Mental Health

At least it helps, even if only a tiny bit, when nothing else does!

I should add “as a therapist in the US.” I have a lot of gay and trans clients, and it’s… bleak.

Times are really tough and I appreciate the fuck out of each and everyone of you therapists.

Been in therapy quite a bit for most of the last 8 years. I just canceled my future appointments because I'm actually doing OK at the moment, but I've seen the toll the last few months have taken on my therapist (since the election) despite her best efforts to hide it. I feel terrible for these wonderful people that help shoulder the burdens of others. They are the shock troops bearing the brunt of defense in the current culture war.

If you've been burnt to a crisp, even that tiny splash of water can feel like finding an oasis in the desert.

Thank you for your service.

In my experience therapy is something my therapist and I do together. My therapist isn't giving me water. The two of us together are finding water that was always there.

Completely vulnerable moment

As a person long overdue to get some mental help. I've been really motivated to get myself better since early last year. Had some events happen where I was like, yeah I need to handle my shit.

I'll say the process so far is my biggest hurdle. Took ages to get a referral, once I got the referral took ages to get seen. When I finally was seen it was the wrong fit. Now I'm waiting until next week to start again and push for different referrals, all so my insurance covers some of it (maybe).

Meanwhile I'm doing the best I can, but certainly think about just throwing in the towel and drowning myself in drugs again. Which worked a long time until it really really didn't work. But the thought of finally getting my foot in the door to spend months and thousands trying to even find a root cause just feels utterly pointless. Also now raw dogging life without anything to dull it but some doctor prescribed sleeping pills is challenging to say the least.

Still the worst part is explaining the laundry list of my past trauma to strangers just to get them up to speed. Hopefully to help pinpoint where I need to focus my efforts on getting better. Last fellow just had to say "well you made it this far and seem to be doing better than most of my patients". Essentially call me back when you have a full blown meltdown, because I only deal with extremes. That shit was deflating, sorry for being proactive and trying to get help before I get committed somewhere?

I've spent a really long time keeping my issues in check, I've become very good at what to say or not say that is bouncing around my skull. Now that I can't do it anymore it seems to throw a lot of people for a loop.

Anyhow feels like some sort of shitty race to see if my mind breaks first or I get help before that happens. Than when I do get to the right step 1 there will be this slow trial and error I need to go through. Which I completely understand is necessary, but it's not giving me much hope.

That person on fire is probably like that because the healthcare system just kept dosing it with gasoline before they stepped foot in the office.

A therapist is not here to help you, they are here to help you help yourself. You cannot expect someone who you see once a week to fix your life, only you can do that.

hi, i have problems in the most complicated organ in all of existence that I have accumulated for my entire life, complicating it every day for the past 20 years. I'd like you to press the off switch for it please.

what do you mean there is no switch? WHAT A SCAM

I don't think ill of therapists, but the fact so many issues come down to money doesn't endear me to the idea of therapy needing to take another chunk of it for dubious gains until you find the right therapist for you, and possibly even after that. Again, blame the system, not people, but hearing folks tell me I must pay people to fix me as the system grinds onward is tiring.

Looks like you need a psychologist to put out the fire then go to the therapist to tame any random flare ups.

I went for years of therapy and they would take the dropper and miss me completely. I don't know what the fuck I did but this angel dropped out of heaven claiming to be part of my benefits and started checking in on me every week to help orginize my healthcare needs. She got me in therapy, then got me to a psychologist. The psychologist was able to treat me within a few sessions and everything got easier.

I honestly could never get the therapist part to work, I don't really need someone to give me advise. I need someone to make me feel sane and stand me back up. I haven't found that yet.

As for the angel, she found a new job, passed me off, and the new guy wasn't as concerned with me.

I don't know, really it was the work of that random benefits person that saved me. It's so overwhelming to have suicidal idealation and constant anxiety/panic attacks and then have to deal with a broken healthcare system. What ever that fuckkng service was I cannot praise it enough.

lol there's definitely a few clients like that. how many of them are holding the kerosene?

You’re absolutely right—therapy often feels like putting a drop of water on a raging fire. As mental health professionals and advocates, we find ourselves treating individual symptoms while the systemic causes of suffering—economic exploitation, discrimination, state violence—continue unchecked. But what if therapy itself could be reimagined as a tool of collective resistance and liberation rather than just individual adaptation?

The Limits of Individual Therapy in a Dying System

Traditional therapy, rooted in Western individualism, focuses on personal pathology rather than the oppressive structures that create distress in the first place. It helps people survive, but rarely challenges the conditions that make survival so difficult. As fascistic policies escalate—targeting marginalized communities, undermining democracy, and deepening economic inequality—our role cannot simply be to help people “cope” with injustice. Coping is not enough.

Therapy should not just help individuals endure oppressive systems; it should equip them to dismantle and replace those systems. We need a revolution in mental health—one that shifts from isolated, clinical solutions to community-based, justice-oriented healing.

A New Vision: Therapy as Collective Resistance

1. Worker Cooperative Mental Health Practices – Breaking away from profit-driven therapy models and creating mental health collectives that serve communities rather than corporations or insurance companies.

2. Radical Group Therapy & Mutual Aid – Encouraging healing circles, community networks, and activist spaces that treat mental health as a shared struggle, not an isolated condition.

3. Politicizing Therapy – Acknowledging that capitalism, racism, and state oppression are core mental health issues and helping people engage in direct action as a form of healing.

4. Revolutionary Care Networks – Moving beyond institutions and creating autonomous, grassroots mental health support systems that are independent of the state and its oppressive mechanisms.

Collective Action is Therapy

The mental health crisis is not just personal; it is structural. And the only real cure is collective liberation. Healing doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens in the streets, in mutual aid networks, in resistance movements. Therapy must evolve to be part of that fight, not just a salve for its wounds.

We don’t just need better mental healthcare. We need a revolution in how we understand and practice healing.

Maybe everyone being anxious and depressed is healthy in a dying world.

I tried doing therapy for a while, just to realize everything that stresses me out are totally valid stressors and the solution isn't to go to therapy but to change our economic system.

It just hit me, I think it may be more appropriate to think about (actually helpful) therapy as placing those drops of water into a bucket, and there are times when that accumulated water doubles itself (breakthroughs, realisations, etc.) More like an investment of sorts.

At least, that's how it felt as I went through it. It never had a regular progression, it was always about leaps and bounds, then falling on my ass again for a couple of weeks, then snapping out of it when something I'd discussed 6 sessions ago finally clicked into place.

...that will be $300 thank you.

Therapy takes a while.

It isn't an instant win. But you will see their bottle that is specifically catered to you will become bigger.

I'm reminded of the scene in Office Space where Peter goes to his therapist to "transfer" his negative energy, and the therapist has a heart attack on the spot.