Venting is therapy even helpful?

[bugunmasked]

i feel like finding purpose in living is null & meaningless. the meaning in our lives is what we decide to give to it. the things i want to accomplish that i feel give my life meaning are near impossible to accomplish anymore: being a full time artist (gen AI / no one has money), international travel (i am transgender, broke & nervous about the passport gender marker situation) & having my work in galleries (this is the only one i may be able to accomplish but even then, do i really want to share my intimate vulnerabilities & skills to a society that'll eventually probably fucking destroy my art and therefore my legacy?)
i am losing community because i don't have the energy to keep up with anyone. i have to cancel plans half of the time because my anxiety is too high & it's easier to just rot at home. everything is horrible rn. & to top of all off my husband is also not doing well but working more than i am, takes on more of the bills & house work, so i feel like a leech & a piece of shit. i hate feeling like this & i honestly wish i could disappear without hurting the people i love.

& yes i do weekly therapy, i like her a lot, but i can't be 100% honest to her because i am terrified of being institutionalized. so it defeats the fucking purpose & i know she tries hard, but no amount of mental reframing is going to change the oppressive dog shit country that i live in.

 

[bl33ding_heart]

Therapy isn't helpful for most genuinely mentally ill people. But if you feel like it's making even a slight difference for you then I don't see a reason to just stop doing it.

 

[youremy]

My therapist once told me straight up that if I ever barge in the gabinet in an extremely low mood he "won't do anything to forcefully institutionalize me or anything of the sort, as he considers it doing much more harm than good). God bless this individual.

It's someone trying to alter the way you think about things. If the therapist can deeply understand the things you share with them, and not just suggest that "your thoughts might not correspond to reality as accurately as you think they do", then I would strongly believe that such a therapeutic relationship could bring some relief. Espceially if someone's way of interpreting interactions with other people and their learned reactions to certain situations interfere with their healthy functioning, but can nonetheless be shown over time to be grounded in a set of assumptions that may not necessarily be at all true.

I find that the less time that a therapist has been able to spend listening to me to try and get the full context behind my reaction and interpretation, the worse the therapeutic relationship was for me. The more they genuinely cared and thought deeply before putting out their interpretation of the subject matter, the more effective I found their sessions.

So you really have to strike a balanace between a therapist who you feel you trust, a therapist who is willing to fo the extra mile to hear you out and one who has had gone through enough difficulties in life (at best: near in their subject to what you're dealing with) the better the effects. The type of therapy can make a big difference too. Psychodynamic helped me understand the things in my past that I considered "not so bad", but which influenced me greatly, while CBT helped me a bit with dealing emotions in the present moment (although I found regular mediation practice to be similarly effective).

Also, therapy can be hella expensive. Unfortunately.

 

[_Minsk]

im sorry that youre in this spot. i truly sounds suffocating. "so it defeats the fucking purpose" absolutely true