And please don’t tell me “just change jobs”.
That’s the good bad you don’t.
I’ve tried really hard to get a job that requires as little from me as possible and still pays the bills.
Life is misery, every week I start knowing I will not be allowed enough freedom to ever stop being a wage slave.
I work to stay alive, and have no chance to plan for the future.
I have nothing to live for besides the people I care about, and my work makes it so I have to spend almost all my time away from them or too tired to interact.
Our world is dying and I can’t even be upset about it anymore, becuse whatever happens will be more fulfilling than this
Having a fulfilling weekend helps. The weekends where I sit and rot are where I get to Sunday night and feel like “oh shit I don’t want to go to work I didn’t enjoy my weekend”.
But weekends where I’ve worked on projects, hung out with family and friends, gamed, maybe done some chores or just got out the house help lessen the blow. It also helps that I don’t really sleep in much these days, like I’ll usually get up at 9:30 or 10 and those couple hours instead of getting up at noon help make the day feel more worthwhile.
Doing all that usually has me tired enough going to sleep rather than doom scrolling or brain rotting. Which in turn leads to a gentler time waking up Monday.
And then on Monday itself I kinda ride the high of having a good weekend and that I can push through 8 hours to get back home and continue some of those activities
IME hardest part is getting up and getting out the door. After that things usually aren’t so bad.
I also give myself things to look forward to, reward myself.
it’s ALWAYS the first step, get the momentum going and it’s smooth sailing.
I disassociate entirely. I’m sure there will be no long term consequences to this…
It’s probably healthier than consciously working your way through a life of wage slavery.
If I could just delete every Monday-Friday out of my life and toss out 5/7ths of my life I think I would prefer to live for 2/7ths of my lifespan and not be a slave
My only concern is it seems to be getting harder for me to focus on things when I need to as time goes on.
I highly recommend Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. CBT is the best medicine I can afford, because all you need is pen and paper.
If you don’t think you can change your circumstance, then you can try to change how you react to it. The core model of the therapy is to analyze your thoughts and look for patterns in which your brain tries to fuck with you. Identifying distortions and fallacies helps to replace your automatic thoughts with more positive ones.
Example:
Thought: I hate my job, everything about it sucks
Distortions: Overgeneralization, All-or-Nothing Thinking, Feelings as Facts
New Thought: I hate certain parts of my job, but I like X part of it
The whole thing only works if you believe in it, and the important thing is that you’re not just putting a sunny face on things that make you feel terrible. You’re working to restructure your thought based on objective truth.
I’ve struggled for a long time with the Sunday Scaries. Sometimes it feels like it’s never going to get easier, and I’m going through it right now, but I know if I take the time to untangle my feelings then things end up easier in the long run.
Good luck out there, partner
To me, CBT has always made it feel like my thoughts and feelings are not valid. As someone who has had invalidation problems with these my whole life it makes it feel really offensive.
I know people get great things out of it, and that’s good. But yeah not for everyone and (unfortunately??) it’s the “trendy” thing with therapy nowadays. I just wish there was a therapy modality that acknowledges one’s thoughts and feelings as valid, even if they aren’t perfect, and instead finds ways to work with them instead of against them.
I’m feeling exactly the same, I’m in a CBT Therapy group rn which feels double invalidating because everyone else seems to have the exact opposite problems.
I’m currently working through a book on Inter Familial Systems Therapy and it’s a much better fit - it works by assigning personas to specific problematic thought patterns and talking the issues out with those personas. Way more validating in my opinion, as it’s focused on being empathetic towards them and guiding them in a better direction.
It’s not that your thoughts aren’t valid. Let’s look at it differently. You are aware of muscle memory right? The idea you can train your body enough that an action can become easily repeatable.
Your mind is similar, it has a mental muscle memory. If your mind is filled with a reservoir of negative emotions about a particular thought, when your mind reaches for an emotion to react with, there’s a high chance you’re going to pull a negative emotion out of your emotional tool belt.
CBT is about manually forcing yourself to recognize and reframe those negative thoughts so that you slowly build up that positive reservoir of emotions.
You want the odds you’re going to pull a positive emotion out of that tool belt to be more 50-50. It’s not about eliminating negative thought or emotion entirely, but rather just giving yourself an even chance at reacting positively. Leveling the odds.
Negative emotion is just as valid as positive emotion and vice versa. And negative emotion isn’t inherently negative. It’s what you do with the emotions that truly makes them good or bad for us. Rage could inspire someone to murder but it could also inspire someone to act against injustice.
Conversely, there’s nothing wrong with recognizing that an overly negative mindset is just bringing unhappiness and forcing yourself to slowly recalibrate that negative baseline.
It takes some serious mental gymnastics to acknowledge you have feelings, and thinking it’s ok to suppress those natural feelings because you can’t really hope to improve anything ever.
CBT is categorically not about suppressing feelings. That’s a reductionist view of the approach. It is about analyzing why are you having those feelings and what, in you life’s history and everyday habits, has made them the prevalent feeling, behavior or thought on certain given circumstances so you can get back into control of what you do with those. This is from an acknowledgement that your conscious self might not always align with your emotional self. It is perfectly fine to feel sad when sad things happen. But some people find it troubling that they always react with sadness or anger whenever anything happens, even happy and positive things. Well, searching why that is and what can be done to change it is a positive thing. Specially if this sadness and anger are causing trouble in your everyday life (lashing out at close persons or engaging in self-destructive behavior). You can’t get rid of the emotions, but you can acknowledge them and alter what you do with those emotions and eventually change how you spontaneously react to events in a more adaptive way.
To me, CBT has always made it feel like my thoughts and feelings are not valid. As someone who has had invalidation problems with these my whole life it makes it feel really offensive.
Therapy in general is about accepting problems instead of solving them. This is because therapists are not real doctors and cannot actually cure anything. Psychology is a scam.
Psychology has come a long way in the last 50 years. I used to think like you, and even now maintain a healthy dose of skepticism, but therapy absolutely can improve your life. It’s not much of a scam if it’s working for most people. It’s just not going to solve all you problems. If anything it just makes you more aware and better equipped to deal with your emotions.
CBT can definitely feel that way but maybe if you view it as a way to explore the feelings and thoughts you have an examine if you really believe they’re true, that might help? Like… Not everything you think is true. But it makes you feel some kinda way. So summertime pulling it out and examining in and looking for a new direction to take some thoughts can be really helpful.
Honestly, that’s tough, but fair. No therapeutic tool is going to be a magic bullet solution for everyone.
My wife struggles with something similar. When we try to walk through an exercise together she thinks it’s about saying that her problems are “all in her head.” For my own outlook, I liken it to thinking that although my thoughts might be faulty, my feelings are valid. But hey, I’m not an authority, I’m just another struggling human trying to make sense of it all.
For what it’s worth, one stranger to another, I think that whatever you’re going through you’re totally valid. I hope you find or have found some relief - goodness knows we’re still looking
Similar experience for me. It wasn’t that I felt my thoughts were invalid, but I didn’t feel like it was impacting me in the moment, and then every session was like “sure, that was illogical, but I still felt that at the time”.
I’ve been trying ACT, and while I don’t know if it’s been effective yet, at least it’s helping me process and understand my thoughts better.
That’s a great example! I haven’t heard much about CBT, but that makes a tonne of sense.
I try to remember the little things I like about going to work. Drinking the good coffee I keep there. Chatting with people in the office. Driving home through the summer weather at the end of the day.
Too bad I don’t like anything about it.
I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do if your job truly is that terrible. I know changing jobs isn’t easy or necessarily doable, but it seems like that’s the only “real” option.
I like going to work every day to see some of my coworkers.
You find out, let us know.
I remember reading somewhere that one of the possible reasons for that feeling might be because of the change in times.
As in, when we go to work, we usually have to wake up early and then have our routine during the rest of the day. But on holidays/during the weekend, we tend not to follow any schedules. And then after getting used to waking up whenever we want (or later than usual), we get cranky because our body is (forced to get) used to our working schedule.
So a solution might be go to bed at times that aren’t too different from your usual times during your working days.
Basically, some consistency with your sleep might help.
And please don’t tell me “just change jobs”.
Fair. Can I then suggest a social and political revolution to change the current system in which we have to waste our lives working for rich fucks who don’t care about us?
This really does help. I get up at the same time every day even before my alarm goes off during the week. I have a coffee routine that I follow 7 days a week and I enjoy it. I made myself learn to cook breakfast daily (not just eat cereal) so I eat eggs and some form of toast and maybe some meat. I spend 30 min following this routine and by the time I have to leave for work I feel pretty good about the day. Being hangry and rushed when you get up makes everything suck. Change the routine.
Work so hard on the weekend you’re glad to go back to a job on Monday
Drugs
Simple, I work 7 days a week
Start a masters thesis. Work feels like a nice break from it.
Last time you asked for help, folks suggested therapy. Have you looked into any of the local free options? My offer of looking for you is still on the table, just let me know what state/province etc!
No. And I’m not American
Okay, if you’re not American odds are much better there’s helpful services! If you give me a province/region/country, I’ll happily look into what mental health services are available.
I think I found the real problem. You won’t get strong of you don’t lift, you won’t get fast if you don’t run, and you won’t fix your head if you aren’t willing to put in effort.
I don’t think it’s healthy to contort your mind to accept and enjoy being a slave
Agreed, however gainful employment is not slavery. There’s suffering in every human being alive, you aren’t a slave because you have mental health issues.
That’s irrelevant to my problems
It is THE most relevant to your problem. I have friends like you, they are miserable but never change anything about themselves to improve their life. I was the same, went to therapy, opened up and untangled the bullshit that was my brain. Takes effort man.
You see the replies don’t you? There is more than one person pointing at the problem.
I’ve been where OP is. It’s easy to blame your job for your misery and it might even be the case, but if you don’t take an objective look, then there is an unreliable narrator in your story. It’s easy to forget the good things and focus on the bad. It’s hard to look in the mirror and think, maybe I need a new perspective.
Everyone sees it but you.
And what are your problems that make their point irrelevant?
That’s the problem right there.
I don’t I just go
