To generalise your point somewhat, is there EVER an internet/social media fad that results in a healthy appraisal of one's life? It seems that you just end up with a load of anxious non-experts talking about something technical and completely missing the point in a constant cacophony that is prodded ever forward by The Algorithm. Is it even possible to have a healthy conversation in a context like that?
Moreover, if your first instinct when you feel disappointed or lonely or anxious is to reach for your phone, you are "downloading" groupthink (right- or wrong-headed) into the context of your own life and problems, and skipping the hard work of trying to figure out why *you* feel that way in the first place.
It's like we went right from discovering that searching the internet is a great way to find a plumber, to assuming that it was the right way to find answers to *everything*.
Following on from this and CTD's comment, perhaps people search the internet because they don't know any other way to get answers. We have stopped providing them in a family/community context and also a wider 'liberal education' context (by which I mean familiarity with the fruit's of one's own culture, not muh-liberal 'education')
Well said and that cacophony of other lost emotional lemmings happily drive one another off the click bait cliff.
What we have lost through the internet is the extended family relations, that would be the well source of how to deal with life's challenges and mysteries- from people who - on the while - unconditionally loved you and wanted only the best for you. Conversely, the damaged " life geniuses" - on the whole- are online to either be celebrated (likes) for their 20 word earth shattering solutions, or to find validation that they or the person they are with are eternally broke.
I always wonder, what society would've looked like, if we had not stopped (long long ago) teaching kids to deal with life's challenges in the moment and in healthy ways.
For all our "progress and innovation" we have achieved, this post hints at just how tragically damaged we have become- especially the last 2 generations.
This is well said. I would add this: Politico-obsessives carry these fads from their origins (generally) in 'woke' academia petri-dishes and into our mass/social media and then into all our stupid civic institutions desperate to not be left behind in embracing any latest bit of woke faddery. At least these mad fads do (rightly) get called-out in the anti-woke media (including this excellent article).
But something that almost never gets talked about is that - in our media eco-system - the crazier something is, the MORE attention it will get. So a big part of the reason why fads (affecting only tiny %s of the population) get so much traction is because they are such click-bait for the anti-woke media who, in other words, end up being useful idiots. There ought to be a lesson here.
This doesn't directly address your post (which is great) but: I think the proper basis for mental healthcare is not to be personally happy or to avoid symptoms or improve mood-it's to be a better (more ethical) and helpful person to those around you. Once you reframe mental healthcare in that way so much of what seems bizarre and nonsensical disappears. A lot of the labelling and the online therapy community you reference here is really just semi-pathological self-absorption, which is not good for society or for individual psychological health.
Be more virtuous and stronger and more useful... and happiness will follow. Obsess about your mood and your 'peace' and your 'truth' and you will never find happiness. Humans are simply not normally built that way.
If you want to assess whether your relationship is good, ask yourself: does this person improve my work performance? Increase my kindness to strangers? Does having this person in my life make me a better friend? Does having this person in my life help me make good decisions? If a person is improving your experience of being an employee and a friend and a citizen that person is probably good for you... if he's not then there might be an issue. Just my opinion!
My personal experience is that actually this is really hard because I am actively being socialised against this worldview. I have told friends and family multiple times I care more about being good than being happy, and they always tell me that I'm crazy and that I should be more selfish. It's caused tension and a few big arguments with people I care about; I am caught between my own personal motivations and the perspectives of people whose judgements I deeply respect and value.
It’s not selfish to have boundaries. Real happiness doesn’t mean people-pleasing, it means being aligned with who you truly are.
Even Jesus had boundaries. One of my favorite stories in the book of Matthew is when He cast out demons into the pigs of a village. (Matthew 8:28 to 9:1) The pigs ran into the sea and drowned. The villagers were more upset that they lost their pigs than they were thankful that the demons had left. In fact they asked Him to leave. Jesus didn’t say one word and simply left, continued on his merry way to pursue His purpose. Many times when He wasn’t respected, He wouldn’t offer an explanation or prove His worth or validity, He simply moved on to the next town. Completely unbothered. 🙃🙏🏽🥲
Disagree with this take tbh. Probably the most selfless people in society I've come across are effective altruists (the proper ones, not Sam Bankman-Fried who infiltrated the movement for his own nefarious ends). They're constantly tying themselves up in knots about whether they've done the right thing or not. It's a hard and often unsatisfying life.
You are probably thinking of left-wing sort of people. They are always pretty miserable. Generosity that flows from guilt or a sense of obligation only produces death.
I'd say it's a bit different. Leftists tend to be miserable at the inadequacies of the world. EAs are rather more miserable about their own inadequacies.
"If you want to assess whether your relationship is good, ask yourself: does this person improve my work performance? Increase my kindness to strangers? Does having this person in my life make me a better friend? Does having this person in my life help me make good decisions?" love this
Why not? Is being an employee so disgusting that if you are one you should strive to be bad at it? Would that statement have been less confusing and offensive if that word had been "creator," "entrepreneur," or "influencer"? What should be near the top of a happy, ethical person's list of priorities if not being a productive and self-sufficient member of society?
Yes, I think she narrowly focused on work performance as a metric of mental health. I would also disagree with that... but that clearly wasn't my point as you (and others) seemed to grasp. That's why I wrote that we should use our performance as "an employee and a friend and a citizen" as a barometer. If find that a relationship makes such that you: are doing well at work and are socially active and enjoying your friends' company and are reliable and volunteering and staying engaged in your community chances are it's a good relationship. If these things are suffering there might be a problem. She focused on the word "employee" and ignored my larger point, which is a very common Twitter-driven tendency these days. She could have focused on "citizen" and said: 'So you're voting and reading about current events and paying your taxes? That doesn't mean you're in a good relationship!!!' She would have been correct... but I never said that.
Well you misquoted me, so if I was examining your partial and non-contextual citation I would disagree with myself! I wrote that a relationship should improve your experience and performance of being "an employee and a friend and a citizen". I don't think I said "being more productive at work" anywhere in the reply.
I'll explain: we spend a great deal of our time at work (Americans more than French, for instance, but even French adults spend many of their waking hours working) and many people derive parts of their identity from their job. It also allows us to contribute to society (no matter what we do) and is probably the number one forum by which we interact with strangers. If you are more friendly and focused and organized at work you're probably in a good place overall. THAT (COMBINED WITH YOUR OTHER ROLES AND RELATIONSHIPS) should be a good indicator of whether ANY person or hobby or behavior is good for you. I don't care if it's costing your employer money or stymying your promotion-the point was that if you with a person or engaging in an activity who/that makes you: feel anxious at work, snap at your coworkers or customers, be chronically late, feel distracted and uneasy, etc. then that might be a person or activity which is not good for you overall.
For the record, ALL mental disorders are primarily characterized by necessary functional impairments. What does that mean? You're less effective at work, a less reliable friend, and less able to complete necessary tasks. This is not an American writing about how making money is so important. It's simply a recognition by (American and European) psychologists that work (often) is the setting for much of our lives and is a main environment in which we execute goal-directed activity. That point applies for most human cultures in the world since the emergence of Homo Sapiens, I think (although many hunter gatherers didn't work that hard they probably still derived status and self esteem from their mothering and whittling and hunting and cooking). All good psychological advice applies cross-culturally, and I think mine does.
It wasn't advice. Just my opinion... and almost every thinker in history is a 'gender essentialist' (since conflating sex with gender and treating them as roughly equivalent seems to be the norm around the world and through history, except in very rare cases nd even then there has never been a concept of trans or non-binary). You're certainly cutting yourself off from some very profound thinkers... but that's your concern. 'Partner' begs the question. If someone is in a toxic or codependent relationship being a good partner (or trying to be) is part of the pathology! As for friend and parent-yes, those are part of what I described already. I'm glad we agree.
Someone doesn't need a fulfilling job to use their job as a barometer, though. I've been a security guard, a window washer, a valet, a janitor, a front desk receptionist, an executive assistant, a soldier, etc. My last job was a few years in a Florida metal warehouse working 14 hour shifts. In my experience even difficult and tedious jobs can be approached with a sense of peace and equanimity. I can't tell you how many times some college graduate student or professional or healthcare provider has lectured me about the nature of entry-level employment in the U.S. Even the worst jobs in this country are FAR, FAR easier than being a subsistence farmer or an early coal miner or an early-industrial age factory worker. When you walk in the grocery store or a attended building or a nursing home and the wage workers greet you with a smile it's not because they are slaves under threat of death. Most people are pretty happy with their lot, and income/profession/wealth only correlates somewhat with happiness (the relationship fades after about 70-90k per year and is not that strong). The most miserable people I know (also the most Left-progressive people I know) are people with graduate degrees who are journalists or therapists or students and the source of much of their dissatisfaction seems to be their philosophy and their attitude, not their circumstances.
There are people all over this country loading trucks, picking crops, staffing nursing homes, digging ditches, painting nails and they are HAPPY. The idea that an unfulfilling job is some huge burden to life satisfaction is nonsense. By the standards of the modern American intellectual 99.9% of people through history have had 'unfulfilling jobs'. That's not capitalism-it's life.
The worst days I ever had at work (or out of it) were when I was worried about something else. so, even for non-fulfilling jobs I would make the statement: if your relationship is making you a better employee (you're cheerful, focused, punctual, helpful) that relationship is probably healthy. If not, it might be time to consider what's going on.
I just re-read your reply and realized I misunderstood. That's completely my mistake. Yes, absolutely, someone should consider whether their job makes them a better partner, friend, parent... but as you already (indirectly) noted choosing your job is a luxury. Most people in this country (and me, for most of my adult life) work the jobs they can to pay the bills. If you can LEAVE a job because it's affecting your parenting or relationship then you already have a great deal more wealth and flexibility than many people. If you have a criminal record or you're undocumented or you live in a factory town there's no LEAVING your job after considering its impact on your life. If you leave it means you were injured or fired and you are now in a crisis. I'd say for half (maybe more) people work the jobs they must to pay their bills and do the best they can in their relationships. Just like my other response: this is how people live, how they always lived, except for a small minority of well-educated people living in cities and suburbs in the West. Obviously your job will optimally make you a better person in other areas... but that was not the focus of my original reply. Go tell the lady who cleans hotel rooms for 6 days a week, 9.5 hours a day that her job should make her a better mother and friend and if it's not she should move into graphic design or paralegal work. She will be glad for your advice I'm sure.
We’re witnessing rampant diagnostic inflation; we pathologize reasonable emotional responses to the vicissitudes of complex relationships in a complex world.
Of course, this medicalized model of the human experience suits Big Pharma just fine—they’ve got a pill for every “ill.” The more we consider ourselves psychiatrically sick, the more $ Pharma makes.
My profession has done an enormous amount of damage by propagating this rhetoric.
Freya, my brother and I host a podcast called, “Love & Life with Dr. Karin and Pastor Elliott” in which we discuss holistic approaches to thriving in love and life. I’d love to have you join us for an episode, if you’re interested.
"Of course, this medicalized model of the human experience suits Big Pharma just fine—they’ve got a pill for every “ill.” The more we consider ourselves psychiatrically sick, the more $ Pharma makes."
Can attest. Had a client who is having a rough time with her divorce from an abusive husband, and got on an antidepressant a few weeks ago; she's having a rough time adjusting, but the fact that she thought it would work immediately to take care of her pesky feelings of loss and confusion was fairly apparent. This whole mindset--that we live in "Brave New World" with a form of soma for every type of ill--is so painfully prevalent.
Big pharma doesn't make that much money from psychiatric drugs, it's a myth. Anxiety pills can actually work, let's not demonize psychiatric drugs but yeah they're not the absolute holy grail and tend to pathologize some very valid reactions to events and world
This post came to me perfectly because with my ex, he basically never spent quality time with me and whenever I asked for it he would always say he’s busy, and every single time arrange gaming with his friends over time with me, even when I lived with him.
And then he called me crazy and insecure and diagnosed me with BPD and said I needed to get better and work on myself and not get angry when he doesn’t hang out with me, and broke up with me. And I blamed myself every time and I tried to not have any needs but I couldn’t. And I even asked my therapist if I had BPD because he made it seem so convincing that something was very utterly wrong with me.
Thankfully one of my friends told me “sounds like he doesn’t make you feel secure in the relationship”. And that was the first time I thought maybe the problem wasn’t me. And I wasn’t being too needy and asking for too much. And she said “your attachment style can change based on your partner and maybe your ex made you anxiously attached”.
Thank you for this article. I’m beginning to see that my friend was right.
Your ex was a gaslighting prick. I'm so sorry you had to deal with that! I also realized that your attachment can change based on your relationship. I'm usually fairly anxious, but I dealt with an ex who caused me to be extremely anxious
I would gently suggest that being intimate with a man who is not your husband is likely to lead to sorrow. Feeling secure in a relationship involving intimacy with a man you are not married to is foolish, as you have no actual security. The value that others place on you is largely determined by the value you place on yourself. When you are available without commitment, that value is perceived as very little. You are worth more than that.
Not being anxious in a relationship with someone who enjoys video games more than your companionship, and who has made no tangible commitment. would be very unhealthy.
I'm sorry that you had that experience. First rule, unless you're speaking with a licensed clinician, people outside of the profession don't generally understand diagnosis. I had a client with a similar situation--her bf convinced her she had BPD even though, from her description, he was completely an inconsistent ass and it was not a healthy relationship.
Attachment can and does change from relationship to relationship, and you can become a healthier attached person. People can grow in positive ways for the better :)
Thanks I’m aware of that as well, but I haven’t had any luck in meeting any guy or close friend that treats me well. My last close friend was very similar and I had to keep begging her to hang out with me, and she didn’t seem interested in my life at all. Any tips on this? My experiences just keep reaffirming the fact that people won’t love me and they’ll leave me.
Well, I try not to give advice, but I'll do my best for what you describe.
@Jon B below isn't totally wrong. A lot of things are dependent on situation, the culture of the place that you're in, and some of it is your personality and how well you mesh/pick up on the social cues/mores of the place that you're in.
If you haven't done it already, sit down and try to step back from your experiences and look at the relationships you've described (or others) and see what is similar in those people. Do they have similar personality characteristics, values, etc? Do they remind you of people you grew up with? Often, we unconsciously act out previous relationships (be they family or childhood friends) in present ones, sometimes to get affirmation, sometimes to try and make what didn't work work differently this time around. This will be particular to you and your life. It's a bit similar in the advice that is given to men and women who end up in a pattern of abusive relationships: based on lack of good judgement, bad upbringing, whatever, they keep picking the same kinds of people over and over again, much to the chagrin of folks they are friends with. So you have to step back and assess.
Your experiences with people you mentioned (perhaps they were selfish, busy, or weren't that interested in you to begin with but didn't have the awareness or courage to be honest with you and/or themselves, or a combination of all of those factors) will continue to reaffirm your expectations. To an extent, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy -- everyone leaves me and no one will love me -- and thus, a narrative to protect oneself from being hurt because the expectation has already been set. But that won't always be the case. You will have to do your own work for why you continue to be attracted (friends and/or romantic partners) to people who aren't interested/neglect you. To be fair, how fair or realistic are your expectations for time and relationship? If said female friend is married with several children, she may not always have the bandwidth to be present to you in the way that you need or want at a given time, as a hypothetical. This is in no way to be unkind or mean, but that we all have to develop self-awareness that is in line with reality outside of our emotions and perceptual biases, which takes time and can be honed. :)
You shouldn't have to beg someone to want to spend time with you if they genuinely like/love you, who you are, and what you're interested in. People tell you who they are, both in words, and actions. If they don't make the effort after you've tried yourself, pause before cutting things off--perhaps they have family they care for, perhaps they have a demanding job, or have some other stressor happening that you aren't privy to. We are human and fallible.
Reflect on a person or couple that you admire. What do you admire about them, how they handle situations, conflict, disagreement, negotiate and/or reach conclusions to difficult decisions? How do you know it is healthy/unhealthy, and how do you define each? If you have a therapist, bring these questions up with them to discuss more deeply.
Relationships take work from both sides, and we all have different needs at differing levels and times. The old saying goes if we have five good friends throughout our lifetime, we are lucky. Most of us will not have a crowd of people--it's practically impossible to maintain deep relationships with many people. Wherever you live, try finding folks who have similar interests to yourself--take classes, get involved in a hobby or craft group, a civics group, even folks from all ages. You will be more likely to make friends with people by getting out into the world and with whom you share some kind of basic interest. I wish you the best of luck and keep at it. It's a muscle, not a switch.
I have met a number of individuals who were extremely convincing at portraying themselves as completely different people until they could trap someone effectively, and our society still has women at a disadvantage getting help in that situation, where they are at higher risk leaving than staying in misery. Especially if they are already isolated such as with health problems. But it is still so valuable to understand better in my opinion.
Insight and self awareness, if people have the ability to develop it, helps greatly in this department. But you can hand people all the tools to build a shed, even the instructions, and they still don't know what to do or where to start.
It is really hard. My wife moved from NY to WI when we were married 17 years ago. For many years she was troubled by the fact that she had no friends to speak of locally. She now has found a few friends but it took a long time. It seems like most people have all the friends they want already. It isn't personal. They just are full up on friends. In Wisconsin, people are friends with people they went to kindergarten with, and they haven't made a new friend in 40 years.
So it isn't you. But there is hope. I will pray that you find a true friend.
Please stop the pompous speech about the so-called clinicians, they're humans and apply what they've been taught and don't necessarily question it. Sometimes they do more harm than good, their egos are something in my experience. They ban and punish you if you question them, they never take accountability for anything BC at the end of the day you're the only one who suffers from the shit
I appreciate your comment, and I don’t disagree with it. Many have some insufferable egos, and we are all fallible creatures. Thanks for your feedback, I’ll chew on it. God bless!
Therapist punished me from her cabinet bc I dared to say some stuff didn't really sit well with me. She was very great, so it was a bit shocking and extremely violent and she was alledgly trained in trauma. I started to see her for PTSD related to sexual trauma. One of the worst experience of all my existence, I wish to understand how much I suffered from it but I know it will never be possible
Gen Z often seems to complicate their lives, which are much easier compared to those of previous generations. Complaints are becoming increasingly common among this group, contrasting with their predecessors, who faced greater challenges yet seldom voiced their discontent. Imagining a Gen Z individual navigating life just 30 years ago—with the technology of that era—raises doubts about their adaptability. Social media and the internet have had profound impacts, not only on younger generations but also on Gen X and older individuals, altering the way all age groups communicate and interact. 🤯
Hmm. There are certainly ways in which Gen Z has it better, but I wouldn't say overall that they have it easier. The rising anxiety has external causes, huge cultural and economic forces that young adults have no control over. While I agree that it's not useful to persuade them that they are helpless victims because it destroys their agency, I feel your comment goes a little too far in the other direction of blaming a generation for something that was done to them, not by them. There is a balance to be struck between acknowledging the reality and emboldening zoomers to take back control of their own lives.
I arose in the era when nuclear war was a daily reality. When the Challenger exploded they cut into a song on the radio to announce it- I braced for news of an attack by the USSR. I was born into an age of ongoing war, mass protests on the streets, racial riots and one of the worst political scandals in US history. Every generation has scars. It is how you decide to deal with them that counts.
I'd give them another decade or two. Much of this I think stems from a lack of experience and perspective. As with any growing pain, it's uncomfortable.
This is very true, they lack experience and perspective. But it's delayed development of sorts. I play chess at a local board-gaming bar down the street. Lots of Zoomer kids about 10 years younger than me. It's striking how immature and sheltered they are, compared to how myself and my peers were at the some age, 10 years ago. By that same age, I was totally independent, had lived in multiple American cities and foreign countries, married, first kid, started international logistics career. I'm 35 now, but I was a *man* at 27.
The other patrons my age are the same, by the time we were 25-30 (10 years ago now), we had fought wars, killed (and saved) men, lived overseas, started families, founded businesses, etc. The kids roughly 10 years younger than us, in their mid 20's, have gone nowhere, done nothing, have little to no ambition, what aspirations they have are totally unsupported by any sort of structure or plan. Current crop of 23-27 year old zoomers are still children.
The zoomers in their mid 20's are still obsessed with Safety to a very unhealthy degree, very especially the women. Opinions with which they disagree are "unsafe", "dangerous", and "violent". I got called a Eugenicist Nazi for my expressed preference to have biological grandchildren. They are obsessed with Identity. They are very interested in who they are, and entirely uninterested in what they are doing. This is not healthy. They all profess some degree of queerness. Anything they dislike is "toxic" and "unsafe". There is no such thing are personal preference. There is only the Right way, and the Toxic way. They speak almost entirely in phrases glommed from therapists and internet forums. They are, surprisingly, very similar to the boomer men who spend too much time listening to right wing talk radio. You can always spot the type, because their scope of interest is limited to whatever they hear on the radio, and they simply repeat whatever phrases they heard on the radio yesterday. Just replace radio with TikTok/Reddit, and you have the same archetype.
I don't mean this to be zoomer hate or anything, and re-reading this it does sound like a really judgmental asshole just ranting. But I have kids and I worry for them. I really do think social media and smartphones have broken these kids' brains. Giving them another decade won't solve any of these problems, if they just spend that decade scrolling and talking to therapists. They have to *do things*. They aren't doing things. They are too scared to do anything. But they love to scroll.
"I don’t know about you but I’m tired of this delusion in modern life that a psychologically healthy and adjusted person doesn’t feel any pain or jealousy or need for anyone; they stay a moderate amount of attached to people, just enough that they can detach at any moment, and feel perfectly fine and stay friends because nobody owes them anything."
💯 There's a reason it's called healthy ATTACHMENT.
I remember years ago when I learned about attachment theory and talking about it with my therapist. I tried explaining away that I was asking all these questions to my emotionally withdrawn partners because I was anxiously attached. She told me that while it was great that I discovered attachment theory, I was still right to ask questions. I see it's only gotten worse over the years.
"Seems to me that so much of Gen Z’s obsession with labels and categories comes from this need for control."
Great point! Another place this probably comes from is a need for belonging (i.e. creating identity-groups out of diagnostic categories) + the ability to absolve oneself of individual responsibility. See this GREAT bit on Colbert from a couple of months ago, discussing "girl trends": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqLuvNHECgw
As I read this essay, I do wonder though if Gen Z has an attachment issue, or at least is focusing there because so many of you were separated from your mothers to be raised in daycare. There's ample evidence to show that kids in daycare, especially those who attended as infants, show higher levels of anxious and avoidant attachment because they couldn't attach to their mothers. Gen Z is the highest level of daycare babies ever in America, so why wouldn't you be unsure of how to attach? I know this is a controversial stance, but simply read anything by Erica Komisar, especially her work Being There. Gen Z's parents weren't there. Not really. They were at work, or working on themselves, or putting on their oxygen masks first, whatever. I mean, your parents are the ones who invented the entire self-care industry, never once considering the needs of the children. Just a thought.
In 1976, I was living in a dormitory at the University of Minnesota. There was a guy there who was very difficult, and I clashed with him on a couple of occasions. One day someone pulled me aside and explained to me in hushed tones that "Dorian comes from a broken home.".
After that, it made perfect sense to me. He wasn't really such a jerk, he just was a victim of severe trauma. After that I (like everyone else) gave him a lot of grace. It wasn't his fault he was socially inept, angry and combative, after all. He was the only one. For the rest of us mom-and-dad was a single word.
Divorce injures children in horrible ways. The epidemic of divorce has produced generations of children who have the psychological equivalent of life altering amputations. Emotional paraplegics and worse. Medicated for chronic pain, malnourished emotionally their entire lives.
Just want to say even if your ideas never got through to a single person who needed to hear them, hearing these things expressed is a great balm to those of us who are deeply worried these important truths are being lost. Modern society insists those truths are crazy or naive and I feel like we’ve all got to be firm about this or people are going to end up sadder and more confused. It’s heartbreaking to see love itself defined out of all meaning just because consciousness people feel it might not be their place to gently challenge the authoritative unwell.
Freya, I'm a 26 year old male (mature, I thought) and yet most times I hang out with friends I find myself bombarded with a monsoon of new dating phrases, catch words, and even, philosophies. Crikey, get me the hell out of here.
Sometimes I'll hang out with a friend that I haven't in a month or so, and they've got some new catch phrase about what kind of guy I am in a relationship, or some kind of psuedo-intellectual analysis of the person I'm dating. I get agitated because these catch phrases make them self-righteous and wise, as if they were entitiled to analyse my dating life in the first place.
And I get especially extra agitated at how these words complicate things. I personally keep things pretty simple in my head: how does this person make me feel?
Am I old school? Techincally, yes. But I'm sick and tired at the proliferation of these seducing catch-phrases, which so staunchly become the zietgeist that dating is only observed through their lenses.
Why don't we just hang out, try out best to make each other laugh and feel special, and if it ain't feeling good, let's bounce!
Attachment and or personality disorder is not a "disorder" but an internal blockade to social communication relevant to the self from the social context of accepting new information as relative to other social contexts i.e. Behaviors.
This is epistemic mistrust - the internal struggle & difficulty to trust & consider the truth of others input within social learning.
One's internal state of fear (irritation, anger, defensiveness) overrides all incoming information to the point of failure of learning healthy interrelatedness.
A curious, open,, & reflective mental stance are hallmarks of a balanced, integrated, & emotionally well-regulated human being..
To generalise your point somewhat, is there EVER an internet/social media fad that results in a healthy appraisal of one's life? It seems that you just end up with a load of anxious non-experts talking about something technical and completely missing the point in a constant cacophony that is prodded ever forward by The Algorithm. Is it even possible to have a healthy conversation in a context like that?
Moreover, if your first instinct when you feel disappointed or lonely or anxious is to reach for your phone, you are "downloading" groupthink (right- or wrong-headed) into the context of your own life and problems, and skipping the hard work of trying to figure out why *you* feel that way in the first place.
It's like we went right from discovering that searching the internet is a great way to find a plumber, to assuming that it was the right way to find answers to *everything*.
Following on from this and CTD's comment, perhaps people search the internet because they don't know any other way to get answers. We have stopped providing them in a family/community context and also a wider 'liberal education' context (by which I mean familiarity with the fruit's of one's own culture, not muh-liberal 'education')
Well said and that cacophony of other lost emotional lemmings happily drive one another off the click bait cliff.
What we have lost through the internet is the extended family relations, that would be the well source of how to deal with life's challenges and mysteries- from people who - on the while - unconditionally loved you and wanted only the best for you. Conversely, the damaged " life geniuses" - on the whole- are online to either be celebrated (likes) for their 20 word earth shattering solutions, or to find validation that they or the person they are with are eternally broke.
I always wonder, what society would've looked like, if we had not stopped (long long ago) teaching kids to deal with life's challenges in the moment and in healthy ways.
For all our "progress and innovation" we have achieved, this post hints at just how tragically damaged we have become- especially the last 2 generations.
This is well said. I would add this: Politico-obsessives carry these fads from their origins (generally) in 'woke' academia petri-dishes and into our mass/social media and then into all our stupid civic institutions desperate to not be left behind in embracing any latest bit of woke faddery. At least these mad fads do (rightly) get called-out in the anti-woke media (including this excellent article).
But something that almost never gets talked about is that - in our media eco-system - the crazier something is, the MORE attention it will get. So a big part of the reason why fads (affecting only tiny %s of the population) get so much traction is because they are such click-bait for the anti-woke media who, in other words, end up being useful idiots. There ought to be a lesson here.
Woke faddery. Lol!
Have you SEEN the internet? Lol
This doesn't directly address your post (which is great) but: I think the proper basis for mental healthcare is not to be personally happy or to avoid symptoms or improve mood-it's to be a better (more ethical) and helpful person to those around you. Once you reframe mental healthcare in that way so much of what seems bizarre and nonsensical disappears. A lot of the labelling and the online therapy community you reference here is really just semi-pathological self-absorption, which is not good for society or for individual psychological health.
Be more virtuous and stronger and more useful... and happiness will follow. Obsess about your mood and your 'peace' and your 'truth' and you will never find happiness. Humans are simply not normally built that way.
If you want to assess whether your relationship is good, ask yourself: does this person improve my work performance? Increase my kindness to strangers? Does having this person in my life make me a better friend? Does having this person in my life help me make good decisions? If a person is improving your experience of being an employee and a friend and a citizen that person is probably good for you... if he's not then there might be an issue. Just my opinion!
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/virtue-struggle-and-eudaimonia-begun?r=1neg52
"Obsess about your mood and your 'peace' and your 'truth' and you will never find happiness. Humans are simply not normally built that way." Love this
My personal experience is that actually this is really hard because I am actively being socialised against this worldview. I have told friends and family multiple times I care more about being good than being happy, and they always tell me that I'm crazy and that I should be more selfish. It's caused tension and a few big arguments with people I care about; I am caught between my own personal motivations and the perspectives of people whose judgements I deeply respect and value.
It’s not selfish to have boundaries. Real happiness doesn’t mean people-pleasing, it means being aligned with who you truly are.
Even Jesus had boundaries. One of my favorite stories in the book of Matthew is when He cast out demons into the pigs of a village. (Matthew 8:28 to 9:1) The pigs ran into the sea and drowned. The villagers were more upset that they lost their pigs than they were thankful that the demons had left. In fact they asked Him to leave. Jesus didn’t say one word and simply left, continued on his merry way to pursue His purpose. Many times when He wasn’t respected, He wouldn’t offer an explanation or prove His worth or validity, He simply moved on to the next town. Completely unbothered. 🙃🙏🏽🥲
As a general rule, the more selfish a person is, the less happy they are.
Also, there is great peace in a clear conscience, and tremendous satisfaction in doing what is right.
Disagree with this take tbh. Probably the most selfless people in society I've come across are effective altruists (the proper ones, not Sam Bankman-Fried who infiltrated the movement for his own nefarious ends). They're constantly tying themselves up in knots about whether they've done the right thing or not. It's a hard and often unsatisfying life.
Interesting.
You are probably thinking of left-wing sort of people. They are always pretty miserable. Generosity that flows from guilt or a sense of obligation only produces death.
Not all who are lost wander. - Boomgaarden
I'd say it's a bit different. Leftists tend to be miserable at the inadequacies of the world. EAs are rather more miserable about their own inadequacies.
That is a great reframing, thanks James!
"If you want to assess whether your relationship is good, ask yourself: does this person improve my work performance? Increase my kindness to strangers? Does having this person in my life make me a better friend? Does having this person in my life help me make good decisions?" love this
great questions
Why not? Is being an employee so disgusting that if you are one you should strive to be bad at it? Would that statement have been less confusing and offensive if that word had been "creator," "entrepreneur," or "influencer"? What should be near the top of a happy, ethical person's list of priorities if not being a productive and self-sufficient member of society?
Yes, I think she narrowly focused on work performance as a metric of mental health. I would also disagree with that... but that clearly wasn't my point as you (and others) seemed to grasp. That's why I wrote that we should use our performance as "an employee and a friend and a citizen" as a barometer. If find that a relationship makes such that you: are doing well at work and are socially active and enjoying your friends' company and are reliable and volunteering and staying engaged in your community chances are it's a good relationship. If these things are suffering there might be a problem. She focused on the word "employee" and ignored my larger point, which is a very common Twitter-driven tendency these days. She could have focused on "citizen" and said: 'So you're voting and reading about current events and paying your taxes? That doesn't mean you're in a good relationship!!!' She would have been correct... but I never said that.
Well you misquoted me, so if I was examining your partial and non-contextual citation I would disagree with myself! I wrote that a relationship should improve your experience and performance of being "an employee and a friend and a citizen". I don't think I said "being more productive at work" anywhere in the reply.
I'll explain: we spend a great deal of our time at work (Americans more than French, for instance, but even French adults spend many of their waking hours working) and many people derive parts of their identity from their job. It also allows us to contribute to society (no matter what we do) and is probably the number one forum by which we interact with strangers. If you are more friendly and focused and organized at work you're probably in a good place overall. THAT (COMBINED WITH YOUR OTHER ROLES AND RELATIONSHIPS) should be a good indicator of whether ANY person or hobby or behavior is good for you. I don't care if it's costing your employer money or stymying your promotion-the point was that if you with a person or engaging in an activity who/that makes you: feel anxious at work, snap at your coworkers or customers, be chronically late, feel distracted and uneasy, etc. then that might be a person or activity which is not good for you overall.
For the record, ALL mental disorders are primarily characterized by necessary functional impairments. What does that mean? You're less effective at work, a less reliable friend, and less able to complete necessary tasks. This is not an American writing about how making money is so important. It's simply a recognition by (American and European) psychologists that work (often) is the setting for much of our lives and is a main environment in which we execute goal-directed activity. That point applies for most human cultures in the world since the emergence of Homo Sapiens, I think (although many hunter gatherers didn't work that hard they probably still derived status and self esteem from their mothering and whittling and hunting and cooking). All good psychological advice applies cross-culturally, and I think mine does.
It wasn't advice. Just my opinion... and almost every thinker in history is a 'gender essentialist' (since conflating sex with gender and treating them as roughly equivalent seems to be the norm around the world and through history, except in very rare cases nd even then there has never been a concept of trans or non-binary). You're certainly cutting yourself off from some very profound thinkers... but that's your concern. 'Partner' begs the question. If someone is in a toxic or codependent relationship being a good partner (or trying to be) is part of the pathology! As for friend and parent-yes, those are part of what I described already. I'm glad we agree.
Someone doesn't need a fulfilling job to use their job as a barometer, though. I've been a security guard, a window washer, a valet, a janitor, a front desk receptionist, an executive assistant, a soldier, etc. My last job was a few years in a Florida metal warehouse working 14 hour shifts. In my experience even difficult and tedious jobs can be approached with a sense of peace and equanimity. I can't tell you how many times some college graduate student or professional or healthcare provider has lectured me about the nature of entry-level employment in the U.S. Even the worst jobs in this country are FAR, FAR easier than being a subsistence farmer or an early coal miner or an early-industrial age factory worker. When you walk in the grocery store or a attended building or a nursing home and the wage workers greet you with a smile it's not because they are slaves under threat of death. Most people are pretty happy with their lot, and income/profession/wealth only correlates somewhat with happiness (the relationship fades after about 70-90k per year and is not that strong). The most miserable people I know (also the most Left-progressive people I know) are people with graduate degrees who are journalists or therapists or students and the source of much of their dissatisfaction seems to be their philosophy and their attitude, not their circumstances.
There are people all over this country loading trucks, picking crops, staffing nursing homes, digging ditches, painting nails and they are HAPPY. The idea that an unfulfilling job is some huge burden to life satisfaction is nonsense. By the standards of the modern American intellectual 99.9% of people through history have had 'unfulfilling jobs'. That's not capitalism-it's life.
The worst days I ever had at work (or out of it) were when I was worried about something else. so, even for non-fulfilling jobs I would make the statement: if your relationship is making you a better employee (you're cheerful, focused, punctual, helpful) that relationship is probably healthy. If not, it might be time to consider what's going on.
I just re-read your reply and realized I misunderstood. That's completely my mistake. Yes, absolutely, someone should consider whether their job makes them a better partner, friend, parent... but as you already (indirectly) noted choosing your job is a luxury. Most people in this country (and me, for most of my adult life) work the jobs they can to pay the bills. If you can LEAVE a job because it's affecting your parenting or relationship then you already have a great deal more wealth and flexibility than many people. If you have a criminal record or you're undocumented or you live in a factory town there's no LEAVING your job after considering its impact on your life. If you leave it means you were injured or fired and you are now in a crisis. I'd say for half (maybe more) people work the jobs they must to pay their bills and do the best they can in their relationships. Just like my other response: this is how people live, how they always lived, except for a small minority of well-educated people living in cities and suburbs in the West. Obviously your job will optimally make you a better person in other areas... but that was not the focus of my original reply. Go tell the lady who cleans hotel rooms for 6 days a week, 9.5 hours a day that her job should make her a better mother and friend and if it's not she should move into graphic design or paralegal work. She will be glad for your advice I'm sure.
Just out of curiosity: what do you do for a living?
I’m a psychologist and this post is spot on! 💯
We’re witnessing rampant diagnostic inflation; we pathologize reasonable emotional responses to the vicissitudes of complex relationships in a complex world.
Of course, this medicalized model of the human experience suits Big Pharma just fine—they’ve got a pill for every “ill.” The more we consider ourselves psychiatrically sick, the more $ Pharma makes.
My profession has done an enormous amount of damage by propagating this rhetoric.
Freya, my brother and I host a podcast called, “Love & Life with Dr. Karin and Pastor Elliott” in which we discuss holistic approaches to thriving in love and life. I’d love to have you join us for an episode, if you’re interested.
"Of course, this medicalized model of the human experience suits Big Pharma just fine—they’ve got a pill for every “ill.” The more we consider ourselves psychiatrically sick, the more $ Pharma makes."
Can attest. Had a client who is having a rough time with her divorce from an abusive husband, and got on an antidepressant a few weeks ago; she's having a rough time adjusting, but the fact that she thought it would work immediately to take care of her pesky feelings of loss and confusion was fairly apparent. This whole mindset--that we live in "Brave New World" with a form of soma for every type of ill--is so painfully prevalent.
Big pharma doesn't make that much money from psychiatric drugs, it's a myth. Anxiety pills can actually work, let's not demonize psychiatric drugs but yeah they're not the absolute holy grail and tend to pathologize some very valid reactions to events and world
This post came to me perfectly because with my ex, he basically never spent quality time with me and whenever I asked for it he would always say he’s busy, and every single time arrange gaming with his friends over time with me, even when I lived with him.
And then he called me crazy and insecure and diagnosed me with BPD and said I needed to get better and work on myself and not get angry when he doesn’t hang out with me, and broke up with me. And I blamed myself every time and I tried to not have any needs but I couldn’t. And I even asked my therapist if I had BPD because he made it seem so convincing that something was very utterly wrong with me.
Thankfully one of my friends told me “sounds like he doesn’t make you feel secure in the relationship”. And that was the first time I thought maybe the problem wasn’t me. And I wasn’t being too needy and asking for too much. And she said “your attachment style can change based on your partner and maybe your ex made you anxiously attached”.
Thank you for this article. I’m beginning to see that my friend was right.
Your ex was a gaslighting prick. I'm so sorry you had to deal with that! I also realized that your attachment can change based on your relationship. I'm usually fairly anxious, but I dealt with an ex who caused me to be extremely anxious
I would gently suggest that being intimate with a man who is not your husband is likely to lead to sorrow. Feeling secure in a relationship involving intimacy with a man you are not married to is foolish, as you have no actual security. The value that others place on you is largely determined by the value you place on yourself. When you are available without commitment, that value is perceived as very little. You are worth more than that.
Not being anxious in a relationship with someone who enjoys video games more than your companionship, and who has made no tangible commitment. would be very unhealthy.
I'm sorry that you had that experience. First rule, unless you're speaking with a licensed clinician, people outside of the profession don't generally understand diagnosis. I had a client with a similar situation--her bf convinced her she had BPD even though, from her description, he was completely an inconsistent ass and it was not a healthy relationship.
Attachment can and does change from relationship to relationship, and you can become a healthier attached person. People can grow in positive ways for the better :)
Thanks I’m aware of that as well, but I haven’t had any luck in meeting any guy or close friend that treats me well. My last close friend was very similar and I had to keep begging her to hang out with me, and she didn’t seem interested in my life at all. Any tips on this? My experiences just keep reaffirming the fact that people won’t love me and they’ll leave me.
Well, I try not to give advice, but I'll do my best for what you describe.
@Jon B below isn't totally wrong. A lot of things are dependent on situation, the culture of the place that you're in, and some of it is your personality and how well you mesh/pick up on the social cues/mores of the place that you're in.
If you haven't done it already, sit down and try to step back from your experiences and look at the relationships you've described (or others) and see what is similar in those people. Do they have similar personality characteristics, values, etc? Do they remind you of people you grew up with? Often, we unconsciously act out previous relationships (be they family or childhood friends) in present ones, sometimes to get affirmation, sometimes to try and make what didn't work work differently this time around. This will be particular to you and your life. It's a bit similar in the advice that is given to men and women who end up in a pattern of abusive relationships: based on lack of good judgement, bad upbringing, whatever, they keep picking the same kinds of people over and over again, much to the chagrin of folks they are friends with. So you have to step back and assess.
Your experiences with people you mentioned (perhaps they were selfish, busy, or weren't that interested in you to begin with but didn't have the awareness or courage to be honest with you and/or themselves, or a combination of all of those factors) will continue to reaffirm your expectations. To an extent, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy -- everyone leaves me and no one will love me -- and thus, a narrative to protect oneself from being hurt because the expectation has already been set. But that won't always be the case. You will have to do your own work for why you continue to be attracted (friends and/or romantic partners) to people who aren't interested/neglect you. To be fair, how fair or realistic are your expectations for time and relationship? If said female friend is married with several children, she may not always have the bandwidth to be present to you in the way that you need or want at a given time, as a hypothetical. This is in no way to be unkind or mean, but that we all have to develop self-awareness that is in line with reality outside of our emotions and perceptual biases, which takes time and can be honed. :)
You shouldn't have to beg someone to want to spend time with you if they genuinely like/love you, who you are, and what you're interested in. People tell you who they are, both in words, and actions. If they don't make the effort after you've tried yourself, pause before cutting things off--perhaps they have family they care for, perhaps they have a demanding job, or have some other stressor happening that you aren't privy to. We are human and fallible.
Reflect on a person or couple that you admire. What do you admire about them, how they handle situations, conflict, disagreement, negotiate and/or reach conclusions to difficult decisions? How do you know it is healthy/unhealthy, and how do you define each? If you have a therapist, bring these questions up with them to discuss more deeply.
Relationships take work from both sides, and we all have different needs at differing levels and times. The old saying goes if we have five good friends throughout our lifetime, we are lucky. Most of us will not have a crowd of people--it's practically impossible to maintain deep relationships with many people. Wherever you live, try finding folks who have similar interests to yourself--take classes, get involved in a hobby or craft group, a civics group, even folks from all ages. You will be more likely to make friends with people by getting out into the world and with whom you share some kind of basic interest. I wish you the best of luck and keep at it. It's a muscle, not a switch.
I have met a number of individuals who were extremely convincing at portraying themselves as completely different people until they could trap someone effectively, and our society still has women at a disadvantage getting help in that situation, where they are at higher risk leaving than staying in misery. Especially if they are already isolated such as with health problems. But it is still so valuable to understand better in my opinion.
Insight and self awareness, if people have the ability to develop it, helps greatly in this department. But you can hand people all the tools to build a shed, even the instructions, and they still don't know what to do or where to start.
Thank you this is super helpful! ❤️ I’m gonna bring some of this up to my therapist.
It is really hard. My wife moved from NY to WI when we were married 17 years ago. For many years she was troubled by the fact that she had no friends to speak of locally. She now has found a few friends but it took a long time. It seems like most people have all the friends they want already. It isn't personal. They just are full up on friends. In Wisconsin, people are friends with people they went to kindergarten with, and they haven't made a new friend in 40 years.
So it isn't you. But there is hope. I will pray that you find a true friend.
Please stop the pompous speech about the so-called clinicians, they're humans and apply what they've been taught and don't necessarily question it. Sometimes they do more harm than good, their egos are something in my experience. They ban and punish you if you question them, they never take accountability for anything BC at the end of the day you're the only one who suffers from the shit
I appreciate your comment, and I don’t disagree with it. Many have some insufferable egos, and we are all fallible creatures. Thanks for your feedback, I’ll chew on it. God bless!
Therapist punished me from her cabinet bc I dared to say some stuff didn't really sit well with me. She was very great, so it was a bit shocking and extremely violent and she was alledgly trained in trauma. I started to see her for PTSD related to sexual trauma. One of the worst experience of all my existence, I wish to understand how much I suffered from it but I know it will never be possible
Gen Z often seems to complicate their lives, which are much easier compared to those of previous generations. Complaints are becoming increasingly common among this group, contrasting with their predecessors, who faced greater challenges yet seldom voiced their discontent. Imagining a Gen Z individual navigating life just 30 years ago—with the technology of that era—raises doubts about their adaptability. Social media and the internet have had profound impacts, not only on younger generations but also on Gen X and older individuals, altering the way all age groups communicate and interact. 🤯
Hmm. There are certainly ways in which Gen Z has it better, but I wouldn't say overall that they have it easier. The rising anxiety has external causes, huge cultural and economic forces that young adults have no control over. While I agree that it's not useful to persuade them that they are helpless victims because it destroys their agency, I feel your comment goes a little too far in the other direction of blaming a generation for something that was done to them, not by them. There is a balance to be struck between acknowledging the reality and emboldening zoomers to take back control of their own lives.
I arose in the era when nuclear war was a daily reality. When the Challenger exploded they cut into a song on the radio to announce it- I braced for news of an attack by the USSR. I was born into an age of ongoing war, mass protests on the streets, racial riots and one of the worst political scandals in US history. Every generation has scars. It is how you decide to deal with them that counts.
Very diplomatic response. 🙏
I'd give them another decade or two. Much of this I think stems from a lack of experience and perspective. As with any growing pain, it's uncomfortable.
This is very true, they lack experience and perspective. But it's delayed development of sorts. I play chess at a local board-gaming bar down the street. Lots of Zoomer kids about 10 years younger than me. It's striking how immature and sheltered they are, compared to how myself and my peers were at the some age, 10 years ago. By that same age, I was totally independent, had lived in multiple American cities and foreign countries, married, first kid, started international logistics career. I'm 35 now, but I was a *man* at 27.
The other patrons my age are the same, by the time we were 25-30 (10 years ago now), we had fought wars, killed (and saved) men, lived overseas, started families, founded businesses, etc. The kids roughly 10 years younger than us, in their mid 20's, have gone nowhere, done nothing, have little to no ambition, what aspirations they have are totally unsupported by any sort of structure or plan. Current crop of 23-27 year old zoomers are still children.
The zoomers in their mid 20's are still obsessed with Safety to a very unhealthy degree, very especially the women. Opinions with which they disagree are "unsafe", "dangerous", and "violent". I got called a Eugenicist Nazi for my expressed preference to have biological grandchildren. They are obsessed with Identity. They are very interested in who they are, and entirely uninterested in what they are doing. This is not healthy. They all profess some degree of queerness. Anything they dislike is "toxic" and "unsafe". There is no such thing are personal preference. There is only the Right way, and the Toxic way. They speak almost entirely in phrases glommed from therapists and internet forums. They are, surprisingly, very similar to the boomer men who spend too much time listening to right wing talk radio. You can always spot the type, because their scope of interest is limited to whatever they hear on the radio, and they simply repeat whatever phrases they heard on the radio yesterday. Just replace radio with TikTok/Reddit, and you have the same archetype.
I don't mean this to be zoomer hate or anything, and re-reading this it does sound like a really judgmental asshole just ranting. But I have kids and I worry for them. I really do think social media and smartphones have broken these kids' brains. Giving them another decade won't solve any of these problems, if they just spend that decade scrolling and talking to therapists. They have to *do things*. They aren't doing things. They are too scared to do anything. But they love to scroll.
All our issues are just about complaining about lol
"I don’t know about you but I’m tired of this delusion in modern life that a psychologically healthy and adjusted person doesn’t feel any pain or jealousy or need for anyone; they stay a moderate amount of attached to people, just enough that they can detach at any moment, and feel perfectly fine and stay friends because nobody owes them anything."
💯 There's a reason it's called healthy ATTACHMENT.
I remember years ago when I learned about attachment theory and talking about it with my therapist. I tried explaining away that I was asking all these questions to my emotionally withdrawn partners because I was anxiously attached. She told me that while it was great that I discovered attachment theory, I was still right to ask questions. I see it's only gotten worse over the years.
"Seems to me that so much of Gen Z’s obsession with labels and categories comes from this need for control."
Great point! Another place this probably comes from is a need for belonging (i.e. creating identity-groups out of diagnostic categories) + the ability to absolve oneself of individual responsibility. See this GREAT bit on Colbert from a couple of months ago, discussing "girl trends": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqLuvNHECgw
Hat tip, yet again!
So much gold in this👏👏👏
Freya with another BANGER! 🇬🇧😎🚀
As I read this essay, I do wonder though if Gen Z has an attachment issue, or at least is focusing there because so many of you were separated from your mothers to be raised in daycare. There's ample evidence to show that kids in daycare, especially those who attended as infants, show higher levels of anxious and avoidant attachment because they couldn't attach to their mothers. Gen Z is the highest level of daycare babies ever in America, so why wouldn't you be unsure of how to attach? I know this is a controversial stance, but simply read anything by Erica Komisar, especially her work Being There. Gen Z's parents weren't there. Not really. They were at work, or working on themselves, or putting on their oxygen masks first, whatever. I mean, your parents are the ones who invented the entire self-care industry, never once considering the needs of the children. Just a thought.
There is another factor.
In 1976, I was living in a dormitory at the University of Minnesota. There was a guy there who was very difficult, and I clashed with him on a couple of occasions. One day someone pulled me aside and explained to me in hushed tones that "Dorian comes from a broken home.".
After that, it made perfect sense to me. He wasn't really such a jerk, he just was a victim of severe trauma. After that I (like everyone else) gave him a lot of grace. It wasn't his fault he was socially inept, angry and combative, after all. He was the only one. For the rest of us mom-and-dad was a single word.
Divorce injures children in horrible ways. The epidemic of divorce has produced generations of children who have the psychological equivalent of life altering amputations. Emotional paraplegics and worse. Medicated for chronic pain, malnourished emotionally their entire lives.
That they are anxious is no surprise.
This is also a controversial truth. I think the high divorce rates now are part of the self-help moment.
Just want to say even if your ideas never got through to a single person who needed to hear them, hearing these things expressed is a great balm to those of us who are deeply worried these important truths are being lost. Modern society insists those truths are crazy or naive and I feel like we’ve all got to be firm about this or people are going to end up sadder and more confused. It’s heartbreaking to see love itself defined out of all meaning just because consciousness people feel it might not be their place to gently challenge the authoritative unwell.
Brilliant
Dang Freya, absolutely fantastic!
Freya, I'm a 26 year old male (mature, I thought) and yet most times I hang out with friends I find myself bombarded with a monsoon of new dating phrases, catch words, and even, philosophies. Crikey, get me the hell out of here.
Sometimes I'll hang out with a friend that I haven't in a month or so, and they've got some new catch phrase about what kind of guy I am in a relationship, or some kind of psuedo-intellectual analysis of the person I'm dating. I get agitated because these catch phrases make them self-righteous and wise, as if they were entitiled to analyse my dating life in the first place.
And I get especially extra agitated at how these words complicate things. I personally keep things pretty simple in my head: how does this person make me feel?
Am I old school? Techincally, yes. But I'm sick and tired at the proliferation of these seducing catch-phrases, which so staunchly become the zietgeist that dating is only observed through their lenses.
Why don't we just hang out, try out best to make each other laugh and feel special, and if it ain't feeling good, let's bounce!
Attachment and or personality disorder is not a "disorder" but an internal blockade to social communication relevant to the self from the social context of accepting new information as relative to other social contexts i.e. Behaviors.
This is epistemic mistrust - the internal struggle & difficulty to trust & consider the truth of others input within social learning.
One's internal state of fear (irritation, anger, defensiveness) overrides all incoming information to the point of failure of learning healthy interrelatedness.
A curious, open,, & reflective mental stance are hallmarks of a balanced, integrated, & emotionally well-regulated human being..