Mental health care and psychiatrics are traditionally rationed for the professional managerial class anyway.
"Take your SSRIs and exorcise your guilt at doing this soul-sucking job to a professional anxiety reliever" is for rich people.
"Take your weed gummies/cheap booze and watch enjoy some AI-generated wish fulfillment slop" is for poor people.
Been in therapy quite a bit for most of the last 8 years. I just canceled my future appointments because I'm actually doing OK at the moment, but I've seen the toll the last few months have taken on my therapist (since the election) despite her best efforts to hide it. I feel terrible for these wonderful people that help shoulder the burdens of others. They are the shock troops bearing the brunt of defense in the current culture war.
My wife is a mental health therapist. It is a very high turnover job due to the emotional toll it takes on them. For the good therapists it's not something they can do indefinitely. It's also not as high paying as many seem to think. The majority of the money goes to insurance and then insurance a lot of times strings them along and it can take months sometimes to actually get money from insurance.
Thank her for me. I don't know how they do it. I talked to my therapist about my fear of causing her emotional distress working with me through my issues, and she assured me that where she is, they have plenty of resources to get their own help when they need it. But that doesn't mean it isn't hard as hell on them.
Completely vulnerable moment
As a person long overdue to get some mental help. I've been really motivated to get myself better since early last year. Had some events happen where I was like, yeah I need to handle my shit.
I'll say the process so far is my biggest hurdle. Took ages to get a referral, once I got the referral took ages to get seen. When I finally was seen it was the wrong fit. Now I'm waiting until next week to start again and push for different referrals, all so my insurance covers some of it (maybe).
Meanwhile I'm doing the best I can, but certainly think about just throwing in the towel and drowning myself in drugs again. Which worked a long time until it really really didn't work. But the thought of finally getting my foot in the door to spend months and thousands trying to even find a root cause just feels utterly pointless. Also now raw dogging life without anything to dull it but some doctor prescribed sleeping pills is challenging to say the least.
Still the worst part is explaining the laundry list of my past trauma to strangers just to get them up to speed. Hopefully to help pinpoint where I need to focus my efforts on getting better. Last fellow just had to say "well you made it this far and seem to be doing better than most of my patients". Essentially call me back when you have a full blown meltdown, because I only deal with extremes. That shit was deflating, sorry for being proactive and trying to get help before I get committed somewhere?
I've spent a really long time keeping my issues in check, I've become very good at what to say or not say that is bouncing around my skull. Now that I can't do it anymore it seems to throw a lot of people for a loop.
Anyhow feels like some sort of shitty race to see if my mind breaks first or I get help before that happens. Than when I do get to the right step 1 there will be this slow trial and error I need to go through. Which I completely understand is necessary, but it's not giving me much hope.
That person on fire is probably like that because the healthcare system just kept dosing it with gasoline before they stepped foot in the office.
Idk if it will make you feel any better, but you're not alone. I have a few people in my life who struggle the same as you are, and it emotionally fucks with me. As someone who is somewhat put together myself, to see these people I care about genuinely try to get help and do the right thing to get better - all to be mistreated and counted as another number hurts so bad. I can see it in their tear soaked eyes, and I can hear it in their cries and desperate pleas for help that they feel so helpless and feel like nothing is working no matter how hard they try. I try to listen, to comfort, and to maybe give advice and motivation to keep trying, but it's all so hard.
The mental health care system in the u.s. is abysmal, it's gut-wrenchingly bad. It fails people every day. Every day people relapse because they feel like it's the only way to cope with whatever it is they're dealing with. I wish I could help more people, I wish I could help you all.
Thanks it helps.
I'm sorry you are going through that. If you're unaware psychologytoday.com is a great resource. They let you search based on insurance, specialties, in person/virtual, any preferences one might have, and the professionals also might include info about them maybe even a video. I hope you get the help you have been fighting for soon.
Thanks, I have gone there and it was helpful.
I made the mistake the first time by just taking my family doctor's opinion because I'm newer to the area and have no idea where to start. He sent me to the group who had asshole #1 and I found out afterwards that guy had a lot negative reviews for the same issues I had. The group was ok, but he was the worst and I got placed with him because everyone else was full. I was ignorant and was just desperate to get "somewhere". Boy was that a mistake.
Bigger problem I'm finding is there is a very small list for my area. Once I popped in the filter for non-secular it gets barren. I live in a very religious area, I'm not anti-religion. But I am an atheist that doesn't want to go to someone who tells me to confide in God to heal myself. Been to one of those before, just doesn't work.
Essentially I have narrowed it down to two.
Just started with a therapist after a decade or two of mistrust in them, and yeah, getting them up to speed on all your past and trauma is time consuming, especially when you only get an hour a week to walk through your life story and try to get techniques that help you feel less like shit.
i feel this so much.
i have a referral on the table to begin sessions with a new therapist and have been putting off making the appointment because of the tedium of "getting it all out there" only to find out months from now that (for whatever reason) it was a wasted effort.
i honestly don't know what progress would look like. does it make sense for me to get my expectations in order before making the appointment?... or should i just jump in?
I feel like this the blind leading the blind. But I settled on trying to push for a psych evaluation instead of jumping into sessions. I've also been journaling my mental state and sleep daily, so I can be prepared this time. Roughest thing I did was physically writing out my past trauma/history, but figured I'd have that on hand too so I had a checklist of things I can remember to talk about. Maybe disconnect it when I talk about it.
Figure with all that at least I can get a baseline opinion out of it and if I don't like the person this time I have some actionable items I can plug in for people that specialize in what might crop up.
My issues though are not clear so I'm just struggling to find the right path. I hope you keep at it, just as much as I do.
At least it helps, even if only a tiny bit, when nothing else does!
In my experience therapy is something my therapist and I do together. My therapist isn't giving me water. The two of us together are finding water that was always there.
Maybe everyone being anxious and depressed is healthy in a dying world.
I tried doing therapy for a while, just to realize everything that stresses me out are totally valid stressors and the solution isn't to go to therapy but to change our economic system.
Therapists are even more useless because they can't prescribe anything. They are doctors.
I don't know about healthy, but yeah it's a totally reasonable reaction to what's going on around us to feel despair, if you have any shred of empathy in your body. Therapy does keep me mostly sane from month to month but at this point I'm putting it on hold. I truly believe we're going to be at war (real war, not culture war) with each other in the US within 5-10 years, so might have to start shifting the therapy money to physical fitness expenses, gear, and ammo. And I intend to start training like-minded people how to 'protect themselves' from the aggressors.
Maybe everyone being anxious and depressed is healthy in a dying world.
Nope, humans are normally very emotionally resilient, so all spikes in mood end within 3-4 months at worst. So persistent depressed mood is to be worked on
Anxiety is not the same as being stressed out about some stuff in life. Anxiety is catastrophizing very little problems (like thinking "they hate me" when someone replied 2 minutes late) until you are worn out and the day is ruined
Nope, humans are normally very emotionally resilient, so all spikes in mood end within 3-4 months at worst.
I'm picturing someone giving this speech at Auschwitz.
It can actually get bad enough that constant despair is the completely normal reaction to your circumstances. And in case you haven't noticed we're building concentration camps RIGHT NOW. They just aren't installing ovens. Yet.
I don't know man. Humans have lived through some pretty harrowing stuff in the past, but I'm pretty sure this is the first period in history where humans know they're teetering on the edge - hell, multiple edges - and not in a metaphysical way, but in a very real, tangible fashion that is essentially visible from day to day and getting worse all the time.
Realizing all of this while also struggling for your own survival seems like more than whatever our minds are meant to be able to cope with. I'm of the opinion that 'depression' in its myriad forms is a totally valid reaction to a dying, hostile world in which the future seems uncertain at best and positively dystopian at worst.
Times are really tough and I appreciate the fuck out of each and everyone of you therapists.
I don't think ill of therapists, but the fact so many issues come down to money doesn't endear me to the idea of therapy needing to take another chunk of it for dubious gains until you find the right therapist for you, and possibly even after that. Again, blame the system, not people, but hearing folks tell me I must pay people to fix me as the system grinds onward is tiring.
What if people who fix your body were paid by taxes? The brain is also about health and health costs should be free.
Not sure what you were expecting, here. I support universal healthcare, and mental health is part of everyone's health. Still paying if I want any, though, and that's not changing anytime soon. Sucks to suck, severely sucks for suckers scoring less than me on the income lottery.
hi, i have problems in the most complicated organ in all of existence that I have accumulated for my entire life, complicating it every day for the past 20 years. I'd like you to press the off switch for it please.
what do you mean there is no switch? WHAT A SCAM
...that will be $300 thank you.
Therapy takes a while.
It isn't an instant win. But you will see their bottle that is specifically catered to you will become bigger.
Sometimes it's a never-win, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go if you need it and are able to afford it.
There's no therapist on the planet that can help me 'fix' myself completely, far too many decades of trauma and paying attention to what's going on around me, but they do help me maintain and cope. Worth it.
able to afford it.
The financial gatekeeping of basic necessities is a big reason why many of us are in the position to need therapy in the first place. I wouldn't trade my therapist for the world but the fact that there's even a qualifier really speaks to the whole systemic vs individual debate.
You’re absolutely right—therapy often feels like putting a drop of water on a raging fire. As mental health professionals and advocates, we find ourselves treating individual symptoms while the systemic causes of suffering—economic exploitation, discrimination, state violence—continue unchecked. But what if therapy itself could be reimagined as a tool of collective resistance and liberation rather than just individual adaptation?
The Limits of Individual Therapy in a Dying System
Traditional therapy, rooted in Western individualism, focuses on personal pathology rather than the oppressive structures that create distress in the first place. It helps people survive, but rarely challenges the conditions that make survival so difficult. As fascistic policies escalate—targeting marginalized communities, undermining democracy, and deepening economic inequality—our role cannot simply be to help people “cope” with injustice. Coping is not enough.
Therapy should not just help individuals endure oppressive systems; it should equip them to dismantle and replace those systems. We need a revolution in mental health—one that shifts from isolated, clinical solutions to community-based, justice-oriented healing.
A New Vision: Therapy as Collective Resistance
1. Worker Cooperative Mental Health Practices – Breaking away from profit-driven therapy models and creating mental health collectives that serve communities rather than corporations or insurance companies.
2. Radical Group Therapy & Mutual Aid – Encouraging healing circles, community networks, and activist spaces that treat mental health as a shared struggle, not an isolated condition.
3. Politicizing Therapy – Acknowledging that capitalism, racism, and state oppression are core mental health issues and helping people engage in direct action as a form of healing.
4. Revolutionary Care Networks – Moving beyond institutions and creating autonomous, grassroots mental health support systems that are independent of the state and its oppressive mechanisms.
Collective Action is Therapy
The mental health crisis is not just personal; it is structural. And the only real cure is collective liberation. Healing doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens in the streets, in mutual aid networks, in resistance movements. Therapy must evolve to be part of that fight, not just a salve for its wounds.
We don’t just need better mental healthcare. We need a revolution in how we understand and practice healing.
I'm reminded of the scene in Office Space where Peter goes to his therapist to "transfer" his negative energy, and the therapist has a heart attack on the spot.
Hypnotist iirc, but still relevant
Peter is my spirit animal.
This, except all the fires are going on outside the windows of the therapist’s office, to the horizon, as far as the eye can see.
Good therapy should hand you the bottle and tell you not to dump it on all at once but to start dripping it on and check in for refills with the refill being a bit larger each time.
Congrats! You're running the casino!
I should add “as a therapist in the US.” I have a lot of gay and trans clients, and it’s… bleak.
My sister is trans and getting all of her forms of ID because she's 18 (and needs a job), and we lost it in a move across the country. I have to be there along with two other people to prove she's a person. She just wants to exist like anyone else, and people are shitting on her because she's a girl. I want to strangle the world.
I see a therapist who mostly specializes in trans and queer clients (and is non-binary themselves). This last session was a worry fest of my anxieties and them going "honestly? Same" so it was validating, but I'm not sure how much therapizing we got in, lol. Not to say they don't do a good job, just like, there's only so much y'all can say or do right now.
And we're not even American so I cannot imagine. Hang in there.
it's still good to know you're not alone and your concerns are valid, and even warranted. you're not crazy.
I know I should go to therapy but then I feel bad burdening a therapist with things like, "I'm so angry that the only thing that helps me sleep is imagining the entire current administration getting hit by a very localized meteor," because like, this shit is too big and we all have our coping mechanisms, right? At least mine isn't substance abuse or self harm.
Oh, this most certainly adds a lot of context, I'm sorry...
If you've been burnt to a crisp, even that tiny splash of water can feel like finding an oasis in the desert.
Thank you for your service.
That’s great to know! And thank you.
It just hit me, I think it may be more appropriate to think about (actually helpful) therapy as placing those drops of water into a bucket, and there are times when that accumulated water doubles itself (breakthroughs, realisations, etc.) More like an investment of sorts.
At least, that's how it felt as I went through it. It never had a regular progression, it was always about leaps and bounds, then falling on my ass again for a couple of weeks, then snapping out of it when something I'd discussed 6 sessions ago finally clicked into place.
This is definitely true in “regular” times. Meaning when my country is not on political fire. Lately most conversations with marginalized clients revolve around “what do I to stay safe?” and “how the hell can I leave the country?” It’s very sad.
I have heard that schools in my area have begun the process of making "code red" plans if ICE or someone shows up to schools looking for students/parents. It is being done by small groups and no details shared outside of the people they are contacting to share the plan with. It's all scary as hell and I HATE that it's even a thing. =(
Edit also thank you for helping those adrift right now!
Heck, my favourite therapist (a very, very empathetic and honest person) retired from psychotherapy before hitting 30 during the Pandemic because they couldn't take the influx of destabilised people. I can't even imagine how much more horrible and immediate the situation in the States is right now...
Sincerely wish you and your clients as much peace and safety as humanly possible in these conditions!
"Also, that'll be $200"
As a fellow therapist, same
That's alchemical fire though and adding water only feeds it.
...now I feel bad for the therapist I'm going to talk with next week. (I'd laugh, but I'd also cry.)
If it makes you feel better, I am practicing using the eyedropper on my own in between sessions.
