Why the Mental Health of Liberal Girls Sank First and Fastest
(jonathanhaidt.substack.com)
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The whole thing was worth reading just to learn this term.
What's the TLDR?
The strategies deployed by the left are indistinguishable from the cognitive behaviors targeted by psychologists when treating depression and anxiety.
Put another way: the left is fostering and then weaponizing depression for political and cultural gains, and this is most evident in the female teen demographic.
I'm pretty skeptical of the therapy aspect of all this. No doubt leftism fucks people up in the head but we can't laugh at the "men should go to therapy" crap and then lap this up uncritically because it validates our beliefs. You don't need a bunch of convoluted theories some shrink (who's most likely a feminist) pulled out of their ass to know that validating delusional retards is bad both for the delusional retards themselves and society at large.
Correct, you don't - but as is often the case, process optimization starts with a structured approach.
these people are like this BECAUSE they go to therapy. they want you to be like them.
Yup. And the "American Psychological Association" has been in a decades-long effort to gaslight the public through their highly-politicized classification (or declassification) of mental illness.
Homosexuality should have remained what it is -- mental illness. This only happened through purposefuly infiltration and subversion by homosexual activists, and from there the slope has been obvious
clinical psychologists treating mental illnesses like severe depression, mania, psychosis, etc use various techniques to clean up someone's thinking and cure or at least mitigate their issues.
not only do leftists have massively higher rates of mental illness, the modern left took those techniques and weaponized the reverse with propaganda for kids, particularly leftist women, to brainwash them and directly causing mental illnesses.
Women lie, this guy is too stupid to realise.
Mental Health becoming a "phrase" alone was enough to destroy most of society. People cannot even put words into their issues, so they use "mental health" or the equally vague "depression," "anxiety" or "ADHD" which allows them to never have to confront it beyond a flippant excuse when called on something.
Of course this appeals to women more. Its not just "liberal girls," because very few girls who go to college don't become liberals along the way if they weren't already. Its assuming women have the same kind of deep seated convictions and principles men do, which shows a lack of understanding of "mental health" still. Especially as women overwhelmingly go into degree programs that are politicized and unwelcoming to non-liberal positions on a foundational level.
This is why they do what he called "reverse CBT." Because they don't want depression cured. The industry wants them forever feeling powerless and tethered to some treatment. The "sufferer" doesn't want to be free of their lifelong and infinite excuse for anything. They want to be that way, because it not only justifies all their flaws as a person (and any work they would have to do to work on them, as well as any moral failing that would undermine their self-righteousness), but makes them a permanent victim who can leverage that power in any ring.
Many of the chronic depressives don't want it cured either. They don't want to feel better, they want an unlimited and endless excuse.
I've got a degree in therapy and spent some time working in the industry. One of the biggest reasons I quit is because nobody wants to feel better. Everyone is just there because "talking and pills fix everything right?" and simply saying "I'm in therapy" is enough for some people to pretend they are working on it.
And, based on my experience and a lot of observation, 90% of people with "depression" don't have clinical depression, or any form of internally sourced depression at all that need any form of intervention. They have situational depression, which is literally just "something bad happened, I'm sad now" which they stretch into a long term thing by never dealing with it.
Like no shit you're fucking depressed, your life sucks. Stop treating the warning sign your body is giving you to get it together and instead just fucking get it together.
I will say therapy was handy for learning about cognitive behavioral therapy, but funny how my depression eased up once I:
left an environment I was alienated in
started keeping to a decent sleep schedule
stopped eating junk
started exercising regularly
And then you have all these people (women) saying iTs A cHeMiCaL iMbAlAnCe. Well yeah you're treating your body like garbage and taking drugs that further mess with your "chemicals" of course they're going to be out of whack.
And another thing, I'm not unconvinced that most of the people going to therapy, besides doing the above, just need actual friends or family they can talk to. Social connections are in the gutter for most people and getting worse by the decade. They're spending hundreds on what's essentially a rent-a-friend.
CBT helps separate the things you can change from the things you can't. It's a mindfulness/stoic technique, something many men have mastered throughout history without calling it CBT.
Women would benefit from CBT too, but they aren't that good at it (or it doesn't interest them). They tend to be far to attached to their emotions. I skimmed the article but it was mind-boggling how the author did not identify a key reason "liberal women" why were so caught up in these "anti-CBT behaviours" - those behaviours are all classically feminine:
I've said it before and will say it again, a major problem in Western society is everyone is becoming hyper-feminine and adopting these behaviours, which are useful for manipulating other people to gain some benefit, but will ultimately collapse the society if everyone is doing it (because not enough people are actually doing any work, they are all expecting someone else to fix things for them).
Yeah, most of them are surrounded by a family they don't have a good relationship with (whether its their fault or the family's) and "friends" who are such bad influences they would be considered toxic if they didn't have history with them. Almost all of people in the West's problems could be solved if they had someone to tell them basic obvious shit, and they trusted that person to do it. Insert your own jokes about lacking dads here.
And you hit the nail on the head. Most people's depression comes from them fucking up the most basic of bodily functions and their body panicking, which they then use to make it worse in a cycle of suffering. Sleeping properly alone would probably fix most people's emotional issues, and that includes oversleeping.
I take some comfort in the fact that many of these people will kill themselves once the war starts in earnest.
You shouldn't because they probably won't. Like a woman in an actual abusive relationship, they will survive against all odds and logical reasoning while both under maximum stress and willfully staying in a place that stresses them to the max.
Perhaps, but this is a scenario of food and power shortages and internet outage. Your average millennial prog will not survive that one way or another.
Stress is probably one of the biggest causes of people's physical health falling apart. It can age you prematurely, which is a path you can't undo once it happens. You might stop it from completing, but you'll be starting further up once it kicks in naturally.
And ironically, one of the best treatments for stress I've found is to not pay attention to it. Not suppress it, but simply not care about it. A phrase I keep in my pocket a lot is:
Because once you train your mind and body to realize that you can push through stress, it stops effecting you as heavily. Its an old technique used on treating phobias, but it applies pretty well to treating basic stressors as well.
In a race to the bottom, why be better? The currency of victimhood gains value the "worse off" you are, so actually sorting their depression would make them "less wealthy" in social standing.
With no outside pressure and no inside drive to change, they sit and fester, often to praise and rewards in the form of handouts.
If we stop subsidizing their lifestyle of misery, they would have to change.
Important to note that this behavior is exacerbated by anti-white indoctrination. White children are demonized by their teachers and peers, and the only avenue of escape is to designate yourself as a member of an alternative and protected demographic. Lgbt is one option, mentally ill is another. There’s a reason why these identities are exploding among white teenagers.
Would you say that such people require some philosophy?
I wasn't all that different in the past. What really helped me turn some things around (not that my life is great right now) was adding philosophy to all the psychology and talk therapy.
I tell kids now, when I see them struggling with depression, that it's basically just a signal that they are failing to move towards their life goals and deep personal values. They act a little surprised sometimes, because kids don't even know their life goals. So I try to explain that they wouldn't be able to have that depression if there wasn't something they really wanted and were failing to move towards. Like depression is some conscious sequence - no, it starts in the dark with all the things you weren't paying attention to.
Of course, there's some crap philosophies out there, so I try to push the core of logic and introspection.
I think I remember you speaking about how psychology and therapy were geared towards women. Perhaps it excludes philosophy because women aren't exactly deep thinkers.
Philosophy requires an ability for introspection and abstract thinking. For men, that's not a guarantee. Many would improve by being able to settle their chaotic thoughts and categorize it through philosophical ideologies, because their emotional state is caused by overthinking in the first place. But there are also those who do not have that ability either, for better or for worse.
That's why the industry of "man therapy" is actually taking off slowly but surely. Wherein, instead of deep thinking or simple talking, you are taken out to just do things. Boating, lifting, camping, wood/metal working. Just the act of doing these things (with some talking during to help the process) is shown consistently put men's minds in order. Not every man is meant to be an intellectual, but every man is still a man and his body reacts accordingly. Even a noodle arm beta commie will get his rush of testosterone and better feelings from seeing a shelf he built with his own two hands.
However, as you say, this doesn't apply to women in either form. Which is why talk therapy and pills are the dominant option. Because those are vaguely effective for women, on paper at least. It doesn't truly help them, because what they crave is nearly always their missing father giving them boundaries and removing the control they have over their own life. But therapists can't provide that very well.
Social media is this century's asbestos.
This explains why democrats only seek out the votes from liberal women?
I learned about CBT in the context of having exes with BPD. It's not just for depression, it is a broad therapy approach to address most personality disorders.
I wouldn't call it "reverse CBT", I'd call it "fostering and weaponizing mental illness"
And yes, that's exactly what the Left has been doing for a long time now, but it massive accelerated in the last 10 years or so.
Why do you think the Left suddenly started CELEBRATING mental illness these past 10 years? To the point where it became a virtue signal and clout-boosting to come out and proclaim yourself to be mentally ill?
Because mental illness is the primary weapon the Left is exploiting to destroy society now.
Because they lie like fuck and feminists massage the data to affirm that the genocide advocates are the primary victims and anyone who doesn't agree is an incel.
Shudders.