What is The Worst Advice From a Therapist? - "Your Friends Are Going to Leave You?"

why are you so depressed you're not going to have any friends nobody's going to want to be around you you should just be happy all the time what's wrong with you why do you keep doing this mended light your friends are going to leave you if you keep being depressed I cannot believe a therapist said that and yet it was said by a counselor here we are so we pulled our menalite community on what are some terrible things that a therapist has said to you with some terrible advice and one of them I guess in an attempt to shame somebody out of being depressed I find that shaming always changes Behavior I mean it's the most efficient mode to change behavior is shaming it's not it's all lies it never works shaming never works well and shaming is the tactic I of somebody who feels like they've run out of options and doesn't know what to say and if I'm a therapist and I'm getting to a place of shaming people I would rather say you know I'm not 100% sure how to help you today I think we need to take a break for this week I'll see you next week I'm going to regroup and think of some new approaches and I'd like for you to do the same or push come to shove you know I think we've gone as far as we're able to go together I don't have any other ideas and and make the referral but to get to a place to say your friends are going to leave you it's so damaging because innately the therapist client relationship is one of authority right and you're going to therapy because you need support and to to be treated in such a cous unkind shaming way yeah I mean I just hope wasn't devastating for the person that was told this I hope so as well it reminds me I had a client one time who talked about her relationship with her father growing up and her father told told her you're never going to amount to anything you're pathetic you're a loser you're not going to succeed and to spite her father she pushed herself in school she became a tremendous success and he said this is what I was always going for I was giving you someone to push against and she said Dad the end result is that I hate you and I don't want a relationship with you oh wow so one either she turned out to be a success and he changed his tune I knew you had it in you all along or that really was his strategy in which case that's awful and I could see maybe he need some help well I could see maybe a therapist trying a similar thing of I'm going to give this person someone to push against like I here's why I think a therapist in The Devil's Advocate yeah in a misguided effort would say something like this I've tried being nurturing I've tried being compassionate I've tried being empathetic and this person is still stuck in a funk so I'm going to try doing the opposite and see if that's what works for them but it's not worth the gamble it's not worth the gamble to tell a depressed person that they are essentially worthy of Abandonment and not being loved because of a condition of depression which they didn't choose or ask for so I have a question for you what would be your counter advice to this terrible advice this person is sitting on your couch or chair whatever yeah you know you're sitting in an office standing in the corner because because they're Shame Shame um and they say this is what my last therapist told me I'm still struggling struggling with depression what do I do I would make some joke about having to undo the damage of what the other therapist did uh and it would only be half joking and then I would let them know that their depression is not something they chose I've yet I've yet to meet the person who chose chooses depression right I've yet to meet the person who says yes I wanted this in my life and because you didn't choose it there's guilt and there's shame and I think shame is never a positive it's never useful it's never helpful shame is directed at your identity it's directed at who you are it's saying I am pathetic I am unlovable I am unworthy guilt on the other hand can be healthy can be helpful if it's directed at a behavior that we chose that we can change right right but depression isn't Chosen and very often it can be managed or alleviated but changed or just done away with yeah most people who struggle with depression this is kind of their cross to bear MH and they can still find a happy fulfilling life but the depression is part of it MH so to first of all to guil somebody for depression doesn't make any sense because even in the case of healthy guilt it's not something they chose and it's not something they can change much more shame somebody for it mhm it it serves no purpose and and so what I just said I would say to that client to lay out why what their previous therapist did was wrong why the person in front of me is not at fault for feeling depression and then we go into let's unpack when your therapist said that did it land as something fearful like I think it was wrong of them to say that but did it elicit a response an emotional response because I'd be interested to know if the person said no I just thought that therapist was an idiot and that's why I'm not seeing them anymore because who the hell says that or if they say yeah that actually terrifies me I would want to know that first and foremost and then if they accepted even though it was an untrue thing to say if they accepted that in as some sort of Truth yeah because I would want to know that before knowing how to proceed and if they did I'd say let's explore that shall we and ultimately the fact is if someone is truly a friend they don't abandon you when things are hard if someone is truly a friend they may they may draw boundaries for themselves in their life you know but they're not just going to say I don't care anymore and in the case of depression someone who would leave you because you're a downer someone who would leave you because you're struggling isn't truly a friend anyway that's a fair weather good time buddy is all that is just you know I just talking about depression I think of Eeyore right MH and there's nothing wrong like you have to know the sorrow to know the joy right yeah you have to know the hard to know the good right and there there's nothing wrong with a little bit of eess in our life not at all you know going to that place of whether it's grief or sadness or whatever it is having that healthy self-expression giving yourself the safe space to to express that yeah and saying okay what am I going to do now well and what's Curious to me about the Eeyore situation is I've heard from a lot of people who struggle with depression that not just Eeyore but Eeyore's friends are a wonderful role model of this because even though yes they do try and cheer eore up sometimes when they fail to cheer him up they don't stop hanging out with him right they just sit with him they just sit with him or they do their thing and they're glad he's there right like because if I'm if I'm depressed the last thing I want to do is bring down the group right and so I may withdraw from people because I feel like I'm a party pooper and I'm a downer when I really do need that camaraderie I really do need that friendship I just can't reach the same level of happiness or joy that they can but I don't want to be excluded but if I'm insecure I may think well I shouldn't be here because I'm a downer and what I love about Pooh and Piglet and tiger and all of them is they're they're just happy that he's there and when he's sad they let him be sad they don't make him try and be happy and they he's not a problem to be fixed he's not a problem to be fixed and when he's like have you seen my tail they help him find his tail you know it's it's a wonderful beautiful thing and maybe this is what your friends need maybe your friends want to be your friends but they don't know how to help yeah and they feel like failures because they try and cheer you up and it doesn't work and I find that the direct approach is best when we think of how should I say this that or the other just be direct guys I love you I love being your friend I'm grateful for you and I'm grateful to be around you I'm struggling with depression that doesn't mean I have to be a bummer for the group what it does mean is that sometimes you're going to try and cheer me up and it's not going to work and in those moments what I really need is xyr z and XY or Z could be I may need you to hold my hand or put your arm around me I may need you to cry cry with me I may need you to hear me I may need you to just be normal and do your own thing and by normal I mean uh what's the normal behavior for this person or that person not the normal standard for human behavior I want you to keep being you and just let me exist in the same space with you right well and conversely like you can say that you can say that is the person that's depressed it's okay yeah depression is acceptable but conversely the friend can say hey it seems like you're having a hard time yeah like what what's going on for you how can I support you like can I call you every day can I text you every day do you want to come to lunch like I don't I'm not 100% sure when I when I call you and you're having a hard time do you want to come out with us is that helpful calling regardless of whether or not you're going to come and if you're watching this and you have a friend who is depressed or anyone going through a hard time one of my favorite phrases is I want to be here for you and I'm not sure how to do it yeah expressing that want and then letting the other person tell you how yeah and so as you know I've had in college I had a roommate who was depressed MH and I wasn't sure what to do for him and I wasn't sure what my role was as friend and my responsibility and once we got into this place of yeah there will be days you can't cheer me up but I still want to be around you so I remember his story oh yeah this is yeah okay listen fine I'll tell the story um this roommate had a hard time sometimes if your friend is depressed what they need is someone obnoxious in their life but you need to know that this is a good fit for them so he had a hard time getting out of bed and seeing hope and light in the world and so and get and then he would miss class and he'd fall behind his classes but he if he got that that like push to get out of bed it could make all the difference and so one so one morning I don't know what came over me and I just went in and I opened the door and with his light switch he's laying in bed and it's Pitch Black in there and I [Music] go I switch his lights off and on and he goes and he puts his pillow over his head and he thought I was going to stop but once he put his pillow over his head I I paused I turned the light off his body relaxed and then I went then he goes ah and he throws the pillow and he's like I'm up I'm up and I said I'm going to do that every day he says don't you dare I'm like I am and here's the thing I'm not saying that is the best fit for every relationship but in this but he really appreciated it like not that day but that kind of became our thing and he would be annoyed but he'd laugh MH and the combination of the strobe and the excessive noise and the laughter and the annoyance got him out of bed and and he told me later that in his case it was something he appreciated because it got him to class and it got him going for the day and thinking that maybe things aren't so gloomy if I have a roommate who loves me enough to annoy the hell out of me so there you go I'm not saying this is a one siiz fits-all solution this may be terrible for some people but it worked for us your friends if your friends distance themselves if they're true friends the only reason they would distance themselves is because they're getting the message from you or they think they are that they're not welcome or go away and leave me alone and so maybe on your end the communication could be this is what I need from you right is X Y or z uh and this is what it's like for me and and this is what I expect from you and what I don't expect from you like I expect you and I hope you'll call me you'll text me in my case like I I hope you'll flash my lights off and on and get me out of bed I don't expect you to make me feel better that's not your job right and so that can be a very helpful thing I'm so glad you overcame your depression yeah well if you ever get in that big of a funk I'm going to start doing that with the lights fair if you enjoyed this video check out the video and you did you did check out the video you shouldn't marry if you're of different faiths that is what a therapist said were they right if you've struggled with depression what helps you on a daily basis if you have friends or family that struggle with depression how do you support them we want to know until next time keep shining because we need your light and here's that video we were telling you about clickity click you don't even have to worry 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Channel: Mended Light

Views: 9,269

Keywords: jonathan decker, Jonathan Decker, Mended Light, mended light, Bad advice, depression, what to do with bad advice

Id: 0GYxo9meyGI

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2024