Are therapy or medications really helpful? Tell me your experiences

[Bibis-]

I found this helpful resource tonight and I’m writing a second post! This is more like a general consideration. Maybe there’s something wrong with me! I didn’t find therapy nor medications helpful. Did anyone else?

I have friends and family members who found psychotherapy helpful; from what they say, I have a feeling like, maybe they were really lacking self-awareness? Like, they didn’t realize they were letting someone disrespect them, or that they had no reasons to feel guilty about something that wasn’t their fault. or that they needed to meticulously count calories because they felt a general lack of control in their life, that they reflected on the food (these are examples from the people I know).

or they didn’t realize that throwing an angry fit wouldn’t eventually get them any result.

To me, I never felt that way. I feel like therapists tell me things that rationally I know already, I’m very self-aware.

but knowing them doesn’t change the way I feel.

I feel like they tell me things and they give me exercises and it doesn’t change how I feel in the slightest.

Sometimes I even feel worse, as if there’s something wrong with me. As if everyone else can control their emotions through rationality, but only I cannot. As if everyone else can tell themselves “hey, stop being sad, it’s useless” and actually feel less sad. As if they can decide what they want in life and what they don’t care about. And stop wanting things they cannot have.

I feel like I have no control over my emotions, instead. If I have the things I want, I’m happy. If I don’t, I’m sad. If I spend enough time not having anything I want, I shift from sadness to total apathy. There is no telling myself “I shouldn’t” or “I should simply want other things, that I can have, and accept and ignore those I cannot have”.

I feel like emotional pain is the same as physical pain for me. If I put my hand on a flame, it hurts. If I take it away, it goes away. If I keep the hand there, it keeps hurting. It doesn’t “get better in time”. It gets worse because the flame is burning deeper into my skin.

Same way, if something bad happens, I’m sad. And I keep being sad unless the triggering event doesn’t resolve.

I feel like I have no ability to control my mood and my emotions.

I feel like nowadays, people can’t be sad anymore, people can’ respond to events anymore.

no, now we can pay a considerable amount of money, and reprogram ourselves.

Sadness, depression and fear are things of the past: now, when something bad happens, we simply reprogram our brain not to care.

Does anyone else feel that way?

I even feel like I am a frustration for friends, family or therapists. Because they give me all of their uplifting suggestions and we talk for hours and eventually, I feel exactly as I did in the beginning. Nothing works.

sorry for the long post.

Let me know if you ever felt this way!

[Blueruth]

Just an observation... You say something like this a couple times: "I feel like I have no control over my emotions, instead. If I have the things I want, I’m happy. If I don’t, I’m sad."

Not sure we should. In meditation you are taught to let a thought or emotion wash over you. Like "hello. there you are. talk to you later. bye...back to my breath". In resilience training you learn how to react to those emotions. If you are sad what can you do? Maybe you start with acceptance. Actually you have to start with acceptance.

" If I have the things I want, I’m happy. If I don’t, I’m sad."

This is about allowing external things dictate whether we are happy. When you can be alone with yourself you will find you don't need external things to make you happy. You make those things happen. You have control. IOW you have complete control over how you react to those things.

[Dell12345]

Hi Bibis,

You make some really interesting points. Therapy often feels the same way for me. In fact I have often said to my therapist 'ok, but I know xyz, but I'm not sure how that helps'.

I think part of therapy is just having somone to talk to and offload to. That does help, knowing that somone understands.

They can also catch out unhelpful thinking patterns which can also be helpful. Often these thinking patterns contribute to anxiety / depression, even if they may not cause it in your case.

There are also better and worse therapists, they are not all great unfortunately.

Medication does help a huge amount of people. There are a lot of different ones with different mechanisms of action. It can take a few tries to find the right one(s). Genetic analysis is in its infancy but can already help identify medications that are likely to work for you and ones that are not.

Xxxx

[designguy]

Personally I think most types of therapy can be helpful, even talk therapy, it often helps to just vent and get feedback and be heard and validated from another person. But the reality of therapy is that we have to do the work ourselves to be open and willing to change and grow and experience all of the emotions necessary for that to happen. A good therapist can only provide us with the insight, appropriate tools and skills for making those changes but they can't actually change us, that responsibility is ours alone.