actually helpful
Yeah my sentiment. Feels like if a person doesn’t give you the response you need/want then I guess you move on. Weird advice because people bitch about people going around with their problems
Have you tried 10g of powerful psychedelics?
at least op has
- someone to talk to
- someone that probably actually listened
- and that someone at least tried to help
when i try to reach out, if i even find someone that listens…well. it doen’t end well or they just stay silent and leave basically, like never to contact me again unless they need something (which i don’t indulge anymore, thus i realized i was alone for a long time before i realized)
