Thread: Psychobabble
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Old Apr 09, 2022, 08:56 PM
Quietmind 2 Quietmind 2 is offline
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Member Since: Jan 2020
Location: Somewhere I'm working to leave
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Etcetera1 View Post
Ok the thing is if you've survived this far, you already have enough common sense for living life. I acctually very much dislike therapy jargon because it wants to replace that common sense....As soon as I recognised that, and went back to my own common sense (which I am very sure you possess too) I felt a load better and was able to listen to my own gut feelings better again.

That jargon is mostly from *unproven* theories and so they don't really work, it's too much quackery frankly. Even the idea of "healthy common sense" sounds like some serious quackery. That kind of thing doesn't exist, I'm sorry.

And then titrating depth?! What the heck is that even supposed to mean. More jargon and psychobabble that in reality means fu** all and is a waste of time. Your psyche has its own healing capacity that doesn't need to be burdened by ideas like "you didn't have healthy common sense, only a therapist could teach you that", and ideas that a therapist or any unproven psychological theories can actually do something like "titrate" stuff for the psyche. No....it doesn't work like that. We don't know enough about the psyche yet to declare that we can "titrate" anything like that, by far not enough.

I am very glad that you were able to decrease self-harm. I can see how taking on so much would lead one to feel like trying to cope that way.

I posted above about not forcing anything, with common sense either, let alone with the use of psychology jargon, or other ways to try and force mental experimentation. Because of the medical principle "do no harm". Don't do the intervention if you are not sure if it will be more beneficial than harmful. We can't say that about a lot of approaches in psychology as it is, if they are applied without supervision and objective feedback. Instead it's exactly about supporting your already existing healing capacity and inner resources, with help from community and other resources yes. And yes lifestyle changes that you mentioned.

That was your common sense, yeah!!! I agree. The therapist didn't have a lot of it there, lol.

I mean I did what you did, never saying no at work, to more and more work, even when others were quitting and so on. So that's really familiar to me and I mean, the way I solved it was realising that they were having unreasonable expectations. That I was being already so stressed from problems that I would take in the negative emotions of others too much and that compelled me to try to keep up with all those unreasonable demands. Which then made me more stressed and even less able to do "enough". And so on.

But yeah, therapy didn't help me realise that. What helped was talk to normal people who helped me work through how the deadlines were unreasonable and some of the other workplace expectations too, and then I managed to figure out the rest. What really got like glaring to me in the end was that when they increased the demands EVEN MORE, and my pay was not increased at all, and I was able to accept that it was making me more negative to a point that I was unwilling to put up with, it simply felt like too much of a violation of ME, so I realised it was all absurd and ridiculous and refused to work for them again like that. Especially not for that pay they would want to give me for all that work!!

I did get a burn out too from it, I don't know if I'll recover from it, I'll see sooner or later.

If I recover from it it will be only because I stopped when I decided it was too much of a violation if I was to allow it to go on. And that's also because I got that help from talking it through with those buddies who had great sensible input and so I realised it was just too much. I was also already working on how to decrease stress, I read some good self-help on time management and the like and worked on all this with others with similar goals.

Right now I only work part time now and with a much better team. It's just a decent environment, decent atmosphere, decent deadlines, reasonableness, flexibility, all that.

Yeah, after I quit that crap, people close to me told me how it was obvious to them that it was really really unreasonable hours and pressure.

Mmm well that's where psychoeducation helped me a bit, none of the therapists nah, just me using my healing capacity and a little psychoeducation on my own plus some input from a decent support group, in figuring out who expects too much of me, and I dropped all those vampires like I figure your family was too. It did take a while to figure it out but that's just the nature of the thing.

So yeah. You can get to know yourself and sort out your internals without having to be told that you can't naturally do that, like you lack and need to learn some kind of "healthy common sense". That makes me really pissed off, that idea that anyone would need to be told such a thing. It does not help ANYONE to build themselves up, it just tears you (general you) down.

Psychology as an academic science or applied psychology or any of that simply does NOT give anyone or even a book (!) the authority to declare anything like that.
You've very good points, thank you.

If I were to rewrite my post, I would do so as...:

She didn't set herself up as an authority, I was the one who did due to my issues. I see from your post how I've done that.

She met me as a human who talked with me as a human about my innate healing capabilities. With compassion, kindness, and consistency... because I didn't have that anywhere in my life.

So she's being the sensible buddy you refer to, rather than a self proclaimed authority on my life.

You're right in guessing my family of origin are basically vampires. The role they chose for me was indentured servant, and being the scapegoat / black sheep.

She didn't say I lacked "healthy common sense", I did.

"Common sense" in my family was all kinds of effed up where everyone could have a good life, but not me.

I've a long pattern of being in exploitative jobs due to not knowing better, and not believing I deserved better, as well as barriers to better jobs like low education.

Work bullies sensed my lack of confidence and basically instilled further shame in me by telling me I lacked "common sense".

What they all said was "common sense" wasn't healthy for me.

Like you, yeah, the workload kept going up with no increase in pay. People were coming to work even when on sick leave. So much work, everyone stayed late and often worked even when back home. 11pm emails, calls at 3am (not answering that call up got me reprimanded), that kind of thing. Toxic management practices.

What I meant by "titrating depth" ,(yup, I see now that's jargon) would be that I wanted to talk about some of my traumatic memories because I trusted her and wanted relief. But my life was too unstable, and there is the risk of harm. So we didn't.

When we did talk about some of my trauma, it would be when I said I was having flashbacks and needed her presence as a caring person to remind me I'm not alone, that my family are lying that I am worthless, that she didn't want me to kill myself. Helping me understand what I need to feel safe, that my abuse is not my fault.

Now that I've left my family, it's about helping me get help for my medical bills, talking with my consent to my other medical providers using her "authority" as a psychologist.

Since medical confidentiality wouldn't allow a friend or buddy to do that. Plus it's ridiculous that there's so much gatekeeping by the healthcare system that I can't see my own medical information or the social worker reports on myself. So she uses her authority when me stating my needs doesn't work.

The therapy fee then is so the focus of each meeting would be on me, and I'm currently seeing her free because I'm in poverty. While she does a lot of stuff for me outside my sessions.

My current goals are all on learninhlg to trust myself.

So maybe it's like being mentored? To slowly learn / reclaim intuition and "I am the authority of my life" and be reminded of what "common sense" really is?

For example:

- Learning to trust my gut feelings / intuition.
- Recognise when I'm tired, thirsty, hungry etc by focusing on my body (I'm usually completely detached from it)
- Learning to advocate for myself better whenever I see doctors for my chronic health issues.
- Learning to identify who is safe and who isn't. I've a pattern of harmful and even abusive friendships. Have 2 great friends though. Love them.
- Not be exploited when I go back to part time work, then eventually full time.

Last edited by Quietmind 2; Apr 09, 2022 at 09:15 PM.
Thanks for this!
Etcetera1, LonesomeTonight