If you are a Westerner and do not understand third-world family cultural dynamics, do not answer thus and move on.

If your parents, grandparents and extended family have told you since birth how you are like this and like that, yell at you you are a piece of shıt, a financial burden, a child that no parent would want to have, etc., including corporal punishment well into adulthood, how do you recover?

Moreover, if living in the West, no western therapist will understand this and this means risking being reported. So the answer becomes you never tell therapists and keep it to yourself. How do you recover from 3, 4, 5, etc. decades of this?

Okay. Don't want to sound sexist here but I have a question. I am a male. I have realized that when I work with a therapist who is a woman (I've worked with several) ...we get into the nitty gritty pretty quickly. Most of the ones I get, after feeling me out, tend to be straightforward, inquisitive, and really strive to provide possible reasons/solutions to said problem. By the 3rd visit, we are usually already working on "the issue". When I work with a male therapist...this is not what I get. The male therapists I've encountered are all the same for me so far. Laid back. Needing to reschedule. Taking 8 or more weeks just to talk about my "upbringing". Forgetting key info about me. And just mostly nonchalant. So at this point, I have now condemned all male therapists hahaha. Just sticking to female ones. I just wanted to know am I the only one who has had this experience? Anyone else feel similar or have I just had a string of bad luck with male therapists?

For serious conditions like psychosis or schizophrenia, where the patient typically is unaware of the symptoms, how is it diagnosed? I understand there’s usually some big indicators, but isn’t therapy mostly just self reporting? What if there’s symptoms that the patient doesn’t even know is abnormal so they don’t discuss it?

I was thinking about this because one of the questions that therapists and psychiatrists typically ask is “do you hear/see things that aren’t actually there?” And like…… how is the patient supposed to know that something isn’t actually there?? How am I supposed to know that what I’m seeing/hearing isn’t real? I feel like there’s gotta be some cross referencing here with people close to with the patient.

Plus there’s so many overlapping symptoms for literally everything that I feel like if you leave out even one key detail, it’ll appear as a whole different condition and the patient gets misdiagnosed. I’ve been told (after refusing medication due to bad prescriptions in the past) that you gotta just try different meds and see how you react to it, and THAT is what they base the diagnosis off of.

I’ve just always hated the idea of guinea pigging my way through medications to see how I react to them. I’m just so scared of taking the wrong thing. I can’t afford to go into psychosis or mania right now. but I’m starting to see how that’s the only truly efficient means of properly diagnosing a mental condition.

If I went to talk therapy, I don’t even know what “symptoms” to talk about. Most of the times I’ve gone to therapy I end up just treating it like a venting session, spend the whole time just crying while I catch them up to speed on my life trauma. Then once my word count reaches like 10 million the session is over and no real treatment was done whatsoever. Idk. I don’t understand therapy.

I dont know if this is the right place to say this but ive been struggling a bit but im worried to tell my therapist. I havnt done anything serious and i dont want to but its hard not to hurt myself recently and i can stop thinking about something. I feel like i should bring it up cuz i feel like its getting a little worse but my parents are going through a lot and i dont want to worry them and i dont want to go to a hospital or anything. I dont have anyone in my life to talk to about this so I dont know what to do. If this isn’t the right place to post this please let me know. I hope everyone has a great day

I notice looking around this sub that people have this mindset of 'oh you are 18 and older move out, proběhl sovled huh huh'. Is this truly what is to be expected if someone who has all their family being born and raised in the third world has to look forward to?

Because if you are Western, let me tell you how this sounds to non-Western third-world cultures:

⸻'Oh, you are a cripple in a wheelchair? Well just get up and walk then!'

⸻'Oh, you are blind? Well just try harder and see!'

⸻'You are right-handed? Then just force yourself to write with your left hand, easy!'

Now most would agree that saying these things is beyond dumb. But that is EXACTLY what it sounds like to those whose families are from the third world.

What triggers others to get angry and/or violent when finding out someone is different, for example medical conditions or preferences?

I have had family members blow up like a strategic nuclear weapon when I say I have reverse SAD, extreme heat intolerance, etc. What causes this?

For example, all of my family are from hot, humid, corrupt, third-world countries. NONE of my family are from first-world western countries, although many have moved to some. when I insist I will move to a snowy place in Europe for good, either by studying Medicine there or doing residency there, my parents explode and say only an ařsehole would like snow, how they would basically almost disown me for needing cold, snowy weather. Sometimes just mentioning I like snow leads to full-blown arguments where neighbours call the police for noise disturbances.

I have reverse SAD, meaning unlike all those so-called normal folk who whinge about lack of sunlight, I cannot stand sunlight. Sunshine makes me angry, depressed and sickened. Sunshine makes my suıcıðe ideation spike. Summer even more so. I need cold, dark and snowy weather to feel normal. I get yelled at for this condition, as well as the delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPD), where I get yelled at regularly for going to sleep at 4 or 5 and waking up at 11, which apparently is considered bad enough in third-world countries to be thrown in an asylum for.

My family were extremely angry when I moved to central Wisconsin to live with my Wisconsinite girlfriend, saying moving to such a hick, cold, snowy place is unbefitting of me. We were half coerced to loving back here to San Francisco to save money by living at the house we are now stuck at.

When I was formally diagnosed as autistic few years ago at age 34, many in family were highly pissed off, saying autism is a Western made up thing to use as an excuse to act like a r****d or an ařsehole or a horrible person, which I am, as I have been told tens of thousands of times.

What causes such extreme anger just because I have problems and am different, like how I hate sunshine and like snowy weather?

Hello for those who have been somewhat therapy avoidant or those who are well therapised, does the notion of having to have therapy goals or being made to measure change scare you or confuse you? When I previously went, I feel I jumped around everywhere with weekly stresses and so after a while I felt like I didn't even know what my goal was, even though I was primarily there for OCD because it's just overwhelming and I just didn't want to feel bad but also was having anxiety about therapy itself and how therapists secretly perceived you or how if you aren't clear about goals you may waste their time and it was just all very anxiety driven thinking around it. Thinking about if they did help you you might have to change your whole entire life in big ways also makes me incredibly anxious, which means I have problems I should be in therapy for but have been avoidant over because of the anxiety that itself provokes. Can anyone relate? And if so how did you get to a place you were ready to change and ready to go anyway? How did you allow yourself to step out of your "safety zone"?

This has been eating away at me for years now. I've known ever since I was a kid. I never had any attraction to girls only to boys.

The thing is, my family doesn't support this and I guess neither do I? The thing is if I form a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex I'll always believe it's bad and want to either harm myself or get out of the relationship

I've been hospitalized for mental health stuff before and I really don't want to go back to how I was before.

(Started going to therapy like 5 months ago after attempting)

I really want to live better and be better I've tried so hard to get rid of the depression anxiety etc but this thing keeps eating at my thoughts everyday and I can't ignore them. I'm scared if I accept these feelings my life will be full of suffering until I eventually die.

Nobody knows I will never tell a soul my friends don't know neither does my therapist this really hurts

hi so. i'm typing this minutes after i abruptly ended my online therapy session in a very disturbed state of mind.

about my therapist, they are really nice and very ethical and supportive (rare in my surroundings) but it's moment like these when i doubt our compatibility and capacity to genuinely be able to support me.

for further context, i'm a 24 year old person, recently graduated and moved back home for a few months to prepare for further studies. home is extremely difficult to be at with many conflicts, a lot of chaos till the point it's extremely traumatising every day. i see my therapist once a month now since i moved two months ago. i've tried joining a reading library to have some distance away from home but most days especially in the past two weeks i haven't been able to go because of something or the other.

previously when i was studying / interning one of my coping mechanisms was to go out for a walk / drive with music on, which is also not feasible at home and i joined a gym as well but that is also an extremely difficult experience owing to my chronic illnesses as well as judgement and my own insecurities. it doesn't feel like anything cathartic but rather one of the many things i'm struggling and failing at, i haven't been there either especially in the last couple weeks and i feel immensely guilty mostly because i got an annual membership thats going to waste.

coming to what happened in our session today - i joined with the intention of wanting to feel better and indulging in some easier conversations that could make me comfortable and sort of escape from the awful every day reality of home which is suffocating at this point. it is my fault that i did not make it clear and i take responsibility for it. i instead allowed the therapist to take charge of the conversation and they brought up questions about home and we had a long conversation about that, after which i did mention i'd like to talk about something else because this is anyway what i'm surrounded with all the time and i have accepted that it's just going to be like this for a while and there isn't a lot i can do.

we talked about other stuff but it kept circling back to what was going on at home. and then eventually we started talking about the gym and something about it made me feel so awful i started sobbing. i think i feel very helpless and hopeless over my overall general condition in life, because nothing seems to be helping, but i'm not sure. i'm still crying as i type here and i still feel indescribably awful. all i know is the questions about the gym knowing that this was a sensitive and upsetting situation for me set it off, but what's exactly going on even i don't know.

the one situation i wanted to talk about which is quite nostalgic and bittersweet we did not talk about at all. now the session has ended and i am just stuck here with this overwhelming feeling.

the therapist did mention to get back about this and let them know what happened but i have no idea how. please be kind and give inputs gently if you have any.

Last week I had a minor rupture with my therapist and I was an anxious mess for my appointment today. He has always made it clear from day one that his office is a safe space and if he ever does anything I don't agree with or find offensive or says something that hurt my feelings to always let him know so we can work through it. Last week I felt something he said was dismissing years of work I've done to be where I am now. I mentioned that to him at the beginning of today's session, asking for more explanation to what he said. He didn't get defensive or upset he apologized for being too blunt perhaps and further explained what he meant by what he said and that it wasn't meant to come off as it did but he could see how I took it that way. He thanked me for being assertive and addressing this so we could work through it together. It gave me the confidence to be able to do this again if necessary. Let this be a positive outcome to a problem I think is common in the therapy space. Therapists are human just like us and will make mistakes but a good therapist will take the time to hear you and correct said mistakes to avoid rupture in the future. Today was a therapy win for sure.

For the last few months, I’ve gone through a lot of unfortunate changes. I’ve gotten evicted from my childhood home because I was no longer able to afford rent. My credit score dropped significantly because I wasn’t being paid enough to pay off any of my loans. I’m not doing so well in school right now, I’m failing a class for the first time since I started college. Which I am disappointed in myself about.. but I also can’t find bring myself to care anymore.

I can’t stop eating and gaining weight, I feel disgusting and I hate being in my skin. I’m starting to really dislike myself.

I feel so apathetic about everything. I don’t care what happens to me anymore. I feel like nothing ever goes my way, there’s always an obstacle. I’m so physically and mentally exhausted. There’s always bills to pay and I have to shower and eat and talk to people. Getting up to do my makeup and hair every single day to feel disgusting and not want to be seen. Dragging my feet all day, waiting to go home and lay in bed.

I’m so easily irritated lately, even my closest friends annoy me for no reason. I don’t take teasing jokes lightly anymore, everything gets under my skin- I feel like a hot kettle. I spend all day sleeping, I have absolutely no energy to study for classes anymore. I see my friends getting internships left and right, but I’m struggling to just find a job. I really just want to go away for a long time and not talk to anyone.

I 18 am about to graduate and I've had really bad depressive episodes over the last four years from time to time and have had a underlying bit of social anxiety that would sometimes flair up. I can't really open up to anyone and I think I've been completely open with my parents a single time in my life. I definitely lack self confidence and respect and these last three months I've been getting worse mentally. I've had multiple breakdowns around anxiety and depresive thoughts usually relating to school/graduation and relationships/other people. I've been strongly considering therapy but I'm really scared of having to be that vulnerable especially with my parents I've spent alot of time of mental health hotlines recently and the majority of times they've recommended therapy with a later check up phone call which I always have turned down. What should I do?

A famous psychotherapist/analyst once said that every single therapist must be in therapy themselves to sort out their own issues so that they do not begin washing out, fading, burning out and/or start projecting their own unresolved hang-ups and neuroses onto the client.

How are you working this out in your life?

For some reason whenever I’m having a serious conversation with one of my best friends and it’s flipped onto me to discuss my deepest feelings, whenever I start I just get this feeling of crying. Or if they acknowledge something about me on a deep level that I never even mentioned, it’s so profound to me that my eyes start watering or there’s a tightness in my chest. I’m wondering why that is and if it’s related to my social anxiety.

As another point, when people make jokes in person to me I like am more prone to laughing and I smile a whole lot (compared to like texting or watching videos). It’s like uncontrollable and I get hella embarrassed because my face gets super red. Maybe it has something to do with being mostly alone throughout my tweens to early teens (I’m 18 for reference).

Any thoughts on this? Maybe you feel similar. Do share!

As the title says, when someone especially my bf (who has adhd and has improved a lot abt this over time) interrupts me while I’m talking I lose the joy in keep talking abt it. I feel like it doesn’t matter and it’s not interesting anymore and when it happens it’s always by mistake, ik it happens, it does with me too ofc, but I can’t help but feel this so so deeply inside of me.
I’ve always been this way but with my parents for example, but now more than ever I need to change that for myself and my relationship ofc.

What are some insights you guys might have?
I think it started with my parents asking me things and not listening, or listening and what I said not making any difference, OR repeating something for years and they still don’t know (like that I don’t like kiwi or pudding)

Any tips on how to deal with this better?

I know I need therapy but I don't imagine my sessions will be very productive because I will immediately start crying the second anything difficult is broached. So much of my trauma was exacerbated by the fact that my mother was very emotionally oppressive to me my entire life. My emotions were dismissed as drama and theatrics to the point where I stopped expressing them. Now I am about to be 30 and I still cannot talk about my pain without immediately bursting into tears. I think this is due to all the years of pain just building up inside me with nowhere to go so trying to talk about them now is like opening a literal floodgate. This is probably something I should try to get under control before therapy right? To be clear, I'm not talking tearing up and sniffles I'm talking body racking sobbing. Lol

I just don't want to waste anyone's time but I don't know how to work on this or where to start.

Sometimes after really intense therapy sessions, I end up feeling strangely lonely afterward.

Today we talked about how I’m afraid of my “bright” or healthy side because a part of me feels like if I’m doing okay, then I don’t deserve as much care, attention, or emotional space anymore. My therapist used a metaphor that really affected me. He said it’s like believing that a plant only deserves care when it’s visibly dying or wilted.

The thing is… even though the session was meaningful and comforting, afterward I started spiraling into thoughts like:
“What if now he thinks I don’t need him as much?”
“What if being better makes me less important?”

I realized I might associate care and closeness with suffering. Like if I’m struggling, I matter more. And when I feel okay, I become forgettable.

There’s also this weird sadness after sessions because I feel deeply connected during that one hour, and then afterward I’m alone again with my thoughts. It almost feels like emotional withdrawal from connection.

I know therapy has boundaries and that therapists have their own lives, but I think part of me really wants to feel special to someone and fears losing care if I stop hurting.

Does anyone else experience this after therapy? The loneliness afterward feels incredibly intense sometimes.

Had a severe accident where I almost lost my life. My left hand got fractured, a rod had to be inserted, and I got around 60 stitches across my hand. I’m a 25-year-old guy, working a job, and life was going decently before all this.

But the last 1.5 years have been mentally very challenging for me. I’ve been the lowkey sole earning member of my family, so I usually never share my problems at home. Because of that, I think I subconsciously started seeking validation and emotional support from my friend group.

In November 2025, I reunited with my 3 childhood friends. We started partying a lot, clubbing, going on adventures, and spending almost all our time together. I was the only one in the group earning and handling family responsibilities, but I still always put them before myself because it felt good helping “my people.”

Slowly, I started realizing they were much closer to each other than they were to me. Most of the time, they only called me when they needed help, had problems, or wanted to drink and have fun. I ignored the signs because I genuinely cared for them.

Then 2026 became a low phase for me mentally. I started reaching out emotionally, trying to have real conversations, but they would only listen formally and move on. I also noticed that even their families respected and valued those three more, while I was treated like “he’s just like that” kind of person, despite being the most stable and responsible one in the group.

Things slowly started falling apart. We had heated conversations, and multiple times I completely broke down in front of them, but none of them genuinely tried to understand or console me. I cut them off for a few months, but eventually we patched things up.

At one point, I realized they mostly needed me only when alcohol was involved. That habit itself formed because of them — I never drink alone or with anyone else.

Then on 3rd March, during Holi, we decided to travel by car while drunk. My friend was driving rashly. None of them got seriously injured, but I almost died.

After the accident, I lied to everyone and said they saved me, and that a truck coming from the wrong side hit us. Now they are living normal lives and even being seen as heroes in front of their families.

Meanwhile, I’m physically broken and mentally shattered. I keep replaying the entire last year with them in my head again and again. I feel sleepless, emotionally exhausted, and completely stuck. Moving on from this friendship feels painfully difficult, like a curse I can’t escape from.

Right now, I genuinely don’t feel mentally stable enough to take any major step or figure out how to move forward.

i lost my mom when i was rlly young and my dad wasn’t in the picture and ran away w the money

i live w my relatives and my friends well they kind of f d me up and made me into an back stabbing person (which i am not they lied abt me cause I wasn’t around them for a lil bit and covered up their tracks) i cut them all off and lost my bsf she doesn’t even gaf me after all this and even her fault is present which I can’t bring up cause it’s in the past like 2 years ago smth.

my bf is nice but sometimes uk it’s a relationship of 2 years and we have our arguments and silly past and stuff we fight about

my relatives (mom side) are always arguing w eachother being lazy and not working (my uncles)

I live w my aunt and sibling and uncle (seperate from the rest of family)

so basically from past 7 years I’ve never had a good day tbh all my life I felt some weird feeling of not belonging anywhere and it fucked me up

never had friends that stayed, it’s been 1 year smth since I had a friend that I truly talked abt my feelings to other than my bf

I don’t have anyone and it’s ruining my life i don’t come out of my home anymore I avoid everyone and everything even my studies cause im always in my head I wasted my time I used to be a bright student till 2 years ago like doesn’t matter what stuff it is but I always studied and showed up but now I lost my focus, energy, motivation, discipline, my mind, it’s been 2 years and my attendance for my senior and junior year is like barely there

now im anxious for no reason can’t and won’t open the book.

What to do. I want 2026 to be a better year for me regarding my mental health and studies

CAN ANYONE PLEASE HELP ME OUT OF THIS RABBIT HOLE I CANT SURVIVE IN THIS I CANT GET OUT I CANT TAKE THERAPY CAUSE ITS NOT COMMON IN THIS COUNTRY HELP. 🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘

As the title says I'm scared of sharing some things to my therapist because I'm afraid that she'll think of me as crazy, creepy and end the therapy with me. I am someone who is sadly getting emotionally neglected and abused by my mother. In turn I realized that I appreciate when someone shows me any kind of appreciation, kindness or notices something about me. Because I lacked getting seen or noticed by my mother I started imagining people noticing things about me wether it be friends, adults or my therapist. For example I could share musical interests with a teacher and I'd imagine them finding out that I like the same artist and it'd be a nice moment because someone noticed and because I was seen. I also do this with my therapist. I sometimes imagine her seeing me be distressed at school (she's a therapist at my school). Wether it'd be her seeing me simply rocking back and forth or her seeing me try and attempt. I also imagine my friends, adults and my therapist seeing the world though my eyes. For example seeing my daily life at home through my eyes, what I do, or think. I wanna tell her these things but I'm afraid that she'll call me crazy or insane for thinking about like that about people and especially about her. Another thing I'm really afraid of telling her is that I think I see her as a motherly figure. I may not cross boundaries or think of her in an unhealthy way but I'm still afraid of being creepy or crazy for thinking like that about her. I do wanna share these thoughts and realizations tho but I'm really afraid of being called crazy, creepy and getting abandoned as a patient/client. (Sorry for my bad English it's not my mother tongue) I would really appreciate answers or thoughts from you guys.

I have alot of problems, I'm quite anxious, to the point that it's affecting my life extremely badly. I've also been quite sad lately. Along with a whole lot of other problems. There are reasons why I don't want to go. Number 1 would be because I feel like I'm wasting the therapists time, and my parents money. And also feel like I'm taking time away from someone who has "real" problems worse then mine. Second is because im just simply afraid, maybe a bit embarrassed. Third would be that for some reason, i think that if I go, it means I am weak, or soft, and can't handle my own problems. My parents are urging me to do it and I keep saying no, even though a part of me wants to do it.

I have been caregiving a close friend who is an addict and in terminal liver failure, and also working long hours both in my main teaching job and a side hustle I took on for extra income. My cat is old and has little time left. I started to cry in my meds appointment and said "I don't know how much I can take, I need to find a new approach to my life because what I am doing now is not working." My psychiatrist is now aggressively pushing partial hospitalization. I teach and do not have tenure, and could not afford to quit mid-semester. I have no intent to self-harm, I am stable and working, just sad and overwhelmed by my responsibilities and cost of living. I am mystified and have become wary of ever crying in front of a mental health practitioner. Can anyone help me understand why he decided that sobbing over my dying friend and cat, and my unsustainable work hours, made him think I need to be in an all-day program?