Modern Psychology and Suicide
Modern psychology is framed as the last defense against a suicidal person’s impulses but this is framing it too charitably.
Modern psychology is all about the atomized individual. It is wrong to need people as it is wrong to have people to need you. This weakens social obligations. It’s even considered abuse to threaten suicide because others’ comfort is deemed more important than your existence. Modern psychology revolves around autonomy and personal choice and those two things together play an important role in suicide. We teach people that everyone is responsible for their own feelings but don’t realize the implications of this when there is a suicide.
Expectations of happiness and success are making people closer to the bottom miserable. Modern psychology plays lip service to the idea of contentment but as a driver of culture via advertising and addictive mobile apps it is more than happy to blast late stage capitalism’s version of success and correct being into our faces. The prescient Arcade Fire song Creature Comfort summarized it well, “Born in a diamond mine / It’s all around you, but you can’t touch it”. A lot has been written about this but keep in mind it is business to business psychology, where businesses harness psychology to manipulate the public via advertising and addictive mobile apps, that is producing this. Through all of human history life has been mostly miserable but the difference was people didn’t expect to be happy most of the time. This is a very modern thing. Feeling bad is universal but feeling bad about feeling bad is relatively new.
Psychology doesn’t possess the means to give people the will to live. Psychologists are in above their heads being expected to instill in people the will to live. Often long before the actual suicide people have lost the will to live and they are just going through the motions waiting for an exit. Belief in the afterlife was a powerful deterrent for suicide not just because of threat of hell but because of the fact you would see people who survived your suicide again. Psychology can’t strike from beyond the grave and that puts it at a disadvantage when trying to prevent suicide.
Time to Confess my Psyns
I confess that I have psynned in thought, word, and deed. I confess that I have said and done things that modern psychology deems “unhealthy”.
I confess that I have not lived life as an atomized individual and have been less productive, less successful, and less whole due to this. I do independent projects when there is an audience for them. I exercise when someone pushes me to go with them. I am productive when I have structure (which I rarely do because I’m on the bottom and most people won’t touch me with a ten foot pole). I have committed the unpardonable psyn because I’m codependant and would lose everything if I lost my mother.
I confess that I possess low but accurate self-esteem. I reserve the right to feel whatever I want about myself as psychology’s mantra is “you do you”. I do not believe I have innate worth because as someone who people have deemed OK to treat like shit I don’t experience it. Trying to get me to build self-esteem is like outfitting a submarine with a screen door because as a man my value as a human being comes from what I contribute to society (and society affirms this is true by the way it treats men like me who lose).
I confess I don’t give people the benefit of the doubt but I’m going to keep doing it because they have lost my trust. I get it that you want me to assume people are good even when they have proven time and time again that they are otherwise. I know you want people to feel that they’re basically good and that the confabulations they’re spewing in therapy have a basis in reality because you make a living largely based on telling people what they what they want to hear.
I confess most of my thoughts are negative and that makes you uncomfortable. Speaking truth to power is rarely sunshine and rainbows though. My experiences are commensurate with my thoughts. If I have good experiences I’ll have good thoughts. If not, I won’t. Efforts to try to get me concoct confabulations about my past to get me to feel better about myself are not going to work because one prick of truth can pop that reality distortion bubble so I’d rather not build of a bulwark of bullshit that is going to splatter in my face when I need it most.
I confess I am beyond help because I can’t use your SSRI anti depressants. Because I’m bipolar I can’t be on the only medication that helps mitigate the stress of depression and helps one to be more atomized. Just like the social dynamic is different when you are sober while others are drinking, the dynamic of therapy isn’t the same without SSRI’s which help one put into practice the religion of modern psychology.
How to advocate for yourself at the doctor’s office
Apparently trying to get pain treatment is too hot for Reddit. You learn something new every day..
Physical Health
- When the HCP (health care professional) isn’t taking your pain seriously:
The pain I’m experiencing is impacting my life in X way. I cannot tolerate it. You need to review what you’re doing to help me.
This pain is not normal. My daily life is being interrupted by this pain. Your treatment is not adequate.
Telling me to bear the pain is not helpful. What options are you not telling me? What could this pain mean that you have ruled out? Why did you rule X out?
You are not handling my pain management effectively. If you think I’m exaggerating, you need to remove your personal thoughts from this. I am not going to leave without a new pain management plan.
- When the HCP says it’s “normal”
What evidence do you have that this is normal? What have you done to rule out other possibilities?
This might be normal for other people, it is not normal to me. I need you to rule out X before you tell me it’s normal.
Wouldn’t you rather be safe than sorry? Please explain what this could mean and why it wouldn’t apply to me?
If this is normal why is it impacting me in X way? Do not ignore my symptoms because it’s easier to. This is like when HCPs ignore endometriosis, are you one of those HCPs?
My family history includes X. How have you taken that into account?
- When the HCP says that the solution is losing weight
If I was at the weight you want me to be, and I had the same symptoms, what would the treatment plan be?
Why is there no other component to the treatment plan? What will losing weight do?
Are you aware of the HAES movement in the medical community? Do you support it? (If answer is no) I need you to employ their principle of including other options in the treatment plan. This is non-negotiable.
If I was skinny, what would you do? Why is that not part of your plan now?
Why is the first solution weight related? You need to include more to this plan.
Weight loss is not attainable for me. What else can I do? What are you not mentioning? Have you done everything else?
My condition X prevents me from losing weight. Why are you not considering that in my treatment plan?
- When the HCP says “it’s all in your head”
I know my body. I am experiencing X and it is not normal. You need to tell me what you ruled out and why.
How did you end up at that conclusion? Why would it be in my head?
If I was a man presenting with these symptoms, what would you do?
No, it is not. My pain is real. You need to come up with a treatment plan and explain what you’re doing to help me.
X is not in my head. Stop dismissing me. Explain why you’re saying this. I need a thorough response!
Mental Health
- When the HCP says that you should “just think good thoughts”
Show me evidence that this a valid treatment for the symptom X I’m experiencing.
Why are you saying that? What source tells you to talk to patients this way?
Good thoughts are not something my mind produces anymore because of X. Stop ignoring my concerns and give me concrete solutions.
Good thoughts are not a valid treatment for X. How did you end up there?
- When the HCP says “you’re too functioning/good/social/energetic/happy to have X”
Just because I learned to work around X doesn’t mean I don’t have it. Why are you ignoring my concerns?
My attitude and personality should not be factors in your evaluation of X. Why are you basing your conclusion off of outdated stereotypes?
That isn’t a factor in X. You are purposely using my coping mechanisms to dismiss me. Stop. Please review the DSM-5 manual and show me how X doesn’t apply to me.
You are a professional. You should recognize that X affects people differently. Just because I have created ways to work around it doesn’t mean you should pretend I’m okay. I have been experiencing Y symptoms. Why are you ignoring them?
X presents differently in women. Why are you using outdated information to deny me a diagnosis?
- When the HCP starts talking about themselves
I appreciate that you feel comfortable talking about yourself. Unfortunately, I don’t have the emotional capacity to carry another person’s load. Please focus on me.
This is my session. The current discussion is unhelpful.
I am not understanding how this is relevant to my treatment. Can we circle back to my issue?
Your current content is not helping me. Can we do X instead?
When you talk about yourself, you make me feel worse. The treatment plan includes X, can we do that instead?
I hope this helps y’all!
Edit:
I have read a lot of your comments, and while I am quite sure some of them come from a fatphobic standpoint, let’s put that aside to understand why this comes across as adversarial and “rude.”
Women and minorities have experienced less quality of care in medicine for years. This has been extensively covered in the following (the John Oliver thing leads you to several sources)
John Oliver covering it in an LWT episode
This Harvard article outlines strategies they have employed to combat bias in medicine
Another Harvard article discussing racial bias in medicine
This Yale med school article discusses studies in this area
From personal experience, doctors are less likely to ignore your symptoms if you are firm and somewhat “adversarial.” I have seen these phrases and sentences work in real life. I have seen doctors change their minds and explore other options only to find out they were wrong originally.
Thank you to everyone who gave awards. I appreciate you. Thank you to the comments sharing your bias in medicine stories. You are brave and you are right to advocate for yourself. Please keep sharing your stories, we need this to be taken more seriously.
Both Sides
It’s important to know that both genders get hate when they are honest about the way society really works.
Vulnerability
This should be required watching for any man tempted into the trap of vulnerability
Ratchet
Things in modern life works like a ratchet. It only turns one way. I volunteer and get next to nothing for it, not a scrap of social capital to be accepted and included with people who could lift me from my sorry state. Then due to my disability I take from the government for healthcare and dole without reciprocating a smidgen. People on the right wanted to remedy this by the Medicaid work requirement where people would have to work for their healthcare.
When things only turn one way you miss the reciprocity that built up social bonds in the past. Granted modern psychology doesn’t like reciprocity arrangements very much, if one is performing something virtuous and is hoping for something in return that is somehow pathological even though it was a thing that undergirded society for millennia.
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