Seriously getting desperate. Why does therapy not work for me?

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@hanami wrote:

@Jlol I'm thinking, isn't that what therapists actually do? If someone went to a therapist who was in an abusive relationship they would support them to make a decision about leaving or staying in that relationship? Of course there are situations in life that can cause the individual to be depressed or anxious such as the breakdown of a relationship or the death of a loved one, or not being able to gain secure employment. These things are often inevitable and out of our control and in those cases (things we can't control) we do have to learn how to adjust our reaction to them if they are causing us depression or anxiety.

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Sorry, @hanami , but there is just so much to grapple with there...

"...Being unable to gain secure employment..." is something "...we do have to learn how to adjust our reaction to..."??? How come so many other people get this luxury, yet we just have to "give up hope" and "accept" this tragedy? So many other people get jobs, but we arbitrarily get left out? Why can't therapists fix this oversight and get us jobs like everyone else? It's such a simple gesture, and they refuse to do it!

Your talking like a doctor whose had a patient walk in with a runny nose, and immediately deemed them to be hopelessly terminal, before he's even done an exam or run any tests.

Worse yet, if being unable to get employment is something out of our control, and something we just have to "accept", then why do people keep blaming us for this incurable condition, and treating us like crap for something we can't possibly correct - even with the best help (apparently)?

The way you describe therapists does not gel with my experiance of them; nor the way I've heard them described by most other sources. In my experiance, they are a "promise everything;do nothing" service. They would not help a person in an abusive relationship relocate into a more loving household. I know this because I'm in what I guess could be called a low-key abusive household. One of the problems I went to therapy for was that I wanted to be relocated into a loving household of my peers. But such help was never offered.

And because the therapists refuse to offer help for these otherwise curable conditions, they then resort to bullying their patients into "accepting" these horrid fates. How is this not recognized as cruelty and abuse?

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@hanami wrote:

...and in those cases (things we can't control) we do have to learn how to adjust our reaction to them if they are causing us depression or anxiety. I hope that makes sense.

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I'm sorry, but it doesn't make sense to me at all. Perhaps we deserve to have our reaction to them respected, instead of being bullied into conforming to an alien dogma we cannot relate to, regarding such tragedies.

In my code of values, there are many, many, many, fates worse then death. I won't risk the ire of the mods by detailing how this ties in with my opinion of suicide, but I'm guessing you can deduce it for yourself.

When I am stuck in a fate worse then death, I don't go to a therapist to have my values attacked, or attempt to be rewritten; I go there to have my values respected and held sacred, and to have the circumstances that are souring my life corrected, so that the life conforms to my view of what a life worth prolonging looks like. I don't go there to be talked out of suicide; I go there to have my life made worth prolonging.

IME, not only do therapists show no regard for the sanctity of a patient's own values, they fraudulently market themselves as being noble saviors who rescue people from unacceptable qualities-of-life, when they refuse to be anything of the sort. Instead, they prefer to destroy the patient's value system, which allows for the possibility of suicide being a valid course, so that the patient will continue to senselessly suffer through an unbearable plight, without offending the norms of broader society by euthanizing themself.

I'm sorry, @hanami , if I came off a bit confrontational there. This is a pretty raw issue for me.

No offense was intended.

I know this is a sore spot for you @chibam and I hear how much it impacts you. My experience hasn't been like this and I haven't had any psychologist tell me they can fix me or correct my life, it's up to me, the individual to do that. Sure, there are employment counsellors if you need career help etc but I don't think it's fair to put all the pressure on one human person to solve all your problems. I personally have found therapy quite helpful and I will continue to seek therapy and I hope others would too. I understand there can be some unprofessional people in the industry and people can be harmed. The mental health industry is far from perfect but we have to try..

Please take care of you 💝

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@Paperdaisy wrote:

...I haven't had any psychologist tell me they can fix me or correct my life, it's up to me, the individual to do that...

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Well we can split hairs if you want to, @Paperdaisy , but the whole mental health system - including companies like SANE - happily thrive off the perpetuation of that lie.

If you want to get technical, my therapist never told me that she could fix my life, either. But the very reason I was there in the first place was because the media had made so many promises to the public that "therapists will help you." To this day, those promises are still dispensed quite freely by most entities that claim to act with a mental health or suicide prevention agenda. How many suicide hot spots are plastered with signs emphatically promising: "There is always help!", for example?

Now we can quibble over the exact wording of these promises like a couple of KCs arguing before a judge over the ambiguous small print of a contract. But if we're going to be honest, I think we're going to have to admit that to a person who goes to such a hot spot to end their life, because they are sick of being permanently unemployed (just as an example), those signs promise that if they reach out to the system that these signs speak on behalf of, the therapist they end up with with finally assign them their job; or at least do everything within their power to make it happen. I also think that, if we're going to be honest, the entire mental health system (incl. SANE, et al) is well aware that this is exactly what these promises sound like to the desparate, desparate people who they are targeted at.

So yeah, you can point out that therapists never actually made any explicit promise to fix their patients' lives. But the industry willfully thrives on it, all the same. Where would they be if the general public knew the truth? If all those suicidal people knew full well that despite the promises, they'll be just as alone in their plight tomorrow, after they've reached out for help, as they are today - minus the $200 therapist session fee, of course.

The system may be artfully divided up into those entities that make the promises, and those entities that are called upon to fulfill the promises. You can try to be clever and say that the deception of one doesn't stain the character of the other. But they are all so obviously co-conspirators in the same scam. If they weren't then why don't the therapists ever run a public service campaign to clarify, to all the people out there with terrible lives, that they won't in fact fix their lives for them? They always seem to be right behind the "Help is available!" campaigns, but don't seem very interested in a more honest "you've got to sort your mess out all by yourself!" campaign.

What really adds insult to injury is that, buy and large, the sufferers who naievely turn to therapists for this sort of help aren't asking for anything outlandish. Their merely asking for the same sort of basic assistance that most people get from friends & family for free; except they don't have any decent friends or family, so they have to hire someone to take on that role for them.

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@Paperdaisy wrote:

Sure, there are employment counsellors if you need career help etc...

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I think they used to be called "occupational therapists", didn't they? I could never get a clear explaination as to whether they actually assign people their jobs or not. Is "employment counsellor" just a new name for those same people? Or is this a new type of therapist we're talking about?

@Jlol Forgive me, I wanted to thank you for your kind response earlier, but I got sidetracked.

I 100% agree with you, too. It's such a relief to once in a while meet someone who can see the real problems for what they are.

Real help is desparately needed, constantly promised, yet never delivered. One day, hopefully that will all change. Hopefully sooner rather then later.

Just want to echo @chibam with the abusive relationship thing. I am in one right now. I've literally had a therapist say "Call me back after you've left the relationship", like it was just as easy as a trip to the shops.

There's way more support I need. Above all, the emotional support with leaving an abusive relationship. Then there's where to go? Where do I live? How will this affect my job? Would I even be in a state to work? What about my belongings? What about my finances? What if something legal happens? What do I tell my friends?

There is a huge gap here (particularly if you're a male, I feel). And yes I've contacted services like Mensline and 1800 Respect. And guess what they do? Refer you to psychologists!

It's like going to a dentist when you've got a broken arm.

And more able to rort the system because they know how it works...and how it doesn't, and have the money, legal awareness and intimidatory power to know how much they can get away with,@EternalFlower, and for some reason, they are deemed credible!! (implying honourable and knowledgeable). It's a joke.

@Jlol for someone to dismiss you like that sounds like really poor practice.

All of the things you mention that you need support with, the therapist should work with you on and ensure you have those in place. While that is the case, the decisions are ultimately up to us and we have to make those. The therapist can't make those for us.

I understand you feel really broken by the system and that's really awful and valid. But seeing as it's the best we have at the moment, I'm wondering if you can see a way forward for yourself and do you have a picture of what that might look like. If you do, maybe it's worth thinking about small steps to make that happen. It's really horrible that your relationship is abusive. Have you even spoken to someone who may have been in that situation who has made a way out of it?

Just trying to offer some ideas @Jlol as we can see how troubled you are and want to support you as best we can.

In my 20s @Jlol I had a psychiatrist tell me I had a lot of baggage and when I asked him to explain it he scoffed at me. I still put him on a pedestal for about 5 more years. Now I am p**sed at him. Outraged, but he is dead. So gotta let another thing go ... He did not help me unpack my baggage either which is the least he could have done. So now I am cranky I willlingly gave him gap payments and medicare.

He let me get deeper in a relationship which was very abusive rather than do the work and earn his time. I will never really recover from that abusive marriage relationship or his lack of duty of care for me.

I have unpacked a lot of the 'baggage' he meant now ... 40 years later. I did it myself. That doctor was too cushy with my ex who had a lot more casually privileged manner of speaking. Because the failure to do the work occurred within the system, and damaged my children as well as others in my family. I am dedicated to holding them to account, though I really do try and be fair and acknowledge decent weork and honest mistakes.

However it is true.Jlol You do have to your own work on your own life. It is your right and your privilege.

I now realise that due to early trauma I renewed trauma bonds in intimate relationships. (Not genuine love.) That therapist ought have helped you work through that and why you might stay or go, rather than be too opinionated and narrow. That is the sense in which I do think the services are NOT sufficently regulated. That often the therapist or counsellor or shrink or doctor is not aware of their own bias and defences and how that impedes genuine therapeutic outcomes.

@Paperdaisy @hanami @Historylover

the therapist should work with you on and ensure you have those in place.

Never, ever in the 18 odd months of trying to solve this issue have any of them 5 therapists done that.

I'm wondering if you can see a way forward for yourself and do you have a picture of what that might look like.

No, pretty lost at sea here. This 'way forward' is what I was hoping to get help with from the therapists.

Have you even spoken to someone who may have been in that situation who has made a way out of it?

No, don't really have many friends and am not close to anyone (it's not as bad as it sounds - I kind of prefer it that way).