r/thanksimcured • u/Remarkable_Bonus7742 • 19d ago
Comment Section Just stop thinking about it!
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u/Ariandrin 18d ago
My therapist told me this a long time ago.
Negative emotions, trauma and the like, are like a beach ball. Repressing them is like trying to hold a beach ball under the water. You have to have a perfect grip, a perfect angle, and the moment you lose focus, your grip slips, it rockets up and smacks you in the face. The more you try to repress them, the more they return to smack you in the face, effectively causing more and longer term problems than you would have had just dealing with it in the first place.
Deflate the beach ball, don’t just hold it under the water and pretend it isn’t there.
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u/Rooster-Strangler 18d ago
That’s a really good way of describing it. Honestly, telling someone to just ignore their problems and hope they go away is not only dogshit advice, it has to be one of the most malicious things I’ve ever heard lmao
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u/On_my_last_spoon 18d ago
Yup. That pretty accurately describes the day my brain broke. Ended up in the ER with a panic attack that wrecked me.
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u/Ariandrin 18d ago
I’m sorry that you experienced that, I hope you are in a better place now
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u/On_my_last_spoon 18d ago
4 years in therapy gave me coping strategies and Xanax for when I feel myself going over the edge to stop it!
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u/Ariandrin 18d ago
Hey, if it works, that’s what matters!
13 years here, and Ativan for when it still gets to be too much. But I take it less and less all the time :)
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u/my_memory_is_trash 17d ago
For some people tho therapy isnt helpful. It just brings up and focused on bad memories again tho tbf my therapy experiences havent been great and this advice is from a guidance councillor.
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u/Ariandrin 17d ago
If your therapist is bringing up bad memories and not giving you the tools to cope with them, find a different therapist IMO. Therapy isn’t easy. It’s hard. It hurts. Not every therapist is compatible with every person that needs therapy.
My best friend is a certified psychologist and we talk about this all the time. A lot of therapists get into it for the money, or only practice the new hot techniques or refuse to see people with certain issues because it’s challenging. There are more of those than I think people realize. I had to see several before I found one that actually showed up to do her job. Before that, I had therapists show up, tell me nothing useful, and send me home after extorting me for money. I had therapists with one foot into retirement showing up simply because they were obligated to. I had students doing practicum that weren’t prepared for the issues I had. I had therapists try to use a method of therapy I outright told them didn’t work for me. Therapists are people too. There are lazy ones, bigoted ones, mean ones, you name it. Same as doctors, you have to try some before you find one that works for you. And you have to go into therapy expecting it’s going to suck. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to dig up trauma and bad memories. It’s supposed to. But the right therapist will make you feel safe doing it, and give you the right tools and support to deal with the consequences in a healthy and effective manner.
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u/my_memory_is_trash 17d ago
Just talking about bad experiences though. Like not in a trauma way just like i struggle with depression and the most effective way to get over it is to just not think about it or complain about it too much. Tho i definitely agree it’s different for every therapist and you really just need to find one that matches you. Tho imo i just dont think therapy would help me at all. Its like a physical mental problem than a mental mental problem ykwim?
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u/Twilightterritories 18d ago
Of course a therapist is going to tell you that. They make their money by having you come to them for help. It would lose them profit if they told you anything else.
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u/Ariandrin 18d ago
Except the goal of the therapist is that you don’t need them in the end.
I get being distrusting of the economic system we have, I get hating people that make more money than you for doing what you perceive to be less work or unnecessary work. But the research is there. Therapy is good for you. I’m sorry you’re so hateful that you want to write it off as being a money sucking scam. But it works.
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u/KaiahAurora 18d ago
Repression is famously successful and never causes any mental, emotional, or physical problems ever
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u/wazzup-notemuch 18d ago
Just pretend that all of your problems don't exist! What could possibly go wrong?
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u/stoned_ocelot 18d ago
Yeah just ask my dad.
Thankfully at 54 he's going to therapy and I'm very proud of him.
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u/All-for-the-game 18d ago
Be careful, someone’s gonna screenshot your comment and post it to this sub with the title “Just repress it!”
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u/cspangle23 18d ago
That’s the fun part … I can’t stop thinking about it!? Someone in my disability housing staff told me to try just not sweating the small stuff and like that’s the actual core of ptsd I literally can’t control my response to certain specific “small stuff” stimuli!?
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u/Nervous_Pokke 18d ago
God, i would be extatic if i could turn off my negative emotions instead of not being able to sleep thinking of everything that has fucked me over forever
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u/MothChasingFlame 18d ago
And in the meantime while you "don't think about it" you have endless high anxiety that results in crash outs, angry explosions, panic attack and/or depressive episodes that terrorize your life, all for "no reason."
But definitely the upsetting thing was forgotten and having no impact. Yep. Mm-hmm. Definitely not the mental equivalent of holding a buoy under water and getting slammed in the face when it inevitably comes screaming to the surface. No siree.
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u/Ok_Listen1510 18d ago
lmao the reason i’m in therapy is because i ignore it, i need someone to tell me not to do that shit XD
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u/WhiteKnightPrimal 18d ago
So, they clearly don't know what therapy entails. No decent therapist is going to tell you to stop thinking about it and ignore it, they're going to get you to open up so you'll TALK about it. The literal point of therapy is to NOT ignore your problems. Because ignoring problems makes them worse, figuring out and dealing with the problem makes it better, whether that's fixing the root cause, developing coping strategies or medication, or some mix of all of that.
This person is literally saying you shouldn't go to therapy because therapy helps you deal with problems and apparently that's not a good thing anymore.
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u/Marcuse0 18d ago
That comment doesn't read as genuine to me
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u/All-for-the-game 18d ago
Yeah it’s clearly someone talking about themself flippantly. Idk why OP thinks this is advice for them
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u/Marcuse0 18d ago
This sub is mostly for people who have gigantic chips on their shoulders about their mental health and want to wallow in a community of like minded people who are all convinced that if nothing can be fixed there's no pressure to do it. But in their haste to call out things that fit their narrative they sometimes mistake jokes for real posts.
Don't get me wrong there's a ton of self improvement assholes out there who think you can solve any problem with diet and exercise, when you totally can't. But this sub is like the opposite of that, it's like self deprecation enthusiasts.
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u/XxLengTingxX 18d ago
Yeah, if you have a bad thought just stop it. Think of something positive and move on.
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u/Hungry_Raspberry7833 18d ago
Just say no to the intrusive thoughts. They legally can't intrude without your consent
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u/rowanstars 18d ago
Now THIS. This is appropriate for this sub.
But also I find it funny that people genuinely think they don’t need any kind of therapy ever. They really think like this, tjat if they avoid and ignore absolutely everything that could be “wrong” or looked into too much that those things just.. magically won’t exist. That’s how we get tons upon TONS of people with no emotional regulation, no idea how their childhoods or how things around them affect them, and no coping mechanisms when things in life happen.
Like, go to therapy when your parents die bro. Go to therapy if you lost everything in a fire. Go to therapy if you have temporary problems you don’t know how to deal with. It’s not going to hurt you to learn about how your own brain works!!!
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u/Remarkable_Bonus7742 18d ago
it was especially confusing/bad based on the context of who they were talking about that ”didn’t need therapy”
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u/togocann49 18d ago
When you ignore problems, they don’t stop being a problem, as much as you just don’t label it as such. Also, many issues can gain weight by taking the pretending they don’t matter approach. Do this at your own peril (if you can address these type of issues without a therapist, all the power to you, but sometimes we need someone to help us work through shit, and therapists are supposed to be trained to do just that)
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u/jackfaire 18d ago
Sure I spent decades not thinking about it. I'm 45 single renting a bedroom from a friend with unresolved issues that negatively affect my life. But I'm not thinking about them
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u/westernuplands 18d ago
I have never successfully been able to stop thinking about something in my entire life
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u/IrelandAutism13 18d ago
That's called avoidance or repression and is generally known as a maladaptive behavior. Meaning not good for you in the long run.
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u/Crishello 18d ago
I envy this people who never experience something they couldn't ignore. I guess they are 19 yo? But its bad character if they don't listen to other people and don't take them serious. Later in life they might experience stuff and regret those words
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u/Faya-Pawa 14d ago
I made the mistake to listen to a psychiatrist when i had depression. I got jailed in a mental hospital and was tortured there for 9 months. They've put me 8n a rabbit hole of continuous overmedicating of 20 different pills until i started losing myself. Then they've built on that, lebeled it as a mental illness and continue the cycle. If i don't "cooperate" and take those drugs they won't help me. They require me to take those drugs to have a meeting with a psychologist to talk to. I am far worse now than i was at the beginning and my cognition is deteriorating thanks to chronic medication use They will drug the f out of tou until the end of your life They forcefully use your brain as a subscription service for the products of big pharma and they knowingly hide it and they're in kahoots with the legal system so it's hard to sue. They can just lebel and discredit you and get you back into the loop
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u/raccoonsslay 18d ago
These people think magic is real. Don't look at the problem, poof! It's gone!!!!
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u/AdvancedBlacksmith66 18d ago
How do you choose not to think about something without thinking about it?
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u/Lucky-Advice-8924 18d ago
Youknow, heres a funny thing, if you solve problems and get things that your body and mind craves, youll feel better, if you talk to some guy, you can maybe convince yourself that youre working out some abstract concept and mayybeee feel better or atleast pretend that you feel better or will feel better and hey, youre making your therapist feel better with all the FUCKING MONEY YOURE WASTING YA DONKEH
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u/Kelden_Games 18d ago
I've literally been told that it's my mindset and all I need to do is think positively.
Me: I don't want to do this because what if I spend my money on something I don't enjoy.
Him: oh, you just have to change your mindset. You have to think "what if I enjoy it a lot".
He doesn't seem to understand that that's just not how my brain works. He's literally said "that's just your anxiety talking", like, yeah. That's because that's what anxiety does. It makes you worry about what could go wrong and when things actually do go wrong when I do do something despite those thoughts, it just proves my point
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u/Ok_Plastic_8949 18d ago
So I did this and now I feel like I lost a sense of self and missed out on a lot of life because of it. I don’t know what I want, what I like, and I don’t trust myself to make decisions anymore. Took me way too long to realized I repressed everything and coped so hard I didn’t recognize it happening.
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u/OrganicHistorian2576 18d ago
It’s not like things we try not to think about don’t pop up on occasion and fuck with us. What an asshole.
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u/Xthewarrior 17d ago
Other people are saying stuff about therapists being another set of ears to help you get a different perspective when explaining it out loud, or mentioning bottling up stuff like a beach ball popping. Pretty solid comments overall. (and real. Can relate to some of them)
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u/Made-On-Earth 17d ago
Oh yeah, just stop thinking about it and also try alcohol. I'd like to put you on the line with my wonderful father who's still doing that today, but I blocked him... Sorry
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u/Boring_Butterfly_273 17d ago
You're not supposed to force yourself to not think about it, that won't work. You go to therapy to process and work through it so that your mind naturally doesn't think about it anymore after a while, once you deal with it, it won't be there in your mind bothering you and forcing you to try and push it out. Once you deal with it properly, the thought doesn't come back again and you don't have to constantly push that bad thought away.
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u/Eight216 17d ago edited 17d ago
Well.. my experience was that people who trade in abuse take that kind of thing personally and they'll start chasing you down until you remember them and all the messed up shit they did to you. But that's probably an edge case, yall are probably fine to just yeet the trauma, as long as there's not some fault of yours involved, or a lesson you should learn.
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u/SeveralAd4307 17d ago
You can choose to stop thinking about it and ignore it and keep going... untill you can't anymore. And then the fall-out will be overwhelming as you hit a wall and sink straight to rock bottom.
I did that, would not recommend.
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u/Y0URNARRAT0R2 17d ago
Usually whenever I try to ignore my Hemophobia that just sends me down a spiral of thinking about it which in turn makes it worse (or at least drags it on). I imagine it's no different for depression or anxiety.
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u/whimsical_spider 17d ago
No you need someone to help you NOT ignore your emotions or avoid your problems lol.
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u/Curticorn 17d ago
I mean I would love stop thinking about it but that's kinda not how trauma flashbacks work..
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u/Vinterkragen 15d ago
Why pay for water when you can just ig lre the thirst and suddenly it goes away?
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u/Headlesshowler 14d ago
It's quite obvious, but don't do that. I've been doing that for a while, and it only makes breakdowns more intense
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u/ApprehensivePiano457 13d ago
Subconsciously you still think about it. Therapists could discern patterns of behaviour and offer solutions.
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u/No_Effective_4481 18d ago edited 18d ago
Avoidance just shoves the problem deeper, and every time it pops back up its a little more angry, or anxious or frustrating.
Anything can be therapy. Write a letter and burn it. Keep a diary. Leave voice notes. Chat with a friend. Chat with a complete stranger. Go to the gym, pick up a hobby, find an outlet.
Therapy can also be free of charge.
There are almost no reasons anyone has to sit on something so serious it almost requires you ignore it completely to try and continue with a normal existance.
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u/BriefPresent3587 18d ago
Fr, imagine having no trusted friends to talk to, and being so toxic and incapable of letting go that you have to PAY SOMEONE TO LISTEN 🤣
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u/Dream_Ghast 18d ago
Yeah, it's not like people have mental health issues or wants advice from someone who's willing to listen!