I was describing my insane in-laws for the record.

  • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    I briefly went to a therapist 30 years ago. Like many people who go, I was worried that they wouldn’t think I was actually depressed and wouldn’t give me anything or do anything for me. I needn’t have worried, as the guy hadn’t listened to me for more than two minutes before he said “we need to get you on Prozac.” He had me meet with their staff psychiatrist who turned out to be a 70-year-old Cuban. This guy just rambled for an hour without ever asking me any questions; at one point he actually said “back in Cuba, we had a lot of problems with the blacks - you call them n*****s here” which was pretty eye-opening (keep in mind this was a counseling service run by the state university I was attending at the time - and this was the 1990s, not the Jim Crow era). After I got my prescription I mentioned this comment to the therapist and he just rolled his eyes. It was obvious that they kept this guy around for his ability to prescribe drugs and for no other reason.

            • AndiHutch@lemmy.zipEnglish
              0·
              3 months ago

              Also I wonder is that spelling intentional pedant bait? Probably not, but it is in my head canon :)

              • SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world
                0·
                3 months ago

                Also I wonder if you’re so deeply insecure that you spend your time trying to find ways to look down upon others to momentarily make yourself feel smug and superior. The problem with that approach is that it’s like being addicted to drugs: the effect doesn’t last, and becomes weaker every time - so you wind up doing it more and more in a pointless effort to regain the same high as the first time you did it, which only serves to make you seem like more and more of an asshole.

            • AndiHutch@lemmy.zipEnglish
              0·
              3 months ago

              ^ This is a person using OCD as an insult and helping to spread ableist language.

              • SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world
                0·
                3 months ago

                Oh, get over yourself. It was in no way an insult unless you’re looking for it to be one. We all have our challenges - some more significant than others, of course - which makes being able to laugh at ourselves an important means of relieving the stress of those challenges.

                I have ADD, depression, & some other mental challenges of my own. My spouse has several physical health issues (which cause additional mental health issues). Nobody understands or cares & we just have to deal with it.

                I get the sensitivity to an extent, but you need to learn to distinguish between malicious intent versus those just trying not to take things too seriously (or in this case, trying to encourage someone else not to). None of us are perfect, and that includes you.

                The important thing is that we try our best to not only get through this crappy excuse for a life ourselves, but also to help others do so when we can. My attempt to inject some mild humor into a situation where someone was being a bit overly condescending, while also having fun with the accidental double-post of a comment was just that - some light-heated poking of fun at something being taken too seriously.

                • AndiHutch@lemmy.zipEnglish
                  0·
                  3 months ago

                  Sorry, I didn’t mean to strike a nerve. Also sorry to hear you and your spouse have some difficulties with mental and physical challenges in today’s world. I hope you can find some understanding people to cooperate with.

                  Intent deducing should also go both ways, I did interpret your posts in a somewhat light-hearted manner in line with the comm vibe, but it also just doesn’'t sit right with me using real disorders people have as an insult. I replied in it in the same format as you did but you seemed took offense when I did it even though you used the same format in your comment.

                  Anyway, I wish you good luck in your journey and thanks for reading.

  • Tedesche@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Therapist here. I’ve had clients say this “I’m sure you hear this all the time” line to me before. It’s always a little surprising to me, because while, yes, we do hear a lot of the same type of traumatic stories, we’re trained to regard every single patient as unique. And that’s because they are. No one’s story is like any other’s. There may be similar elements, but they’re ultimately all very different due to the details. Just as you regard everyone you know as highly different, we see our patients the same way.

    Don’t ever be afraid that your therapist sees you as “just another X-type person.” And if you get the sense they do, get a different therapist.

  • Beacon@fedia.io
    0·
    3 months ago

    Why would she say no she doesn’t hear it all the time, and then say it’s in the top 5 things she hears? I’m sure i must be misreading this somehow

    • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
      0·
      3 months ago

      You mistrust doctors because they’re not educated in psychology. The horror stories are 1. stories and 2. even the ones describing real events are flushed into your feed because they’re outrageous. Nobody will upvote a boring story about a therapist doing their job and slowly getting to the bottom of some hyper-specific unresolved issue some random person has.

      • Kay Ohtie@pawb.socialEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        I’ve cried at my psychologist place multiple times but each time was not because of her. It was welling up of deep, un-addressed feelings, or a sense of relief of some kind, or sometimes pure catharsis.

        Sessions were often exhausting but because of being emotionally engaging and being about things that were deeply emotional to me. I apologized several times for becoming overwhelmed, feeling weird as a chubby grown man breaking down, but she always reassured in a way that made me feel safe, un-judged.

        Her goal was always to help me work through last traumas and keep improving living on my own. And she helped tremendously.

        There’s definitely some crap therapists out there, and some who are great at some things but terrible with others. Then there’s some who have studied thoroughly and keep up-to-date to help people, because even if it’s taxing for them, their passion is in helping people.

        Don’t dismiss horror stories or the fear; dismissal isn’t helpful. Guiding instead with positives, with some good to help ease the fears, is far more helpful.

        • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
          0·
          3 months ago

          I’m sorry if that sounded dismissive, I wanted to convey that horror stories are always overrepresented, not that there aren’t valid ones.

    • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      3 months ago

      Probably you hear more of those stories because if you have a bad experience you tell everyone, while if you have a good one you don’t tell ot that much.

      I had a good experience doing therapy. The psychologist was a professional that applied modern psychology techniques for my case and they worked within what’s expected.

  • Øπ3ŕ@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    At this point, when they ask, I reply with, “Have you seen The Bear? Season 1, Christmas Dinner? Let’s let that simmer.” 😜

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
      0·
      3 months ago

      I do believe I was discussing how my extremely well off FIL loaned my BIL money to go back to school, when he had never given him a dime for anything education or otherwise ever in his life, simply so he didn’t have to take on student loans a second time, and when he was not yet employed a month after finishing school took him to court to get all of the money back. Um, this is your kid, you are worth millions easy, you didn’t do shit for him, and it was like 3-4K which is a drop in the bucket for you, which you really should have just given him, and if you were going to be like this in the end you should have just been up front and said no so he didn’t have to go through this. I think I also discussed how he promised to pay for dinner the night after my wedding when my parents had stumped up for my wedding dinner (we got married in NYC), and then when the check came started adding up what everyone owed. Again, if you didn’t want to, don’t, but don’t fucking leave everyone dangling, we didn’t ask you to. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my ex so upset, not because we had to pay, but because he did that.

      There are other things too, like his mother’s habit of weaponized eccentricity where she would give you literal garbage for Christmas presenta because she liked to pretend she was very poor even though she has more money than any of her kids, but she liked to see your face drop when you opened the gift which was trash to anyone else, and just a whole whack of other things. Narcissists are wild.

      • CMonster@discuss.onlineEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        There are other things too, like his mother’s habit of weaponized eccentricity where she would give you literal garbage for Christmas presenta because she liked to pretend she was very poor even though she has more money than any of her kids, but she liked to see your face drop when you opened the gift which was trash to anyone else, and just a whole whack of other things. Narcissists are wild.

        My significant other’s parents gave me a used roll of duct tape one year. This actually makes so much fucking sense reading your comment.

        • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
          0·
          3 months ago

          Ah, you understand. She gave my BIL a sandwich baggie of used golf tees that were all chipped and dirty, that she picked up off the public golf course near her house. She gave me HER OWN very used bathrobe that was so threadbare you could poke holes in it with your finger. She gave her ONLY grandchild an old vitamin bottle filled with dish soap and a bubble wand she found in the park or something. We would have all forfeited presents happily if she just spent a bit of money on her grandchild, but no. She also volunteered at a Catholic secondhand store, so would just take home anything that suited her fancy, and give us these cardboard boxes, unwrapped, full of used crap nobody wanted, and grandchild would get a stained old dress or a sleeping bag that smelled like smoke.

          Some people would perceive this as a poor person who means well and is trying, but she got a ton of alimony every month, had more money than any of us, and was reassured routinely that it was ok to just celebrate at dinner and just buy a present for the kid. But the whole point was to make you feel like she was insulting you by giving you garbage.

          These people cannot change and don’t want to, and it’s not worth trying.

  • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    Unfortunately, the ethical implications of this would be troubling. Refunds would have the effect of reinforcing whatever the patient did that session. If doing or making up wild stuff is what gets you a free session, some people are going to realize that. If other patients catch wind of one person getting a refund, they may end up doing and saying wilder things, too. Patients’ best interests would take a backseat to the entertainment of the therapist, and that’s pretty messed up if you think about it.

    Yeah, ethical therapy person gotta ruin the fun. Sorry guys. But there is potential in a refund model. It could go far if it’s used to reward positive things, like putting the most effort into working out an issue, or making the most personal growth over a period of time.

    • Patches@ttrpg.network
      0·
      3 months ago

      Either would encourage lying. Therapy cannot happen if the client is not completely honest.

      Besides that, it ignores how therapists get paid. Imagine if your boss just decided to refund a few hours of your time each week. Just take it right out of your paycheck, and hand it back. It’s fucked.

    • potjandorie@feddit.nl
      0·
      3 months ago

      Rewarding people with the most positive behavior might still backfire, as the point of therapy (at least for me) was to stop comparing myself to others all the time. Even a small improvement for someone should be applauded, especially if you’re already struggling with the small things.

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
      0·
      3 months ago

      I actually did have a therapist offer to refund me once. I found her incredibly rude and she said things to me I found that were like negging and patronizing almost? I came away from each session feeling like she didn’t like me at all, and that we hadn’t done anything at all, like I was speaking into a void to someone who offered me exactly one piece of advice the whole time. I drove myself crazy trying to figure out if I just wasn’t getting something or was I just the asshole or what, and in the final session when I finally burst into tears because I felt so belittled and like she disliked me, I told her I could not continue with her because of this, that she had said almost NOTHING to me save for one sentence that I considered anything like therapy, and that I could not continue throwing a lot of money at this when I felt completely unsupported and unsafe, and I left. (Whether I was wrong or not we weren’t getting anywhere or jiving so there was no point). She left me a very patronizing voice mail where she snarkily apologized and offered to refund or refer me elsewhere. I did not return her call. Maybe it was a me problem, to this day I don’t know, but I had two therapists after that (one retired) and we got along just fine and made plenty of progress. I really don’t know. I am not going to not pay someone for their work regardless of what I think of the job they did as that’s not ethical, but that was several hundred dollars wasted.

      I did have the faintest sense that the senior therapist in that practice didn’t think a lot of her either, as she walked into one of my sessions as we just had sat down to begin and said kind of coldly “May I talk to you?” to my therapist and they took off and talked for a bit, and she didn’t seem awfully happy when she returned (and she deducted that time from my session which amazed me). She isn’t there anymore according to their website. I really don’t know. I still feel awful when I think of her.

      • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Just because people have a job, doesn’t mean they are good at that job.

        For sure you need to have rapport with your therapist or it just isn’t gonna work. And sometimes people can just rub you the wrong way.

      • TheBluePillock@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 months ago

        I’m sorry you had that experience, but glad that you continued trying and had better ones. There are definitely bad therapists, and more often it’s just a bad fit. The same way you’re not going to be friends with everyone, not every therapist can really work for you. It can take a few tries to find one that really clicks. I’ve met too many people who just gave up after one try, some after literally one session. Most were not anywhere near as bad as your experience. So give yourself a lot of credit that you kept trying even after that!

        I wrote this out partially for anyone else who may be earlier in their mental health journey. If it’s not a good fit after a few sessions, you can ask for a referral or just stop and find someone else. A professional will not take offense. It’s pretty normal and an expected part of their job.

    • SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org
      0·
      3 months ago

      Not to mention the “most entertaining” part, like “your ex painted the DOG for revenge? Ahahah that’s wild, this goes in the list”

  • ZeffSyde@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    I, personally, would ruin this method. I usually end up massaging my therapists and there really isn’t a slot to explain that on the insurance forms.