It may be more accurate to say I’m looking for a soul-healer. I don’t mean anything religious, but back in the time of the ancient Greeks, people would go to a philosopher to discuss the troubles of life, the troubles of the soul, in an attempt to find meaning or peace or whatever. But in today’s world soul-healing is now psychology and falls under the purview of medicine and the law.
Ideally, the client/therapist relationship should be a safe place for the client to talk to the therapist about anything. I believe that the only way the client/therapist relationship can work is if the client can be fully open with the therapist without fear of repercussions. The problem is there are certain things the client can say that can convert this safe place into a hostile place for the client. We all know suicide is one of those things.
I’ll admit that I have the thoughts, the plan, the means, my shit in order, etc. I.e. If I wanted to do the deed today, I could. So, if I am completely open to the therapist I know there is a high probability I will be considered a high risk, a “danger to myself.†This revelation gives the therapist an undue amount of power in the relationship because of the laws that surround the “medical†profession of psychology.
So I should just lie, or not say anything about it? I could, but why? It may be pertinent information to healing my soul, it may not. But the fact that I have to keep it secret or risk my freedom seems ridiculous to me.
So what exactly am I looking for? Just basic talk therapy. A safe client/therapist relationship where I can say anything, even that I’m going to kill myself by the end of the day, and the therapist has no power to stop me. Why don’t I want them to stop me? Because that is not what I hired them for! I hired them to listen. To probe with their psychological and philosophical knowledge to maybe help me find some sort of meaning in life. To ask me the questions that I haven’t thought of to ask myself.
At the end of the day, suicide is not a problem. It’s a solution. The problem is nothing makes me happy and I just don’t see the point of life anymore. I hunt for something that makes me happy but nothing does it. Through therapy maybe I can find it. Or not. If I determine that nothing will make me happy, then suicide is my solution.
Is there something called black market therapy out there?
8 comments
Maybe going to a support group or something like that would provide a more positive environment where you are free to say whatever you want. And it’d be a freer, more casual relationship with the people there than the unbalanced therapist-client situation you have described. I’ve been to a couple therapists and none struck me as particularly intelligent or possessing of powerful information. They are not philosophers. They are normal people, going to work every day to make their money. If the “Expert” has never been severely depressed themselves, I wonder if they are really in any position to provide advice. No book or class can teach that.
You clearly defined what you consider your problem to be, and I just can’t imagine a therapist being able to come up with an answer for how you can find happiness again. That’s a deeply personal and complicated thing. What can you ever imagine a therapist saying that could possibly help you? I know, that’s the entire problem, if you were able to imagine the answer, you wouldn’t need the help in the first place.
I’m actually embarrassed and ashamed of the couple of times I chose to go to a therapist in my life, because I don’t know what I was possibly expecting them to do for me. Choosing to go was an act of desperation and mainly giving in to the pressure from other family members who made it sound like going to talk to “somebody” was going to fix everything.
The philosophy I come across more and more often in my own studies is that looking for “something” to make you happy is going about it all wrong. Something along the lines of “if you aren’t happy now, you never will be”. There is no magic thing out there that will cure you, especially not permanently. Sure you might stumble across some new hobby or something that gives your days meaning for a while, but the unhappiness will find you again. Some people like to think that it’s a person that’s going to save them, not a thing, but letting happiness depend on other people is dangerous too.
People don’t like the idea that happiness is a choice. That dumps all the responsibility squarely on your lap and takes away the option of blaming unhappiness on other people, things, life circumstances, etc. To look at happiness as something that you can’t control, something that can only be stimulated by outside influence, makes it seem like a horrible addiction that needs to be fed for an entire lifetime. If happiness can only be fueled by interesting experiences, meeting the right people, having “good luck” type of things happen, spending money, etc, it starts to appear like this giant set of jaws that never stops chewing, you always have to find something else to feed it. Because happiness is never permanent. If it were, we’d be surrounded by stories of people who bought that car they always wanted and never felt unhappy again, people who got the job they wanted and smiled every morning when they woke up, people who found the person they wanted to marry and spent every day in bliss until their heart stopped beating. I think that is the main message behind the idea of “if you can’t be happy now, you never will be”. Life will be exhausting if we regard happiness as this fire that we have to keep fed otherwise it goes out.
If you continue to look at it as “I am hunting for something to make me happy”, I’m not sure you’ll ever find it. If asked to define it in specific terms, I’m guessing you can’t even describe what kind of thing would make you happy and never grow dull over time.
If you feel like you can’t possibly just “choose” to be happy, and can’t clearly define what exactly it is that you need to be happy, then maybe it’s clinical depression instead of situational, and maybe you need to look at medication. I personally will never go down that road as I don’t want to mess with those pills, but for some people it does help.
I’m reading a book now called the way of the peaceful warrior. I hate to even endorse it because so far I think it’s pretty terrible and cheesy and I can’t believe anyone thought it was good enough to make a movie out of it a few years back, but two-thirds into it I can tell that it is going to hit on all these same points (points that initiated from eastern belief systems like buddhism/zen, by the way”. So far the story is all about this older guy trying to teach the main character that life has to be about more than responding emotionally to the things that happen to you, whether they or good or bad; that we can’t be controlled by the cravings we get; that we can’t go “hunting for happiness”. Again it’s not the greatest book ever so far, to me it seems like a cheesy fictional way to dress up some of the basics of zen buddhism and feed it to people who wouldn’t normally seek out that type of thing, like hiding medication in a pet’s food. You might find more in reading stuff like this than what typical talk therapy is going to provide, though.
Looking back I can’t honestly say that I got one useful thing out of the times when I tried therapy. It was just someone to pay to listen to me talk and give the type of advice any person on the street could give. Might be a good career to get in to, can’t think of an easier way to make money.
In regards to your first paragraph: I agree. The therapists i’ve seen weren’t anything special. But they spent X amount of years in schooling for psychology and philosophy. Years I haven’t spent on the same topics, so in theory, they should have a better grasp of the subject matter than I do. I think the main problem is that the whole psychology business is finding the right cookie-cutter. You fit into some “diagnosis” and that dictates the path of “treatment”.
I don’t believe “they” (therapists, psychologists, etc.) have the answers. The answers are within the self. For me it feels I have dug as deep as I can go. I’ve asked myself all the questions I can think of. What I like to say to the “therapist” when I first meet them is that I am not looking for answers, but questions. Basically another way to look at my situation. Some path I haven’t examined yet. In the first meeting I can test their mettle. If their focus is a “diagnosis”, then I know this isn’t for me, which 100% of the time is their goal. Which is not mine.
Maybe happiness is the wrong word for what I’m looking for. I know life can never be puppy dogs and ice cream all the time, but it would be nice to have something to fall back on to recharge. Something that I can do that isn’t just a distraction from my own thoughts. something I actually enjoy doing. The things I do are just distractions. They don’t trigger any sort of positive emotion. Just avoiding the negative. Maybe they do cause positive emotion, but it’s so small it doesn’t eclipse the negative. Of it eclipses the negative just enough that I feel nothing.
Another way to put what i’m look for: that feeling of waking up in the morning and thinking “for this, I live”. What ‘this’ is, I don’t know, but I guess I like to believe that maybe there is something. It doesn’t have to be a grand purpose, as I don’t believe that.
And yes, happiness is like a drug. It can’t last forever, but ideally, a gradual taper from happiness to non-happiness would be the way to go. But life likes to yank it right out from under you. And when that happens, the come down is *****.
I read a story about a suicide pact in the paper a few weeks ago and decided to have a look around on the internet as this subject has always been a part of my life, if that makes sense. Are people on this site depressed? Suicidal? Have people on this site attempted suicide? I have, previously, once, many years ago. Its strange as I still always think about it…i wasn’t depressed or anything, I just had the feeling inside of me that i wanted to “go”…I still feel this way deep down to be honest. Does anyone else feel this way at all? Its like deep down, the foundation of me – its a feeling that I will never be happy or content and I would rather move on. Everything else on top, my job, my day to day activities are just surface talk and actions. They are not the “real” me. I hope someone can read these words and make sense of the way I feel. Thank you for reading to anyone who takes the time to read my words here.
I feel that way.
you can talk to me ill be happy to listen to your problems, maybe on skype or by mail
email me at
contemporaryartist1@gmail.com
Wow I was just thinking this earlier today. Emailing with a therapist who doesn’t have my address but as soon as she realized I’m suicidal she was trying to gain my address. I told her point blank no and that I knew the only reason she wanted it was to send someone to my apt to take me against my will to some crisis center for a 72 hour hold. No thank you. If I was thinking about murdering someone its not actually a crime until I do it. Why do people feel they have the right to intervene when someone wants to end their life?
I have been in therapy for near four years with my current therapist. It is not an environment where I feel comfortable. It might just be the wrong fit. What I found was this:
I started to get too dependent on the warm and fluffy feeligs of having someone other than myself validate my pain (not that I didn’t need the external validation at all).
As far as the suicide issues go, I am met with disdain and over emotionalism when I am honest about these issues. That is the common response. I believe every being has a right to end their life. No, I don’t believe in enabling or assisting; generally humans are granted the choice of what they will do with their life inasmuch as they have control over. When they hurt others, yes, there should be intervention. But one’s relationship with themselves, for better or worse, is their own right.
There is this strange hysteria with suicide. My mother died via suicide some years ago. I have heard every argument in the book about how selfish and cowardly her actions were when really it just made sense to me.
She was as mentally ill as a human could get. She heard to many voices for a human to manage. So I understand.
People tend to think they have some sort of moral responsibility to try and prevent and stop suicide.
The truth is the only thing that can stop someone from killing themselves is themselves with the exception of not having any mindful capabilities as my mother did not.
My journey with therapy helped until it didn’t. I have let it drag on far too long. I have to face life on my own.
“And how does that make you feel?”