In fairness the entire problem is that we’re overusing therapy to account for the fact that we basically paywalled supportive human relationships. A bunch of people are starting to use therapy to replace friendship instead of only using it for specific stressors / traumas or dysfunctions.
Friendships can also be much more useful than therapy; a shift supervisor recently needled me into quitting on the spot and while my therapist just kinda nodded along and blandly validated my emotions, my actual work friend was able to personally confirm that that shift supervisor is fucking awful and I’m not even the first person she’s done that to. Guess which one made me feel better?
Also so many people have decided that emotional connections outside of a relationship are cheating.
To that i say GFY.
Humans are emotional beings that have evolved with the help of community. isolating yourself for a partner is self harm. it is normal, acceptable, and expected to have extra-relationship emotional connections with people of all genders.
probably refers to the elimination of ‘third places’ a place besides home and work where people gather to socialize. About the only place left we can go without the expectation of spending money is a public library, and libraries are amazing but they’re not always the best socializing spot.
A major tenet of our capitalist system is separating us from things that are free and natural. If we isolate everyone in their own homes, or pods or what have you, then people can be charged for the services they use to connect to one another. Of course one may rebut that these services are usually free, to which I’d respond with the old adage “If it’s free, you’re the product and not the customer.”
Third spaces are one part, but honestly the biggest part is literally not having time to spend with people outside of work.
edit: biggest part for me. my friends are mostly able to host at our own houses, and there are low cost (or free) third spaces we have found/created.
if you want a third space, you can actually make your own! kind of. reach out to libraries, local left-leaning businesses, and they might let you set up a weekly salon/hangout kind of thing. community activism!
I take a ferry pretty much every day. 30 minute ride. Before cellphones, it was common to see people having great conversations with strangers. I’d have a good chat at least once a week. These days it’s quiet all the time. Unless people come on together, they ignore everyone else, even if they aren’t using a phone themselves. People have been trained to spend their time looking at the screens. Any place is a third space if you talk to people.
And risk hearing the opinion of a trump supporter? Just kidding. Really though, I hate meeting strangers and knowing there’s a like a 1/3 chance they believe some pretty hateful stuff.
Most of the hateful stuff comes from social isolation, lack of emotional support and toxic relationships. A healthy social life could have prevented many of those people to radicalize into the idiots the are now.
20 years ago, people would call other folks on really terrible opinions, so the Right had to use dog whistles like ‘law and order’ when they meant ‘string them up.’
If MAGoos knew that they’ll have to engage randomly with folks throughout the day, they’d automatically rein in the crazy.
While you’re on your phone looking at cat videos they’re feeding each other’s hatred.
Look at it this way; back in 2002 era folks were making fun of the overly decorated flag cars some ‘patriots’ were driving.
A vehicle done up full Trump style, with full size flags and a dozen signs, would have been a laughing stock.
Both you and the guy that replied to you. It’s the whole thing. But you described the mechanism and desired result more thoroughly re: segmenting us so that they can take their cut out of each little thing.
The highest aspiration for capitalism is to have “passive income” to be a gatekeeper, find some little loop hole to exploit, socialize the costs & privatize the profits
I guess it might depend a bit on where you live. In the city I live there’s free social events in many different places, sometimes in stores, other times in religious buildings or clubs (organizations). Since you mentioned libraries, I rememberfree DND sessions are hosted at a local library. Like others have mentioned sometimes people just need to contact such places and ask if they can organize events there. Using existing connections can help but is probably not a requirement.
I don’t mean it in a literal sense, it’s just the best terminology I have so far to describe this constant expectation that an exchange of money has to occur for every interaction, and that the payee is expected to cater emotionally to the payer, often even to the extent of being abused, as is often seen in customer service.
Its expanded so far beyond costumer service though, to the extent that its even starting to invade sectors where safety should be the primary focus, like Healthcare and transit. Yeah they should be comfortable, but the bulk of the resources should really be going towards safety (a lot of safer things are more comfortable anyway, your body being abused isn’t fun).
And now, like I said, it’s even starting to invade people’s personal lives, and people are starting to essentially pay to be emotionally validated, whether it’s by a therapist or an onlyfans girl. I don’t want to sound like a doomer but they’re not gonna stop, its gotten too easy for everybody from restaurant franchises to betterhelp to take a monetary cut out of the dopamine you get from having a pleasant interaction with another human and as someone specializing in mental health I cannot describe to you how much that terrifies me.
I worry some that therapy has gotten into an industry where more people are interested in making profit than providing quality of care which has made a market where therapy can serve as a kind of yes man market as well. I definitely don’t mean to belittle the benefit of therapy, but I know plenty of people who have shopped around therapists until they got one who said what they had already decided they wanted to hear as opposed to looking for a partner to work through specific issues with.
Actually that’s one of my top tips for choosing the best therapist when you do need one! It should feel a little like going to the gym; you should feel a little emotionally tired afterward for the most part. A good therapist will also be able to sense if you need to scale back for a week or two to recuperate though, but so would a good personal trainer, so the metaphor holds at least that far.
“I’d like to give you genuine and forceful advice, but I also don’t want to get sued for poor decisions so I’ll just ask a bunch of vague philosophical questions about your life. Get ready to say ‘I dunno, I guess.’ and fill a check for $300.”
The difference between a therapist and a stripper as far as giving you their emotional support, is that if a therapist fucks up and you harm yourself, the therapist can lose their job. If the stripper fucks up and you harm yourself, the stripper can still strip.
Strippers don’t have the accountability factors that therapists do.
The dialectal behavior therapy trained therapists I’ve had have walked that particular tightrope much more skilfully than others, fwiw. That’s why I jumped on even just the weekend crash course I took.
I’ve never seen or heard anybody tell men not to trauma dump. On the contrary, I’ve only seen people tell men that they should open up and be comfortable with their emotions.
I know it might be strange to think, but not even close to a percent of women frequent those spaces.
Do you really think thats where youll find how the average woman feels?
Those terms are just as foreign to the average woman as they are to us. If you dont believe me, go look at the male equivalent spaces to those you listed. See if the men posting there represent your views well.
I have not noticed this to be gendered. They skipped straight to telling me as a woman not to trauma dump, no one ever wanted to hear about my emotions to begin with.
In fairness the entire problem is that we’re overusing therapy to account for the fact that we basically paywalled supportive human relationships. A bunch of people are starting to use therapy to replace friendship instead of only using it for specific stressors / traumas or dysfunctions.
Friendships can also be much more useful than therapy; a shift supervisor recently needled me into quitting on the spot and while my therapist just kinda nodded along and blandly validated my emotions, my actual work friend was able to personally confirm that that shift supervisor is fucking awful and I’m not even the first person she’s done that to. Guess which one made me feel better?
But be careful not to wreck your supportive human relationships because you didn’t therapy good enough.
This is true. Some people tend to dump everything on anyone who will listen, and it becomes exhausting for invested listeners.
Also so many people have decided that emotional connections outside of a relationship are cheating.
To that i say GFY.
Humans are emotional beings that have evolved with the help of community. isolating yourself for a partner is self harm. it is normal, acceptable, and expected to have extra-relationship emotional connections with people of all genders.
👏
What do you mean when you say they’re paywalled?
probably refers to the elimination of ‘third places’ a place besides home and work where people gather to socialize. About the only place left we can go without the expectation of spending money is a public library, and libraries are amazing but they’re not always the best socializing spot. A major tenet of our capitalist system is separating us from things that are free and natural. If we isolate everyone in their own homes, or pods or what have you, then people can be charged for the services they use to connect to one another. Of course one may rebut that these services are usually free, to which I’d respond with the old adage “If it’s free, you’re the product and not the customer.”
Third spaces are one part, but honestly the biggest part is literally not having time to spend with people outside of work.
edit: biggest part for me. my friends are mostly able to host at our own houses, and there are low cost (or free) third spaces we have found/created.
if you want a third space, you can actually make your own! kind of. reach out to libraries, local left-leaning businesses, and they might let you set up a weekly salon/hangout kind of thing. community activism!
Both of these, yes.
Not just libraries and businesses, but also religious facilities, clubs with a focus on social interactions, etc. Oftentimes they can provide rooms.
I take a ferry pretty much every day. 30 minute ride. Before cellphones, it was common to see people having great conversations with strangers. I’d have a good chat at least once a week. These days it’s quiet all the time. Unless people come on together, they ignore everyone else, even if they aren’t using a phone themselves. People have been trained to spend their time looking at the screens. Any place is a third space if you talk to people.
And risk hearing the opinion of a trump supporter? Just kidding. Really though, I hate meeting strangers and knowing there’s a like a 1/3 chance they believe some pretty hateful stuff.
Most of the hateful stuff comes from social isolation, lack of emotional support and toxic relationships. A healthy social life could have prevented many of those people to radicalize into the idiots the are now.
That’s one of Trump’s biggest strengths.
20 years ago, people would call other folks on really terrible opinions, so the Right had to use dog whistles like ‘law and order’ when they meant ‘string them up.’
If MAGoos knew that they’ll have to engage randomly with folks throughout the day, they’d automatically rein in the crazy.
While you’re on your phone looking at cat videos they’re feeding each other’s hatred.
Look at it this way; back in 2002 era folks were making fun of the overly decorated flag cars some ‘patriots’ were driving.
A vehicle done up full Trump style, with full size flags and a dozen signs, would have been a laughing stock.
Both you and the guy that replied to you. It’s the whole thing. But you described the mechanism and desired result more thoroughly re: segmenting us so that they can take their cut out of each little thing.
The highest aspiration for capitalism is to have “passive income” to be a gatekeeper, find some little loop hole to exploit, socialize the costs & privatize the profits
And parks! A walk in the park is completely free, and very positive for your mental health.
I guess it might depend a bit on where you live. In the city I live there’s free social events in many different places, sometimes in stores, other times in religious buildings or clubs (organizations). Since you mentioned libraries, I rememberfree DND sessions are hosted at a local library. Like others have mentioned sometimes people just need to contact such places and ask if they can organize events there. Using existing connections can help but is probably not a requirement.
I don’t mean it in a literal sense, it’s just the best terminology I have so far to describe this constant expectation that an exchange of money has to occur for every interaction, and that the payee is expected to cater emotionally to the payer, often even to the extent of being abused, as is often seen in customer service.
Its expanded so far beyond costumer service though, to the extent that its even starting to invade sectors where safety should be the primary focus, like Healthcare and transit. Yeah they should be comfortable, but the bulk of the resources should really be going towards safety (a lot of safer things are more comfortable anyway, your body being abused isn’t fun).
And now, like I said, it’s even starting to invade people’s personal lives, and people are starting to essentially pay to be emotionally validated, whether it’s by a therapist or an onlyfans girl. I don’t want to sound like a doomer but they’re not gonna stop, its gotten too easy for everybody from restaurant franchises to betterhelp to take a monetary cut out of the dopamine you get from having a pleasant interaction with another human and as someone specializing in mental health I cannot describe to you how much that terrifies me.
Man if I get started saying money ruins everything I’d never get the chance to say anything else
I worry some that therapy has gotten into an industry where more people are interested in making profit than providing quality of care which has made a market where therapy can serve as a kind of yes man market as well. I definitely don’t mean to belittle the benefit of therapy, but I know plenty of people who have shopped around therapists until they got one who said what they had already decided they wanted to hear as opposed to looking for a partner to work through specific issues with.
Actually that’s one of my top tips for choosing the best therapist when you do need one! It should feel a little like going to the gym; you should feel a little emotionally tired afterward for the most part. A good therapist will also be able to sense if you need to scale back for a week or two to recuperate though, but so would a good personal trainer, so the metaphor holds at least that far.
“I’d like to give you genuine and forceful advice, but I also don’t want to get sued for poor decisions so I’ll just ask a bunch of vague philosophical questions about your life. Get ready to say ‘I dunno, I guess.’ and fill a check for $300.”
The difference between a therapist and a stripper as far as giving you their emotional support, is that if a therapist fucks up and you harm yourself, the therapist can lose their job. If the stripper fucks up and you harm yourself, the stripper can still strip.
Strippers don’t have the accountability factors that therapists do.
The dialectal behavior therapy trained therapists I’ve had have walked that particular tightrope much more skilfully than others, fwiw. That’s why I jumped on even just the weekend crash course I took.
I also noticed how people on the internet (mostly women) used to say men should open up and be vulnerable.
Now they tell not to trauma dump. Funny.
Who tells you that?
The people in the internet.
I’ve never seen or heard anybody tell men not to trauma dump. On the contrary, I’ve only seen people tell men that they should open up and be comfortable with their emotions.
Ok, should I give screenshots as proof or are you willing to go to askwomen/twox/or any other women centric places and see for yourself?
Are you going to those places to talk about your problems? I think you might be misunderstanding the point of those communities.
Nope. That’s just women discussing amongst themselves or answering questions about red flags or relationships.
Other terms I learnt are: love bombing, breadcrumbing, benching.
I know it might be strange to think, but not even close to a percent of women frequent those spaces.
Do you really think thats where youll find how the average woman feels?
Those terms are just as foreign to the average woman as they are to us. If you dont believe me, go look at the male equivalent spaces to those you listed. See if the men posting there represent your views well.
I have not noticed this to be gendered. They skipped straight to telling me as a woman not to trauma dump, no one ever wanted to hear about my emotions to begin with.