Quote:
Originally Posted by nickerjones
Can I ask a question that comes from a good place? It's a place of wanting to understand mental health issues.
Backstory:
When I was 22 I was in an auto accident and lost my first wife. I was obviously sad and upset. I remember family, friend, and tons of doctors asking about my mental state and If I has suicidal thoughts. I just never had any of those thoughts.
Fast Forward to now. I have some friends attempt suicide and some friend commit suicide.
I find it extremely hard to empathize with them because I never had these thoughts. Even in , what I perceive as, the hardest part of my life I never suffered depression or suicidal thoughts.
I feel ####ty because I think I might have downplayed other's issues because I can't understand the place their struggle came from. I know mental health issues are real. Is there anything I can do to become more educated on the issues?
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This isn't unusual.
I watched my only sibling die at at 23 when I was 21, and her son whom we adopted was lost to suicide 17 years later at the age of 22. Forgive me if my GAF-o-meter is broken when you are bawling your eyes out because you couldn't get approved for a credit card, or your girlfriend/boyfriend was seen dancing with someone else at a club or your car was vandalised.
When you've experienced traumatic, close loss, your perspective changes immensely. Both in how you perceive others problems, and how you are impacted by challenges in life. After going through those two close deaths, and another serious issue I had to deal with as a kid, it's pretty much got to be the worst of the worst now, to make me upset or emotional.
You just get numbed to emotional pain as your emotional pain-o-meter has already been cranked to 11 a few times in your life. And things just don't hurt as much anymore. Sometimes it makes you come off as cold to others, when in reality, you've experienced emotional trauma most people will never feel in 3 lifetimes. It doesn't make it right to be flippant, but you just kid of come across that way.
Some people go the other way, and spiral into depression and get worse. Although I have struggled with depression at points in my life, I find the best way to snap myself out of it, is to remind myself of those absolute darkest days, and where I am sitting at that moment in time, and how much better it is than then.
I've tried therapy, and all therapists seem to be interested in is how much you beat your meat, and what your sexual fetishes are. I'm of the opinion a large percentage of them are extremely damaged and predatory individuals themselves. The types of people that like slow down for car wrecks and snap photos of the carnage. The last psychologist I was with, I saw through all of her BS, when she suggested it was OK to wank it in her office in front of her if I felt comfortable. Like out of nowhere. She was simply a dirty old lady.
It was the last straw with mental health professionals for me, as I was also treated as a child by a somewhat 'infamous' local shrink that made the news for 'impropriety'. He would spend sessions asking me what I thought body parts and organs tasted like, and would describe to me what he thought it tasted like. I was 8 at the time, and nobody believed me. Thank god he finally got thrown in jail.
After the wanker lady, I walked out, never went back to one. I've just learned to deal with things internally, and I find my contrasting technique to be the most effective thing I have found at any price. I just can trust any mental health professionals anymore. It is very difficult to trust someone who leverages your abuse, into a form of abuse. And unfortunately I have learned this is not uncommon with psychologist and therapists.