Therapy isn’t brain medicine. It’s different for lots of people, however to me it was an opportunity to practice skills I otherwise wouldn’t in a safe environment. The main skills I was able to practice were self reflection and emotional expression.
If I hadn’t gone to therapy, I would still be practically unable to open up to the people closest to me and I would still have my self image corrupted by delusions of self hatred from depression.
It’s sounds like fru-fru bullshit, but it does slowly make a difference. Eventually I realized that all my relationships became more healthy and my self confidence was significantly improved.
Lots of people -especially men in my experience- have no experience opening up and have a lot of deep fears about it and they end up self-isolating way more than is healthy. Therapy is the only real way where you can express yourself and get a sanity check without any kind of blowback.
JulieLemming@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
So what I would just go there and talk about what for 150 dollars? They would sniff it out what I need or…?
FRYD@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Generally when you start out, they have to get a feel for how you think and it’s mostly just you complaining about what stresses you out. After a few sessions, a decent therapist will have figured out some patterns in how you think and will be better able to direct the conversation so you end up talking about more of the situation than you typically think of on your own. From this it’s up to you to figure out how you want to solve the problem and/or what you want your goals to be.
I get the never ending struggle for more money. That’s a tough one let me know if you figure it out lol.
Fearlessness is probably a pretty unhealthy goal imo. Fear is a normal, healthy response that keeps you from making bad decisions. I think what you would really benefit from is: increased self-confidence, stress management skills, and good planning. You could definitely tell a therapist that you’re looking to become fearless or at least less fearful and they would be able to better look for what you might be hung up on.
I personally suffer from pretty bad anxiety and I know it holds me back, but I’ve become more confident in my own judgement and I’ve become better able to seek support from the people in my life thanks to therapy. Things haven’t turned around for me yet, but I feel better about the future, which is a massive improvement on its own.
JulieLemming@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
No I don’t want fear. I don’t want to feel fear ever again.
FRYD@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I’m not going to tell you what your goals should be, but you’ll eventually become less fearful on your path to fearlessness and it’ll be up to you to decide when it’s good enough.
If you’re afraid of therapy, I understand that. I don’t know you, but I was personally afraid of my inner thoughts causing people to reject me and I was also afraid that I may come to discover I’m worse than I thought. I’ll tell you how I came to see those things over time and maybe you feel something similar even if you can’t describe it and it may help. I unfortunately can’t do much more.
For the first fear (rejection) there’s two main things I clung on to: 1) There’s always someone worse than you out there and likely any therapist has already dealt with someone much worse than you or I. 2) Therapists are trained to deal with all kinds of people and manage whatever stress that may cause them. It’s why they cost so much money and that training is the difference between a therapist and a good listener. It’s also worth mentioning that they’re legally required to maintain confidentiality and unless you’re a danger to others, they’ll never spread anything you say.
For the second fear of realizing I was worse than I thought, that wasn’t really assuaged until I started. One thing most people come to realize as they become better at self reflection and self evaluation is that your imagination is almost always worse than the reality.
Whatever your particular fears are, it’ll take a measure of will power to overcome them no matter what. You should be proud then when you do go since you overcame your fear for your own betterment.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
A good part of therapy is having the problems accurately identified with possible realistic goals for how to improve your mental situation.
Self diagnosis often leads to the wrong conclusions. A perfect example is that there are already many rich, powerful, fearless assholes. Not only is adding you to their ranks unrealistic but it may not lead you to a future where you are content with yourself. Therapy can help you find whats wrong, and help you with the tools to know what to do about it. They aren’t going to “fix” you though. If you’re going into it with that mindset you’re going to come out exactly as you went in. Therapy is work. Be prepared to put in the work. It can be difficult, but its always worth it. The alternative is what you are now or possible even a worse version of yourself if you go down the wrong spiral.
JulieLemming@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I want money and want to have a mindset that will allow for a swift and easy accumulation of it so then I don’t need it anymore and can focus on higher luxuries
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Almost nothing in life is swift and easy, and certainly not what you’re asking for here. You already know this. Since that’s the case are you okay with the possibility of going through your entire life still clinging to this idea without even getting close to it until you shut your eyes for the last time on your deathbed? I mean, its your life, but that sounds like a pretty sorry existence to me especially when there are alternatives available to you.
You don’t need money to accomplish this.