Oh sure. Suppress your feelings. Very healthy. Makes aaaaallll the problems go away. /s
I think that woman needs therapy. And all the people in her stories too - if they even exist and aren’t just a thinly veiled attempt to get suffering people to work more.
Burrowing your feelings like that is a fast way to a burn out or worse.
Sounds great for the kid that just lost their mother and now has an absent father escaping through work. Definitely a healthy way to process emotions that won’t risk lasting damage. /s
The “Ex-colleague with a liver disease” sent a chill through my spine. Was he an Ex-colleague because he was fired for being sick 👀👀👀? Was he healing himself or was he desperate not to die? There’s a difference.
Work can be meaningful, therapeutic, or simply a useful tool for coping. That doesn’t mean it should be the only tool, nor should it be relied on without clinical guidance, nor should it be the expectation.
Talk-therapy might not be for everyone, work therapy certainly isn’t. The complete lack of empathy and humanization in the post is disgusting.
Given that this person is in India, and yes I checked, yes probably they got fired for having liver disease. India is one of the places where working is even more dystopic than the US.
this shit is sad not virtuous. cancer patients and sick people need treatment, not work. people should be able to afford recovery.
First to log in, last to log off… But what about the poor kid ?
Doing the same at their burger flipping job of course
Yeah, that’s actually kind of true. When you’re working, you can shut off a lot of that stuff for a while, and power through. Then that’s nine hours that you don’t have to think about X, Y, or Z. It gives you space, so that emotions aren’t as raw, and it gives you a structure. I would never suggest work instead of therapy, but I know a lot of people that went to work the day after their spouse died because they couldn’t stand to be alone with just their thoughts.
Getting fired for being in a ‘bad mood’ when my ex-spouse told me that they wanted to separate took me from deeply depressed to suicidal, and I got to spend the next four days, three nights in a hospital. If I hadn’t been fired, I would have… Coped. Not well, but I wouldn’t have tried to taste-test a shotgun.
Work also gives you structure in your day. It also means you have to practice enough self care to take a shower, do laundry to have clean clothes to wear, have at least some human interaction. Also having money is important.
If you’re unemployed and can do drugs all day, wallow in self pity, be disconnected from other humans, no haircut in months, etc. That will make your mental health worse. Also when money runs out and no new money is coming in, getting actual help to improve your situation gets much harder. Small problems become bigger problems.
I know from experience.
You’re absolutely right. The person in this post is a fucking maniac, and they’ve completely lost the plot, but they’re right for the completely wrong reasons.
Work is useful and therapeutic for people because it’s a way to derive purpose and meaning through the things people need from you. You don’t want to let your colleagues down, or have your missed work increase their burden. It’s also a distraction and something to do besides sit at the house with your thoughts like you said.
Therapy gives you mechanisms to cope in healthy ways with the grief. Work can be part of a healthy overarching coping strategy. But it can very easily be a maladaptive way to avoid dealing with it.
There are those who work to live and others who live to work…. And only one of those groups is doing it right…
Indians happen to be some of the most overworked people on the planet. And it is making us really sick.
I wish this lady would stop celebrating it just because we were not taught to process our emotions like a normal human beings. Thankfully, therapy does exist here in India and really affordable too.
India is at the stage now that China was at 20 years ago when people were trying to take their lives jumping off Foxconn buildings due to being overworked.
Wage suppression and unemployment are major issues. Modi’s economists have recognized the economy is at risk of underperforming due to inadequate demand (consumers not having the disposable income or time to consume goods and services).
They’re trying to fix it with certain tax breaks but I hope the Indian people kick Modi to curb ultimately since he’s spent most of his time stoking religious tensions, scapegoating minorities and giving kickbacks to Gujurati industrialists. He’s a fascist.
India has much deeper issues than Modi. Arundathi Roy wrote that India needs a Dalit Revolution, without it no other revolution is possible in India. I agree with her.
A vast majority of politicians, bureaucrats and police work to maintain the status quo, in which a significant portion of population are oppressed, instead of solving actual problems. This needs to change.
And let’s not forget about the deep-seated corruption at every level of government. Sure Modi needs to be kicked to the curb, but that’s just the beginning. We need a deeper social revolution for India to really change.
Perhaps Dalits will have their civil rights progression jumps like African Americans have had in the US. I’m not so sure it’s a necessary factor though. Economically India has grown substantially in the past 15 years largely through cozying up with the West. Many Western countries now see India as an important strategic partner given its proximity to China and Russia.
Extractionary systems exist in many post colonial nations, India being no exception. Corruption and maintenance of the status quo are a legacy of those systems.
For a system like that to change, sure revolution is one option. But if there’s a way to democratically extricate the fascist party (a long shot I know) that’s a desirable consideration.
There is something more important than economy and that is social justice, which is still an issue for the dalits. Sure India has grown economically, but that economic prosperity is not shared equally across all. Some benefitted a lot and others not at all.
I am one of the privileged classes living in India and the treatment of Dalits still shocks me. And they rarely make the news. This, I strongly believe, will only change through a revolution. What worries me is that the revolution is going to be really bloody.
Edit: I would love for Dalits to have BLM movement of their own. But that always follows from a tragedy so big that the systemic issues behind that can no longer be ignored. Sad part is such a tragedy is inevitable in the status quo.
So fucking true. We are going through our own phase of work alcoholism worship like USA did in the 70-90s. It’s still much better in urbanized areas than it was in the 90s tho.
Cool.
Give us an update when you’re diagnosed with cancer, Dr. Anecdote.I’ve never had cancer but I did have liver and kidney failure and worked 3 days a week while on dialysis.
Why? Because I needed the money (medical care is expensive) and FMLA and disability only last so long.
The take in the LinkedIn post is absolutely batty.
man I might have to block this community before I get too damned angry and start killing corpos
You must look deep within yourself and ask, "Am I strong enough to follow in Saint Luigi’s footsteps?
Tell me you don’t know what happens in a therapy session without telling me you’ve never been to a therapy section.
That one word is doing a lot of heavy lifting on its own, until what follows contradicts what you’ve said. If you don’t have the words, a therapist’s questions and prompts and what-not aren’t really doing all that much to break the silence, nor to promote healing until you’re ready to participate.
Then you need to find a new therapist. Not having the language for therapy is one thing. Not having a therapist that can help you find those words is another.
… and who is going to tell someone that when they’ve socially isolated themselves by taking time off for an extended period?
The only time I’ve seen a therapist more often than weekly or bi-weekly was in a short stint in rehab. No way, no how, does normal therapy replace daily contact with others.
Also, most people aren’t assertive, informed, or motivated enough to seek a second professional opinion, and that’s before we throw grief into the equation. Congrats on describing many therapists with you last line as well.
Tell her she has to work when she’s got cancer and see how much she celebrates her good fortune.
I may be downvoted for this but she is not wrong in the general terms.
There are multiple people for whom the work is their main opportunity for social interaction. Also being busy sometimes helps as it doesn’t leave enough time to think about issues.
That’s not healthy, though. That’s repression, which is bad for you. I know it’s bad for you, as I have not had more than six emotions in the past 20 years.
It’s also not healthy to sit and wallow in your misery. Having a purpose can be a good thing, but the dose makes the poison.
Oh certainly. But it’s treating a symptom, not the actual problem.
That can really depend. I’ve had both friends and family who have struggled with all kinds of issues. In every case I’ve seen so far, building a daily routine that involves getting out of bed and doing something that makes them feel useful/successful has been the cure.
It turns out that we’re social creatures, and succeeding at doing stuff that benefits someone other than ourselves often helps us feel like life has meaning. That in turn helps us get over/process whatever shit we have behind us.
By all means, the LinkedIn post here is dogshit. I do, however, believe that for most people, getting back to work/school is paramount to getting better. Research backs me up. I’m on my phone now, but if you’re interested, I’ll dig up some studies when I have time.
No research needed. Getting back to the routine, after a suitable period that varies from person to person, is important. But it is not, in itself, healing, and someone who didn’t miss a day of work is not doing well.
It’s like I used to work somewhere and this guys mum (I think) died, he came in did a shift and then took a lot of time off…I think he just needed the normality and time to process.
But don’t you think there’s something wrong that people are conditioned or broke that they have to be like that?
No, I don’t think it’s wrong for someone to want to focus on something other than tragedy. Work is something simple and productive that you can let your brain focus on.
Should work be your only outlet? Absolutely not, but there’s nothing wrong with using it as one. Humans like to work, period. If it’s not to sustain ourselves, we’ll invent work to do.
Yeah, that’s fair enough, but I feel like the OP is disingenous and that the motivation for it comes from this “the business must come first” attitude…a bit like my OHs boss (Company owner) telling her how she should be more dedicated and how he was up til 9pm the night before.
BTDT. Having a routine is conditioning we do to ourselves, but for so much of life, its the most useful thing ever for so long as we can keep it up.* The trick is to not be further hurt by guilt for failing to continue with it or get back to it quickly enoug/“just so”.
Routine can be grounding. Especially in the wake of tragedy, where you’re still going to need to go on, it’s important to go on, even through the despair.
But it’s not “one or the other.” You need to maintain your routine, whatever that is, and do the work of therapy as necessary. Continuing your routines and avoiding therapy can be repression.
Work is my escape. If I stop, I will collapse
That’s not a healty coping mechanism, that’s repressing your pain, ignoring the voices in your head that tell you to be sad. The problem with repression is that it works, at the beginning but it will stop working eventually and the more you do it, the worse it’s gonna get when everything is collpasing.
the issue is that instead of advocating acceptance of a different way of being (working through pain), she’s contributing to the actual alternative (needing time to recover) being erased
I think you’re right. In an environment where people are chronically overworked, pointing to people leaning into their work while faced with traumatic situations and asserting that they are better off being able to continue to work is not helpful. It reinforces that overwork culture is not only normal but beneficial, which is a terrible stance to take.
She’s not wrong that it’s structure and distraction for many. She’s absurdly, insultingly wrong that this is in any way laudable or good, as opposed to a travesty and an abject failure of society.
Work is important, even stress is important for development and growth. But balance is the key.
But is it the work they need, or is it the social interaction?
All the things she’s saying work gives us are things we can find (in more fulfilling ways even) outside of work.
Social interaction and purpose can be found through community and creation. Making things, growing things, cooking things, making music, etc.
People are so stuck in this box of capitalism we struggle to recognize that life could be enjoyable and fulfilling if we gave a shit about one another, but community isn’t profitable, hyper-individualism is.
You’re right but also the fucked part is celebrating it like, we should have better support networks, richer social lives, and work that isn’t inherently exploitative.
Work isn’t a panacea.
I was a shy introvert and got a job in public medicine. I learned how to interact with a broad variety of people, ranging from senior staff doctors to homeless folks.
I went from being a shy introvert to a glib introvert.
I think a lot of people have never had time to slow down and not work for an extended period (voluntarily and without financial stress). Having time to just process thoughts and feelings while doing things you want to do instead are obligated to do is actually a pretty big deal.
But saying that working is better than therapy in dealing with emotional distress is both false and dishonest.
Working to escape sickness and loss of family members? Pathetic. My Grandparents worked to escape the war crimes they committed.
Yes, knowing how much worse whatever you’re going through will be if you’re homeless is SO much better than therapy! What a breakthrough!!! No eggs benedict for me, thank you, these bootstraps taste just fine!!!
“By creating an environment with no room for human emotion, we provide a way for those who do not want to engage in healthy processing to do just that”
