What the therapist doesn’t understand is that the anger is not just about mom dying. It’s about how everyone around this person failed them in a moment of danger, and as a result of that her mom died a horrible death. And even later, her society was collectively unable to acknowledge its behavior and the consequences it had.
I did not lose my mom but I did work in a hospital as a physician throughout the pandemic. I remember the ICU being full from Covid patients to the point that the hospital had to open new sections up and nurses working overtime to accommodate all of the sick. Then I would leave the hospital after providing care to all of these sick and dying people… and go to the grocery store where everyone was refusing to even mask up and I would see ghoulish politicians who were talking about how it was a hoax. I could see this catastrophe happening in front of my own eyes and everyone around me just wanted to pretend it was fake.
I didn’t suffer the loss this woman did but those terrible experiences and the feeling that my community had completely failed its members forever changed how I see people and the society I live in. So yeah, I get why she is still mad.
My wife worked in ICU then COVID ICU. She still gets PTSD flashbacks from everything she dealt with when someone comes in with similar symptoms. I got front row tickets to seeing a person who's entire job is to keep people alive go from "oh someone I had today coded and we couldn't bring them back" every so often to "we had multiple people die today. A few more aren't much longer. If we put them on their back, they'll die. If we give them water, they'll choke and die. They still refuse to believe that COVID is real as they are actively suffering and dying of it".
Yeah, we get a touch testy when people say it was fake or overblown
My thought was that staying home and self medicate is better choice than ICU. Virus is new, nobody knows how to treat it properly, too many sick people and not enough doctors. Everybody sick thus constant exposure to virus and other patalogies that came from weakened immune system. And I did a right thing forcing parents to stay at home.
It bothers me to this day that people thought it was a hoax. A lot of people I knew who thought it was a hoax wound up catching Covid, though none of them were hospitalized over it, which honestly kinda sucks because it means they didn't learn their lesson.
One of the doctors I worked with bought into the craziness and was arguing with the hospital about vaccines and masks even as our ICU was about to burst. Then his wife caught it and ended up in the ICU as a patient. He still did not change his mind despite her being in the hospital, and this was a physician.
I guess what I’m saying is they still probably wouldn’t have learned. I don’t mean to be so pessimistic but propaganda is so powerful.
Michael Shermer said this a long time ago but he said, "Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."
Found out a few coworkers thought it was a hoax and casually brought up how it not only almost killed me, the guy I caught it from (a vocal antivaxxer!) DID die. I know dozens of people hospitalized and dozens more who suffered. I had jobs canceled because the client died.
They both worked office (then WFH) jobs during COVID. I worked 55+ hours a week in people's homes and businesses. Who do you think has a better idea of the reality of the situation?
well, an aunt in-law got it, so did her husband, she was in a coma for like 3 months, he died, she can't use one arm anymore and has a litany of other complications stemming from the ordeal (and the grief). Do you think she learned her lesson? I'll let you guess
tbf, she can't learn her lesson without realizing / accepting that her (and dead husband's) actions are the reason for all her suffering, for him being dead, they are responsible for their misery, that she played a hand at getting her husband to the grave.
I was routinely being sent to places like Texas to work during the pandemic because they didn't care. It made me so mad being down there and getting made fun of for wearing a mask when where I live, you couldn't go into any building without one.
@greatwhitebuffalo41 I know the feeling. I walked around Texas with a bunch of fucking idiots who couldn't be bothered to accommodate the sick and helpless. At least I did my part and wore a mask.
It still isn't. People still get Covid and Post Covid and governments are telling all these chronically ill people that they're "lazy" and must work 40 hours a week or lose their insurance, pensions, etc.
I worked at a nursing home at that time. So many people died or were impacted, an entire wing got shut down because of how many patients were lost. It then re-opened to be exclusively for Covid patients.
My grandma died there. I was the last relative to see her alive. The day before she passed, I called all of my aunts/uncles, siblings, and some of my cousins (the ones closest to her) so they could say their goodbyes. As anyone who’s worked with dying patients knows, sometimes people cling on and suffer in a terminal state until they get closure from a relative giving them “permission” to let go. I had to be that person. I told her that it’s okay, that we all love her and we understand. Although she appeared catatonic, right after I said that, a tear rolled down her eye. I think she heard me and understood, though there’s no way to really know. It was a hard day. She passed the next morning.
Sometime last year, I heard someone say something to the effect of "I think the pandemic had a pretty major effect on all of us," and for a moment I thought "honestly I think I got through it fairly unscathed" because I was only considering my tolerance for the disruption to my life at the time. I was in a financially secure position and had plenty of social contact with friends through online gaming. I never felt any more depressed than normal throughout "quarantine" insofar as we even had one. Got my vaccines. Never tested positive. Didn't lose anyone close to me (to the illness). Overall, I thought I'd made it through pretty alright.
Then I thought for just a few seconds more and I realized that the pandemic is what caused me to literally give up on humanity. Seeing how little everyone cared about anyone who was actually affected. People making posts online about how it was "fake" when people all over the world were dying. The ones who refused to wear a mask. Such a simple fucking request. Put this cloth over your face for a while and you can help not get people killed, but they still wouldn't do it. I lived in a more rural area at the time, so it took a while for things to get really bad there. I remember thinking "you idiots will change your tune when it's your grandmother dying" and then they just didn't... Their own friends and family dying around them and most just slid further into conspiracy and paranoia.
The whole experience just fundamentally reshaped what I believe about humans and I don't think anything will ever be able to switch things back. It reminds me of the scene in Terminator where John Connor says "We're not gonna make it are we? People, I mean."
Just a quiet resignation to the reality that left with nothing more than our own devices and all the resources we'd need to persist until the heat death of the universe, we'll likely end up going extinct due to something completely preventable and probably caused by us. We choose our own destruction.
I didn't feel this way before covid. I used to believe we'd eventually figure things out. Not anymore.
Okay, but, my fellow tumblrite, therapy isn't going to help with that. When you went to your therapist, they assumed you want to stop feeling a certain way and feel different. If you don't want the help they can offer to achieve that (which is valid), why are you there?
A mental health therapist can and should be able to help a client manage their righteous anger as they work their way through it together. Anger underlies a great many things, and grief is one of them. You don't just say, "I don't want to feel angry," or just decide, "I'm not going to be angry about this anymore," when the rage is this broad and deep and well-established: in time, that kind of denial and repression is just going to explode in your face, if it works at all.
Instead, because anger is very well understood, there are known ways to deal with it. Anger doesn't just disappear on its own, nor even very quickly, and a person suffering this kind of grief could use some assistance diving into the anger and the very exact specifics that are causing it. The therapist should be able to navigate this presenting anger with relative ease and guide the client through it, not just with skillful therapeutic inquiries to get to the very specific root of this writer's unique grief which is where they'd start, but also with coping skills to give the client to be able to self-manage their righteous rage for as long as it takes them to work through it and clear it so that their overwhelming grief can resolve.
This therapist is doing none of that. Instead, they are just offering commentary on the presence and length of the anger as though they're watching a movie, when they could and should be helping the writer sort it out and work through it. That's not on the writer, that's on the therapist.
No, they really don't. What they want is to feel better, and for their therapist to stop playing "no shit Sherlock" with their pain by pointing out obvious irrelevancies in regard to it.
What they want to hold onto is the very specific, unique truth to their grief that is invariably found behind the anger. When they find it, that very specific point or points fueling the rage, they no longer need the anger: it has served its purpose.
That's not in the post though. It might be true but the post is saying they want to stay angry (until society properly deals with the fallout from the pandemic). Anything else is your interpretation based on what might seem logical but without even knowing them.
It's not saying that they want to stay angry, it's that being angry about it is righteous and justified, and everyone should be angry enough about it to prevent something like it from ever happening again. But half of people still don't even acknowledge covid was real, nevermind the social issues it exposed. Being angry is a reasonable response.
I think it's more "stop telling me that being angry isn't an appropriate response to current social issues." The therapist could be working on coping strategies or mindfulness techniques to deal with the anger in constructive ways.
Lol, no. Why would this writer by choice be paying a therapist his time and cash to painfully bare his soul so that the therapist can say idiotic things to him and not just assist him in remaining exactly where he is, but actively make it worse?
Dude, he could get that for free (and probably already is from friends and family telling him he needs to "move forward" like that's just a decision he can make).
Look again. That person is simply telling the therapist they will not release their anger just because society has said it's been long enough. That's just not how it works, and this writer knows it. The writer will release the anger when the anger has served its purpose. That is not accomplished with facile lies, much less casual grief-shaming.
Frankly, a therapist should know what purpose anger serves off the top of their head: that alone would guide them forward. Not everyone does, and that's okay, just not so much in a therapist.
But when you can't recognize a overt cry of anguish and grief, and you mistake someone correcting their therapist from that place of inner agony for someone that "wants to stay angry," all you're really telling me is that you've never had a situation like the writer's, nor a therapist that could take you through your darkest hour and help you see what you needed to see to get back out of the cave of your grief again.
I know this comes as news to you, but this has all been studied literally since the beginning of time. Anger was discussed by the earliest philosophers. The writer openly describes it himself.
So what's the diagnosis I've provided? Do you even know what an diagnosis is, or is that just a word you threw at me because it sounded smart and -- wait for it -- you're angry?
i think a therapist should be able to help their patient with feels that are the correct reactions to a situation, without resulting to a "why aren't you over this already?"
i bet this specific form of anger also makes the patient feel incredibly hopeless, so their mind has a choice - to feel anger, or despair, they chose anger, and it needs to be worked through in a healthy way, not just gotten over with
What is a healthy reaction to the realization that you live in a society that does not care for you? That rewards sociopaths who will lie for their own wealth and power in ways that kill millions?
i've got no idea man. maybe trying to do activism?
my imperfect solution was to limit media intake, i'm fully aware i'm just holding hands in front of my eyes pretending i don't see - but you know what, i'm no longer depressed, i'm no longer riddled with anxiety... so i guess plugging your ears and going lalalalala works. (i have to add that i do my best to stay kind of informed, but not too much. basically whatever memes give me, i'll know)
One where you channel the anger into positive change. For some that's volunteering and doing something to help the cause they're so angry about, for others it may be working hard to emigrate to a different country that doesn't embrace disease as a virtue. That's where the therapist can help, not by invalidating the patient's feeling, which everyone should learn in psychology 101.
Exactly. Whether or not you feel justified in your anger and grief, it is maladaptive to hold onto them if it is preventing you from living your life. You can move past awful things, but you have to actually recognize the issue and want to change.
It is no measure of health to be well adapted to profoundly sick society.
At what point do we acknowledge that YOUR response is maladaptive for the human race as a whole because it has led us here? It has led us to this point. You people who decide that feeling calm and at ease is more important than dealing with dangerous people or situations.
I am angry because these things are still present. I am angry because they are not being dealt with in any way. If you want me to "adapt" to my environment and learn to live with the evils that take place daily, to not be angry when I see mothers liquified by our bombs, to be calm when I see police drag a man out of a council meeting for clapping 3 times, you can get fucked.
You can get absolutely fucked. I will remain BLOODTHRISTY AND CONSUMED BY RAGE until I can QUENCH MY FUCKING THIRST.
It isn't about the external world though. You could live in an utopia, experience grief and loss, and be unable to feel happy or do the things you want to do for your whole life because of it.
Regardless of the condition of the world, you would suffer. Suffering is an internal, mental state.
I think it is best to try to reduce that suffering as an end in itself. But you could also think about it in terms of helping the suffering person achieve whatever it is that they want. No matter what it is they want to do, letting go of their attachment to their suffering will be beneficial. That includes changing the material conditions that caused the event in the first place. It is easier to do that if you aren't suffering.
Also, that is not to say they just "forget" and move on. It is simply that their relationship to the event that caused the suffering has changed. You can accept that the event occurred and that you suffered, but not allow it to cause you further suffering. That's easier said than done, but it is possible if someone wants to attempt it.
What happens when people let go of their suffering is that they let go of any real drive to do anything about it. I have known people that have suffered and through counseling have bettered their life. But the thing that caused their suffering? Unaffected. Unchanged. And if not forgotten, ignored or some small pittance of virtue signaling that they care about it. Our society is so unbelievably shit at solving problems. We only ever sweep them under the rug.
Economic crash? Bailout
People hit by cars while walking on the road because there is not sidewalk? They shouldn't walk on the road, idiots. Forgotten
Wealth disparity? Ooh look! Another subscription to an app I use once a month.
People don't even attribute the suffering to its actual cause most of the time.
If we want to change things, you need the impetus of extreme emotion to really get shit done. If you have relieved yourself of the suffering, of the anger or grief or fear of something, how could you care about it? How could you possibly claim to care about it to the same degree?
People only want to be comfortable. They don't want to make the world better, as long as they are comfortable in their own little heads.
Yes. Maybe the anger is justified, but is it helpful?
Being furious all the time is really hard on your body. It's hard on your relationships with other people.
Anger is useful in a fight where it can be used to overcome fear and ignore pain. But, it's hard to go to bed and get a good night's rest if you're still seething with anger.
Maybe, sometimes, anger can be a good thing in the long term if you want to maintain the energy needed to get a law changed or something. That's not something that happens overnight, and it's easy to get discouraged. But, you need to be able to balance that with being able to sleep properly, to socialize, to perform well enough at your job so you don't get fired and don't end up homeless.
If you just want to be angry, then stop wasting the therapist's time, and wasting your own money.
Yes. Maybe the anger is justified, but is it helpful?
Being furious all the time is really hard on your body. It's hard on your relationships with other people.
Anger is useful in a fight where it can be used to overcome fear and ignore pain. But, it's hard to go to bed and get a good night's rest if you're still seething with anger.
Maybe, sometimes, anger can be a good thing in the long term if you want to maintain the energy needed to get a law changed or something. That's not something that happens overnight, and it's easy to get discouraged. But, you need to be able to balance that with being able to sleep properly, to socialize, to perform well enough at your job so you don't get fired and don't end up homeless.
If you just want to be angry, then stop wasting the therapist's time, and wasting your own money.
Member when the government cared about monopolies and forced companies to split completely when they got too much market share?
Or that time a deadly flu swept through the world and while it did kill a bunch of people (and change the course of history in interesting ways), people and the government followed best practices known by science at the time and social distanced/masked up as best they understood it? Yeah, it got a racial nickname of Spanish flu despite it not originating there but still.
Anger is pathologized primarilybecause our entire economic and social order is built of pure, unadulterated injustice, and if you're allowed to be angry at injustices, the entire system might collapse.
Anyone trivializing or pathologizing anger is spreading the propaganda of the ruling class whether they mean to or not.
Yes, and from your comment history I'm quite sure you haven't, but you've absorbed some US State Department propaganda and mistaken it for research, so you have that going for you.
The problem is there's no accountability anywhere. I'm a bit older so for me it's been 9/11, Iraq with WMD lies, Afghanistan Taliban replaced by the Taliban, Arming the Latin Cartels, Panama Papers, COVID, Epstein Files, Bailouts for Wallstreet, there are more for sure but nobody is ever held to account for anything. The bigger the lie the bigger the corruption the more it just gets swept away like nothing happened. It causes you to lose faith in your country and die a little inside each time. So I get it.
Dude I'm older than you, so I remember all that, as well as Iran-Contra, AIDS, Watergate (the last scandal for which there were consequences), Vietnam, My Lai, Nixon, the Arab Oil Embargo, the insane inflation of the 70s, Kent State, a whole bunch of assassinations, the Iran Hostage Situation, and a lot more.
Imagine over 60 years of seeing your government do all sorts of stupid things, with virtually no consequences at all (except Watergate, a little bit).
The problem isn't anger nearly so much as "What are you going to do with that rage?"
And the answer seems to be "Go on the internet and type in all caps at other people!" Which... hey, I guess that works. We seem to have a lot of very angry people online and they do seem to be venting their frustration at one another very effectively.
We also have a growing number of police, military recruits, and paramilitary forces who also spend a bunch of time online working themselves up into terrified rage. And then they get to go out with guns and batons and tear gas to square off against civilians who have been terrified in turn.
Then we have a congo line of politicians show up to say "Vote for me and I will end the terror!" And then we get an even bigger police and paramilitary state, which maybe gets used to suppress the political opponents some of the time. But mostly just gets used to attack the homeless, round up immigrants, and bomb brown people living abroad. So now the whole world can feel terrified and angry. And we can be terrified and angry of that in turn.
Just speaking for myself (as someone who tends to go online and speak in all caps) I think that is perhaps a better way to deal with my rage at the world than taking it out on other people in the real world, or picking up a gun and shooting at other people in the real world.
It might annoy the people at whom I am speaking in all caps, but on the other hand at least no innocent bystanders end up with bullet wounds in them.
It really pisses me off because I'm generally quite pro individual liberty, but just as your freedom to swing your arm ends a few centimeters in front of my nose, you have a responsibility to take reasonable precautions to prevent the spread of infectious disease.
Wearing a mask for 2 years was a reasonable request. Getting vaccinated was a reasonable request. Social distancing and limiting association during a pandemic was a reasonable request
Liberty is the twin sister of responsibility. In a world where people are aware, cognizant and rational, nearly all regulations reduce to common sense. That's a big part of why I feel like actual libertarians should be royally pissed off at that shit - because people seriously behaving on behalf of idiotic conspiracies erodes everyone's freedom.
I have two neices. Their mom and dad both said covid wasn't real or it was a government psyop or it was Obama's fault or whatever.
Then their mom died of covid. Their dad still doesn't think it's real.
I don't understand it. I got two jabs and wore a mask, and the worst thing that happened to my wife and I throughout the pandemic was a sore spot on our arm for a day. Neither of us has ever had covid, or we had such a mild case that we never noticed. And all we had to do was... take some really basic precautions.
but, you see, those basic precautions require having empathy and caring about other people.. and, sadly, the idea of America Exceptionalistic Individualism, has destroyed empathy and the ability to care for anyone outside of yourself in a disgustingly large swathe of the population.
Which is why they mock, deride, and laugh.. until it affects them, then, and ONLY then, must there be decorum and understanding.
It doesn't even require empathy. It requires an appreciation for basic cause and effect slightly above that of a toddler. Covid denialism is an ego thing. These people made a decision and are so fragile that they would rather deny basic observable reality before admitting they are wrong. "Don't look up" fucking nailed it.
require having empathy and caring about other people
Sure, but they also require that you believe what you're seeing on the news.
I have empathy and care about other people. But, my mom is a conspiracy nut. She goes on rants about chemtrails, or the dangers of fluoride, or 5G, or nanoparticles. I want what's best for her, and I sympathize with her, but I don't believe any of these things are true. So, if she tells me I should change my behaviour because of these conspiracies, I'm not going to do it. The fact I continue to use WiFi doesn't mean I lack empathy or don't care about other people, it means that I don't think her conspiracy theories are correct.
My mother is (more or less) a person who cares about other people, but she wouldn't put on a mask during COVID because she didn't believe that it was a real disease, and didn't believe that masks worked, and she also did believe conspiracies that masks were dangerous to wear.
My mother thinks that the mainstream press can't be trusted about anything. Unfortunately, the people she believes are telling the truth are essentially anonymous accounts on some conspiracy forum. Many of them get their news from Newsmax or Infowars or the KGB.
I think the mainstream press can be trusted about many things, but that they're also in bed with big business and will often uncritically just report what a lot of big companies say without challenging it.
So, when the mainstream press says there's a pandemic and that we need to adopt certain behaviours to avoid it spreading, I believe it and want to do those things, my mother doesn't. But, when the press says that OpenAI has a new model that's on the verge of being sentient, that broke out of its containment and hacked another site, I think that's an absolute bullshit way of framing what happened.
It really comes down to how the US has slowly allowed the rich to take control and to warp everything to benefit themselves. Schools are not funded properly, and kids graduate without critical thinking skills. Media is captive to the wealthy interests, and at best is sensationalist and shallow, with talking heads yelling at each-other, or showing helicopter-shots of car chases. At worst, it's outright lies and propaganda favouring one party or one special interest group. And, because the US is such a big force in the world, and such a big source of media, this affects the whole world.
If people can't agree on a shared set of facts about the world, they can't make rational decisions. So, someone not wearing a mask might mean they lack empathy, or it might mean that they don't believe the news about COVID, or it might mean that they think the story of a major CHEMTRAIL attack that was leaked on the conspiracy forum wasn't actually real.
I had a lot of fun when people would hassle me about the mask. Id say it was to hide my face from the HillaryObamaSoros facial recognition cameras, and that they were free to give their face away if they wanted.
It helps if you can figure out how to get through the propoganda to talk to people. Directly pointing out how fucking stupid they are won't work. But making it look silly to their eyes does work. I've recently been able to convince some people in my red state that solar panels are a way to make power that is independent of oil, coal, amd nuclear. That if they get solar panels they will cheat the power company out of their money.
The best part is pointing out that I can't make a gallon of gasoline, but I can make a kilowatt-hour of electricity with things I have lying around my house and charge my car.
require having empathy and caring about other people
Sure, but they also require that you believe what you're seeing on the news.
I have empathy and care about other people. But, my mom is a conspiracy nut. She goes on rants about chemtrails, or the dangers of fluoride, or 5G, or nanoparticles. I want what's best for her, and I sympathize with her, but I don't believe any of these things are true. So, if she tells me I should change my behaviour because of these conspiracies, I'm not going to do it. The fact I continue to use WiFi doesn't mean I lack empathy or don't care about other people, it means that I don't think her conspiracy theories are correct.
My mother is (more or less) a person who cares about other people, but she wouldn't put on a mask during COVID because she didn't believe that it was a real disease, and didn't believe that masks worked, and she also did believe conspiracies that masks were dangerous to wear.
My mother thinks that the mainstream press can't be trusted about anything. Unfortunately, the people she believes are telling the truth are essentially anonymous accounts on some conspiracy forum. Many of them get their news from Newsmax or Infowars or the KGB.
I think the mainstream press can be trusted about many things, but that they're also in bed with big business and will often uncritically just report what a lot of big companies say without challenging it.
So, when the mainstream press says there's a pandemic and that we need to adopt certain behaviours to avoid it spreading, I believe it and want to do those things, my mother doesn't. But, when the press says that OpenAI has a new model that's on the verge of being sentient, that broke out of its containment and hacked another site, I think that's an absolute bullshit way of framing what happened.
It really comes down to how the US has slowly allowed the rich to take control and to warp everything to benefit themselves. Schools are not funded properly, and kids graduate without critical thinking skills. Media is captive to the wealthy interests, and at best is sensationalist and shallow, with talking heads yelling at each-other, or showing helicopter-shots of car chases. At worst, it's outright lies and propaganda favouring one party or one special interest group. And, because the US is such a big force in the world, and such a big source of media, this affects the whole world.
If people can't agree on a shared set of facts about the world, they can't make rational decisions. So, someone not wearing a mask might mean they lack empathy, or it might mean that they don't believe the news about COVID, or it might mean that they think the story of a major CHEMTRAIL attack that was leaked on the conspiracy forum wasn't actually real.
I'm really not sure. He has had covid. I do know that his children have both mentally browbeat him to either get him to accept reality, or shut the fuck up.
I feel increasingly lost in a world that says it's bad to feel angry, depressed, and anxious all the time when those seem to be perfectly reasonable reactions to things going on around us. To me, it feels less sane to be upbeat and positive.
"If you're conscious you must be depressed, or at least cynical" - MGMT
If you put an animal in a cage which is too small for it, or where it's mistreated, or where it just lacks any enrichment, you don't diagnose it as insane when it starts slamming its head against walls or pacing back and forth. You recognize that the environment is the problem. Humans are animals too, even though we like to pretend otherwise.
You do need to have some dissonance in order to be happy. The unfortunate truth is that we cannot fix everything going on around the world; we just aren’t equipped to handle such information as often as we do anyway (or so I’ve read). I stopped watching or reading most news and focus on my local communities for the sake of my own sanity, focusing on problems I can actually help with.
One family living down the road from me lost an adult son to COVID because the 3 men of the house, father & 2 sons, believe(d) that the vaccine makes men sterile and of course they refused to wear masks. Despite mandates against large indoor gatherings, the family opted to have a funeral service with 100+ people packed into the church. A bunch of attendees ended up with COVID in the week or two following, one of which died. Very likely, the bulk of those folks got it at the funeral, as there are photos showing that almost nobody was wearing a mask nor social distancing.
Another set of neighbors, the wife was homebound due to poor health, but otherwise she still managed keeping up with yard and house work, cooking, cleaning, taking care of herself, etc. The husband spent his days of retirement out gallivanting with his buddies, hanging out unmasked and unvaxxed at bars, and places like that. The wife who never left the house, ended up with COVID. Pretty obvious he gave it to her considering he was feeling under the weather the prior week and she never left the house, but since he refused to take a COVID test, he would insist he never had it. She survived, but it left her physically and mentally disabled, not really able to take care of herself, forcing him to become her care taker. Then he passed away, largely due to ignoring his health and troubling signs.
The worst part about things like this is when you try to have a conversation like this with your average friend/coworker/acquaintance/etc. they're all like, "calm down; you're overreacting". I'm like, "no, fuck you; you're underreacting! People DIED."
Has anyone else over the age of 35 notice a major shift the past couple of decades regarding how little people care about literally anything? It's like humanity as a whole have turned into emotional zombies. You can't even say hi to strangers in public anymore. They just stare at you like, "who are you and why the fuck are you talking to me"? It's so bizarre compared to how people used to be in the 90s and 2000s. Nobody even wants to make eye contact with anyone anymore, let alone wave as you pass each other down the street. Not unless you're someone they know.
It's as if people forgot how to communicate with each other outside of the internet... Is it just me? Maybe I just have a bitchy resting face. IDK. But anyway this YT Short perfectly exemplifies exactly want I mean. (Piped link)
they’re all like, “calm down; you’re overreacting”. I’m like, “no, fuck you; you’re underreacting! People DIED.”
Worst part is the response I've gotten from this. "It was just some old people and those that would have died anyway from something else."
Has anyone else over the age of 35 notice a major shift the past couple of decades regarding how little people care about literally anything?
Until it impacts them personally, yes. Knew someone who thought covid was a common cold (had relatives with mild symptoms of any), then they caught it and it rocked them. Suddenly it wasn't anything to make fun of anymore. If they didn't have bad symptoms, they still wouldn't care.
It’s as if people forgot how to communicate with each other outside of the internet… Is it just me?
This experience has permanently damaged my patience for alleged "human beings". I'm with you on this, on how much it sucked, because my dad was once if those old people. This fucking plague killed him when he could've had at least a decade more to enjoy in life... My mother had just had a stroke and she needed him more than ever right when he got taken away. Now, every time I ever hear about someone dying, the math happens automatically in the back of my mind before I even get to recognize that it's happening:
Was the person who died at least as good a person as my father?
Because if not, fuck em.
I have no patience for the continued existence of anyone who isn't at least as kind, patient, generous, or warm as him. Which means VERY NEARLY every single fucking Republican. If they all died i would feel NOTHING. not even relief. But especially not grief. THEY DID THIS. I have nothing for them but revulsion. There is now a stark cutoff in my perception beyond which absolutely NOTHING matters. Only things that are better than that threshold are worth while. Literally everything else is beneath my attention.
Anything that is not at least going well enough, beneficially enough, to exist above that threshold, i have no time for. No room for in my perceptual horizon. I am one bad week from writing off all of existence and going out with maximal sabotage.
My completely unrequested advice: try your best to stay or become the person that those you look up to (including your departed father) would be happy with you becoming. If you feel like you're overly frustrated and about to have a breakdown, do whatever you can to bring yourself back.
If that means you need to step away and take a vacation into a yurt or cabin in the woods with a Nintendo DS or a friend: do it. Therapy also helps if your insurance can afford it, and if you find the right therapist (most allow you to have a call to assess good fit).
What if doing that for decades has resulted in nothing?
Unfortunately society feels like it's headed to another historical event where the classes have to remind each other what the deal was, likely with violence.
Glad that works for you, but I refuse to stop masking because I will die lonely if I don't play along. I don't have any friends, but masking has allowed me to at least stay in a loving relationship for almost a decade bow, and if I lose her, I have nothing.
You do you, but this mask ain't coming off. It's the only thing keeping me sane.
we're turning into homogenised soup. Endless parade of milquetoast pillows with beige opinions and the depth of a puddle. Where is your passion. Where is your rage. "omg u so confrontational" I am human. if you cannot deal with a normal range of human emotions you are fucked
Today I saw someone on my morning walk, he said hi, I said hi back, and then he reacted like I hadn't responded and got pissed off at me ("I guess its NOT a good morning, then!"). Every single human interaction outside my intimate circle makes me feel horrible. This guy just chose not to hold up his part of the bargain. It's like he chose to react badly, no matter what I actually did.
I think being overexposed to so many issues around the world is making people numb - especially when they don't know what to do about it.
(There may be other factors - for example, less densely populated areas being more open because there's more time per person to go around or something like that - but I think overexposure is a big bit of it).
One of the most insightful comments I've heard, iirc from thecollectress on Instagram (hope I got her username right, it's been a while), is that the emphasis on maintaining a non-confrontational nature is a core component of white supremacist thinking (and by extension, capitalist thinking). That it's more important not to upset anyone than it is to argue for righteousness.
"The obnoxious peace which is the absence of tension, rather than the righteous peace which is the presence of justice" and all that.
I'd say we're in a far worse position if we were to get a COVID-26 after everyone started openly embracing anti-science and anti-empathy thanks to the MAHA/MAGA folks.
I mean it's like certainly going to happen again, in a few years -- it insane they didn't triple whatever budget the CDC had in my opinion but yeah these people would rather die than see their favorite party lose an election. Look up Dying of Whiteness, it's literally all a big death cult.
Yeah, any rational person in charge of public policy post-CoViD would say, "Oh wow, we could've done that much better; let's shift how we're doing things."
But as usual, MAGA doubled down for propaganda purposes.
I know you mean this as sarcasm, but not only was Biden the president for the majority of the pandemic, there was a democratic supermajority.
It wasn't just MAGA doubling down. It's a concerted doubling down from nearly every major institution and demographic. It's easy to blame MAGA, but it's plainly obvious that the problem lies much deeper.
"Make America Great Again" was a line that Bill Clinton loved to use as well.
If by "MAGA" you mean socioeconomic elites with strong ties to projects like the heritage foundation and frequent fliers at destinations like Epstein's island then I'm 100% in agreement!
Obamacare was architechted by the heritage foundation.
Jim Crow Joe had a supermajority during the pandemic, did nothing and declared the pandemic "over" right before the deadliest wave. Voiced his true feelings when he said "you aint black!" If you don't support him. Achieved his careerlong ambition of overturning Roe V Wade but didn't quite manage to kill Medicare/Medicaid which was his real personal pet project.
I don't blame you for being confused and you clearly aren't apathetic, but you need to get informed otherwise you will continue to focus on the "scary" monster while the real enemy continues to flank.
I don't know why SinAdjetivos felt the need to Whataboutism/"both sides" this issue; it's clearly a concerted effort from MAGA to undermine science literacy for various reasons.
You can tell they're not arguing in good faith because they equivocated MAGA to anyone (including Bill Clinton) saying they want to make America great again, which is obviously not the same thing.
If someone says they want to make America great again by instituting economic reforms like FDR, they are very obviously not MAGA.
I want to hug OOP so bad ;_; COVID took my dad from us and yeah, it was like that. I want to listen to OOP tell me everything on their mind about their mom... without judging them. Without questioning them. With only accepting them and commiserating. Fuck this timeline and the world we built in it...
I think what this person isn't getting is the feeling of anger and the actions one takes in response to feeling anger are very different things. Feeling anger is part of being human. Acting angry is absolutely called for in some circumstances, but it can easily spin out of control and infect other parts of your life that have nothing to do with what you're angry about. Dollars to donuts this person has let anger infect their life to the point it's disrupting something, like maybe their relationships or employment, which is why they're in therapy.
I have long covid which basically is completely debilitating, and my conservative parents STILL talk about "haha wasn't the pandemic silly. We really overreacted :P" meanwhile 4 million Americans are unable to work, and I've been to the ER twice because of something you have a 1/5 chance of getting from covid. Can't believe we were so hysterical about it guys 🤭
I don't know where you live, but in the US, we've already got someone in charge who is constantly bitter, angry, and posting unhinged rants on the Internet.
The OP's enraged because their psychiatrist wants them to go on meds because they're so ridiculously angry. If I were the manager of a Dunkin Donuts, I'd seriously be concerned about workplace violence if I hired them. There's a lot of red flags going up here.
But what's true does matter. Dunkin Donuts and the church are already successful, and they don't really matter. Our public health system is not successful and it does really matter. If OP were upset about church membership, then yes they 100% would be crazy. "If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bike."
MAGA elected an angry guy because they wanted change. That doesn't mean that change is bad, it means that society should change in a way that's good. We should've elected Howard Dean when he dared show emotion.
You're right, Dunkin Donuts doesn't matter. That was my point. If I can't trust someone to man the checkout counter without punching the customers, I can't trust them to run a global superpower with nukes.
We're not going to improve our health system by putting someone in charge who refuses to take their meds and wants to yank pathological rage out of the DSM-5-TR.
Anger is bad. You can't think straight if you're angry and emotionally unstable. You're going to make bad decisions. You're not going to fix anything in that state. You're going to make more of a mess.
. . . and projecting it ALL outward, so they personally never have to change while insisting every last bit of what they feel is all someone else's fault and for others to change.
Anger is not a productive emotion. It drains you, exhausts you. It doesn't help. Transform it into something cold and calculated, and use it to get metaphorical revenge.
Plenty of people are fueled by anger, motivated by anger, focus better when they're angry. Anger can already be cold and calculated, no transformation necessary.
But aside from all that, emotions don't have to be productive. They aren't productive or unproductive, they simply are. Emotions are largely involuntary reactions to our surroundings and circumstances, a lense that colors an individual's world. They're all valid, regardless of whether or not they're productive, and pointing out that "anger is not productive" makes you part of the problem the post is describing.
It's an obsession born out of capitalism. They want you focused on "productivity" because it makes the line go up. Sometimes you need to be unproductive.
Yeah, I got so angry at AI slop code that I started doing research for a video essay, and found the original form of AI coding, in the 60's and 70's. It's called "natural language programming", and it's the reason why SQL's syntax looks ass.
Emotions have to be not damaging. When they are, you feel like shit and it reinforces the cycle of you feeling like shit. They are "valid" whatever that might mean, but they can absolutely wreck your entire shit up. So we learn to properly process them so that doesn't happen.
Your not recognizing that is actually part of the problem, you reinforce people being total wrecks, under the misguided veil of trying to appear helpful.
Same. The amount of people smirking at me, and looking at me like Im crazy is hard to deal with. We finally felt like maybe it was time to unmask, and for a day or so it was going well, until I caught covid and gave it to my partner. It was absolutely terrible. We're up to date on boosters, and it still took us down for a week with razor throat, coughing, headache, laziness. After the first week, we were still coughing for 2 weeks after. We are back to wearing masks. This disease would literally be over and done if everyone just vaccinated and wore masks for a few months. Instead they still want a way to kill grandma. I have a co-worker who is serially deathly ill because of her grandkids. This is just a terrible timeline.
the issue is not whether it is normal. that's not even a therapist's concern. the issue is whether it's healthy. the perspective is skewed as well. a "normal" reaction to an extremely abnormal situation is by definition not normal. "normally" people aren't perpetually angry because they don't "normally" go through what you've been going through.
PTSD is a "normal" reaction to trauma. should people who suffer from devastating PTSD not seek help because it's a normal reaction? completely skewed way to look at it.
Yup. Also we only have op's perspective. So it may be as you said that they're having a normal reaction to an abnormal situation or they could be having an abnormal reaction (like explosive anger or constant anger) that they don't realize is very unhealthy for them bc their anger is understandable and justified and therefore op perceives it as normal and fine
Basically, life is complicated, we only have one perspective, and just bc something is understandable doesn't make it good or healthy
Yeah this country is dogshit in a lewis vittone poopscoop bag. He needs to emigrate only way he'll ever be able to release the anger. This country killed his mom and has had and will never have more than zero remorse or even awareness of it really.
Again, are you footing the bill for that or just preserving yourself while saying "fuck you, good luck" to the masses who are to poor to leave their entire lives behind?
You can tell he has money, with his absolute callous incapability of considering other people cant just afford to uproot their lives and move to another country, even if they spent years planning for it.
Pretty sure the cost of physically moving is the easy part too. You need to be allowed to work at your destination if you have any chance at surviving for long.
A single month rent is enough money to get to almost any country on the planet. But good luck actually moving to a lot of them with that.
Pay for what? Yes things cost money, organizing does too. Sorry you have Stockholm syndrome about a country of people that votes for you to go away and die.
Pay for emigration / legal fees, plane tickets, new housing / rent while they secure a job (assuming they're even allowed to work)?
I'm sorry you lack compassion and empathy for those who are dumb enough to believe themselves to be your enemy. Except for the real enemies, as determined by the value of their net worth. I'm sorry you're so selfish that you would rather preserve yourself from hypothetical, future harm (because I'm guessing you're a relatively privileged white liberal, could be wrong) than work to protect other people from real, present harm. I'm sorry you lack any moral fortitude.
To be fair (lol) how can therapy work in an insane and unjust society? Shouldn't your therapist advice you to join the fascist party since your white and cis anyway, it's better for your mental health (lol). Here are some pills to make you forget, the alternative is joining the resistance and fighting and likely dying (which is definitely suicidal)
EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm being very sarcastic here, there are always productive things you can do even in these times.
Something like radical acceptance from dbt is my go to for someone with your argument. I can acknowledge injustice and also acknowledge that much of it is out of my control. I can work towards correcting injustice whenever possible but I also have to recognize that fixing everything is far beyond me. For my own mental health I need to be able to recognize when I am ruminating on an issue that cannot be fixed and learn to let go of that attachment to suffering
Alternatively I can be miserable, forever dwelling on injustices that I cannot fix myself. But how does that help change anything? Really would argue it’s just giving the fascist party what they want. If “the resistance” is beaten and broken simply by business as usual then is that not great for them?
In a non political context think of an emergency veterinarian or ER doctor who got into the field because they truly care for animals/people. They undoubtedly will deal with unfair death, seeing the results of abuse, systemic failures about cost of care resulting in premature death or disability, etc. probably on a near daily basis if they live anywhere with people. Should they simply resign themselves to misery because of this cruel and harsh reality? Or should they find a way to let go of the attachments to the misery involved in these tasks so they can do their (very necessary) job that already desperately needs more of people like them
Yeah well said. In a way realizing just how broken our civilization is helped me let go of some personal issues, like demands I put on myself.
But I'm lucky and privileged, I haven't suffered great traumatizing injustices like OP. I do think it's an important question how therapists deal with systemic injustice and oppression and environmental collapse on a global scale. I don't think psychotherapy really developed to deal with this, the ideal would be to get people out of these situation and let them heal. But there is no getting out.
OP is a good example of the psychological terrorism inflicted on most sane people by Trump and MAGA. Deliberate. We're in an abusive relationship but there is no halfway house and we can't divorce. People don't even understand that neoliberalism is driving all this, and most therapists do not either.
So I do think it should be radical acceptance. But there is the dichotomy: Anger gets shit done. People should get angry and channel that anger into productive or well, subversive ways. At least if we want a chance to defeat our "abusers".
Is civilization 'broken'? It seems like people have the perception that the world should be just and good things should come to those who somehow 'deserve' it. That's not reality and never has been. Civilization in general is the movement to better for all in my mind, but that's a slow, grueling path and we haven't gotten close to it yet. We are one dumb monkey away from ending civilization as we know it every day. Or just a couple meals away from civil war.
But it could be, and anyone who learns that it's not reality and has any reaction other than "well why the fuck not?" and a determination to make that the reality by any means necessary isn't a good or even neutral person.
Your complacency is actually a bigger problem than the greed of the people benefitting directly from the world's injustices.
The only appropriate or morally acceptable reaction to seeing injustice is to resolve to stop it by any means necessary.
In the 100,000 years of humanity it has been, most of that time. In the 8000 years of the existence of domination systems we've been moving away from that ideal and not towards it, and for the 300 years capitalism has existed we've been sprinting away from it like it was an apex predator, but it was the norm up until fairly recently on the scale of human evolution. There were even a few generations between the invention of the ox-driven plow and the waves of kurgan invasions where people likely got to enjoy the benefits of agriculture and urbanization without the crushing demands of laboring for the good of an oppressor.
So in your mind causing further injustice to stop an injustice is morally acceptable? You said any means necessary.
Punishing the perpetrators of injustice or violently preventing them from doing further injustice is not an injustice, so your entire point makes no sense.
In the 100,000 years of humanity it has been, most of that time.
Every historian would disagree with you. For almost all of humanity the mass majority lived short brutal lives, and often starved or were flat out killed. Hell, that was if you were the lucky few that survived childhood to begin with.
Domination systems? Seriously? Yes, absolute rulers and domination over the world has worked out so well for humanity.
Capitalism isn't the best system, but like democracy, it's the best until some bright group of monkies come up with a better one that can be implemented.
You could be the first buddy.
And yes, solving injustice with more injustice is the same logic the Nazi's used to kill people they didn't like.
Perhaps you'll grow up, get out of the basement and actually live life, realizing it's a whole lot better than 99% of history has allowed for.
Well my minimum standard is that we as a civilization do not steer towards extinction. Or that we reasonably minimize the risk of extinction. If an alien would look at our failed action on climate change, it would think we failed a very basic test for a "rational intelligent civilization".
We are incapable of acting rational as a civilization. This hasn't always been the case, even though people have always been assholes.
There has been much technological progress and social progress for minorities, but negative progress in quite a few very important areas. Raising children, news / social media, propaganda and disinfo, wealth inequality, climate change, consumerism, resource depletion. Gaza, Ukraine, Iran and other wars. Or the insane investment into AI and datacenters is just bonkers. Crisis in science and research. Autonomous killer robots will soon allow complete totalitarian control.
Outdated voting systems that do not allow better democracy. The US can't be called a democracy at all. China as a one party system with is taking better care of their people than the US, because of their socialist roots they actually believe in something besides self serving unlimited greed. The elites and plutocrats in the west believe in nothing.
And the trouble is that with technological progress it becomes increasingly more possible to make ourselves extinct. Right now even with all out nuclear war it would be pretty impossible to scrape us off the planet. But add some bioweapons or use mass killer robots or AGI then it becomes feasible. The richest man in the world is actively trying to create a malicious "anti-woke" super intelligence.
We are incapable of acting rational as a civilization. This hasn’t always been the case, even though people have always been assholes.
This has literally always been the case. When has it been the case for the world for say 100 years? Please let us know.
Raising children, news / social media, propaganda and disinfo, wealth inequality, climate change, consumerism, resource depletion. Gaza, Ukraine, Iran and other wars. Or the insane investment into AI and datacenters is just bonkers. Crisis in science and research. Autonomous killer robots will soon allow complete totalitarian control.
All of this is opinion rather than objective fact. Progress has been made for everyone. Look at 1950 to now and certain groups have improved much more than others, but all groups have improved. That's progress. It's never equal for everyone, nor could it be, unless you only move progress for the lowest common denominator.
You sit here and type on a device made by slave labor, wear clothes, likely eat meat, want or have had children, all things further destroying others and the world.
Its incredibly easy to blame 'them' but real hard to look internally. Companies don't exist without people to buy their products, which you do not have to use, you do not have to buy, and yet you continue to do so.
And the trouble is that with technological progress it becomes increasingly more possible to make ourselves extinct. Right now even with all out nuclear war it would be pretty impossible to scrape us off the planet. But add some bioweapons or use mass killer robots or AGI then it becomes feasible. The richest man in the world is actively trying to create a malicious “anti-woke” super intelligence.
None of those can 'eliminate' humans. Will it make it tougher for 8 billion people to survive? Absolutely. The planet shouldn't have that many people to begin with. When humans are long gone as every other species that has come before us, the earth will carry on without us, and probably will be better for it.
Perhaps stop being part of the system that is causing the issues to begin with.
This is a difficult situation. There are many things one should be angry about, but one has few options to deal with it: either you can let it go and move on, actually try to do something about it (even if you fail or it takes a lifetime or not always possible), or just stay angry.
I’m not going to tell anyone how to feel, but I personally would either let it go or try to do something. I’ve lost people before and I refuse to feel that shitty all the time; it is hell.
You are conflating the pain of loss with the emotion of anger.
If you have an ounce of humanity, sympathizing with this person should be automatic. They have every right to be furious and there can be no resolution until the underlying material conflict has been resolved. That is the purpose of that emotion, to drive behavior towards affecting change.
The approach/philosophy you are approaching this from is useful for when the brain gets "stuck" after the underlying conflict has been resolved or when someone is hallucinating blame to deal with the pain of loss. There is no possible interpretation where either of those is the case. The situation has been logically analyzed and the emotion has been checked.
If you have an ounce of empathy you should be mad as well. You have been informed of the situation. You are aware of the pain they are experiencing. You understand that without change this can/will happen to you. Why aren't you angry?
I believe you and I are on the same page really. I do empathize, and yes, I do get angry (and I agree that anger is a necessary emotion at times), but I have to ask myself, is there something concrete I can accomplish or work toward? If so, I get to work. And if not, then I try to move on. I focus on what I can change instead of risking my own mental health focusing on things I cannot.
I don't think we are, but it depends on what do you mean by "move on"?
It is almost always used to encourage very deliberate, self-destructive, disassociation. That will wreck your mental health and you will have trained yourself to not realize it. Your feelings are valid, suppressing them and ignoring the problem won't make either go away.
If you are someone with an obsessive or single-minded kind of personality then that can be good advice. Obsessing over something you cannot change will wreck your mental health. However, assuming that's true of enough people that this is good general advice is insulting and damaging. It is also conflating obsessive tendencies with a specific emotion.
It is valid and necessary to remain angry at injustices, even those we cannot immediately change, because that is the only way to gather the political will to do so.
No. I can understand how being around these people who didn’t take Covid seriously can reopen the wound. There are slight triggers for me, but most likely nothing compared to what OP is dealing with. Either way, I’m not going to tell people how to feel or even tell them to “get over it.” I can only express my opinion about my own feelings in my own life. I really do hope OP can find peace or a tangible solution.
Even survivor families of murdered people struggle but eventually have to move on and rebuild their lives. Your continuous suffering does not bring them back. Your eventual happiness does not disservice the loss. That's the hardest part of grief and injustice.
Feeling angry at the event is normal, but if it is crippling your ability to take care of yourself or others who depend on you. Then that is what is unhealthy. Holding on to the pain and anger to the point that you don't function properly is actively hurting you further.
I actually do know someone who was murdered, and while I don't have to face their murderer every day, the event changed my life more than any other.
Somewhere else on this thread you'll see a post by me saying "I let things go". It's true - since then I just don't hold on to anger, because I just don't see the point. If I stayed angry at the person who murdered my friend, then that person would be the one in charge of my life. They would be the one controlling me, the one for whom I was living my life.
And that applies to everything else. If something annoys me then maybe I think about it for a few minutes, maybe an hour, but then - it's gone. Because if I give more thought than that - if I let it fester, then I give it power over me. Which is just...... not how I want to live my life.
I'm not the one you asked the question to, just commenting on the general discussion. But let's play at that. Yes, I have murdered family members. Yes, I'm angry. But my anger won't stop me from living my life. It's very important to remember that there are things within our control, and things outside our control. The attitude we assume towards the hardships of life is one of the things under our control. We can't control how we feel, but we can decide to not let our tragedies dictate our lives. The emotions after tragedies and injustices can be fuel to lead us into meaningful actions. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. The fear people see on others who are consumed by their emotions is not from some need to take a moral high ground. It is fear that we will lose them as well, to grief and depressive spirals.
actually try to do something about it (even if you fail or it takes a lifetime or not always possible), or just stay angry
In my experience, these are conjoined. You try to do things (or, at least, stew about wanting to do things) while you're angry. And as the anger fads, the impulsive need to act fades with it.
So then you've got a group of people who are still angry. And they can turn to the people who have burned out from their anger and scream "Why are you not still angry?! Why are you so apathetic?!" And then these angry people can blame the burn outs for whatever failures accrue.
But it goes one step deeper, because there's no just one group of angry people. It's a melting pot of people with different views all competing to impose their will on the world. And any time any individual or group fails, they need to root out the cause of that failure. Which means blaming the out-groups and self-flagellating over personal weakness and bemoaning the neutral third parties for not being on your team.
Also, lots of money in selling people an outlet for their rage. Or selling them a cure for it. Or selling them a means of inflicting pain on the people they're angry at. Or just selling them on the promise of some future satisfaction.
An endless conflict fueled by rage, fear, greed, and ambition.
Yeah, I'm with you. I feel like there's a possibility that this person is experiencing a complex trauma that continues to affect their minute-to-minute life in negative ways, and the therapist was trying to guide them toward a kind of acceptance that could have eased some of those negative effects but their patient just wasn't having it. Maybe not ready for it.
I'm not trying to say I know them or what's right for them, of course, but just offer an alternative view
This is a very valid feeling. But it doesn't sit well in the context of therapy. Like, this is individual therapy dealing with trauma from systemic problems. Like, if it's outside of my locus of control I can either let it affect me forever or try to do something about it, even if that something is letting go (or even forgiving, as far-fetched as that ideal seems these days). Part of going to therapy is taking agency. There is a problem, in some small way I will do whatever I can about it.
I can't just be mad with this and raise my mental pitchfork bc this is an illustration of someone rightfully truly struggling and their mental health physician pointing them towards the painful way out. I think the takeaway is less "how could anyone expect anyone to get over anything this heinous" and more one of horrible feeling of trying to hold onto the one thing you're left with when someone is taken from you like that --anger-- and coming to terms with the fact that that anger is still hurting you long after. Your therapist is not going to start the revolution or the purge for you. They are literally there to help you and you alone with things that trouble you and you alone. When they talk to survivors of abuse as children, rape victims, they aren't going to go out and slay the offenders, even if they want to. They are just trying to work with the tiniest amount of control a victim still has after the crime to help the victims make real change for themselves.
I guess overall it might not be productive to take that private struggle and put it out to your tumblr mutuals to validate you and build resistance to letting go but Idk. Healing can take many forms.
The angler is valid, but validity doesn't mean that it can't also be complex grief and that he isn't coping. There's nothing wrong with anger as an emotion. It's the expression and impact that can be a problem (and can be pathological).
With the societal trends, it doesn't matter even if OP gets better, the world is trending to cold, unfeeling, corporate, zero privacy garbage and basically no one is fighting back, or if they are there is no visibility.
To have people everywhere, all the time reference covid as the cold and not wear masks when they are sick means we learned NOTHING from covid as a society and we'll likely repeat something similar.
Sounds like they need a new therapist that isnt oxygen deprived by having their head so far up their own ass that its lodged in their small intestine.
This is like saying "Your anger is inappropriate, Yes your mother was murdered, and yes the killer is still out there killing, and yes a solid 1/3rd of people in the country are either actively cheering for the killer or refusing to acknowledge their existence depending on convenience to the discussion, thus resulting in your trauma and wounds being violently torn back open every. single. day. for. entire. fucking. years.. But thats obviously a you problem, and you need to deal with it and get over it"
Yeah, it's a bit fucked to call things "unprocessed anger" etc etc when the things that caused what we're angry about are at best still happening and more likely getting worse.
I've seen certain politicians described as "too angry" before their eventual replacement. You know what, I want an anger politician, just one who is angry about real issues. I want somebody who realizes how shitty things are for the average citizen and wants them to change, then gets angry at the fuckers who sit with their thumbs up their ass with thoughts, prayers and empty platitudes while collecting massive paycheques (and bribes) then actively calls them out.
Note that this doesn't mean I want a dumbass who complains about "foreign smoke " or lies and abuses issues while acting like a petulant toddler who didn't get their way out or personally profit, I just want somebody who actually cares and if they do... then fuck yes they should actually be angry about the way things are and the direction they're going.
I work in the brain injury field (long term rehab). It's uncanny how similar it is. Post injury, you get two varieties: They recognize they've suffered the trauma, but refuse to acknowledge deficits or are completely incapable of registering the injury in any way, shape, or form.
I'm astounded as to how many of them that are high functioning fall into the 'there was no COVID' crowd.
I see no lies here. I think it's insane that people just expect anger to be swallowed when there has been no justice, no change in the circumstances that caused the anger in the first place.
Sorry for your loss. And as this post says, feel free to feel all the emotions you might be experiencing now.
I don't know how close you were to the deceased, but I'm sure with time, and being surrounded by your loved ones (be them either people, or pets) I'm sure you'll be able to eventually get through this.
... Unless the funeral you're coming from is Lindsey Graham's, in which case, join me in cheer and joy:
People can have more than one problem. Last time I checked, humans aren't 2D. Or even if that's the main reason the person went to therapy, perhaps they weren't looking for a "how do I turn this frown upside down" solution, instead hoping to get some advice on how to better channel their frustrations, or gain clearer focus, or just to have someone to help sort out own thoughts. There can be many reasons.
You can be angry in a healthy way. You can carry anger in ways that do not eat you up from the inside, causing that anger to harden into resentful bitterness, and that allow you to fully grieve your very real and unjust losses -- that you will NEVER get back -- so that even with the presence of anger and ongoing non-resolution of the presenting loss, you're still moving toward a better life, daily.
Survivors of things like trafficking have to deal with this kind of human-evil created unjust loss and forever damage as well. Pretty sure that's what this writer wants help with, and it's not an unreasonable ask of a mental health professional.
But this therapist just wants to skip all that, apparently, which is not uncommon (many, many people are anger avoidant, even therapists) but this anger avoidance does not help their client at all.
The writer coming back with an extended FUCK YEAH I'M ANGRY (and here's exactly why) rant is not just reasonable, but a better response than the therapist's. The writer, by openly acknowledging their anger, is actually handling it in a healthier, less self-destructive way than someone who is afraid to even acknowledge it.
Anger -- especially deep anger and rage coming from horribly unjust situations that cause lifelong loss, and even more so situations that didn't even need to happen except for someone else's unnecessary actions -- can be an incredibly tricky emotion to navigate, even threatening to all involved. Many people have visceral, deeply unpleasant reactions to the expression of anger, their own and the anger of others, and again, some of them are even therapists. But if you want to deal with grief, chances are excellent you're going to have to deal with anger at some point too.
This writer has a much better start on the whole issue of anger than their therapist does, IMO.
If I knew this person, the first thing I would tell them would be what someone else told me long ago: an abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is absolutely normal. And I'd start there because it sounds like the therapist may not have even gotten that far.
This was a pretty good podcast episode talking about the limitations of individual therapy has in addressing systemic issues and how it can be changed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2z9o7kcW4I
Yep, agree 100% with all of this. I've changed my life and professional practice to accommodate. I cut my patient flow in 1/2 along with my income, so that each treatment room sits with the HEPA going for an hour between patients. Everyone is masked, everyone is vaccinated. I've got patients who are PO'd at that requirement. But you know what, here we are 2026, and I've got patients coming in who I've not seen since before the pan-damnic. Here's the deal, about Nov. 2025 I realized that it appeared many infectious diseases have both short and long term consequences. So I started pulling up research from PubMed and it's absolutely the case. So wear your masks, wash your hands, avoid infections like the plague they are, because the harm they do long term IS a huge and ill considered part of the aging process. Tell your friends, family, those you care about. The CDC and the Fed aren't going to help much, at least not for a while, maybe decades. We've go to do this on our own, teach each other what we've learned, and stick with it. Knowledge, alas, is too easily lost. By the time I saw this post it had garnered 1.29K up votes, more by far than most posts of Fedi. Spread the word, that's what this non-corp soc.media is made for.
Your anger won't magickally heal because you get a trophy, bro. You gotta do your spiritual work, which is work, that which will disentangle you from those traumas and emotions. I know what it's like being scarred on the inside. I'm still damaged, but I've done a helluva lot to heal, and the more you choose to let go of that hot coal through the act of forgiveness, the less it burns you. Forgiveness is not a single act, it is many acts over time. You have a knot in your soul. Unentangle yourself through skillful intention-setting, for it is your intention that steers the mechanism that results in how you are bound to your Karma.
That is the work. You work to fix the world and this heals you. And there's a right way to do it, wherein this process is oriented not outwardly but inwardly. The goal of life is not to fix the planet, the goal is to fix yourself. The planet is just there, inside us, and we set our intention to determine how our entanglements play out. Intention is everything. If you set out to make the world better that will heal you more than setting out to destroy something, because you become what you do, and if you choose to be a destroyer, you are the evil of the next generation.
What restrictions do we consider reasonable if its justified by saving lives? Most would say 1984 to save some lives isn't a desirable option.
At the same time, millions dead just to save wearing a face mask in public seems unreasonable.
So where is the reasonable line? I remember being told I was reckless for going for a swim. At no point was I within even 20m of anyone else except when cars drove past me as I cycled to/from the beach.
Some acted as if leaving your home for any reason was endangering others, others acted like the slightest inconvenience was an unacceptable infringement of their rights.
leaving your home for any reason was endangering others
It was, and that is still true if you are sick or think you might be. That risk needs to be measured against your needs.
others acted like the slightest inconvenience was an unacceptable infringement of their rights.
Because they're entitled selfish people who lack empathy and have been trained into anti-social behaviors.
I was reckless for going for a swim.
It doesn't seem like it, it sounds like you measured the danger you presented to the public against your needs for exercise and space. However, shaming you for it was/is a necessary component of helping to prevent the entitled anti-social fuckwads from killing people. Which does lead to some incoherent/inconsistent messaging.
This isn’t anger it’s resentment. Resentment is a poison pill that you swallow, hoping it harms your enemy. The only way through is to forgive. Or you can carry it around the rest of your life, if that feels right for you. Revenge isn’t going to bring your mother back. If you want to be at peace, make peace with it.
There's an even better way through it. Fight back. Use it as motivation to change a broken system. Kick the idiots out of power, and make sure this can never happen again. Make Mom's sacrifice mean something.
This. I'm tired of pathologizing "uncomfortable" reactions. It is appropriate to have resentment over what they described. But also - none of the remedies they say they want are actually vengeful? Oh no - they want a stronger CDC, and a monument to those lost and some opportunity for societal-level grieving.
The person who posted this isn't dealing with this poorly. They are pointing out that our society dealt with this disaster poorly, diving head-first into violent denial. And that our response as a society is continuously re-traumatizing them as someone who lost their mother.
We are all in the madhouse created by Fox News, fascists, megalomaniacal billionaires and white nationalists. Maybe being told this is a personal mental health problem is a problem and worth criticizing.
I'd make a point of just going off at anyone who mentioned Covid to me, and making them as uncomfortable as possible. Make them regret ever opening their mouth.
anger is a natural emotion everyone experiences, it helps us express the strength of our beliefs - if you value justice and kindness, you should be angry when faced with injustice and malice. it's normal for someone who experienced something tragic (and preventable) to feel angry at those who allowed it to happen regardless of how much time has passed. that anger should lessen over time, but it will never be fully gone. if it gets in the way of living it should be addressed, but one can't just "get over it"
What do you do with anger you can't work through? When you are revictimized again and again because the world is the same crucible that cause that trauma in the first place and you can't heal unless the world changes?
Because that's what you're saying. You're saying that as a "defense mechanism" it's normal to let it go.
But that's not only not as easy as it sounds, it's also not as human and normal as you make it seem. Just because you find ways to manage that anger doesn't necessarily mean it goes away. We pretend that it does. We do that constantly. In the same way we pretend that grief and fear, and envy go away. They don't. People either internalize them and try to pretend they don't exist, or they channel them into something using that energy in a way that people find acceptable.
I have witnessed this. If you've ever been forced to sit through a presentation from MADD you've seen this in action.
I've lost a lot of people. Had a lot of bad shit happen to me in my life. I force a lot of stuff down to maintain. That doesn't mean those feelings go away and what normally happens as a result is they catch up with me one way or another over time.
I think you're delusional if you think therapy just fixes people and makes their traumas go away. It doesn't make them forget. That's not how that works. Time doesn't make you forget either. That's just something we tell ourselves and each other as a coping mechanism.
We have to accept that just like any other medical procedure, sometimes therapy isn't successful, or does not work out the way that we want or expect. Complications exist, and even if they didn't, people aren't a monolith. Nobody responds to therapy the exact same way.
So, I'll ask the question. What does working through this in a healthy way look like?
There’s a pedophile rapist running my country. I’m going to stay pissed about that shit.
I get a lot of fuel through anger. I wouldn’t have my life without it. It’s ignorant that you think all humans need to let go of anger. No. I’d be working some shit corporate career if I buried my anger.
What I will say is that if you continue to be bitterly angry for years after it happened, you will suffer more than the majority of people who'll "get over it" (which as someone else pointed out, shouldn't mean that you literally "stop being angry" as I said, but that it settles down to a manageable level such that you're not in therapy over it)
Anger isn't a choice in this case, it's like telling someone they should just stop bleeding after being stabbed, after all they're gonna suffer a lot more if they don't stop bleeding.
Anger itself isn't a choice, but it's a choice to just sit in your anger for the rest of your life, growing bitter and resentful and never healing, which seems to be what is advocated as normal in the screenshot.
My dad died of COVID in 2021 after being in the hospital for a month, including a ventilator and a medically induced coma. I'm still mad when people deny COVID matters. I'm still wicked upset when someone asks me "but did he die of COVID or with COVID?" (technically, he died when he was removed from life support, so it wasn't COVID that killed him it was the lack of being able to breath. You got me there.)
Also, yes, he had underlying health conditions. He was 62. He was doing everything right---staying home, wearing a mask when he went for drive up groceries, waiting for vaccines to become available. The only way he screwed up was trusting his wife. His wife put her job above her husband's safety and went to a mandatory unmasked work pot luck breakfast in December 2020. It couldn't have been too mandatory---she retired 2 months later after my dad died.
It all goes into the background for normal day to day, but then something triggers it. And yes, I have a therapist. And yes, I'm still upset at the person that chided his wife that my dad's "mask didn't help him" while he was busy dying in the hospital.
There's a lot of trauma wrapped up in that whole experience. It's mostly scabbed over, but sometimes something picks at it, which doesn't help the healing.
I understand. On a personal level I never hang on to my anger. I let everything go. I've been that way for 35 years.
But on a national level, we look at the state of the world and say "meh" and we say "they are just as bad as each other" and say "that's how it is" and so nothing ever gets any better because we don't demand enough from the people we elect to govern us and run our country.
We hand them ALL THIS POWER and then just let them behave like two year olds on smack and when they do shitty things we say "that's just wrong" then "well, they're just kids" and then wait until they do a bad thing again and say the same things again.
We should demand more of our elected representatives because they are not as bad as each other and when they do something wrong we should beat the crap out of them
303 Comments
SacralPlexus@lemmy.world · 234 pts · 5d
What the therapist doesn’t understand is that the anger is not just about mom dying. It’s about how everyone around this person failed them in a moment of danger, and as a result of that her mom died a horrible death. And even later, her society was collectively unable to acknowledge its behavior and the consequences it had.
I did not lose my mom but I did work in a hospital as a physician throughout the pandemic. I remember the ICU being full from Covid patients to the point that the hospital had to open new sections up and nurses working overtime to accommodate all of the sick. Then I would leave the hospital after providing care to all of these sick and dying people… and go to the grocery store where everyone was refusing to even mask up and I would see ghoulish politicians who were talking about how it was a hoax. I could see this catastrophe happening in front of my own eyes and everyone around me just wanted to pretend it was fake.
I didn’t suffer the loss this woman did but those terrible experiences and the feeling that my community had completely failed its members forever changed how I see people and the society I live in. So yeah, I get why she is still mad.
DokPsy@lemmy.world · 90 pts · 4d
My wife worked in ICU then COVID ICU. She still gets PTSD flashbacks from everything she dealt with when someone comes in with similar symptoms. I got front row tickets to seeing a person who's entire job is to keep people alive go from "oh someone I had today coded and we couldn't bring them back" every so often to "we had multiple people die today. A few more aren't much longer. If we put them on their back, they'll die. If we give them water, they'll choke and die. They still refuse to believe that COVID is real as they are actively suffering and dying of it".
Yeah, we get a touch testy when people say it was fake or overblown
liuther9@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
My thought was that staying home and self medicate is better choice than ICU. Virus is new, nobody knows how to treat it properly, too many sick people and not enough doctors. Everybody sick thus constant exposure to virus and other patalogies that came from weakened immune system. And I did a right thing forcing parents to stay at home.
QueenHawlSera@piefed.social · 39 pts · 4d
It bothers me to this day that people thought it was a hoax. A lot of people I knew who thought it was a hoax wound up catching Covid, though none of them were hospitalized over it, which honestly kinda sucks because it means they didn't learn their lesson.
SacralPlexus@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 4d
One of the doctors I worked with bought into the craziness and was arguing with the hospital about vaccines and masks even as our ICU was about to burst. Then his wife caught it and ended up in the ICU as a patient. He still did not change his mind despite her being in the hospital, and this was a physician.
I guess what I’m saying is they still probably wouldn’t have learned. I don’t mean to be so pessimistic but propaganda is so powerful.
lobut@lemmy.ca · 32 pts · 4d
Michael Shermer said this a long time ago but he said, "Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."
glimse@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 4d
Found out a few coworkers thought it was a hoax and casually brought up how it not only almost killed me, the guy I caught it from (a vocal antivaxxer!) DID die. I know dozens of people hospitalized and dozens more who suffered. I had jobs canceled because the client died.
They both worked office (then WFH) jobs during COVID. I worked 55+ hours a week in people's homes and businesses. Who do you think has a better idea of the reality of the situation?
ttayh@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 3d
well, an aunt in-law got it, so did her husband, she was in a coma for like 3 months, he died, she can't use one arm anymore and has a litany of other complications stemming from the ordeal (and the grief). Do you think she learned her lesson? I'll let you guess
tbf, she can't learn her lesson without realizing / accepting that her (and dead husband's) actions are the reason for all her suffering, for him being dead, they are responsible for their misery, that she played a hand at getting her husband to the grave.
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 32 pts · 4d
I was routinely being sent to places like Texas to work during the pandemic because they didn't care. It made me so mad being down there and getting made fun of for wearing a mask when where I live, you couldn't go into any building without one.
Ertain@mast.linuxgamecast.com · 8 pts · 4d
@greatwhitebuffalo41 I know the feeling. I walked around Texas with a bunch of fucking idiots who couldn't be bothered to accommodate the sick and helpless. At least I did my part and wore a mask.
"Southern hospitality" my ass.
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 4d
Yeah was not a good time to be honest.
starlinguk@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 4d
It still isn't. People still get Covid and Post Covid and governments are telling all these chronically ill people that they're "lazy" and must work 40 hours a week or lose their insurance, pensions, etc.
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 4d
Yeah and don't forget about long covid. Ugh
starlinguk@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
There's now long covid (up to 6 weeks after getting sick, when you might still have covid) and post covid (6 plus weeks).
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 4d
I worked at a nursing home at that time. So many people died or were impacted, an entire wing got shut down because of how many patients were lost. It then re-opened to be exclusively for Covid patients.
My grandma died there. I was the last relative to see her alive. The day before she passed, I called all of my aunts/uncles, siblings, and some of my cousins (the ones closest to her) so they could say their goodbyes. As anyone who’s worked with dying patients knows, sometimes people cling on and suffer in a terminal state until they get closure from a relative giving them “permission” to let go. I had to be that person. I told her that it’s okay, that we all love her and we understand. Although she appeared catatonic, right after I said that, a tear rolled down her eye. I think she heard me and understood, though there’s no way to really know. It was a hard day. She passed the next morning.
raspirate@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 4d
Sometime last year, I heard someone say something to the effect of "I think the pandemic had a pretty major effect on all of us," and for a moment I thought "honestly I think I got through it fairly unscathed" because I was only considering my tolerance for the disruption to my life at the time. I was in a financially secure position and had plenty of social contact with friends through online gaming. I never felt any more depressed than normal throughout "quarantine" insofar as we even had one. Got my vaccines. Never tested positive. Didn't lose anyone close to me (to the illness). Overall, I thought I'd made it through pretty alright.
Then I thought for just a few seconds more and I realized that the pandemic is what caused me to literally give up on humanity. Seeing how little everyone cared about anyone who was actually affected. People making posts online about how it was "fake" when people all over the world were dying. The ones who refused to wear a mask. Such a simple fucking request. Put this cloth over your face for a while and you can help not get people killed, but they still wouldn't do it. I lived in a more rural area at the time, so it took a while for things to get really bad there. I remember thinking "you idiots will change your tune when it's your grandmother dying" and then they just didn't... Their own friends and family dying around them and most just slid further into conspiracy and paranoia.
The whole experience just fundamentally reshaped what I believe about humans and I don't think anything will ever be able to switch things back. It reminds me of the scene in Terminator where John Connor says "We're not gonna make it are we? People, I mean."
Just a quiet resignation to the reality that left with nothing more than our own devices and all the resources we'd need to persist until the heat death of the universe, we'll likely end up going extinct due to something completely preventable and probably caused by us. We choose our own destruction.
I didn't feel this way before covid. I used to believe we'd eventually figure things out. Not anymore.
SacralPlexus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
This is everything I wanted to say. Everything. Right down to the John Connor quote.
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 87 pts · 5d
Okay, but, my fellow tumblrite, therapy isn't going to help with that. When you went to your therapist, they assumed you want to stop feeling a certain way and feel different. If you don't want the help they can offer to achieve that (which is valid), why are you there?
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 4d
A mental health therapist can and should be able to help a client manage their righteous anger as they work their way through it together. Anger underlies a great many things, and grief is one of them. You don't just say, "I don't want to feel angry," or just decide, "I'm not going to be angry about this anymore," when the rage is this broad and deep and well-established: in time, that kind of denial and repression is just going to explode in your face, if it works at all.
Instead, because anger is very well understood, there are known ways to deal with it. Anger doesn't just disappear on its own, nor even very quickly, and a person suffering this kind of grief could use some assistance diving into the anger and the very exact specifics that are causing it. The therapist should be able to navigate this presenting anger with relative ease and guide the client through it, not just with skillful therapeutic inquiries to get to the very specific root of this writer's unique grief which is where they'd start, but also with coping skills to give the client to be able to self-manage their righteous rage for as long as it takes them to work through it and clear it so that their overwhelming grief can resolve.
This therapist is doing none of that. Instead, they are just offering commentary on the presence and length of the anger as though they're watching a movie, when they could and should be helping the writer sort it out and work through it. That's not on the writer, that's on the therapist.
Lumidaub@feddit.org · -6 pts · 4d
Yes but to what end? It doesn't sound to me like they want to manage it and work through it and clear it. They want to hold on to their anger.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 4d
No, they really don't. What they want is to feel better, and for their therapist to stop playing "no shit Sherlock" with their pain by pointing out obvious irrelevancies in regard to it.
What they want to hold onto is the very specific, unique truth to their grief that is invariably found behind the anger. When they find it, that very specific point or points fueling the rage, they no longer need the anger: it has served its purpose.
Lumidaub@feddit.org · -3 pts · 4d
That's not in the post though. It might be true but the post is saying they want to stay angry (until society properly deals with the fallout from the pandemic). Anything else is your interpretation based on what might seem logical but without even knowing them.
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 4d
It's not saying that they want to stay angry, it's that being angry about it is righteous and justified, and everyone should be angry enough about it to prevent something like it from ever happening again. But half of people still don't even acknowledge covid was real, nevermind the social issues it exposed. Being angry is a reasonable response.
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 1 pts · 4d
And I agree that it's reasonable. Which, in my mind, translates directly to "I don't want to stop being angry, stop trying to make me calm down."
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 4d
I think it's more "stop telling me that being angry isn't an appropriate response to current social issues." The therapist could be working on coping strategies or mindfulness techniques to deal with the anger in constructive ways.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
Lol, no. Why would this writer by choice be paying a therapist his time and cash to painfully bare his soul so that the therapist can say idiotic things to him and not just assist him in remaining exactly where he is, but actively make it worse?
Dude, he could get that for free (and probably already is from friends and family telling him he needs to "move forward" like that's just a decision he can make).
Look again. That person is simply telling the therapist they will not release their anger just because society has said it's been long enough. That's just not how it works, and this writer knows it. The writer will release the anger when the anger has served its purpose. That is not accomplished with facile lies, much less casual grief-shaming.
Frankly, a therapist should know what purpose anger serves off the top of their head: that alone would guide them forward. Not everyone does, and that's okay, just not so much in a therapist.
But when you can't recognize a overt cry of anguish and grief, and you mistake someone correcting their therapist from that place of inner agony for someone that "wants to stay angry," all you're really telling me is that you've never had a situation like the writer's, nor a therapist that could take you through your darkest hour and help you see what you needed to see to get back out of the cave of your grief again.
Lumidaub@feddit.org · -1 pts · 4d
Truly amazing how you can diagnose people from a distance, solely from what they write.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 4d
I know this comes as news to you, but this has all been studied literally since the beginning of time. Anger was discussed by the earliest philosophers. The writer openly describes it himself.
So what's the diagnosis I've provided? Do you even know what an diagnosis is, or is that just a word you threw at me because it sounded smart and -- wait for it -- you're angry?
shneancy@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 4d
i think a therapist should be able to help their patient with feels that are the correct reactions to a situation, without resulting to a "why aren't you over this already?"
i bet this specific form of anger also makes the patient feel incredibly hopeless, so their mind has a choice - to feel anger, or despair, they chose anger, and it needs to be worked through in a healthy way, not just gotten over with
Triasha@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 4d
What is a healthy reaction to the realization that you live in a society that does not care for you? That rewards sociopaths who will lie for their own wealth and power in ways that kill millions?
shneancy@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 4d
i've got no idea man. maybe trying to do activism?
my imperfect solution was to limit media intake, i'm fully aware i'm just holding hands in front of my eyes pretending i don't see - but you know what, i'm no longer depressed, i'm no longer riddled with anxiety... so i guess plugging your ears and going lalalalala works. (i have to add that i do my best to stay kind of informed, but not too much. basically whatever memes give me, i'll know)
Triasha@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
I can't say you are wrong.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 4d
One where you channel the anger into positive change. For some that's volunteering and doing something to help the cause they're so angry about, for others it may be working hard to emigrate to a different country that doesn't embrace disease as a virtue. That's where the therapist can help, not by invalidating the patient's feeling, which everyone should learn in psychology 101.
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 4d
That's basically what the op is about. Anger is an appropriate reaction and the therapist is treating it like it isn't.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 4d
Probably looks a lot like this:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 4d
Exactly. Whether or not you feel justified in your anger and grief, it is maladaptive to hold onto them if it is preventing you from living your life. You can move past awful things, but you have to actually recognize the issue and want to change.
HasturInYellow@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 4d
It is no measure of health to be well adapted to profoundly sick society.
At what point do we acknowledge that YOUR response is maladaptive for the human race as a whole because it has led us here? It has led us to this point. You people who decide that feeling calm and at ease is more important than dealing with dangerous people or situations.
I am angry because these things are still present. I am angry because they are not being dealt with in any way. If you want me to "adapt" to my environment and learn to live with the evils that take place daily, to not be angry when I see mothers liquified by our bombs, to be calm when I see police drag a man out of a council meeting for clapping 3 times, you can get fucked.
You can get absolutely fucked. I will remain BLOODTHRISTY AND CONSUMED BY RAGE until I can QUENCH MY FUCKING THIRST.
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 4d
It isn't about the external world though. You could live in an utopia, experience grief and loss, and be unable to feel happy or do the things you want to do for your whole life because of it.
Regardless of the condition of the world, you would suffer. Suffering is an internal, mental state.
I think it is best to try to reduce that suffering as an end in itself. But you could also think about it in terms of helping the suffering person achieve whatever it is that they want. No matter what it is they want to do, letting go of their attachment to their suffering will be beneficial. That includes changing the material conditions that caused the event in the first place. It is easier to do that if you aren't suffering.
Also, that is not to say they just "forget" and move on. It is simply that their relationship to the event that caused the suffering has changed. You can accept that the event occurred and that you suffered, but not allow it to cause you further suffering. That's easier said than done, but it is possible if someone wants to attempt it.
HasturInYellow@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
What happens when people let go of their suffering is that they let go of any real drive to do anything about it. I have known people that have suffered and through counseling have bettered their life. But the thing that caused their suffering? Unaffected. Unchanged. And if not forgotten, ignored or some small pittance of virtue signaling that they care about it. Our society is so unbelievably shit at solving problems. We only ever sweep them under the rug.
Economic crash? Bailout
People hit by cars while walking on the road because there is not sidewalk? They shouldn't walk on the road, idiots. Forgotten
Wealth disparity? Ooh look! Another subscription to an app I use once a month.
People don't even attribute the suffering to its actual cause most of the time.
If we want to change things, you need the impetus of extreme emotion to really get shit done. If you have relieved yourself of the suffering, of the anger or grief or fear of something, how could you care about it? How could you possibly claim to care about it to the same degree?
People only want to be comfortable. They don't want to make the world better, as long as they are comfortable in their own little heads.
merc@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 4d
Yes. Maybe the anger is justified, but is it helpful?
Being furious all the time is really hard on your body. It's hard on your relationships with other people.
Anger is useful in a fight where it can be used to overcome fear and ignore pain. But, it's hard to go to bed and get a good night's rest if you're still seething with anger.
Maybe, sometimes, anger can be a good thing in the long term if you want to maintain the energy needed to get a law changed or something. That's not something that happens overnight, and it's easy to get discouraged. But, you need to be able to balance that with being able to sleep properly, to socialize, to perform well enough at your job so you don't get fired and don't end up homeless.
If you just want to be angry, then stop wasting the therapist's time, and wasting your own money.
merc@sh.itjust.works · -3 pts · 4d
Yes. Maybe the anger is justified, but is it helpful?
Being furious all the time is really hard on your body. It's hard on your relationships with other people.
Anger is useful in a fight where it can be used to overcome fear and ignore pain. But, it's hard to go to bed and get a good night's rest if you're still seething with anger.
Maybe, sometimes, anger can be a good thing in the long term if you want to maintain the energy needed to get a law changed or something. That's not something that happens overnight, and it's easy to get discouraged. But, you need to be able to balance that with being able to sleep properly, to socialize, to perform well enough at your job so you don't get fired and don't end up homeless.
If you just want to be angry, then stop wasting the therapist's time, and wasting your own money.
rain_worl@lemmy.world · -45 pts · 5d
clippy pfps are stupid, btw. microsoft was already evil by the time clippy was introduced
rImITywR@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 5d
That's not the point. Its a reminder that in the late 90s/early 00s, MS was slapped with multiple antitrust lawsuits for their evil actions. Its not
its
DokPsy@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 4d
Member when the government cared about monopolies and forced companies to split completely when they got too much market share?
Or that time a deadly flu swept through the world and while it did kill a bunch of people (and change the course of history in interesting ways), people and the government followed best practices known by science at the time and social distanced/masked up as best they understood it? Yeah, it got a racial nickname of Spanish flu despite it not originating there but still.
rain_worl@lemmy.world · -8 pts · 4d
what???
0ops@piefed.zip · 12 pts · 4d
rain_worl@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 4d
...what does this mean???
solipsisticskeptic@fedinsfw.app · 5 pts · 4d
Say 'what' again. I dare you! I double-dare you, motherfucker!
rain_worl@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 4d
what???
5too@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
Just in case you're missing the reference
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 61 pts · 4d
We have to re-normalize anger against injustice.
Anger is pathologized primarilybecause our entire economic and social order is built of pure, unadulterated injustice, and if you're allowed to be angry at injustices, the entire system might collapse.
Anyone trivializing or pathologizing anger is spreading the propaganda of the ruling class whether they mean to or not.
jimmy90@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 3d
have you done research into what happens to old and retired socialists?
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 3d
Yes, and from your comment history I'm quite sure you haven't, but you've absorbed some US State Department propaganda and mistaken it for research, so you have that going for you.
PacketPilgrim@thelemmy.club · 51 pts · 4d
The problem is there's no accountability anywhere. I'm a bit older so for me it's been 9/11, Iraq with WMD lies, Afghanistan Taliban replaced by the Taliban, Arming the Latin Cartels, Panama Papers, COVID, Epstein Files, Bailouts for Wallstreet, there are more for sure but nobody is ever held to account for anything. The bigger the lie the bigger the corruption the more it just gets swept away like nothing happened. It causes you to lose faith in your country and die a little inside each time. So I get it.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 23 pts · 4d
Dude I'm older than you, so I remember all that, as well as Iran-Contra, AIDS, Watergate (the last scandal for which there were consequences), Vietnam, My Lai, Nixon, the Arab Oil Embargo, the insane inflation of the 70s, Kent State, a whole bunch of assassinations, the Iran Hostage Situation, and a lot more.
Imagine over 60 years of seeing your government do all sorts of stupid things, with virtually no consequences at all (except Watergate, a little bit).
PacketPilgrim@thelemmy.club · 8 pts · 4d
Sorry brother, guess it's par for the course.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 3d
I'd really like the next 60 years to go a lot better for my son and future generations than the mess of the last 60.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 4d
The problem isn't anger nearly so much as "What are you going to do with that rage?"
And the answer seems to be "Go on the internet and type in all caps at other people!" Which... hey, I guess that works. We seem to have a lot of very angry people online and they do seem to be venting their frustration at one another very effectively.
We also have a growing number of police, military recruits, and paramilitary forces who also spend a bunch of time online working themselves up into terrified rage. And then they get to go out with guns and batons and tear gas to square off against civilians who have been terrified in turn.
Then we have a congo line of politicians show up to say "Vote for me and I will end the terror!" And then we get an even bigger police and paramilitary state, which maybe gets used to suppress the political opponents some of the time. But mostly just gets used to attack the homeless, round up immigrants, and bomb brown people living abroad. So now the whole world can feel terrified and angry. And we can be terrified and angry of that in turn.
GabrielBell12fi@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
Just speaking for myself (as someone who tends to go online and speak in all caps) I think that is perhaps a better way to deal with my rage at the world than taking it out on other people in the real world, or picking up a gun and shooting at other people in the real world.
It might annoy the people at whom I am speaking in all caps, but on the other hand at least no innocent bystanders end up with bullet wounds in them.
angband@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
It takes money to be batman.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 4d
Batman isn't real. But we've got a bumper crop of Lex Luthors.
M0oP0o@mander.xyz · 6 pts · 4d
Kirkland branded Dr evils
jdf038@mander.xyz · 51 pts · 4d
See now I am angry for this person.
And that seems pretty reasonable.
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 8 pts · 4d
Yeah society start to make people feel angry.
nul9o9@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 50 pts · 5d
I remember hearing an ad for a big water park in my area during covid saying they are still open.
They knew there'd be push back so there was a line "no one is forcing you to go" in that dj voice.
Pissed me right off, it put people in my area in more danger because all of those people mingling there still need to go to public stores and shit.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 4d
It really pisses me off because I'm generally quite pro individual liberty, but just as your freedom to swing your arm ends a few centimeters in front of my nose, you have a responsibility to take reasonable precautions to prevent the spread of infectious disease.
Wearing a mask for 2 years was a reasonable request. Getting vaccinated was a reasonable request. Social distancing and limiting association during a pandemic was a reasonable request
socsa@piefed.social · 3 pts · 4d
Liberty is the twin sister of responsibility. In a world where people are aware, cognizant and rational, nearly all regulations reduce to common sense. That's a big part of why I feel like actual libertarians should be royally pissed off at that shit - because people seriously behaving on behalf of idiotic conspiracies erodes everyone's freedom.
CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 4d
I have two neices. Their mom and dad both said covid wasn't real or it was a government psyop or it was Obama's fault or whatever.
Then their mom died of covid. Their dad still doesn't think it's real.
I don't understand it. I got two jabs and wore a mask, and the worst thing that happened to my wife and I throughout the pandemic was a sore spot on our arm for a day. Neither of us has ever had covid, or we had such a mild case that we never noticed. And all we had to do was... take some really basic precautions.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 4d
but, you see, those basic precautions require having empathy and caring about other people.. and, sadly, the idea of America Exceptionalistic Individualism, has destroyed empathy and the ability to care for anyone outside of yourself in a disgustingly large swathe of the population.
Which is why they mock, deride, and laugh.. until it affects them, then, and ONLY then, must there be decorum and understanding.
socsa@piefed.social · 6 pts · 4d
It doesn't even require empathy. It requires an appreciation for basic cause and effect slightly above that of a toddler. Covid denialism is an ego thing. These people made a decision and are so fragile that they would rather deny basic observable reality before admitting they are wrong. "Don't look up" fucking nailed it.
merc@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 4d
Sure, but they also require that you believe what you're seeing on the news.
I have empathy and care about other people. But, my mom is a conspiracy nut. She goes on rants about chemtrails, or the dangers of fluoride, or 5G, or nanoparticles. I want what's best for her, and I sympathize with her, but I don't believe any of these things are true. So, if she tells me I should change my behaviour because of these conspiracies, I'm not going to do it. The fact I continue to use WiFi doesn't mean I lack empathy or don't care about other people, it means that I don't think her conspiracy theories are correct.
My mother is (more or less) a person who cares about other people, but she wouldn't put on a mask during COVID because she didn't believe that it was a real disease, and didn't believe that masks worked, and she also did believe conspiracies that masks were dangerous to wear.
My mother thinks that the mainstream press can't be trusted about anything. Unfortunately, the people she believes are telling the truth are essentially anonymous accounts on some conspiracy forum. Many of them get their news from Newsmax or Infowars or the KGB.
I think the mainstream press can be trusted about many things, but that they're also in bed with big business and will often uncritically just report what a lot of big companies say without challenging it.
So, when the mainstream press says there's a pandemic and that we need to adopt certain behaviours to avoid it spreading, I believe it and want to do those things, my mother doesn't. But, when the press says that OpenAI has a new model that's on the verge of being sentient, that broke out of its containment and hacked another site, I think that's an absolute bullshit way of framing what happened.
It really comes down to how the US has slowly allowed the rich to take control and to warp everything to benefit themselves. Schools are not funded properly, and kids graduate without critical thinking skills. Media is captive to the wealthy interests, and at best is sensationalist and shallow, with talking heads yelling at each-other, or showing helicopter-shots of car chases. At worst, it's outright lies and propaganda favouring one party or one special interest group. And, because the US is such a big force in the world, and such a big source of media, this affects the whole world.
If people can't agree on a shared set of facts about the world, they can't make rational decisions. So, someone not wearing a mask might mean they lack empathy, or it might mean that they don't believe the news about COVID, or it might mean that they think the story of a major CHEMTRAIL attack that was leaked on the conspiracy forum wasn't actually real.
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 4d
My balls would like a word with you regarding nanoparticles...
merc@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 4d
I don't want to talk to your balls.
CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
I had a lot of fun when people would hassle me about the mask. Id say it was to hide my face from the HillaryObamaSoros facial recognition cameras, and that they were free to give their face away if they wanted.
It helps if you can figure out how to get through the propoganda to talk to people. Directly pointing out how fucking stupid they are won't work. But making it look silly to their eyes does work. I've recently been able to convince some people in my red state that solar panels are a way to make power that is independent of oil, coal, amd nuclear. That if they get solar panels they will cheat the power company out of their money.
The best part is pointing out that I can't make a gallon of gasoline, but I can make a kilowatt-hour of electricity with things I have lying around my house and charge my car.
merc@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 4d
Sure, but they also require that you believe what you're seeing on the news.
I have empathy and care about other people. But, my mom is a conspiracy nut. She goes on rants about chemtrails, or the dangers of fluoride, or 5G, or nanoparticles. I want what's best for her, and I sympathize with her, but I don't believe any of these things are true. So, if she tells me I should change my behaviour because of these conspiracies, I'm not going to do it. The fact I continue to use WiFi doesn't mean I lack empathy or don't care about other people, it means that I don't think her conspiracy theories are correct.
My mother is (more or less) a person who cares about other people, but she wouldn't put on a mask during COVID because she didn't believe that it was a real disease, and didn't believe that masks worked, and she also did believe conspiracies that masks were dangerous to wear.
My mother thinks that the mainstream press can't be trusted about anything. Unfortunately, the people she believes are telling the truth are essentially anonymous accounts on some conspiracy forum. Many of them get their news from Newsmax or Infowars or the KGB.
I think the mainstream press can be trusted about many things, but that they're also in bed with big business and will often uncritically just report what a lot of big companies say without challenging it.
So, when the mainstream press says there's a pandemic and that we need to adopt certain behaviours to avoid it spreading, I believe it and want to do those things, my mother doesn't. But, when the press says that OpenAI has a new model that's on the verge of being sentient, that broke out of its containment and hacked another site, I think that's an absolute bullshit way of framing what happened.
It really comes down to how the US has slowly allowed the rich to take control and to warp everything to benefit themselves. Schools are not funded properly, and kids graduate without critical thinking skills. Media is captive to the wealthy interests, and at best is sensationalist and shallow, with talking heads yelling at each-other, or showing helicopter-shots of car chases. At worst, it's outright lies and propaganda favouring one party or one special interest group. And, because the US is such a big force in the world, and such a big source of media, this affects the whole world.
If people can't agree on a shared set of facts about the world, they can't make rational decisions. So, someone not wearing a mask might mean they lack empathy, or it might mean that they don't believe the news about COVID, or it might mean that they think the story of a major CHEMTRAIL attack that was leaked on the conspiracy forum wasn't actually real.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 4d
"iT wAs JuSt PnEuMoNiA!"
... pneumonia caused by... a respiratory infection called... COVID-19!
Hadriscus@jlai.lu · 8 pts · 4d
How can he still not think it's real ? what's even the reasoning ?
CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 4d
I'm really not sure. He has had covid. I do know that his children have both mentally browbeat him to either get him to accept reality, or shut the fuck up.
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 31 pts · 4d
Crazy: The government planned COVID! Me: This government couldn't plan a fucking beer run.
Jumi@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 4d
I almost died from COVID and now everytime someone talks like that I want the next thing to come out of their mouths be teeth.
Ertain@mast.linuxgamecast.com · 27 pts · 4d
@homesweethomeMrL All's I can say is that this person's anger is justified.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 4d
I feel increasingly lost in a world that says it's bad to feel angry, depressed, and anxious all the time when those seem to be perfectly reasonable reactions to things going on around us. To me, it feels less sane to be upbeat and positive.
7101334@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 4d
"If you're conscious you must be depressed, or at least cynical" - MGMT
If you put an animal in a cage which is too small for it, or where it's mistreated, or where it just lacks any enrichment, you don't diagnose it as insane when it starts slamming its head against walls or pacing back and forth. You recognize that the environment is the problem. Humans are animals too, even though we like to pretend otherwise.
thingAmaBob@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
You do need to have some dissonance in order to be happy. The unfortunate truth is that we cannot fix everything going on around the world; we just aren’t equipped to handle such information as often as we do anyway (or so I’ve read). I stopped watching or reading most news and focus on my local communities for the sake of my own sanity, focusing on problems I can actually help with.
InvalidName2@lemmy.zip · 26 pts · 4d
One family living down the road from me lost an adult son to COVID because the 3 men of the house, father & 2 sons, believe(d) that the vaccine makes men sterile and of course they refused to wear masks. Despite mandates against large indoor gatherings, the family opted to have a funeral service with 100+ people packed into the church. A bunch of attendees ended up with COVID in the week or two following, one of which died. Very likely, the bulk of those folks got it at the funeral, as there are photos showing that almost nobody was wearing a mask nor social distancing.
Another set of neighbors, the wife was homebound due to poor health, but otherwise she still managed keeping up with yard and house work, cooking, cleaning, taking care of herself, etc. The husband spent his days of retirement out gallivanting with his buddies, hanging out unmasked and unvaxxed at bars, and places like that. The wife who never left the house, ended up with COVID. Pretty obvious he gave it to her considering he was feeling under the weather the prior week and she never left the house, but since he refused to take a COVID test, he would insist he never had it. She survived, but it left her physically and mentally disabled, not really able to take care of herself, forcing him to become her care taker. Then he passed away, largely due to ignoring his health and troubling signs.
I know I should be angry, but mostly I'm sad.
Psythik@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 4d
The worst part about things like this is when you try to have a conversation like this with your average friend/coworker/acquaintance/etc. they're all like, "calm down; you're overreacting". I'm like, "no, fuck you; you're underreacting! People DIED."
Has anyone else over the age of 35 notice a major shift the past couple of decades regarding how little people care about literally anything? It's like humanity as a whole have turned into emotional zombies. You can't even say hi to strangers in public anymore. They just stare at you like, "who are you and why the fuck are you talking to me"? It's so bizarre compared to how people used to be in the 90s and 2000s. Nobody even wants to make eye contact with anyone anymore, let alone wave as you pass each other down the street. Not unless you're someone they know.
It's as if people forgot how to communicate with each other outside of the internet... Is it just me? Maybe I just have a bitchy resting face. IDK. But anyway this YT Short perfectly exemplifies exactly want I mean. (Piped link)
forkDestroyer@infosec.pub · 16 pts · 4d
Worst part is the response I've gotten from this. "It was just some old people and those that would have died anyway from something else."
Until it impacts them personally, yes. Knew someone who thought covid was a common cold (had relatives with mild symptoms of any), then they caught it and it rocked them. Suddenly it wasn't anything to make fun of anymore. If they didn't have bad symptoms, they still wouldn't care.
Definitely not just you.
Draegur@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 3d
This experience has permanently damaged my patience for alleged "human beings". I'm with you on this, on how much it sucked, because my dad was once if those old people. This fucking plague killed him when he could've had at least a decade more to enjoy in life... My mother had just had a stroke and she needed him more than ever right when he got taken away. Now, every time I ever hear about someone dying, the math happens automatically in the back of my mind before I even get to recognize that it's happening:
Was the person who died at least as good a person as my father?
Because if not, fuck em.
I have no patience for the continued existence of anyone who isn't at least as kind, patient, generous, or warm as him. Which means VERY NEARLY every single fucking Republican. If they all died i would feel NOTHING. not even relief. But especially not grief. THEY DID THIS. I have nothing for them but revulsion. There is now a stark cutoff in my perception beyond which absolutely NOTHING matters. Only things that are better than that threshold are worth while. Literally everything else is beneath my attention.
Anything that is not at least going well enough, beneficially enough, to exist above that threshold, i have no time for. No room for in my perceptual horizon. I am one bad week from writing off all of existence and going out with maximal sabotage.
forkDestroyer@infosec.pub · 4 pts · 3d
My completely unrequested advice: try your best to stay or become the person that those you look up to (including your departed father) would be happy with you becoming. If you feel like you're overly frustrated and about to have a breakdown, do whatever you can to bring yourself back.
If that means you need to step away and take a vacation into a yurt or cabin in the woods with a Nintendo DS or a friend: do it. Therapy also helps if your insurance can afford it, and if you find the right therapist (most allow you to have a call to assess good fit).
Hang in there.
Toga77@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
What if doing that for decades has resulted in nothing?
Unfortunately society feels like it's headed to another historical event where the classes have to remind each other what the deal was, likely with violence.
Psythik@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Man do I really wish I had the money to take a vacation or even a staycation for my mental health...
vantablack@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 3d
idk about you but i'm heavily autistic
Psythik@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 3d
So am I but I still force myself do it because I don't want everyone to think I'm an asshole.
vantablack@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 3d
valid
i long ago stopped masking for the comfort of neurotypicals. but to each their own
Psythik@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Glad that works for you, but I refuse to stop masking because I will die lonely if I don't play along. I don't have any friends, but masking has allowed me to at least stay in a loving relationship for almost a decade bow, and if I lose her, I have nothing.
You do you, but this mask ain't coming off. It's the only thing keeping me sane.
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 3d
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 3d
What a beautifully ableist take.
How'd
Work out for any minority group in history?
Spoiler: not well.
Taleya@aussie.zone · 6 pts · 3d
we're turning into homogenised soup. Endless parade of milquetoast pillows with beige opinions and the depth of a puddle. Where is your passion. Where is your rage. "omg u so confrontational" I am human. if you cannot deal with a normal range of human emotions you are fucked
MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 3d
You're so negative is what I constantly got from my ex wife. Yeah, the world is fucked, and I feel the need to talk about it.
pelican476@discuss.online · 3 pts · 3d
Today I saw someone on my morning walk, he said hi, I said hi back, and then he reacted like I hadn't responded and got pissed off at me ("I guess its NOT a good morning, then!"). Every single human interaction outside my intimate circle makes me feel horrible. This guy just chose not to hold up his part of the bargain. It's like he chose to react badly, no matter what I actually did.
themaninblack@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
This is by far the most crazy transition that has happened in my lifetime. And I remember being asked “smoking or non smoking?”
MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
I think being overexposed to so many issues around the world is making people numb - especially when they don't know what to do about it.
(There may be other factors - for example, less densely populated areas being more open because there's more time per person to go around or something like that - but I think overexposure is a big bit of it).
We need more ways to act rather than just react.
For example, here's a long Covid research fundraiser link
7101334@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 4d
One of the most insightful comments I've heard, iirc from thecollectress on Instagram (hope I got her username right, it's been a while), is that the emphasis on maintaining a non-confrontational nature is a core component of white supremacist thinking (and by extension, capitalist thinking). That it's more important not to upset anyone than it is to argue for righteousness.
"The obnoxious peace which is the absence of tension, rather than the righteous peace which is the presence of justice" and all that.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 4d
I'd say we're in a far worse position if we were to get a COVID-26 after everyone started openly embracing anti-science and anti-empathy thanks to the MAHA/MAGA folks.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 4d
I mean it's like certainly going to happen again, in a few years -- it insane they didn't triple whatever budget the CDC had in my opinion but yeah these people would rather die than see their favorite party lose an election. Look up Dying of Whiteness, it's literally all a big death cult.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 4d
Yeah, any rational person in charge of public policy post-CoViD would say, "Oh wow, we could've done that much better; let's shift how we're doing things."
But as usual, MAGA doubled down for propaganda purposes.
AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml · -6 pts · 4d
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN MAGA DOUBLED DOWN
BIDEN WAS THE FUCKING PRESIDENT FOR ALMOST THE ENTIRE PANDEMIC
SPECIFICALLY THE PART YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
I know you mean this as sarcasm, but not only was Biden the president for the majority of the pandemic, there was a democratic supermajority.
It wasn't just MAGA doubling down. It's a concerted doubling down from nearly every major institution and demographic. It's easy to blame MAGA, but it's plainly obvious that the problem lies much deeper.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 4d
MAGA is leading the charge I mentioned. You can try to blame the apathetic and confused all you want, but they're not the ring leaders.
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
"Make America Great Again" was a line that Bill Clinton loved to use as well.
If by "MAGA" you mean socioeconomic elites with strong ties to projects like the heritage foundation and frequent fliers at destinations like Epstein's island then I'm 100% in agreement!
Obamacare was architechted by the heritage foundation.
Jim Crow Joe had a supermajority during the pandemic, did nothing and declared the pandemic "over" right before the deadliest wave. Voiced his true feelings when he said "you aint black!" If you don't support him. Achieved his careerlong ambition of overturning Roe V Wade but didn't quite manage to kill Medicare/Medicaid which was his real personal pet project.
I don't blame you for being confused and you clearly aren't apathetic, but you need to get informed otherwise you will continue to focus on the "scary" monster while the real enemy continues to flank.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 3d
In other words, "both sides?"
One party is demonstrably worse. The other is failing to oppose them sufficiently.
Their sins are far from equal as you anecdotally suggest.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 3d
Specifically we're talking about when trump gutted the cdc
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
Exactly.
I don't know why SinAdjetivos felt the need to Whataboutism/"both sides" this issue; it's clearly a concerted effort from MAGA to undermine science literacy for various reasons.
You can tell they're not arguing in good faith because they equivocated MAGA to anyone (including Bill Clinton) saying they want to make America great again, which is obviously not the same thing.
If someone says they want to make America great again by instituting economic reforms like FDR, they are very obviously not MAGA.
aaa999@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 4d
see a terrible opinion
look inside
.ml
look at posting history
"actually russia is anti-imperialist, western propaganda etc etc"
kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 3d
russia is anti-imperialist and irredentist.
they aid countries like cuba against the imperialist blockade (anti-imperialism), and they also conquer land from ukraine (irredentism)
of course you're going to completely reject this cus of my instance, but anyway
i do not support the russian invasion of ukraine btw
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
If an imperialist nation opposes an imperialist nation (to serve their own imperialist goals), neither can be realistically labeled anti-imperialist.
kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 2d
what imperialist goals does russia have
aaa999@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 3d
obama reduced the blockade against cuba
is obama anti-imperialist
kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 3d
no
Draegur@lemmy.zip · 19 pts · 3d
I want to hug OOP so bad ;_; COVID took my dad from us and yeah, it was like that. I want to listen to OOP tell me everything on their mind about their mom... without judging them. Without questioning them. With only accepting them and commiserating. Fuck this timeline and the world we built in it...
protist@retrofed.com · 18 pts · 4d
I think what this person isn't getting is the feeling of anger and the actions one takes in response to feeling anger are very different things. Feeling anger is part of being human. Acting angry is absolutely called for in some circumstances, but it can easily spin out of control and infect other parts of your life that have nothing to do with what you're angry about. Dollars to donuts this person has let anger infect their life to the point it's disrupting something, like maybe their relationships or employment, which is why they're in therapy.
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space · 18 pts · 5d
Based.
Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 4d
Sometimes anger protects you 🤷🏻♂️
Krauerking@lemy.lol · 18 pts · 3d
I am really tired of being emotional being an insult when its a major point of humanity.
starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works · 16 pts · 3d
I have long covid which basically is completely debilitating, and my conservative parents STILL talk about "haha wasn't the pandemic silly. We really overreacted :P" meanwhile 4 million Americans are unable to work, and I've been to the ER twice because of something you have a 1/5 chance of getting from covid. Can't believe we were so hysterical about it guys 🤭
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org · 16 pts · 5d
🫂
Janx@piefed.social · 16 pts · 4d
I have no idea who this person is, but I'm pretty sure they should be in charge of things...
lastlybutfirstly@lemmy.world · -8 pts · 4d
I don't know where you live, but in the US, we've already got someone in charge who is constantly bitter, angry, and posting unhinged rants on the Internet.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 3d
What's actually true does matter. A bitter angry unhinged man is getting a lot of unhinged to happen. OP isn't unhinged.
lastlybutfirstly@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 3d
The OP's enraged because their psychiatrist wants them to go on meds because they're so ridiculously angry. If I were the manager of a Dunkin Donuts, I'd seriously be concerned about workplace violence if I hired them. There's a lot of red flags going up here.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 3d
If they were running for office, I'd hire them in a heartbeat. In context it's not crazy at all.
lastlybutfirstly@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 3d
It is crazy. If you're a member of a church, you don't replace Joseph Di Mambro with Jim Jones. You try to find someone like Pope Leo or something.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 3d
But what's true does matter. Dunkin Donuts and the church are already successful, and they don't really matter. Our public health system is not successful and it does really matter. If OP were upset about church membership, then yes they 100% would be crazy. "If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bike."
MAGA elected an angry guy because they wanted change. That doesn't mean that change is bad, it means that society should change in a way that's good. We should've elected Howard Dean when he dared show emotion.
lastlybutfirstly@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
You're right, Dunkin Donuts doesn't matter. That was my point. If I can't trust someone to man the checkout counter without punching the customers, I can't trust them to run a global superpower with nukes.
We're not going to improve our health system by putting someone in charge who refuses to take their meds and wants to yank pathological rage out of the DSM-5-TR.
Anger is bad. You can't think straight if you're angry and emotionally unstable. You're going to make bad decisions. You're not going to fix anything in that state. You're going to make more of a mess.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 4d
. . . and projecting it ALL outward, so they personally never have to change while insisting every last bit of what they feel is all someone else's fault and for others to change.
Nalivai@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 3d
Anger is not a productive emotion. It drains you, exhausts you. It doesn't help. Transform it into something cold and calculated, and use it to get metaphorical revenge.
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 3d
Nah, this is bs.
Plenty of people are fueled by anger, motivated by anger, focus better when they're angry. Anger can already be cold and calculated, no transformation necessary.
But aside from all that, emotions don't have to be productive. They aren't productive or unproductive, they simply are. Emotions are largely involuntary reactions to our surroundings and circumstances, a lense that colors an individual's world. They're all valid, regardless of whether or not they're productive, and pointing out that "anger is not productive" makes you part of the problem the post is describing.
Reginald_T_Biter@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 3d
The word productive scares me sometimes.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 3d
It's an obsession born out of capitalism. They want you focused on "productivity" because it makes the line go up. Sometimes you need to be unproductive.
Reginald_T_Biter@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
My thoughts exactly. Maybe I dont want to produce, maybe I want to sit on my ass and play Gothic 1 for 7 straight hours.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Yeah, I got so angry at AI slop code that I started doing research for a video essay, and found the original form of AI coding, in the 60's and 70's. It's called "natural language programming", and it's the reason why SQL's syntax looks ass.
Nalivai@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Emotions have to be not damaging. When they are, you feel like shit and it reinforces the cycle of you feeling like shit. They are "valid" whatever that might mean, but they can absolutely wreck your entire shit up. So we learn to properly process them so that doesn't happen.
Your not recognizing that is actually part of the problem, you reinforce people being total wrecks, under the misguided veil of trying to appear helpful.
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2d
You missed my point completely, and are arguing something I'm not actually saying.
You don't help someone process an intense emotion by telling them their emotion isn't helpful. That's the whole point of the post.
MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Or sometjing like this?
https://www.longcovidadvoc.com/fundraising-for-research
TheStaffmaster@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 3d
they ban you for threatening violence.
aramis87@fedia.io · 14 pts · 4d
I still wear my mask in public.
StellarStoat@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 4d
Same. The amount of people smirking at me, and looking at me like Im crazy is hard to deal with. We finally felt like maybe it was time to unmask, and for a day or so it was going well, until I caught covid and gave it to my partner. It was absolutely terrible. We're up to date on boosters, and it still took us down for a week with razor throat, coughing, headache, laziness. After the first week, we were still coughing for 2 weeks after. We are back to wearing masks. This disease would literally be over and done if everyone just vaccinated and wore masks for a few months. Instead they still want a way to kill grandma. I have a co-worker who is serially deathly ill because of her grandkids. This is just a terrible timeline.
pyre@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 3d
the issue is not whether it is normal. that's not even a therapist's concern. the issue is whether it's healthy. the perspective is skewed as well. a "normal" reaction to an extremely abnormal situation is by definition not normal. "normally" people aren't perpetually angry because they don't "normally" go through what you've been going through.
PTSD is a "normal" reaction to trauma. should people who suffer from devastating PTSD not seek help because it's a normal reaction? completely skewed way to look at it.
FearMeAndDecay@literature.cafe · 5 pts · 3d
Yup. Also we only have op's perspective. So it may be as you said that they're having a normal reaction to an abnormal situation or they could be having an abnormal reaction (like explosive anger or constant anger) that they don't realize is very unhealthy for them bc their anger is understandable and justified and therefore op perceives it as normal and fine
Basically, life is complicated, we only have one perspective, and just bc something is understandable doesn't make it good or healthy
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 4d
Yeah this country is dogshit in a lewis vittone poopscoop bag. He needs to emigrate only way he'll ever be able to release the anger. This country killed his mom and has had and will never have more than zero remorse or even awareness of it really.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
You a secret millionaire thats gonna start giving people the bags of money they need to be able to afford such a thing free of charge?
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · -1 pts · 4d
Oh im sorry i didn't realize i can only recommend things that don't cost money
7101334@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
"Oh I'm sorry I didn't realize I had to recommend things that are realistic"
Liberal spotted lol. Working class organization is the solution, not running away.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 4d
Get organized in a different country the us government hates you and wants to kill you and that's what the majority vote in favor of.
7101334@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
Again, are you footing the bill for that or just preserving yourself while saying "fuck you, good luck" to the masses who are to poor to leave their entire lives behind?
Ellen DeGeneres type shit.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
You can tell he has money, with his absolute callous incapability of considering other people cant just afford to uproot their lives and move to another country, even if they spent years planning for it.
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 4d
Pretty sure the cost of physically moving is the easy part too. You need to be allowed to work at your destination if you have any chance at surviving for long.
A single month rent is enough money to get to almost any country on the planet. But good luck actually moving to a lot of them with that.
7101334@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Yeah exactly
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 4d
Probably only a few years away from being able to claim refugee status in Canada or Mexico though.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4d
Pay for what? Yes things cost money, organizing does too. Sorry you have Stockholm syndrome about a country of people that votes for you to go away and die.
7101334@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
Pay for emigration / legal fees, plane tickets, new housing / rent while they secure a job (assuming they're even allowed to work)?
I'm sorry you lack compassion and empathy for those who are dumb enough to believe themselves to be your enemy. Except for the real enemies, as determined by the value of their net worth. I'm sorry you're so selfish that you would rather preserve yourself from hypothetical, future harm (because I'm guessing you're a relatively privileged white liberal, could be wrong) than work to protect other people from real, present harm. I'm sorry you lack any moral fortitude.
axus@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 4d
Black Americans are still mad about racism, too
CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 3d
As they should be
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 13 pts · 3d
To be fair (lol) how can therapy work in an insane and unjust society? Shouldn't your therapist advice you to join the fascist party since your white and cis anyway, it's better for your mental health (lol). Here are some pills to make you forget, the alternative is joining the resistance and fighting and likely dying (which is definitely suicidal)
EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm being very sarcastic here, there are always productive things you can do even in these times.
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 3d
Something like radical acceptance from dbt is my go to for someone with your argument. I can acknowledge injustice and also acknowledge that much of it is out of my control. I can work towards correcting injustice whenever possible but I also have to recognize that fixing everything is far beyond me. For my own mental health I need to be able to recognize when I am ruminating on an issue that cannot be fixed and learn to let go of that attachment to suffering
Alternatively I can be miserable, forever dwelling on injustices that I cannot fix myself. But how does that help change anything? Really would argue it’s just giving the fascist party what they want. If “the resistance” is beaten and broken simply by business as usual then is that not great for them?
In a non political context think of an emergency veterinarian or ER doctor who got into the field because they truly care for animals/people. They undoubtedly will deal with unfair death, seeing the results of abuse, systemic failures about cost of care resulting in premature death or disability, etc. probably on a near daily basis if they live anywhere with people. Should they simply resign themselves to misery because of this cruel and harsh reality? Or should they find a way to let go of the attachments to the misery involved in these tasks so they can do their (very necessary) job that already desperately needs more of people like them
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 3d
Yeah well said. In a way realizing just how broken our civilization is helped me let go of some personal issues, like demands I put on myself.
But I'm lucky and privileged, I haven't suffered great traumatizing injustices like OP. I do think it's an important question how therapists deal with systemic injustice and oppression and environmental collapse on a global scale. I don't think psychotherapy really developed to deal with this, the ideal would be to get people out of these situation and let them heal. But there is no getting out.
OP is a good example of the psychological terrorism inflicted on most sane people by Trump and MAGA. Deliberate. We're in an abusive relationship but there is no halfway house and we can't divorce. People don't even understand that neoliberalism is driving all this, and most therapists do not either.
So I do think it should be radical acceptance. But there is the dichotomy: Anger gets shit done. People should get angry and channel that anger into productive or well, subversive ways. At least if we want a chance to defeat our "abusers".
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 3d
Is civilization 'broken'? It seems like people have the perception that the world should be just and good things should come to those who somehow 'deserve' it. That's not reality and never has been. Civilization in general is the movement to better for all in my mind, but that's a slow, grueling path and we haven't gotten close to it yet. We are one dumb monkey away from ending civilization as we know it every day. Or just a couple meals away from civil war.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 3d
But it could be, and anyone who learns that it's not reality and has any reaction other than "well why the fuck not?" and a determination to make that the reality by any means necessary isn't a good or even neutral person.
Your complacency is actually a bigger problem than the greed of the people benefitting directly from the world's injustices.
The only appropriate or morally acceptable reaction to seeing injustice is to resolve to stop it by any means necessary.
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 3d
In the 100,000 years of humanity it hasn't been and you suddenly are the bright one who thinks it will change because 'it could be'?
So in your mind causing further injustice to stop an injustice is morally acceptable? You said any means necessary.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 3d
In the 100,000 years of humanity it has been, most of that time. In the 8000 years of the existence of domination systems we've been moving away from that ideal and not towards it, and for the 300 years capitalism has existed we've been sprinting away from it like it was an apex predator, but it was the norm up until fairly recently on the scale of human evolution. There were even a few generations between the invention of the ox-driven plow and the waves of kurgan invasions where people likely got to enjoy the benefits of agriculture and urbanization without the crushing demands of laboring for the good of an oppressor.
Punishing the perpetrators of injustice or violently preventing them from doing further injustice is not an injustice, so your entire point makes no sense.
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 2d
Every historian would disagree with you. For almost all of humanity the mass majority lived short brutal lives, and often starved or were flat out killed. Hell, that was if you were the lucky few that survived childhood to begin with.
Domination systems? Seriously? Yes, absolute rulers and domination over the world has worked out so well for humanity.
Capitalism isn't the best system, but like democracy, it's the best until some bright group of monkies come up with a better one that can be implemented.
You could be the first buddy.
And yes, solving injustice with more injustice is the same logic the Nazi's used to kill people they didn't like.
Perhaps you'll grow up, get out of the basement and actually live life, realizing it's a whole lot better than 99% of history has allowed for.
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 3d
Well my minimum standard is that we as a civilization do not steer towards extinction. Or that we reasonably minimize the risk of extinction. If an alien would look at our failed action on climate change, it would think we failed a very basic test for a "rational intelligent civilization".
We are incapable of acting rational as a civilization. This hasn't always been the case, even though people have always been assholes.
There has been much technological progress and social progress for minorities, but negative progress in quite a few very important areas. Raising children, news / social media, propaganda and disinfo, wealth inequality, climate change, consumerism, resource depletion. Gaza, Ukraine, Iran and other wars. Or the insane investment into AI and datacenters is just bonkers. Crisis in science and research. Autonomous killer robots will soon allow complete totalitarian control.
Outdated voting systems that do not allow better democracy. The US can't be called a democracy at all. China as a one party system with is taking better care of their people than the US, because of their socialist roots they actually believe in something besides self serving unlimited greed. The elites and plutocrats in the west believe in nothing.
And the trouble is that with technological progress it becomes increasingly more possible to make ourselves extinct. Right now even with all out nuclear war it would be pretty impossible to scrape us off the planet. But add some bioweapons or use mass killer robots or AGI then it becomes feasible. The richest man in the world is actively trying to create a malicious "anti-woke" super intelligence.
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 3d
This has literally always been the case. When has it been the case for the world for say 100 years? Please let us know.
All of this is opinion rather than objective fact. Progress has been made for everyone. Look at 1950 to now and certain groups have improved much more than others, but all groups have improved. That's progress. It's never equal for everyone, nor could it be, unless you only move progress for the lowest common denominator.
You sit here and type on a device made by slave labor, wear clothes, likely eat meat, want or have had children, all things further destroying others and the world.
Its incredibly easy to blame 'them' but real hard to look internally. Companies don't exist without people to buy their products, which you do not have to use, you do not have to buy, and yet you continue to do so.
None of those can 'eliminate' humans. Will it make it tougher for 8 billion people to survive? Absolutely. The planet shouldn't have that many people to begin with. When humans are long gone as every other species that has come before us, the earth will carry on without us, and probably will be better for it.
Perhaps stop being part of the system that is causing the issues to begin with.
thingAmaBob@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 4d
This is a difficult situation. There are many things one should be angry about, but one has few options to deal with it: either you can let it go and move on, actually try to do something about it (even if you fail or it takes a lifetime or not always possible), or just stay angry.
I’m not going to tell anyone how to feel, but I personally would either let it go or try to do something. I’ve lost people before and I refuse to feel that shitty all the time; it is hell.
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
You are conflating the pain of loss with the emotion of anger.
If you have an ounce of humanity, sympathizing with this person should be automatic. They have every right to be furious and there can be no resolution until the underlying material conflict has been resolved. That is the purpose of that emotion, to drive behavior towards affecting change.
The approach/philosophy you are approaching this from is useful for when the brain gets "stuck" after the underlying conflict has been resolved or when someone is hallucinating blame to deal with the pain of loss. There is no possible interpretation where either of those is the case. The situation has been logically analyzed and the emotion has been checked.
If you have an ounce of empathy you should be mad as well. You have been informed of the situation. You are aware of the pain they are experiencing. You understand that without change this can/will happen to you. Why aren't you angry?
thingAmaBob@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
I believe you and I are on the same page really. I do empathize, and yes, I do get angry (and I agree that anger is a necessary emotion at times), but I have to ask myself, is there something concrete I can accomplish or work toward? If so, I get to work. And if not, then I try to move on. I focus on what I can change instead of risking my own mental health focusing on things I cannot.
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
I don't think we are, but it depends on what do you mean by "move on"?
It is almost always used to encourage very deliberate, self-destructive, disassociation. That will wreck your mental health and you will have trained yourself to not realize it. Your feelings are valid, suppressing them and ignoring the problem won't make either go away.
If you are someone with an obsessive or single-minded kind of personality then that can be good advice. Obsessing over something you cannot change will wreck your mental health. However, assuming that's true of enough people that this is good general advice is insulting and damaging. It is also conflating obsessive tendencies with a specific emotion.
It is valid and necessary to remain angry at injustices, even those we cannot immediately change, because that is the only way to gather the political will to do so.
AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 4d
Were they murdered?
Do you have to interact with their murder every day and be 'normal' around them?
thingAmaBob@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
No. I can understand how being around these people who didn’t take Covid seriously can reopen the wound. There are slight triggers for me, but most likely nothing compared to what OP is dealing with. Either way, I’m not going to tell people how to feel or even tell them to “get over it.” I can only express my opinion about my own feelings in my own life. I really do hope OP can find peace or a tangible solution.
dustyData@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 4d
Even survivor families of murdered people struggle but eventually have to move on and rebuild their lives. Your continuous suffering does not bring them back. Your eventual happiness does not disservice the loss. That's the hardest part of grief and injustice.
Feeling angry at the event is normal, but if it is crippling your ability to take care of yourself or others who depend on you. Then that is what is unhealthy. Holding on to the pain and anger to the point that you don't function properly is actively hurting you further.
AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 4d
I don't see you answering my question, I see you ignoring my point.
GabrielBell12fi@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 4d
I actually do know someone who was murdered, and while I don't have to face their murderer every day, the event changed my life more than any other.
Somewhere else on this thread you'll see a post by me saying "I let things go". It's true - since then I just don't hold on to anger, because I just don't see the point. If I stayed angry at the person who murdered my friend, then that person would be the one in charge of my life. They would be the one controlling me, the one for whom I was living my life.
And that applies to everything else. If something annoys me then maybe I think about it for a few minutes, maybe an hour, but then - it's gone. Because if I give more thought than that - if I let it fester, then I give it power over me. Which is just...... not how I want to live my life.
dustyData@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
I'm not the one you asked the question to, just commenting on the general discussion. But let's play at that. Yes, I have murdered family members. Yes, I'm angry. But my anger won't stop me from living my life. It's very important to remember that there are things within our control, and things outside our control. The attitude we assume towards the hardships of life is one of the things under our control. We can't control how we feel, but we can decide to not let our tragedies dictate our lives. The emotions after tragedies and injustices can be fuel to lead us into meaningful actions. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. The fear people see on others who are consumed by their emotions is not from some need to take a moral high ground. It is fear that we will lose them as well, to grief and depressive spirals.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
In my experience, these are conjoined. You try to do things (or, at least, stew about wanting to do things) while you're angry. And as the anger fads, the impulsive need to act fades with it.
So then you've got a group of people who are still angry. And they can turn to the people who have burned out from their anger and scream "Why are you not still angry?! Why are you so apathetic?!" And then these angry people can blame the burn outs for whatever failures accrue.
But it goes one step deeper, because there's no just one group of angry people. It's a melting pot of people with different views all competing to impose their will on the world. And any time any individual or group fails, they need to root out the cause of that failure. Which means blaming the out-groups and self-flagellating over personal weakness and bemoaning the neutral third parties for not being on your team.
Also, lots of money in selling people an outlet for their rage. Or selling them a cure for it. Or selling them a means of inflicting pain on the people they're angry at. Or just selling them on the promise of some future satisfaction.
An endless conflict fueled by rage, fear, greed, and ambition.
LazyBaby@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 3d
Yeah, I'm with you. I feel like there's a possibility that this person is experiencing a complex trauma that continues to affect their minute-to-minute life in negative ways, and the therapist was trying to guide them toward a kind of acceptance that could have eased some of those negative effects but their patient just wasn't having it. Maybe not ready for it.
I'm not trying to say I know them or what's right for them, of course, but just offer an alternative view
hyperencabulator@lemmy.today · 12 pts · 3d
This is a very valid feeling. But it doesn't sit well in the context of therapy. Like, this is individual therapy dealing with trauma from systemic problems. Like, if it's outside of my locus of control I can either let it affect me forever or try to do something about it, even if that something is letting go (or even forgiving, as far-fetched as that ideal seems these days). Part of going to therapy is taking agency. There is a problem, in some small way I will do whatever I can about it.
I can't just be mad with this and raise my mental pitchfork bc this is an illustration of someone rightfully truly struggling and their mental health physician pointing them towards the painful way out. I think the takeaway is less "how could anyone expect anyone to get over anything this heinous" and more one of horrible feeling of trying to hold onto the one thing you're left with when someone is taken from you like that --anger-- and coming to terms with the fact that that anger is still hurting you long after. Your therapist is not going to start the revolution or the purge for you. They are literally there to help you and you alone with things that trouble you and you alone. When they talk to survivors of abuse as children, rape victims, they aren't going to go out and slay the offenders, even if they want to. They are just trying to work with the tiniest amount of control a victim still has after the crime to help the victims make real change for themselves.
I guess overall it might not be productive to take that private struggle and put it out to your tumblr mutuals to validate you and build resistance to letting go but Idk. Healing can take many forms.
forkDestroyer@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 3d
The angler is valid, but validity doesn't mean that it can't also be complex grief and that he isn't coping. There's nothing wrong with anger as an emotion. It's the expression and impact that can be a problem (and can be pathological).
hyperencabulator@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 3d
Exactly.
Toga77@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Y'all are missing the point.
With the societal trends, it doesn't matter even if OP gets better, the world is trending to cold, unfeeling, corporate, zero privacy garbage and basically no one is fighting back, or if they are there is no visibility.
To have people everywhere, all the time reference covid as the cold and not wear masks when they are sick means we learned NOTHING from covid as a society and we'll likely repeat something similar.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 4d
Sounds like they need a new therapist that isnt oxygen deprived by having their head so far up their own ass that its lodged in their small intestine.
This is like saying "Your anger is inappropriate, Yes your mother was murdered, and yes the killer is still out there killing, and yes a solid 1/3rd of people in the country are either actively cheering for the killer or refusing to acknowledge their existence depending on convenience to the discussion, thus resulting in your trauma and wounds being violently torn back open every. single. day. for. entire. fucking. years.. But thats obviously a you problem, and you need to deal with it and get over it"
phx@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 4d
Yeah, it's a bit fucked to call things "unprocessed anger" etc etc when the things that caused what we're angry about are at best still happening and more likely getting worse.
I've seen certain politicians described as "too angry" before their eventual replacement. You know what, I want an anger politician, just one who is angry about real issues. I want somebody who realizes how shitty things are for the average citizen and wants them to change, then gets angry at the fuckers who sit with their thumbs up their ass with thoughts, prayers and empty platitudes while collecting massive paycheques (and bribes) then actively calls them out.
Note that this doesn't mean I want a dumbass who complains about "foreign smoke " or lies and abuses issues while acting like a petulant toddler who didn't get their way out or personally profit, I just want somebody who actually cares and if they do... then fuck yes they should actually be angry about the way things are and the direction they're going.
spontaneoushumancombustion@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 4d
I work in the brain injury field (long term rehab). It's uncanny how similar it is. Post injury, you get two varieties: They recognize they've suffered the trauma, but refuse to acknowledge deficits or are completely incapable of registering the injury in any way, shape, or form.
I'm astounded as to how many of them that are high functioning fall into the 'there was no COVID' crowd.
ViceroTempus@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 4d
I see no lies here. I think it's insane that people just expect anger to be swallowed when there has been no justice, no change in the circumstances that caused the anger in the first place.
Zacryon@feddit.org · 6 pts · 4d
That's a weird therapist.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 4d
Okay this was definitely the best thing to see first thing when I got in the internet when I got home from a funeral
captain_oni@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 4d
Sorry for your loss. And as this post says, feel free to feel all the emotions you might be experiencing now.
I don't know how close you were to the deceased, but I'm sure with time, and being surrounded by your loved ones (be them either people, or pets) I'm sure you'll be able to eventually get through this.
... Unless the funeral you're coming from is Lindsey Graham's, in which case, join me in cheer and joy:
Sibshops@lemmy.myserv.one · 6 pts · 4d
So he paid the therapist to do what exactly? If he things nothing is wrong, then why even go?
seblin@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 4d
People can have more than one problem. Last time I checked, humans aren't 2D. Or even if that's the main reason the person went to therapy, perhaps they weren't looking for a "how do I turn this frown upside down" solution, instead hoping to get some advice on how to better channel their frustrations, or gain clearer focus, or just to have someone to help sort out own thoughts. There can be many reasons.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 4d
You can be angry in a healthy way. You can carry anger in ways that do not eat you up from the inside, causing that anger to harden into resentful bitterness, and that allow you to fully grieve your very real and unjust losses -- that you will NEVER get back -- so that even with the presence of anger and ongoing non-resolution of the presenting loss, you're still moving toward a better life, daily.
Survivors of things like trafficking have to deal with this kind of human-evil created unjust loss and forever damage as well. Pretty sure that's what this writer wants help with, and it's not an unreasonable ask of a mental health professional.
But this therapist just wants to skip all that, apparently, which is not uncommon (many, many people are anger avoidant, even therapists) but this anger avoidance does not help their client at all.
The writer coming back with an extended FUCK YEAH I'M ANGRY (and here's exactly why) rant is not just reasonable, but a better response than the therapist's. The writer, by openly acknowledging their anger, is actually handling it in a healthier, less self-destructive way than someone who is afraid to even acknowledge it.
Anger -- especially deep anger and rage coming from horribly unjust situations that cause lifelong loss, and even more so situations that didn't even need to happen except for someone else's unnecessary actions -- can be an incredibly tricky emotion to navigate, even threatening to all involved. Many people have visceral, deeply unpleasant reactions to the expression of anger, their own and the anger of others, and again, some of them are even therapists. But if you want to deal with grief, chances are excellent you're going to have to deal with anger at some point too.
This writer has a much better start on the whole issue of anger than their therapist does, IMO.
If I knew this person, the first thing I would tell them would be what someone else told me long ago: an abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is absolutely normal. And I'd start there because it sounds like the therapist may not have even gotten that far.
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 4d
It seems like there was a misunderstanding on what he wanted out of therapy or, a mismatch between therapist and client. Something wasn't clicking.
ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
Sounds to me like the therapist is part of the "it's not real" crowd
harambe69@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 3d
Just kill every moron until the population drop below the levels required to sustain a pandemic.
TheStaffmaster@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
ironically...
Sarcasmo220@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 3d
This was a pretty good podcast episode talking about the limitations of individual therapy has in addressing systemic issues and how it can be changed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2z9o7kcW4I
w3ird_sloth@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
I'll validate that shit! *stamp
socsa@piefed.social · 3 pts · 4d
Mood
chunes@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
People don't care about anything that doesn't affect them personally. They never have and they never will.
They will laugh and spit in the face of those who have been affected without realizing it. This is a clown universe.
Jaysyn@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Your therapist is garbage & needs to be fired.
Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io · 1 pts · 11h
Yep, agree 100% with all of this. I've changed my life and professional practice to accommodate. I cut my patient flow in 1/2 along with my income, so that each treatment room sits with the HEPA going for an hour between patients. Everyone is masked, everyone is vaccinated. I've got patients who are PO'd at that requirement. But you know what, here we are 2026, and I've got patients coming in who I've not seen since before the pan-damnic. Here's the deal, about Nov. 2025 I realized that it appeared many infectious diseases have both short and long term consequences. So I started pulling up research from PubMed and it's absolutely the case. So wear your masks, wash your hands, avoid infections like the plague they are, because the harm they do long term IS a huge and ill considered part of the aging process. Tell your friends, family, those you care about. The CDC and the Fed aren't going to help much, at least not for a while, maybe decades. We've go to do this on our own, teach each other what we've learned, and stick with it. Knowledge, alas, is too easily lost. By the time I saw this post it had garnered 1.29K up votes, more by far than most posts of Fedi. Spread the word, that's what this non-corp soc.media is made for.
mabeledo@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Americans and denying feelings, name a more iconic duo.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 3d
Ooh! Brits and denying feelings!
Did I win?
Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 3d
Your anger won't magickally heal because you get a trophy, bro. You gotta do your spiritual work, which is work, that which will disentangle you from those traumas and emotions. I know what it's like being scarred on the inside. I'm still damaged, but I've done a helluva lot to heal, and the more you choose to let go of that hot coal through the act of forgiveness, the less it burns you. Forgiveness is not a single act, it is many acts over time. You have a knot in your soul. Unentangle yourself through skillful intention-setting, for it is your intention that steers the mechanism that results in how you are bound to your Karma.
Karmic entanglement = quantum entanglement
MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
How do we unentangle corruption from political office?
Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
That is the work. You work to fix the world and this heals you. And there's a right way to do it, wherein this process is oriented not outwardly but inwardly. The goal of life is not to fix the planet, the goal is to fix yourself. The planet is just there, inside us, and we set our intention to determine how our entanglements play out. Intention is everything. If you set out to make the world better that will heal you more than setting out to destroy something, because you become what you do, and if you choose to be a destroyer, you are the evil of the next generation.
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net · -3 pts · 4d
What restrictions do we consider reasonable if its justified by saving lives? Most would say 1984 to save some lives isn't a desirable option.
At the same time, millions dead just to save wearing a face mask in public seems unreasonable.
So where is the reasonable line? I remember being told I was reckless for going for a swim. At no point was I within even 20m of anyone else except when cars drove past me as I cycled to/from the beach.
Some acted as if leaving your home for any reason was endangering others, others acted like the slightest inconvenience was an unacceptable infringement of their rights.
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
It was, and that is still true if you are sick or think you might be. That risk needs to be measured against your needs.
Because they're entitled selfish people who lack empathy and have been trained into anti-social behaviors.
It doesn't seem like it, it sounds like you measured the danger you presented to the public against your needs for exercise and space. However, shaming you for it was/is a necessary component of helping to prevent the entitled anti-social fuckwads from killing people. Which does lead to some incoherent/inconsistent messaging.
So yeah, fuck you for going swimming.
QueenHawlSera@piefed.social · -5 pts · 4d
A friend of mine named Robotech_Master was ran over by a guy released from jail due to Covid, he was riding an e-bike.
I hate the Covid response and e-bikes and will hold grudges against them as long as I live.
Edit: Why am I being downvoted? It's well known Trump botched the Covid response
merc@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4d
Your friend's parents must be weird.
QueenHawlSera@piefed.social · 1 pts · 4d
Howso?
merc@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 3d
They named their child Robotech_Master.
QueenHawlSera@piefed.social · 1 pts · 3d
Oh
merc@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4d
Your friend's parents must be weird.
antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com · -5 pts · 4d
This isn’t anger it’s resentment. Resentment is a poison pill that you swallow, hoping it harms your enemy. The only way through is to forgive. Or you can carry it around the rest of your life, if that feels right for you. Revenge isn’t going to bring your mother back. If you want to be at peace, make peace with it.
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 4d
There's an even better way through it. Fight back. Use it as motivation to change a broken system. Kick the idiots out of power, and make sure this can never happen again. Make Mom's sacrifice mean something.
Vreyan31@reddthat.com · 16 pts · 4d
This. I'm tired of pathologizing "uncomfortable" reactions. It is appropriate to have resentment over what they described. But also - none of the remedies they say they want are actually vengeful? Oh no - they want a stronger CDC, and a monument to those lost and some opportunity for societal-level grieving.
The person who posted this isn't dealing with this poorly. They are pointing out that our society dealt with this disaster poorly, diving head-first into violent denial. And that our response as a society is continuously re-traumatizing them as someone who lost their mother.
We are all in the madhouse created by Fox News, fascists, megalomaniacal billionaires and white nationalists. Maybe being told this is a personal mental health problem is a problem and worth criticizing.
isekaihero@ani.social · -15 pts · 3d
rob-by should stop being such a whiny little bitch. Grow up.
I'm not getting a booster you can't make me =P
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works · -17 pts · 5d
I'd make a point of just going off at anyone who mentioned Covid to me, and making them as uncomfortable as possible. Make them regret ever opening their mouth.
FishFace@piefed.social · -20 pts · 4d
It's objectively not a normal reaction though. It's understandable, sure, but most people stop being angry about even heinous stuff after a few years.
shneancy@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 4d
if you're not angry about heinous things every time you're reminded of them - then you're the problem
FishFace@piefed.social · -19 pts · 4d
Maybe in a few years and a few dozen hours of therapy you'll be in a healthier place and will understand. I hope so and wish you all the best.
shneancy@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 4d
anger is a natural emotion everyone experiences, it helps us express the strength of our beliefs - if you value justice and kindness, you should be angry when faced with injustice and malice. it's normal for someone who experienced something tragic (and preventable) to feel angry at those who allowed it to happen regardless of how much time has passed. that anger should lessen over time, but it will never be fully gone. if it gets in the way of living it should be addressed, but one can't just "get over it"
FishFace@piefed.social · -3 pts · 4d
I agree with all that.
In reality, what generally gets pathologised is, well, pathological anger, i.e. anger that causes an impairment in everyday life.
atrielienz@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
What do you do with anger you can't work through? When you are revictimized again and again because the world is the same crucible that cause that trauma in the first place and you can't heal unless the world changes?
Because that's what you're saying. You're saying that as a "defense mechanism" it's normal to let it go.
But that's not only not as easy as it sounds, it's also not as human and normal as you make it seem. Just because you find ways to manage that anger doesn't necessarily mean it goes away. We pretend that it does. We do that constantly. In the same way we pretend that grief and fear, and envy go away. They don't. People either internalize them and try to pretend they don't exist, or they channel them into something using that energy in a way that people find acceptable.
I have witnessed this. If you've ever been forced to sit through a presentation from MADD you've seen this in action.
I've lost a lot of people. Had a lot of bad shit happen to me in my life. I force a lot of stuff down to maintain. That doesn't mean those feelings go away and what normally happens as a result is they catch up with me one way or another over time.
I think you're delusional if you think therapy just fixes people and makes their traumas go away. It doesn't make them forget. That's not how that works. Time doesn't make you forget either. That's just something we tell ourselves and each other as a coping mechanism.
https://madd.org/
FishFace@piefed.social · 0 pts · 4d
No therapy doesn't "just fix" people, it helps them process what they've gone through in a healthy way.
atrielienz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
We have to accept that just like any other medical procedure, sometimes therapy isn't successful, or does not work out the way that we want or expect. Complications exist, and even if they didn't, people aren't a monolith. Nobody responds to therapy the exact same way.
So, I'll ask the question. What does working through this in a healthy way look like?
HasturInYellow@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 4d
architect@thelemmy.club · 7 pts · 4d
There’s a pedophile rapist running my country. I’m going to stay pissed about that shit.
I get a lot of fuel through anger. I wouldn’t have my life without it. It’s ignorant that you think all humans need to let go of anger. No. I’d be working some shit corporate career if I buried my anger.
FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
locahosr443@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 4d
"Everyone should remain nice and calm so they can continue to be exploited peacefully"
I'm not even one of the far left in here but that's still how I read your comment. Are you british?
FishFace@piefed.social · -5 pts · 4d
I didn't say anyone should do anything.
What I will say is that if you continue to be bitterly angry for years after it happened, you will suffer more than the majority of people who'll "get over it" (which as someone else pointed out, shouldn't mean that you literally "stop being angry" as I said, but that it settles down to a manageable level such that you're not in therapy over it)
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 4d
Anger isn't a choice in this case, it's like telling someone they should just stop bleeding after being stabbed, after all they're gonna suffer a lot more if they don't stop bleeding.
FishFace@piefed.social · -1 pts · 4d
Anger itself isn't a choice, but it's a choice to just sit in your anger for the rest of your life, growing bitter and resentful and never healing, which seems to be what is advocated as normal in the screenshot.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 4d
But the stabbing needs to stop first
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4d
smh@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 4d
My dad died of COVID in 2021 after being in the hospital for a month, including a ventilator and a medically induced coma. I'm still mad when people deny COVID matters. I'm still wicked upset when someone asks me "but did he die of COVID or with COVID?" (technically, he died when he was removed from life support, so it wasn't COVID that killed him it was the lack of being able to breath. You got me there.)
Also, yes, he had underlying health conditions. He was 62. He was doing everything right---staying home, wearing a mask when he went for drive up groceries, waiting for vaccines to become available. The only way he screwed up was trusting his wife. His wife put her job above her husband's safety and went to a mandatory unmasked work pot luck breakfast in December 2020. It couldn't have been too mandatory---she retired 2 months later after my dad died.
It all goes into the background for normal day to day, but then something triggers it. And yes, I have a therapist. And yes, I'm still upset at the person that chided his wife that my dad's "mask didn't help him" while he was busy dying in the hospital.
There's a lot of trauma wrapped up in that whole experience. It's mostly scabbed over, but sometimes something picks at it, which doesn't help the healing.
GabrielBell12fi@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
Which is the problem with the world.
We are all apathetic enough to let shitty stuff go and so shitty stuff keeps happening.
FishFace@piefed.social · 0 pts · 4d
No, it's a self-defence mechanism to avoid individuals destroying themselves by never letting go of anything.
GabrielBell12fi@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
I understand. On a personal level I never hang on to my anger. I let everything go. I've been that way for 35 years.
But on a national level, we look at the state of the world and say "meh" and we say "they are just as bad as each other" and say "that's how it is" and so nothing ever gets any better because we don't demand enough from the people we elect to govern us and run our country.
We hand them ALL THIS POWER and then just let them behave like two year olds on smack and when they do shitty things we say "that's just wrong" then "well, they're just kids" and then wait until they do a bad thing again and say the same things again.
We should demand more of our elected representatives because they are not as bad as each other and when they do something wrong we should beat the crap out of them
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 4d
No, it's absolutely normal. What's not normal is being OK with the chomo-in-chief destroying the people of this country.
FishFace@piefed.social · -1 pts · 4d
The screenshot doesn't mention Trump at all. Feel free to be angry at Trump.
5too@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
I'm less angry at some individuals because they got mask fatigue after a while.
I'm still pissed that people continue to pretend it was nothing, though.
GiveOver@feddit.uk · 0 pts · 4d
I agree with you but I'm chuckling at all the anger you're getting over this comment. Should've seen that one coming!
FishFace@piefed.social · -1 pts · 4d
I more or less did expect it... a lot of people here are extremely angry and want to hang onto that.
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 4d
If you aren't "extremely angry" most of the time you're either not paying attention or you're part of the problem.
architect@thelemmy.club · -2 pts · 4d
Most people are pretty stupid.