29 days “lost” at sea, is therapy for all of the external bullshit we deal with every fucking day.
By “we” I mean people in society, not just men. Everyone struggles with making their way in “this world” we built for ourselves. We made it to be this horrible.
I watch some trash reality TV and always find it kind of funny how contestants spend a long amount of time internalizing the stress of the situation the show they agreed to be on is putting on them.
Half of Love Island is “Why did you kiss them?” “Why did you go on a date with that person?” “Why did you break up with me?” Guys it’s a SHOW. The SHOW is making you go through these completely unnatural circumstances!
And then I think about real life and it’s like “why don’t I have energy? why am I so depressed? why can’t I be more productive?” …guys it’s CAPITALISM/SOCIETY. SOCIETY is making you go through these completely unnatural circumstances!
…except of course I didn’t agree to be on this show.
I read this as more “not having to experience the daily news for a month and being horrified”.
The environment we created for ourselves takes advantage of our evolution and uses our biology against us.
Food is drowned in sugar to get us addicted. Social media is designed to keep us angry and upset. Entertainment is a recycled polished turd, designed to take no risks and challenge nothing and leave us only with shallow amusement.
We are losing our respect for the profound, our empathy for the other, and our curiosity for the unknown.
We have made a world of numbing poison for ourselves. A 29 day separation sounds like the most powerful “therapy” we could have tbh.
i was a camp host for a summer and it was possibly the best summer of my life. no power, no water, no internet, minimal contact with people, cleaning toilets, and spending half of my day in a kayak.
That sounds like a great way to spend a summer. I wouldn’t mind running water but I’d probably learn to appreciate it after not having it for a few months.
the unexamined life is not worth living
29 days without having to work all day long, deal with chores and family and whatever. And then sleep a couple of hours to do it again. This has nothing to deal with this person going to therapy.
Theraphy, when it works, only solves internal causes of one’s pain.
29 days away from present day society, will for a while suspend the external causes of one’s pain.
(Which is why the former usually doesn’t fully solve everything: the external shit, which often is what indirectly created much of the internal shit via things like trauma and coping mechanisms, is still there and pushing you)
I felt this comment.
Thanks, I hate it.
“lost at sea”
mf land right over there
???
If I had everything to survive, a way to go back and couple of books - sign me up.
Oh fuck off. Therapy won’t help with… *gestures at everything*
Agreed. It’s more like “people would rather be lost at sea than live in a modern society”.
How bad can it be? /s
Quit crying. You’ll be fine. Don’t be such a crybaby. Man up. Put on your big boy pants. Boys don’t cry. Boo hoo, gonna cry about it? Gonna cry like a little girl? Be a man. Face your problems like a man. Crying doesn’t help anything. Take it like a man. Don’t be a baby. You’re acting like a girl. Grow a pair. Suck it up and move on.
Why will men do literally anything besides talk about their feelings?
To be fair it’s also men doing this to other men mostly. Women participate in toxic masculinity too, but really, men give each other a lot of shit with very little support.
In my experience, when a man complains about their ‘men’ problems to anyone online they’re given the treatment grueling_spool is describing by both men and women.
But in more “insulated” face to face conversations its pretty varied/mixed. I suspect this is mostly an “all to all” online conversation effect. There are people who are absolutely ruthless online towards men complaining about problems men specifically face and they will find complaining men and mock them.
I think I probably agree with your assessment, but I really just wanted to highlight that this thinking is endemic to western culture, or at least the slice of it with which I am familiar. Sure, a lot of people might not say things like this face-to-face, but you probably wouldn’t be shocked if you witnessed it, would you?
Just like with any other harmful idea, all it takes is one person in a room to say it loudly and persistently while everyone else says nothing (or fecklessly points out the person’s gender as if dispensing some profound insight).
Without giving away my age (But I do predates smart phones and home internet use), I’ve found men are perfectly fine with venting assuming the setting is right. Small group? Beer? Sure. Something embarrassing happens in the moment? Not so much.
Its everyone but your male friends who will give you shit for showing any emotion but anger.
I can confirm this despite likely being younger. Small group and sufficient alcohol helps.
You say “everyone” but it’s still just other men.
Nope, I meant everyone.
Edit: Although I guess a more accurate term would be, “Every demographic” since not everyone of any demographic will be that way.
For sure, women usually say they want a man who can show his feelings. It’s just that the second he does cry about anything other than a dead child, she gets the ick and loses all respect for him, in my personal experience. I think they talk a big game but when the chips are down they find out they’re not actually as into it as they thought.
Ok, but in my experience, it is manflu they are whining about and having to do house chores while having it. Shit I deal with every fucking day.
Yeah I hate being understanding when my gf is sick or on her period too, like man up and wash them dishes bitch!
Oooooor you could be more understanding if one of you is under the weather regardless of gender I guess if you wanna be a loser.
anecdotally, as a guy in my thirties, even my acquaintances (wouldn’t actually consider them friends tbh, since we only hang out at rec game times) are quite supportive. sure there’s the surface level of shit talk, but if you start to get serious, they do too. a few of them surprised me with this.
in my experience nowadays, it’s equally just shitty people of any gender that say suck it up, no real bias one way or another
but that’s of course just my own circles. I tend to just drop out of (or not join in the first place) any circle that has shitty people
To be fair, who said it wasn’t also men?
Therapy has become the new buzzword to prescribe to any individualistic issue because most people don’t know what it is or who its for, they just think it’s a silver bullet solution to everything because everybody else says so… but it’s not.
Therapy is great for specific people with specific disorders, it’s there to help provide these people with solutions and treatments to improve their conditions. It’s not meant to be a replacement for a social circle or to fix the problems in your life.
Not to mention that therapy is either expensive or hard to access or the therapist you do get to see are usually not that great. It is very hard and very rare to find a good therapist that’s affordable and nearby. Even then, a therapist can only do so much. They’re trained to work through common disorders using several established methods, but not much beyond that. Therapists can help you overcome your anxiety, but they can’t help you find meaningful relationships.
This is doubly true for men, because a lot of men are facing issues related to finding purpose and meaning in life, and that’s something that’s beyond the scope of therapy. Maybe these issues could be resolved as a result of treating a disorder, but that’s not always the case. The point is that therapy is not a magical solution, and it’s not going to solve huge societal problems like men turning their backs on society.
You say men are turning their backs on society. I would argue it’s the other way round. Modern society has lots of problems unfortunately, and can be quite hostile especially to men.
I don’t think these two things are mutually exclusive
Yes this is very true. I think if anything they go hand in hand, if society is hostile towards you, you are equally more likely to turn your back on it. If you start turning away from society, people are more hostile, so it reinforces that decision. It’s still a systematic failing though. Society should be pulling people back from the brink, not pushing them further.
men built society. whatever problems are inherent in it were practically designed by men. as a matter of fact, the further we go, the more we slip away from the feminine qualities of our humanity (our more egalitarian hunter-gatherer roots). and as it begins to collapse around us, you incels are gonna cry about how it’s unfair? fuck you. put your big boy pants on and deal with it. or better yet, retreat completely from it and let the people with honest consciences rebuild it.
god, i fucking hate incels.
therapy also teaches a lot of sociopathic traits.
my SIL went through therapy recently (after getting into a weird polygamous relationship which allowed her the $$ to do so). she and my wife had lived through a pretty traumatic upbringing after their wonderful father died and left them to deal with a BPD mother who blew through the family money and left them to practically fend for themselves while being batshit crazy.
all the therapist taught her was to be selfish. she practically cut off contact with both her sister and mother and just got really good at doing what was best for herself and herself only. since then, her mother has become disabled and now my wife is having to deal with it all alone while the sister lives a very lavish life on a farm.
fuck therapy and fuck modern life in general. no wonder we’re all becoming assholes.
Therapy doesn’t help much if you have no power over the root cause
Totally get where you’re coming from. If you’re staring down the barrel of something massive like trauma, abuse, an entire system that’s completely fucked and seems way bigger than you and the others fighting it are or ever will be, it feels like no matter how much “self care” you do, the external crap stays the same, right?? It’s fucking maddening.
But idk, to me, therapy (actual, good therapy with a non-shitty therapist) isn’t about giving us power over the root cause, not always anyways because like you said, sometimes it’s impossible. Imo, a lot of times it’s about helping people stop handing more power to “it” (whatever it may be) than “it” already has. We don’t get to choose what happens to us sometimes, but we do get to choose how we respond to it, how we carry it, how we let it affect us, how we pass our pain onto others. It can be a super uncomfortable, yet extremely liberating, paradox. Like, okay, I might not be able to slay the dragon here (sorry, nerd here), but I can sure as hell stop feeding it in whatever way I was (constant unhealthy thought patterns, my own actions or the lack thereof, etc).
Therapy doesn’t fix the world for sure, but it can help us decide which parts of the suffering are necessary, or which parts we might be unconsciously choosing to carry longer than we need to. Idk, that’s where our power really is, imo.
Edit: fixed some typos
It sounds like you’re telling me to stop caring about climate change cause I’d be happier
Fair, it can teach you tools many people do not have
My therapist is taking two weeks off for their own mental health, been hearing the same woes from everyone and it’s weighing
No, we’d rather be lost at sea than have to participate in the broken society that makes people need therapy.
I lack the photoshop skills, but uh
The ‘plap plap GET PREGNANT’ meme, but with a therapist shouting:
‘accept what you can’t change’
‘don’t blame yourself for things out of your control’
‘oh, the copay is $125’
‘you missed the last appointment so we charged you for not canceling in advance’
‘im worried you’re not taking our sessions seriously’
sorry psych professionals, there is no ethical therapy under capitalism
i feel vindicated.
The ‘plap plap GET PREGNANT’ meme, but with a therapist shouting:
h’whut with h’whomb?
Ok, I may not have great photoshop skills, but I do have a knowledge of ancient memes:
there is no ethical therapy under capitalism
Lol
100%
But also, go to therapy
You can just do that. No one is stopping you from buying a canoe and floating away
This is therapy. if I could just drop out of everything for 29 days I’d come back refreshed and Zen as fuck.
If I could drop out of everything for 29 days, I wouldn’t come back at all.
I’m getting major surgery in two weeks and I’ll be on short term disability for an entire month afterwards. I’m honestly really looking forward to the time off, even if it’ll be full of physical suffering. My burnout outweighs the physical trauma of having nearly all of my reproductive organs removed.
I did the same, back during COVID lockdown. I think my body just started producing endorphins, because I stopped taking the painkillers and was totally at peace while everybody lost their minds over the isolation. I played The Outer Wilds and accepted that everything must end.
I feel guilty saying it, because I know I was in a privileged position, with a job that could be done remotely and living close to nature, but I fucking loved COVID lockdown. I can’t remember being so happy since childhood. Everything just slowed down, and I spent more time with my family.
Isn’t that called vacation? Just don’t bring any communications device ;)
I don’t know many people that can afford a 29 day vacation (I’m in the US, and yes I’m jealous of what I hear about European benefits)
I was on a work call the other day, listening to my peers complain about European work culture - “They just leave at 5:00 sharp, even if the project isn’t done! They’ll say ‘we’ll just pick it up in the morning and finish it then’ as if that’s good enough!” “You can’t contact them on weekends or vacations at all! They don’t even read and answer email!” “They take such long vacations! And just disappear! They won’t even take their work laptops with them or check in once! It’s so frustrating!”
I wanted to scream. Y’all realize we’re the crazy people, right?!
Yeah it’s pretty fantastic, even if by some miracle I don’t have to work, all I can afford to do is sit at home anyway.
That’s about 1 standard stint in rehab where I’m from
“men hate therapy”
Yeah not really. You just get beaten down after trying several therapists and paying a lot and not feeling better. Even if you went through that once, it’s very discouraging.
I have a great therapist these days who has helped me a lot. I still hate therapy. I did finally figure out why, though. Because, with the exception of therapy and a couple of really great people, everyone I’ve ever been vulnerable in front of has weaponized it against me. So even though I know my therapist wouldn’t actually do that I’m still waiting on it to come back and bite me.
Been dumped by three women, the day after they saw me cry. Good news! My wife is fine with it, as rare as crying is, and comforts me. But y’all women don’t have a good track record in my book.
Yeah, the weaponization factor is real.
Probably not what you want to hear, it really sucks to be in that spot, but it is possible to find good ones! I went through 3 therapists over the course of a couple of years before finding one that helped me.
Not to mention it just doesn’t work as well for men as it does for women.
Please say why it is that you believe that. It’s a fascinating claim.
What??
Agreed. What? I’ve never seen a study stating this. And anecdotally, it worked fine for me, once I found the right therapist, the first two were meh, not a good fit.
Just goes to show how insane society has become that you’d rather go to therapy than take a 29 day break by being lost at sea.
29 days away from reality is therapy.
There’s a tiny town in northern California called Downieville that my wife and I love to visit. It’s maybe 200 people, sits on the convergence of two decent sized rivers, and there is pretty much no cell service. Even just a week of sitting by that river is enough to fully recharge me and not want to break everything for at least 4 months.
“Gee I love working, can’t wait to reduce my down time to work some more.”
Society hasn’t become that bad. It’s becoming that bad again, and almost none of us are used to it.
Being lost at sea is reality. Society is the dream
