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I like the idea! Im getting an error tho:/ Side note: Im tired of everybody being anxious, Im an immigrant to the states and I’ve noticed that most of my frien

I like the idea! Im getting an error tho:/ Side note: Im tired of everybody being anxious, Im an immigrant to the states and I’ve noticed that most of my friends who are anxious are born and raised there. While the opposite is far from true despite poverty, uncertainty, looming war & a future with no positive outlook for the country. I often struggle to emphasize cause I don’t see value of overthinking/discussing every little thought that comes to our head. Im struggling more with this recently because my partner has been diagnosed with “OCD thinking “ after just 3 therapy sessions and is even considering medication. I thought everybody overthinks, we just need to learn not to give every thought importance/attention and try to avoid triggers ie: self diagnosing. If my rant is not suitable here, then I’ll delete my comment. I would appreciate any help however.

chownie 3y ago
What help are you looking for? What do you expect the answer to your partner's problems to be?
- wara23arish 3y ago
  Basically, my heart wants to tell her, labeling this as a condition and overthinking about being an overthinker will make it worse. Just stay busy and it will work out. But then ill be deemed as insensitive etc… Ive tried to share what Ive done, like simply not allow myself google a medical condition beyond 10 minutes but ive gotten negative reactions.
  - metabagel 3y ago
    > Just stay busy and it will work out. Your partner probably needs more tools than that. It's easy enough to say that she shouldn't dwell on negative thoughts, but that's hard to do in practice. Therapy can help. Meditation can help. Quitting drinking alcohol can help. Exercise can help. Maintaining a sense of humor can help.
  - metabagel 3y ago
    Something else you can do is to not add to your partner's anxiety. Be understanding of her flaws and failures, just as you would like her to be understanding of yours.
  - pimlottc 3y ago
    Be open to the possibility that your partner's mind works differently than yours. Advice that works for you may not apply.
leros 3y ago
We're just somewhat sophisticated apes and we've built a world that our brains aren't designed to handle. Of course we all have anxiety.
curiousllama 3y ago
Nah this is totally a thing. There's generally two theories I've heard: (1) US folks are fragile. They pathologize normal thoughts/behaviors to the point that they never actually learn to live with (or fix) them. (2) Non-US folks are under-informed. They ignore diagnosable mental health issues to the point that they never get appropriate care for a problem that can be fixed. It's probably a bit of both. I'm American, and its obvious to me that we are great on some dimensions compared to other countries. E.g., Asbergers-type autism is SO MUCH more understood (and addressed!) in the states. At the same time, "diagnosed with OCD thinking" is a nonsense phrase, as far as I can tell, and is probably going too far. Therapy & medication are powerful tools; the US is learning to use them more than other places; that might be good or bad for any given person - hard to tell.
- mostlysimilar 3y ago
  (3) America is money-first at the expense of everything else, including the well-being of our own people. Pharmaceutical companies systematically encourage sickness in order to farm us for money.
  - redeux 3y ago
    The subtext of American capitalism is that anyone not born into generational wealth is one major illness or accident away from abject poverty and ultimately death. I’m willing to bet this type of constant background stress leads to general anxiety for a significant number of people. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on this.
    - curiousllama 3y ago
      > The subtext of American capitalism is that anyone not born into generational wealth is one major illness or accident away from abject poverty and ultimately death I was going to disagree with this, and then I thought "but what is generational wealth, except enough money that nobody in your family is worries about that one major sickness/accident" And now I agree with you
- 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
yungporko 3y ago
i think western society is just currently in its "massive overcorrection from decades of ignorance/stigma about mental health issues" phase, it'll probably balance itself out over time, or at least i hope it will. at the moment it's just impossible to even have the conversation, the concept that people aren't just forever victims of their own feelings and that some or even most people need to do real hard work on themselves is straight up offensive to a lot of people.
- maleldil 3y ago
  > some or even most people need to do real hard work on themselves Isn't this what people that go to therapy are doing?
  - yungporko 3y ago
    well that's the idea, but i've known many people who go to "therapy" and really all they're doing is paying for validation. i've known many more people who don't go to therapy and have never made any effort to work on themselves at all, and just expect the world to grant them some kind of protected status and absolve them of any responsibility for their own actions.
    - maleldil 3y ago
      Regarding the latter group, are you talking about mental illnesses self-diagnosis or something like that? Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. I'm especially confused about "some kind of protected status".
      - yungporko 3y ago
        either one, for example saying things like "it's not my fault i showed up an hour late to work again, i have anxiety" as if it just means that you aren't responsible for your actions and it isn't a problem you need to solve
        3y ago
pimlottc 3y ago
Anxiety is definitely not always rational; you can feel anxious without being able to identify a good cause. But knowing (or being told) you "shoudln't" be feeling anxious doesn't really make the anxiety go away. So now you're anxious AND feeling guilty about it. Not a healthy combination. "Just stop thinking about it" is not that helpful either. Overthinking happens internally, whether it's being expressed outwardly or not. I don't think diagnosis is a trigger, rather the opposite; it's the first step to understanding your own condition and ways to cope. "It's not just me" is a powerful realization.
- wara23arish 3y ago
  My worry is that this diagnosis will make the person feel that this is an insurmountable problem or something that is permanent rather than a phase that will pass. I truly believed this is something everyone goes through, but Im not sure now since my partner says its not. My goal is trying to make her realize the absurdity of this anxiety and not that she shouldn’t have it all. Maybe even laugh at ourself in the process. But i honestly think “just stop thinking “ helps, you do that by staying busy, meditation hobbies etc.. “We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them” Khalil Gebran. Is something that I try to remember that helps me
  - gorlilla 3y ago
    Some people can't 'just stop thinking' though. Or meditation is only a breather; not a 'reset' back into 'normal' thought patterns. Intrusive thoughts and anxiety are a massive burden in my everyday life. Sometimes the thoughts just can't be tamed or sated and they start wreaking havoc on everything around me. Time is usually the best solution... "this will pass". But sometimes the thoughts push time to an unmanageable scale. My wife tries to empathize. She too thinks everyone has these worries or anxieties... and I don't disagree. The 'disorder' is that mine occur so frequently, with such intensity and without relent... to the point my ability to 'function normally' is severely compromised. We all go through it, sure, but some of us can never just stop going through it. Imagine you have a leaky roof. You have to deal with it whenever it rains, but it's still manageable enough that you haven't climbed up there to repair it yet. My roof has a 10' hole, and I live under a waterfall in a tropical rainforest. But it's OK, because the nearby volcano helps keep me warm and dry....
sshine 3y ago
> Im getting an error tho:/ Does it make you anxious? In that case, it’s a feature!
keybored 3y ago
> If my rant is not suitable here, then I’ll delete my comment. Yes. > I would appreciate any help however. Wait a day and try the website again.
kcrwfrd_ 3y ago
Maybe there’s a selection bias: people willing to emigrate are less anxious.
dotnet00 3y ago
I've seen the opposite. Also as an immigrant to the states, I've seen so much more anxiety from fellow immigrants than those raised here. There's so much fragility in having and maintaining immigrant status - particularly from countries with long wait times for permanent residency, that it seems hard not to be anxious. Until very recently when I started realizing the mental and physical toll of it, I would completely panic over any sort of planning for the future (even things as inconsequential as hearing other people talking about buying tickets for a concert) because it'd remind me of the instability of my position. In contrast the people born here, while certainly having concerns about their future, tend to feel comfortable enough in knowing that they have some basic level of stability around them. After realizing the toll it was taking on me, I've had to work on recognizing the signs of another round of panic and get better at gaslighting myself to be more apathetic of whatever might happen and reminding myself that ultimately, my sanity is more important than immigration and with my education and skills I can probably do fine in most other countries with similar standards of living.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jeanmayer 3y ago
I've just fixed, I'm sorry about that error
jdietrich 3y ago
Most mental health problems manifest differently in different cultural contexts. Westerners generally have a reasonable understanding of anxiety as a psychological problem and are comfortable talking about it as such and seeking treatment for it. In developing and middle-income countries, depression and anxiety more often present as physical symptoms like digestive problems, pain, fatigue and muscle weakness. These patients will typically meet the standard diagnostic criteria for depression or anxiety if they're asked, but that's not how they conceptualise their problem. A raft of other things that would be diagnosed in the west as obvious psychiatric disorders are, in less psychologically-aware places and times, simply chalked up as personal problems or personality differences. I can certainly think of older members of my family who have "trouble with their nerves", a "bad stomach" that only flares up at times of acute stress or "funny turns" that look very much like panic attacks. I can think of an eccentric aunt who lived alone and obsessively collected teapots and never quite got the hang of small talk or eye contact. I can think of many men who came back from the war with a violent temper and a crippling fear of loud noises. A lack of diagnosis does not necessarily reflect a lack of pathology. It's certainly plausible that some western countries (and America in particular) might over-pathologise normal distress as psychiatric disorder, but it's clear that many people in less-developed countries often face avoidable suffering due to a lack of diagnosis and treatment, particularly people suffering from the most severe disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/psychological-approaches-to-somatisation-in-developing-countries/6FB1DC860C55AA48DBB76D41A7B19CF8 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiat... https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00395-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...

chownie 3y ago

What help are you looking for? What do you expect the answer to your partner's problems to be?

wara23arish 3y ago
Basically, my heart wants to tell her, labeling this as a condition and overthinking about being an overthinker will make it worse. Just stay busy and it will work out. But then ill be deemed as insensitive etc… Ive tried to share what Ive done, like simply not allow myself google a medical condition beyond 10 minutes but ive gotten negative reactions.
- metabagel 3y ago
  > Just stay busy and it will work out. Your partner probably needs more tools than that. It's easy enough to say that she shouldn't dwell on negative thoughts, but that's hard to do in practice. Therapy can help. Meditation can help. Quitting drinking alcohol can help. Exercise can help. Maintaining a sense of humor can help.
- metabagel 3y ago
  Something else you can do is to not add to your partner's anxiety. Be understanding of her flaws and failures, just as you would like her to be understanding of yours.
- pimlottc 3y ago
  Be open to the possibility that your partner's mind works differently than yours. Advice that works for you may not apply.

leros 3y ago

We're just somewhat sophisticated apes and we've built a world that our brains aren't designed to handle. Of course we all have anxiety.

curiousllama 3y ago

Nah this is totally a thing. There's generally two theories I've heard: (1) US folks are fragile. They pathologize normal thoughts/behaviors to the point that they never actually learn to live with (or fix) them. (2) Non-US folks are under-informed. They ignore diagnosable mental health issues to the point that they never get appropriate care for a problem that can be fixed. It's probably a bit of both. I'm American, and its obvious to me that we are great on some dimensions compared to other countries. E.g., Asbergers-type autism is SO MUCH more understood (and addressed!) in the states. At the same time, "diagnosed with OCD thinking" is a nonsense phrase, as far as I can tell, and is probably going too far. Therapy & medication are powerful tools; the US is learning to use them more than other places; that might be good or bad for any given person - hard to tell.

mostlysimilar 3y ago
(3) America is money-first at the expense of everything else, including the well-being of our own people. Pharmaceutical companies systematically encourage sickness in order to farm us for money.
- redeux 3y ago
  The subtext of American capitalism is that anyone not born into generational wealth is one major illness or accident away from abject poverty and ultimately death. I’m willing to bet this type of constant background stress leads to general anxiety for a significant number of people. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on this.
  - curiousllama 3y ago
    > The subtext of American capitalism is that anyone not born into generational wealth is one major illness or accident away from abject poverty and ultimately death I was going to disagree with this, and then I thought "but what is generational wealth, except enough money that nobody in your family is worries about that one major sickness/accident" And now I agree with you
3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

yungporko 3y ago

i think western society is just currently in its "massive overcorrection from decades of ignorance/stigma about mental health issues" phase, it'll probably balance itself out over time, or at least i hope it will. at the moment it's just impossible to even have the conversation, the concept that people aren't just forever victims of their own feelings and that some or even most people need to do real hard work on themselves is straight up offensive to a lot of people.

maleldil 3y ago
> some or even most people need to do real hard work on themselves Isn't this what people that go to therapy are doing?
- yungporko 3y ago
  well that's the idea, but i've known many people who go to "therapy" and really all they're doing is paying for validation. i've known many more people who don't go to therapy and have never made any effort to work on themselves at all, and just expect the world to grant them some kind of protected status and absolve them of any responsibility for their own actions.
  - maleldil 3y ago
    Regarding the latter group, are you talking about mental illnesses self-diagnosis or something like that? Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. I'm especially confused about "some kind of protected status".
    - yungporko 3y ago
      either one, for example saying things like "it's not my fault i showed up an hour late to work again, i have anxiety" as if it just means that you aren't responsible for your actions and it isn't a problem you need to solve
      - 3y ago

pimlottc 3y ago

Anxiety is definitely not always rational; you can feel anxious without being able to identify a good cause. But knowing (or being told) you "shoudln't" be feeling anxious doesn't really make the anxiety go away. So now you're anxious AND feeling guilty about it. Not a healthy combination. "Just stop thinking about it" is not that helpful either. Overthinking happens internally, whether it's being expressed outwardly or not. I don't think diagnosis is a trigger, rather the opposite; it's the first step to understanding your own condition and ways to cope. "It's not just me" is a powerful realization.

wara23arish 3y ago
My worry is that this diagnosis will make the person feel that this is an insurmountable problem or something that is permanent rather than a phase that will pass. I truly believed this is something everyone goes through, but Im not sure now since my partner says its not. My goal is trying to make her realize the absurdity of this anxiety and not that she shouldn’t have it all. Maybe even laugh at ourself in the process. But i honestly think “just stop thinking “ helps, you do that by staying busy, meditation hobbies etc.. “We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them” Khalil Gebran. Is something that I try to remember that helps me
- gorlilla 3y ago
  Some people can't 'just stop thinking' though. Or meditation is only a breather; not a 'reset' back into 'normal' thought patterns. Intrusive thoughts and anxiety are a massive burden in my everyday life. Sometimes the thoughts just can't be tamed or sated and they start wreaking havoc on everything around me. Time is usually the best solution... "this will pass". But sometimes the thoughts push time to an unmanageable scale. My wife tries to empathize. She too thinks everyone has these worries or anxieties... and I don't disagree. The 'disorder' is that mine occur so frequently, with such intensity and without relent... to the point my ability to 'function normally' is severely compromised. We all go through it, sure, but some of us can never just stop going through it. Imagine you have a leaky roof. You have to deal with it whenever it rains, but it's still manageable enough that you haven't climbed up there to repair it yet. My roof has a 10' hole, and I live under a waterfall in a tropical rainforest. But it's OK, because the nearby volcano helps keep me warm and dry....

sshine 3y ago

> Im getting an error tho:/ Does it make you anxious? In that case, it’s a feature!

keybored 3y ago

> If my rant is not suitable here, then I’ll delete my comment. Yes. > I would appreciate any help however. Wait a day and try the website again.

kcrwfrd_ 3y ago

Maybe there’s a selection bias: people willing to emigrate are less anxious.

dotnet00 3y ago

I've seen the opposite. Also as an immigrant to the states, I've seen so much more anxiety from fellow immigrants than those raised here. There's so much fragility in having and maintaining immigrant status - particularly from countries with long wait times for permanent residency, that it seems hard not to be anxious. Until very recently when I started realizing the mental and physical toll of it, I would completely panic over any sort of planning for the future (even things as inconsequential as hearing other people talking about buying tickets for a concert) because it'd remind me of the instability of my position. In contrast the people born here, while certainly having concerns about their future, tend to feel comfortable enough in knowing that they have some basic level of stability around them. After realizing the toll it was taking on me, I've had to work on recognizing the signs of another round of panic and get better at gaslighting myself to be more apathetic of whatever might happen and reminding myself that ultimately, my sanity is more important than immigration and with my education and skills I can probably do fine in most other countries with similar standards of living.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jeanmayer 3y ago

I've just fixed, I'm sorry about that error

jdietrich 3y ago

Most mental health problems manifest differently in different cultural contexts. Westerners generally have a reasonable understanding of anxiety as a psychological problem and are comfortable talking about it as such and seeking treatment for it. In developing and middle-income countries, depression and anxiety more often present as physical symptoms like digestive problems, pain, fatigue and muscle weakness. These patients will typically meet the standard diagnostic criteria for depression or anxiety if they're asked, but that's not how they conceptualise their problem. A raft of other things that would be diagnosed in the west as obvious psychiatric disorders are, in less psychologically-aware places and times, simply chalked up as personal problems or personality differences. I can certainly think of older members of my family who have "trouble with their nerves", a "bad stomach" that only flares up at times of acute stress or "funny turns" that look very much like panic attacks. I can think of an eccentric aunt who lived alone and obsessively collected teapots and never quite got the hang of small talk or eye contact. I can think of many men who came back from the war with a violent temper and a crippling fear of loud noises. A lack of diagnosis does not necessarily reflect a lack of pathology. It's certainly plausible that some western countries (and America in particular) might over-pathologise normal distress as psychiatric disorder, but it's clear that many people in less-developed countries often face avoidable suffering due to a lack of diagnosis and treatment, particularly people suffering from the most severe disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/psychological-approaches-to-somatisation-in-developing-countries/6FB1DC860C55AA48DBB76D41A7B19CF8 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiat... https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00395-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...