That "something else entirely" for me was trauma. which has no search hits in this comment thread so far.
I was given an ADHD diagnosis as a child before it was in vogue. From my (admittedly) biased perspective I was given this as a result of hyperactivity which might have stabilized on its own given enough time, but my caretakers reacting poorly to my early behavior caused long-lasting traumatic symptoms which happen to line up with many symptoms of ADHD. So I just assumed that ADHD was the case the whole time. I started to suspect something was off when stimulants did not help my problems, but unfortunately it was not enough to escape the sphere of trying to solve my issues with ineffective ADHD-centric solutions until long into my adulthood.
Childhood trauma on top of misdiagnosis on top of continuing familial issues was an awful combination for me and I can't say that I've made that much progress from therapy, only that at this point I can survive with full awareness of the reality of how I was treated. It felt like I had been living in an alternate reality for decades and now I can't stop thinking about what I've found out.
I’m sorry you went through all that; it sounds really difficult. I can relate, having come from a similar background and situation. However, I wasn’t actually diagnosed with adhd until well into adulthood. The meds have helped, but I also have been given other emotional deregulation diagnoses, and I’ve been wondering if it’s all one thing. This article and your experiences add to that perception, for me.
Regarding progress in therapy, it’s a lot of work for sure. I would recommend looking into brainspotting (1) - it’s been hugely helpful for processing trauma, for me. YMMV
I wish I could upvote this more. What's never discussed is what would motivate a kid to doomscroll the unsupervised internet, often it's unaddressed stress or trauma. From experience, a turbulent childhood can cause lifelong issues that require sustained motivation on the part of the adult child to undo.
If one or both of your parents shut down your emotions all throughout your childhood, you have will likely have far bigger issues than anything an identity check can solve.
Having lived through intractable family conflict before, I believe it is a good analogy as to why the continual reinvention of social media will be a fruitless endeavour.
That approach doesn't work for everyone. Everything you say could be correct, but if the person thinks their feelings are not being listened to, there is a chance they still won't take your advice.
One of my therapists said it was normal in her circle for people not to get onto someone's case if they're mentally unwell and have chores piling up, because it makes sense they don't have as much effort to give to all aspects of life. At the time I didn't understand this statement, because up until then my only contacts were people who, although they didn't go as far as "bullying" me into compliance, had told me in effect that how I felt about my life was irrelevant to whether or not I was fulfilling every single one of my adult responsibilities. What ultimately worked for me wasn't those contacts who said there were no excuses, but my therapist who decided not to frame my decisions in terms of "excuses".
For me this kind of thing hurts because:
1. There's not any room for compassion or slack. I'm not talking about people who take advantage of others' goodwill. Even if you try to help with this "no excuses" mentality, the other person could start to worry if the next inadvertent slip-up or setback counts as an "excuse" they'll be looked down upon for. This kind of thought will linger and reduce the effectiveness of the intervention.
2. Your feelings aren't listened to, or if they are it's only at a level superficial enough to obtain compliance. This is bad enough on its own. What might not be obvious is if the person has had a life marked by repeated instances of their feelings being shut down or not listened to, especially in childhood, this approach only backfires that much harder. These are emotional patterns that have been established in critical periods/over a long period of time that are being relieved at a much higher intensity than the average population. And most importantly, you can't know for sure if something like this applies until you get to know the person better, which is why a lot of one-off prescriptive advice towards strangers is ineffective.
3. The advice-giver is often successful/came out of hardship themselves, so by being looked down upon as irresponsible it gives the impression that you're being excluded from the in-group of mentally well/recovered people. Avoiding exclusion from a group is one of the biggest sources of strife today, as modern politics and social media indicate. And being mentally stable is often one of the most important groups to be included in for people who know they're depressed, so it hurts even more.
That’s all excuses. I’m not saying it’s right to bully someone who’s in the depths of depression. But the depression isn’t gonna fix itself and it certainly won’t fix itself because of something that happened in the past
i don't know what it takes to get out of depression, but "it isn't going to fix itself" doesn't contradict that the depressed person can't get out of it on their own. it's like telling someone stuck in a hole to stop whining because they are not going to get out of the hole as long as they do nothing. that's true, but they are also not in a position to see a way out, or may simply not be able to get out without help.
as i said, i don't know what it takes, but i do think that compassion, patience, and recognition of efforts and absence of any hint of blame by others are part of it.
Sadly the human need for being heard and understood is innate, and it has been my experience that books can't substitute for that need. On the other hand, there are swathes of incompetent therapists that can only aggravate one's mental state.
The only solution I see is to find the right therapist. Some people might not when their future depends on them finding one, and they give up too early. I can't see how that would be fixed except maybe having a mediator that pairs you up with therapists they recommend and asks if you feel an improvement each week. You'd be surprised, but I had nobody to do this for me. So I ended up losing years worth of time sticking with incompetent therapists because "going to therapy" like everybody told me to seemed more important than "fixing my life."
As cruel as it sounds, I was in no position to think critically about my own treatment because my mental state only allowed me to see checking off the box of self-care to get people off my back as the ultimate goal. It's the nature of the problem of mental healthcare. If I had been given a simple questionnaire to rate my treatment providers on a scale of 1-10 in various dimensions, I would have been put in front of someone else within a month or two.
You know who's infinitely patient, has read every psychology text book and is available immediately at 2am and not in a week that you have to schedule an appointment for? ChatGPT. (or Claude or any of them.)
A therapist does more than just listen. A therapist is more like a driving instructor sitting in the second seat that points out things that you should pay attention to, and can take the wheel if you head into dangerous territory.
If you say something like "I hate that people don't see the real me", LLMs would say "yes it's understandable that that would make you upset" basically confirming your reasoning as valid, while a therapist would ask "why do you want to people to see the real you?" or "What is in your words the difference between how people see you now, and how they would see you if they saw the 'real you'?". These kinds of questions force you to explain and identify your assumptions and reasoning.
LLMS are more like friends, providing a listening ear, but otherwise just nodding along.
edit: To be clear, this is why llms are NOT a good replacement for therapy. Using llms will likely only exacerbate instead of mitigate.
>Sadly the human need for being heard and understood is innate
And humans are hell-bent on denying this to each other. Just like sustenance or shelter. Hmm. Wonder what's that all about?
>You'd be surprised
The hypothetical everyman that is addressee in this turn of phrase? Yeah, probably would. Me though? I wouldn't even feign it.
>but I had nobody to do this for me.
Root of the problem right there. Not your fault. (At least if we reason causally, and not scapegoatingly.)
>So I ended up losing years worth of time sticking with incompetent therapists because "going to therapy" like everybody told me to seemed more important than "fixing my life."
Exactly.
Sending someone to therapy is a socially acceptable accountability sink. And a "good vibes"-coded method of gaslighting.
The sender-to-therapy still wants to maintain your acquaintance. They might not even be getting something out of it, or even expecting to gain something; they just want to do the normal thing like they're taught to; which amounts to "do not be seen looking like you're snubbing somebody because dats rood".
And, simultaneously, they don't actually want the cognitive load of acknowledging you as a real person in a real pickle, so they can't "be there for you" (another treacherous wording). After all, reality is a contagious thing; what's next - they become aware of their own shit? Unthinkable - what if that makes them incapable of traumatizing their kids one day? Better just do the normal thing and let you rot. It's all upside!
It's narcissism all the way down, through the bottom, and up by the bootstraps.
(See also cousin post:
>LLMS are more like friends, providing a listening ear, but otherwise just nodding along.
If that's the standard of friendship, it's more useful to make enemies!)
> If I had been given a simple questionnaire to rate my treatment providers on a scale of 1-10 in various dimensions, I would have been put in front of someone else within a month or two.
And then those poor psych grads would've been denied their lucrative and inconsequential careers! The horror, the enormity!
>It's the nature of the problem of mental healthcare
Mental healthcare is impossible without actual concepts of "mind", "health", and "care". The society we inhabit only has some poor statistical approximations of those, Seeing like a State-style. Best "we" can do, therapy-wise, is figure out how to make you scream less loudly.
>As cruel as it sounds, I was in no position to think critically about my own treatment
It does not sound cruel. You are not hurting anybody. You are being critical of your past self. This is, generally speaking, a correct thing to do.
>because my mental state only allowed me to see checking off the box of self-care to get people off my back as the ultimate goal.
Your mental state does not exist in a vacuum; it is primarily a product of your environment. If they teach you box ticking, you're gonna do box ticking. If they misteach you that box ticking appeases, you're gonna keep ticking boxes until it appeases - except it won't and while you're busy waiting for it to appease them, they will do whatever the fuck they want with you. It's their way of life. Who are we to deny them that? How?
Of course, if you've found a therapist that works for you, all of this is probably moot; as to other readers, my suggestion continues to be as follows:
- Begin with rejecting any premise they're trying to force/shame/blackmail you into accepting, no matter how socially acceptable this premise might seem on the surface.
- Then, proceed to deconstruct the premise and its implications from a maximally cynical perspective. This will simplify things to a level where one is able to reason about them even with most higher faculties disabled.
- Once you've used this to regain higher ground (a process which, in itself, is already a source of valuable first-hand experiences), you can commence the actual "debugging" of your higher faculties (and, through that, figure out those things only you can figure out).
It really is. Exercise and eating well was an activity I became capable of participating in as a result of the correct therapy and dramatically boosted its effects, not something I could persist at when already depressed.
When people claim the contrary it's feels more of a test to see if you can be perceived as responsible enough for your own actions to be worth helping. An individualistic mindset like that isn't very productive at alleviating depression.
Have you been to therapy? What did it look like? I'm thinking about getting one, but I'm not sure whether anyone could fix me when I'm fundamentally unhappy about life -- but definitely not to the point to consider suicide.
Has been a thing for a while and I almost exclusively follow Japanese accounts. Sometimes it's the only place that certain Japanese artists post their work.
Me too. I deleted all of my posts, comments, likes and follows except for a couple of Japanese accounts (primarily Aya Nishitani, author of Shin Megami Tensei, who posts a lot of interesting stuff about Japanese and Western occultism sometimes in English.)
> It used to be that traumatised kids got slapped with a ADHD, autism and/or borderline diagnosis and it got called a day. These are "that's just how you are" style diagnoses. Since 2018 there is CPTSD which finally connects the symptoms to how you got treated as a child.
This was my childhood.
Unfortunately for some the narrative of the perfect family is too precious for others to step up and intervene. It's taboo to accuse someone of being a bad parent, even if it's the truth.
Even away from my abusers for decades, the resulting issues have continued into my adulthood and led to near daily struggle that seems to have no end. With my family I've had to choose my battles and my therapist is the only one who both believes me and is trained to give me the support I require to mentally survive in the adult world, one I would otherwise be unprepared for. Without a good enough job I wouldn't be able to pay them and that support would evaporate.
Imagine if a huge percentage of the drama and anger that shows up online is rooted in formative trauma that nobody will ever admit out loud, and as a result we're distracted by trying to address completely unrelated sources of outrage.
I was given an ADHD diagnosis as a child before it was in vogue. From my (admittedly) biased perspective I was given this as a result of hyperactivity which might have stabilized on its own given enough time, but my caretakers reacting poorly to my early behavior caused long-lasting traumatic symptoms which happen to line up with many symptoms of ADHD. So I just assumed that ADHD was the case the whole time. I started to suspect something was off when stimulants did not help my problems, but unfortunately it was not enough to escape the sphere of trying to solve my issues with ineffective ADHD-centric solutions until long into my adulthood.
Childhood trauma on top of misdiagnosis on top of continuing familial issues was an awful combination for me and I can't say that I've made that much progress from therapy, only that at this point I can survive with full awareness of the reality of how I was treated. It felt like I had been living in an alternate reality for decades and now I can't stop thinking about what I've found out.
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