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In my experience, therapists live in an idealized dream world, where everybody is nice and kind to each other, and pink bunnies and unicorns scurry about in a grassy meadow. When you try to point out that not everything is so hunky-dory, they refuse to believe you, or worse, accuse you of being "resistant". Because being "resistant" is doubleplusungood. It's really no different (albeit much milder) than the USSR under Stalin, where people got committed to psychiatric wards for "unpatriotic beliefs". Of course, it's easy to live in a dream world when you're paid $100+ an hour to gaslight a vulnerable client. Just as it's easy to love Big Brother when you're in the Inner Party.
My advice to the OP is to stay far away from therapists, and instead read some good psychology books. Not the self-help fodder the pop culture peddles to people, but something you'd find in the American Psychological Association (APA) journal. Perhaps a local university library open to the public might have a book in that category. Amazon, not so much.
You forgot the disclaimer that your only experience with therapy occurred when you were 9 years old.
You forgot the disclaimer that your only experience with therapy occurred when you were 9 years old.
And again, long-term, when I was 15 or 16. This time, I was able to manipulate the shrink: I'd bring my psychology class homework to the session and ask her for help. I was good at the class, but I did it to keep her off my back about my "feeeeelings". In the end, I succeeded, and she got to feel like she accomplished something, by helping a kid with his homework.
And still again, as an adult; only the last time, I quit after two sessions, finding them to be waste of time and money.
I used the word tired and burned out because I hate going out at night, dancing, because I feel like its not me. My friends enjoy the time going out more than I do. I just sit down on my phone, with my drink and food while they're chatting with with other guys, their SO's, and such.
Surely there's other kinds of social gatherings you can go to. Personally I hate bar hopping and clubbing, you're not the only one.
I try to help a person avoid an industry filled with unhelpful quacks, this is the thanks I get. I rest my case!
Your “case” speaks for itself every time you post here.
I have a feeling the OP will agree with you, only because some people, as you well know, are only comfortable when they are “safely” stuck in the midst of the dysfunction with which they are most familiar. ANY attempts to leave that comfort zone feel too difficult, and they freak out and resort to even unhealthy measures to avoid that change.
I try to help a person avoid an industry filled with unhelpful quacks, this is the thanks I get. I rest my case!
Your experience with therapy is not the only experience with therapy. It's dismissive of the advice of the many, many people on this board who have found therapy to be crucially important to their quality of life.
I posted it on the last page: read some good psychology books. Not pop-culture self-help, but something the American Psychological Association would endorse. Most university libraries or scholarly databases should have these texts.
Therapy requires a lot of blind faith and suspension of disbelief. I'm offering a more rational, pragmatic alternative.
I'm going to take one of the suggestions about the psychology books. I'm definitely going to search for some at the library at my school. This is one option I've never tried. But honestly, I still think I'm going to officially remove myself from guys. No dating, relationships, sex, or anything of that sort. Most guys are not into me like that. Yeah, I've had some stare at me and never approach but I don't know what their true intentions are for watching me. I'll be supportive and nice with my friends relationships though.
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It's really no different (albeit much milder) than the USSR under Stalin, where people got committed to psychiatric wards for "unpatriotic beliefs". Of course, it's easy to live in a dream world when you're paid $100+ an hour to gaslight a vulnerable client. Just as it's easy to love Big Brother when you're in the Inner Party.
