You must log in or register to comment.
It’s really a health thing in general. If someone tells you they’re struggling with an illness, they almost certainly do not want you to be an armchair doctor. They’re almost certainly telling it to you for a reason other than getting medical advice from you unless they specifically ask for it.
Not only do some people not take no for an answer, some people actually get incredibly irate about it. I had someone here on Lemmy literally start harassing me in different communities and repeatedly in PM because their so-called medical advice, which was already discounted by my doctors, was not taken seriously.
Your post mentioned medical advice so many times I can only assume you’re looking for some, so here: whatever you do, avoid being gamma radiated in space. Otherwise, you might become a member of the fantastic four, which will be horrible for your mental health.
That bit about reminding you in different communities to avoid being gamma radiated in space sounds effective but also like a lot of work. Could you just copy/paste the above paragraph to the bottom of all your future comments to save me some effort? Thanks!
Hope you’re able to eat more these days and that your issue isn’t an early symptom of turning into a member of the fantastic four.
And if you have asthma, don’t worry, just take a deep breath :)
This Tweet (and all of its derivatives) is exactly the same level of not helpful.
What isn’t helpful about it, to you?
Even if ‘cheer up’ may be what some people need, the point of the tweet is it’s un-empathetic to say this.
It’s the passive-aggressiveness of the tweet. Being bitter and sarcastic won’t make anyone’s day better either.
That sets the bar quite high. A single tweet is not going to help in any substantial way, but it might be relatable.
Are you saying don’t let perfect be the enemy of good? Because that would be a good tweet.
No, that’s not what I’m saying. If you fight with depression, you need therapy. No tweet will help you. People saying “cheer up” try to help you and fail miserable. The tweet in the screenshot doesn’t try to help or cure you. It’s just a relatable tweet not doing much good but neither harming anyone
Yeah, I hate seeing my feelings validated and knowing I’m not alone. ;)
One should always be wary of people who talk unashamedly of “fellowship and good cheer” as if it were something that can be applied to life like a poultice. Turn your back for a moment and they may well organize a maypole dance and, frankly, there’s no option then but to try and make it to the treeline.
Not depression, but …
I have a friend with a bit of “resting bitch face”. Someone screamed at her from across the street to “smile and be happy, it’s a great day!”
She was like, I was happy …
In the closet transfem person but as far as everyone is aware I look like a male to people
I’ve been told to cheer up by a male person in public once so it can happen
that’s just sexism. no one tells men to be happy when they walk around looking like someone shat in their cereal
Uh not correct. Tall angry looking dudes get told all the time to ‘smile’.
Of course, it’s also aimed at women for sexist reason, I got told to smile so many times as an angry looking dude. Then I’m walking around with my daughter and this full on 30 something grown ass adult man tells her to smile. I could have rage fisted him into the fucking sun at midnight, The pure burning hate that flooded my viens at that moment decreased my life span by 3 years. I could have poured it down his entire being. Instead I told him she’ll do whatever she wants with her face, and he can fuck off.
by strangers?
Yes. but It’s been a few years since it’s happened. Or I stopped noticing/caring. Idk which.
i thought you said all the time
Oh your being an asshole, sorry, thought you were asking an honest question. My bad.
how is that being an asshole? you said it happens all the time and when i asked you said it happened years ago. because i can tell you that most women who don’t smile all the time wouldn’t say it’s been years since some stranger felt entitled to tell them to smile. that’s my whole point.
I wouldn’t bet on that, you’d be wrong.
sure
Elderly old man with a resting bitch face here. People don’t say ‘cheer up’ to me, but have frequently asked my wife why I’m so angry.
I am a man. I also have resting b1tch face. I get told to “smile” or “cheer up” on a weekly basis
by whom, strangers?
Yes
Then they’re hitting on you. They want to see that pretty smile of yours.
Or at least checking to see if enough of their teeth are there.
If someone is fighting depression and builds up the courage to reach out to you be sure to say “aren’t we all” then provide zero support. This will make then feel like they aren’t struggling alone.
That sucks
Make sure they know a daily walk could cure them, so they don’t have to bother with a doctor. (I’m being facetious, seeking medical help is the first step to knowing and treating, depression can be a symptom of many medical, treatable, issues)
rolls eyes how you know someone hasn’t struggled with real mental health issues.
The first time that happened to me - she said it in not those words but in a more subtle way - I was shocked. It took me a few moments to ingest the complete lack of empathy.
I’m fighting depression, but depression brought a gun and I thought we were supposed to be boxing.
Guess you’ve gotta find some kevlar then.
My Boss noticed I had been down lately. She said “She was depressed once, then she started going out with friends once a week. That was 20 years ago and shes been cured since”. True story.
Likely to be an unpopular comment, but a lot of people use this mindset to avoid practicing making the subtle but consistent changes in their thought patterns that they would need to to break out of and away from depression-causing thought patterns.
“You should start incorporating small gratitude practices into your daily life to eventually train your brain to focus on less negative aspects of the world”
=/=
“Can’t you just cheer up.”
I guess the better way to phrase it to normies is that this is definitely not a change that happens overnight. It can take years even.
That’s definitely true, but I think the problem ends up being that when you’re in the hole of depression, that kind of interpretation is against your current thought pattern. People say the latter as shorthand for the former, but when depressed that shorthand breaks down because the stupid fucking depression gets in the way and just says “yeah, but you can’t cheer up no matter what, because you’re depressed.”
It’s ridiculous cyclical logic, but it seems perfectly fine unless directly contradicting by someone else being very blunt (like with the more detailed example you gave)
😊 It does help to have been working in psychiatry for almost a decade, but even then I still struggle with it myself. I’ve also been working on this if you’re interested.
If you are suffering from clinical depression and try to change your thought patterns in some consistent way, you’re probably going to fail. That’s why there are things like therapy and medication to help depressed people. Most people can’t self-help their way out of actual depression.
Remember, depression is different from unhappiness.
…what do you think therapy is? Especially cognitive-behavioral therapy. Like. I’ve been to over 300 hours of professional therapy and have been working in mental health for 3 years with a license and 8 total. It’s not quick or easy, but restructuring your thought processes over time is 100% necessary to overcome depression.
Medication can help and is often even necessary for the patient to have the drive and energy to make those changes, but if you’re even just relying on medication alone without changing any of your lifestyle habits, you’re at the very least just not going to see any sustainable results. Medications don’t fix you; they give you back the power to fix yourself. Recovery isn’t free and if you’re not willing to put in the work you’re not going to get better. It’s not your fault, but you’re still the only one that can fix it.
That said, people who find cognitive-behavioral therapy invalidating often report much better results with dialectal behavior therapy due to the inclusion of zen buddhism concepts.
If you’ve been in so much therapy and work in mental health, why are you suggesting people try to solve this problem on their own?
Where did I ever say that? I literally just said they’re resistant to changing their thought patterns because of this exact mindset and the number 1 place they’re going to have that mindset challenged its in a therapy office. The reason I know this is how people often respond to professionals is because I’ve had to learn a bunch of workarounds to help people be more open to discussing it (like I said above). Even the resource I’ve been working on for people struggling to afford therapy leads with resources to try to help them find one. But when you get in that room with that therapist, they’re going to try to get you to change your thought patterns, and if you react like you are now, you’re going to waste your copay.
To be perfectly honest it seems like I hit a sore spot and you subconsciously chose to read it in the way that offended you most because like most of my patients your thought patterns are more focused on preserving themselves than they are on helping you, and you’re not ready to admit that. Which is what it is, recovery doesn’t happen until you’re ready. Its the same psychological bug that keeps people believing in shit like qanon; admitting you’re wrong can be 20x harder than just admitting that you’ve been causing irreparable harm to yourself (and in the case of qanon, other people) and that you need to change. The human brain would literally rather keep hurting itself than admit that it’s wrong and that’s a pretty well known fact at this point.
I believe you just described cognitive behavioral therapy.
My brother, who never had a struggle in his life, came up with the solution to all mental health problems. “You should get a different mindset”. He should get a Nobel price. We can scrap psychology. We just need to get a different mindset. Autism? Mindset. PTSD? Mindset. Depression? Mindset. Personality disorder? Mindset! Boom! I’m cured! I’ve had years of useless therapy, had over 20 therapists, but my brother is a genius and knows how to fix it in an instant. *longest and deepest sigh possible.
A big issue we have in society is that we’re not allowed to feel bad. Whenever someone feels bad in any way, people are panicking and trying to fix it, make someone happy. Accepting someone feels bad and allowing the sadness to be there already helps a lot. Sadness needs to be there too and needs time to process. Cramping it away because everyone needs to be happy all the time only makes everything worse.
A big issue we have in society is that we’re not allowed to feel bad. Whenever someone feels bad in any way, people are panicking and trying to fix it, make someone happy.
But isn’t that just basic empathy? We see someone we care about is unhappy and we understand the feeling of unhappiness and want to do something about them being unhappy.
Obviously, the advice above is unhelpful, but I don’t think doing things to try to make an unhappy person happy is inherently the wrong approach. Baking a sad person cookies is a way to try to make them happy. I don’t see an issue there unless you get pissed off at them for not wanting the cookies or something.
Doing something to try to cheer a depressed person up is greatly different to just telling people to cheer up. Because just telling someone to feel different is exactly reatly lacking empathy.
I agree, I was just talking about the other people trying to fix it part.
Tell him he’s technically not wrong, but mindet surgery does not exists and it takes endless effort, time and help to change.
Yeah, it’s the same argument as “when your arm is amputated, why not just grow it back?”. I mean, sure, that’s a great option if you don’t want to live without an arm, just an option we don’t have with the current tech.
Just splice in some newt DNA
Damn. I’ve never thought if that. That’s genius!
Right up there with the people who ignore me, leave me alone or exclude me when I’m down. I’m depressed because I’m being excluded and feel isolated, jackasses.
“Just show up and do the thing, you’re always welcome!” (Ever tried just showing up when you’ve been removed from being told where the weekly thing even is and no one answers when asked?)
The amount of oblivious hypocrisy I’ve run into while navigating the deep blue is astounding.
I think it helps to give people the benefit of the doubt instead of jumping to accusations of hypocrisy. And if it really keeps happening, you know you won’t fit with that group anyways so best to move on.
This way you deal with the actions you don’t like people doing in a way that doesn’t cause a negative mindset.
Although I will admit, its not like its the easiest thing to just find a new friend group in general so it could get tiring for sure.
Have you tried not being depressed? /s
