HealthyGamerGG - My Partner Hates Every Job They Get

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

Today Doctor K talks about what do you when your partner hates their job, how the partner may feel, how to support them, and the option of breaking up. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and then you decide that this is not the person that you want to be with, like, I think that's totally fine. And then when you do break up with him and he says, oh, like, I knew like you're too good for me. And like, you can say, like, do you want to hear why I'm breaking up with you? like what my reasons are. My reasons are what you choose to do. Has nothing to do with your looks, has nothing to do with you being a man child or anything like that, like all the psychological crap. It's just how you choose to spend your time. So my partner says that he will be miserable in every job he works. He ever works. My 25F, partner 27M, says that he will be miserable in every job he ever gets. And it's working that makes him anxious and miserable. He's currently working a service desk job he

hates that gives him constant anxiety and panic attacks. He feels trapped because he believes that quitting will be taking a step backwards and staying he will hate his life. He feels behind in life and has said many times that he feels like a child in an adult's body who isn't ready for the responsibility of being full grown. I sympathize him and understand work anxiety. I used to get a lot of it myself. He's currently seeing a therapist, but he thinks it's not working and she's not understanding his issue. He feels misunderstood and the issue isn't being solved. I've told him it takes time to find a therapist who works for you, but he doesn't believe me and thinks that no amount of therapy will help him. He clearly has severe anxiety and depression, but refuses professional help.

Okay. He currently uses video games and weed as an almost constant escape from his life. If he's not higher playing a game, he's stressing out about work and feeling behind in life. I love him in what him to feel happy again, but it's so hard when it feels like there's nothing I can say to comfort him or give him advice. And he thinks that getting professional help would be useless. He's stubborn and won't take steps to get better because he's convinced his life will be shit no matter what he does. It's also really making me question my future with him if he feels like he can't hold a job and he often says I'd be better off without him. I really need some help here and I'm posting to see if I can get any opinions from the community. Nothing I'm doing is helping

him and I feel helpless to improve his life. So this, unfortunately, is an increasingly common situation where we've got one partner who's kind of stuck. And the other partner, like, really cares about them, loves them a lot, you know, has been in this relationship. We're not really sure how long. But oftentimes is committed to trying to make this relationship work. And you love this person, you care this person so you want to help them.

Now, oftentimes when you see these posts on the internet, what you'll sort of get is like dump him and move on, right? Like, that's sort of the sentiment that most of the internet. Internet is quick to judge, quick to abandon people, quick to like you do you, right? And sometimes that that's not, honestly, it's not a bad option, like when we'll kind of get to that. But the truth is, like, we should try to meet the person where they're at, right? So if someone comes into our community or just anywhere else on the Internet, one of the things that I try to do, is just like meet people where they're at.

So the first thing is if this person has said, I want to try to help my partner, how can I do that? It's not our place to say, dump his ass and move on, right? It's like, if that's what you want, that's what we're going to try to help you do. And in my experience,

supporting people who want to try to help their partner, it's through a very sincere effort to help your partner. And when you've tried everything and fail, that's when sometimes, it's time to move on. And actually, I think that that's like a healthy way to move on, right? Because then you're not feeling like you abandoned them.

You're not feeling like you didn't, like, you know, you were mean. You can leave that relationship sort of with a clear head and like a clear heart because you've done everything within your power. But unfortunately, you can't fix another human being. So I'm a huge fan of not giving up on people and also like doing everything that you can, but also recognizing that like there's a difference between giving up on people and doing everything and then sort of recognizing that like you've done everything that you can and there's nothing else to do. So you're not giving up on them. It's just like they need to do the rest of it.

So what I'd like to do is first talk a little bit about the boyfriend's situation based on what we've heard. Let's try to understand what this person is going through because I think sometimes people in our community are in the same situation, right? I've got a dead end job. I hate it. It gives me anxiety. I'm behind so I can't quit, but I can't stay because I'm miserable. People tell me to go see a therapist and I see a therapist, but it doesn't seem to be helping. And so it's sort of like, and I'm smoking weed and playing games all day, right? Like, so it's, it's sort of like I'm stuck. Like, I can't improve my life, but I can't take a step back. I can't quit. I can't get a break. I'm using certain coping mechanisms because nothing else is going. And like, that's the only

thing that's keeping me from, like, exploding internally. Right. So this is a really challenging situation to be in. So let's try to first understand, like, what the partner is experiencing. So sometimes if we equip the, you know, the girlfriend with knowledge about what her partner could be experiencing, we'll sort of set her up to better support her partner. Then we'll talk a little bit about, you know, what you can do as a partner. And the last thing that we're going to talk a little bit about is like how to have conversations about leaving. Right. So this relationship may not work out because it takes two to make a relationship work out. And we're not jumping to that option. We're not saying that you should have that conversation now, but I think that there are healthy ways to have

conversations moving towards a breakup. And the reason I call them healthy is because the reason we have those conversations, it's not that you decide to break up with this person. It's that you have a conversation where you signal to this person, hey, this relationship is not really working for me. This is what I'm trying to do to fix it. This is what I need you to do to try to fix it. And sort of how to have a breakup in a way that, you know, like in a sense protects, not protects you, but like that you can kind of feel good about yourself and also can give your partner some feedback so that hopefully even with the breakup, you're sort of helping them move forward in their life. Okay.

So let's start by trying to understand the partner. So let's go through a couple of things that we're sort of noticing about the partner. Okay. The first is that he's 27. He feels like he's fallen behind. Okay. What are the other relevant, relevant details that you all? think about what have y'all kind of pointed out okay what have y'all noticed okay so someone's saying

mindset so how do you all think okay so they've got work anxiety very good okay substance use to cope weed self-critit so the mindset we're going to refer to is self-criticism okay so fallen behind trapped okay therapist isn't working very good okay okay we've We've got some five-heads stuff over here. Learned helplessness. Right? Okay. Good.

I like this one. Suicidal, but not really suicidal. Brilliantly said. Right? Okay. Cycle of self-fulfilling placebo. So we're going to include that over here. That's correct.

We're going to talk about that self. Okay. Okay, right? So there's self-loathing. Okay, excellent. So I think this is pretty good. Like y'all are doing really good. So I don't know if you'll notice this, but we're changing what Dr. Kay is doing. So Dr. Kay used to just list all this stuff out, right? And then I walk you through it. But now what are we doing? We're asking chat. And chat is finding a lot of the right answers. Look who's learning. Chat. Good job. Okay. This is everything that I have on my list and even more. All right. So let's talk a little bit about what's going on. So the first thing to understand is they said that they have crippling anxiety and panic attacks. Okay. And then this causes them to want to quit work. But if they quit work, they're going to fall behind.

Be a child, et cetera. You all see that? So how do we fix this? right? So this is where presumably therapy helps. We'll talk about that in a second. But what do you all think? Ah, someone's been paying attention. Very good. The culprit here, I mean, I don't really know, right? So once again, we're not going to diagnose and treat things, but we're going to teach you all some information. If I had to say there's one big problem that needs to be fixed, if you're in this situation, it's the weed. So this is where, this is something that's kind of unusual. So a lot of people will use marijuana for medication for anxiety, right? So they'll use it as like self-medication for anxiety.

But there are two things that weed can cause that is kind of interesting because we'll also use it as a medication for nausea and cancer treatment. So there are two big problems with using weed on a daily basis. The first is that it can cause something called rebound anxiety. That's the A-plus student. Second thing, rare thing, is it can cause something called cyclic vomiting syndrome. We're not going to talk too much about cyclic vomiting syndrome. This person should be glad that they don't have it. But when we see a lot of chronic weed use, the funny thing is that it actually causes like this rebound anxiety that's really, really bad.

So the interesting thing is that a lot of people will use weed use. to treat their anxiety because it's the only thing that helps them feel good. But then once the weed wears off, the anxiety comes back, sometimes even stronger than the original thing that you were treating. And the more chronic your anxiety use, the greater the chances that you're going to develop this sort of like rebound anxiety with weed. So I know it sounds kind of weird, but like if they want to have a better time at work, what they really need to do is probably stop the weed more than anything else.

There are also, weed has all kinds of negative effects on motivation and also habit formation. Okay. If you guys want more information like we have a video on our YouTube channel about smoking weed like and watching motivational videos. Are you someone who smokes weed every day and watches motivational videos on YouTube? There's also a whole section on rebound anxiety and Dr. Kay's guide. But the key point here is that we develop a dependence on a sub-rength. to treat anxiety. When the substance wears off, the anxiety comes back twice as bad.

So the other problem with weed, as we mentioned, is that, like, it prevents you from, or it makes it harder for you to form good positive habits and make substantial positive changes in your life. So the first thing to understand is, like, as long as your partner is smoking weed on a daily basis, chances are that is making all of these things worse, right? So this is where, like, once again, perspective. So your partner may not be willing to give up weed and like that's their choice, right? But like for you to understand what role the weed is having. Now, the video games may also be playing a similar role, but I think less so than the marijuana, or at least we have less evidence from a neuroscience perspective from a clinical perspective. You know, I don't know that

video games cause a physiologic rebound anxiety that is like really, really profound. Generally speaking, people who play video games a lot can sometimes be more anxious, absolutely. But that sounds, you know, like, I just don't think it's as powerful in effect of an effect as weed is. Now, the second thing that someone pointed out is that your partner says that therapy doesn't work. So people have heard of something called the placebo effect, which is when my belief about something creates a physiologic benefit. So it's sort of like a psychological benefit from an inert substance. This is what we call placebo. It doesn't necessarily have to be inert, but basically if I believe something will make me better, it will actually

like physiologically make me better. The interesting thing that we talk less about is there's something called the nocebo effect, which is essentially the opposite of the placebo effect, which if I believe something won't work, it actually won't work. Okay? So we see this actually a lot as therapists where some people like don't believe in therapy. Oh, therapy isn't right for me. I don't need therapy. Therapy can't fix my problems. So people come in with this attitude. Chances are that the therapeutic effect of the therapy will actually be reduced. So the good news is that hopefully most therapists are trained to actually deal with this, right? Like, I get a ton of people in my office who don't think that therapy will work for them.

So, like, I mean, not nowadays, but like back when I was working at a residential addiction treatment facility, very common occurrence, I get someone who's there for an alcohol addiction. And I ask them, okay, so what brings you here? Well, my partner said that if I don't come here, they're going to divorce me. Oh, okay, like what? So do you have a problem with alcohol? Do you not have a problem? Oh, I don't have a problem with alcohol.

I don't need your help. I don't need anyone's help. This is just something I'm doing to save my marriage. So I'd hear that kind of thing a lot. So it's like, oh, okay. So like, you know, if there's nothing that we can do to help you and you're just here for 30 days to save your marriage, that's totally fine. Is there like something productive we can work on, right? So like, in order to make your partner, your husband or your wife happy, you have to meet with me three times a week for an hour.

So what are we going to do? Like, you want me to bring a deck of course? cards? Like, you're here, right? So, like, what is there anything we can work on? So you kind of start to talk to them a little bit. Oh, well, like, you know, like, you know, everything in my life is great. Okay, like any work-related stress, any of these problems, those problems. You want to talk about like, you know, marital stress and conflict. Oh, yeah, like it's really hard. Like, my wife is really not understanding. Oh, tell me about that. Like, what's it like having a wife who doesn't understand you? What's it like having a wife who listens? Oh, it sucks. It's terrible. I hate it.

It's like she doesn't listen. Tell me more. more about that. Oh my God, that sounds awful, man. Wow. You know, so it's, it's kind of like, you can get there, right? And hopefully, your therapists are trained at that. So, like, you know, you can get there. And then suddenly like, you know, they're coming in and they're like, oh, man, so like how, so how'd that meeting with your wife go on Thursday? Oh, it was like, you know, it actually went better than expected. Oh, really? Tell me about that. Well, you know, this happened, this happened. Wow, that's awesome, dude. It sounds like you're really like, you know, listening to her a little bit better and able better to communicate.

I know that you're only here to save your marriage, but what do you think about, like, learning some communication skills over the next two or three weeks, maybe patching things up so that, you know, not only is she happy that you did your 30 days of rehab, but, you know, after that, like, hopefully y'all can build some kind of positivity while you're here. What do you think about that? Oh, okay, we can give it a shot. I'm here anyway, shrug, right? So you can do that. So the key thing, though, is that, like, you know, if you're a partner or you, yourself don't believe that therapy can help you, you have to understand that this is going to like negatively impact your therapy. And if you're, if you have a partner who you're encouraging

to therapy and they don't think that it'll help them, like you have to understand that like if you don't believe that therapy will help you, it will actually have a scientifically less impactful effect. Now, hopefully you have a good therapist who will like win over your, your partner, right, or like win over the person who's coming to their office, demonstrate to them what the value is. But isn't that sort of like gaslighting? No, not really. So there's a huge difference.

So gaslighting is tricking someone into believing something is false. Okay. The whole, the way you trick someone into believing therapy is that you give them value from therapy that they were not expecting, right? And then you change their mind. So I'd say it's not like gaslighting at all. I'd say the best analogy is like, oh, hey, like, try this. Like, the sandwich is really good.

You should really try it. No, I don't like sandwiches. I don't like it. I don't like it. Well, take a bite. Well, take a bite. Right? Even if you don't like it.

Like, oh, I know you don't like it. Just take a bite. And you're like, oh, that's actually pretty good. You just get them to try it. Right? And then they can form their own opinions. If they can't find value from it, they can't find value from it. But it's my job as a therapist to try to like demonstrate the value that I bring,

especially when someone's coming. because they're coming, right? They're there to get help. So the first thing that I've got to do is convince people and make my case that I can actually help you, which is like one of the key parts of therapy is like you have to convince people that it's worth their time. And if I can't convince them, then, you know, maybe they don't belong there. Okay. So be careful about the nocebo effect. Now, what can you do as a partner about the nocebo effect? The first is that there are a couple of other things that this person mentions. One is that they feel misunderstood. Okay. So if you feel misunderstood by your therapist, what should you do? What you should really, really do is tell your therapist, hey, I feel misunderstood, right? And then let's see if you all can figure out what is the next question that a therapist should tell them? What should a question ask? What question should a question should a therapist ask next? Right?

Okay. Okay. Missing this one. All right, a little bit. So you don't want to ask why. You never want to ask, the word why should generally speaking be removed from a therapist's vocabulary. Right? Yeah, that's good. So we've got the right answer in there. What am I misunderstanding? Okay. Right? So that's the communication tip. Never ask why. So why is that? Because why tends to have a judgmental connotation in our language? So this is different depending on what country you're from. But it's like if I ask you like, why can't you stop playing video games? Why can't you stop smoking weed?

Why don't you wake up on time in the morning? Right? I could ask, like I could be genuinely wondering like, oh, you know, but it sounds like an accusation. Right? So you all see that? So it's not that it's actually an accusation. It just comes across that way, right? You all see that?

So, I mean, you can still use it. I sometimes use why, but you have to, like, you generally want to steer clear of it. But that, as a therapist, you want to just ask, you know, what am I misunderstanding? What am I missing? So help me understand, like, if I'm misunderstanding, I'm sorry. Like, can you please explain it to me? Okay. my therapist asks why all the time, then, I mean, if you're working with them and they're good,

like, that's fine. So just, so remember that I'm, I'm a medical educator, right? So I'm faculty. So it's my job sometimes to, like, teach therapists stuff. So this is just one of the things that I've learned that I was taught that I pass on to people that I teach. So you can, I mean, there's no absolute, I mean, there's some absolute rules for therapists, but generally speaking, like if your therapist uses why, it doesn't make him a bad therapist, right? The court and judge and jury of Dr. K, like different people use different techniques. They may be really good at asking it. I sometimes use why, but I use it later on in relationships.

Once, like, they understand that, like, I'm not accusing them of anything and they can kind of tolerate that. Once I know that that's off the table, then you can ask why. Then it's very efficient. Okay? So, okay, so you could, you should just tell your therapist if you feel like you're being misunderstood. Now, this is going to be a problem for your boyfriend because this will probably

send them into a panic attack. Oh, I can't tell my therapist that I'm being misunderstood. So if that's possible, you know, you can ask them, hey, what would it feel like to tell your therapist that you're being misunderstood? The other thing that you can always do is find a different therapist. And I make that sound like it's easy. But generally speaking, like, you know, you can also do both concurrently. So you can sort of say, hey, why don't we like try to find a different therapist?

What do you think about finding a different therapist? And at the same time, like, tell your therapist that you misunderstand them. So you can talk to your partner a little bit about the therapy experience. But in general, if we want to understand some of this stuff, the main thing that we're going to get to some of this stuff in a second. But the first thing is like, be careful about the weed because the weed could be a big, big culprit. Just as someone who's done a lot of work in addictions, it just feels like people who are chronically using substances are just playing a completely different game. Like what's easy for them, what's hard for them, what they can handle, what they can't handle. their tolerance for work, their patience, their ability to manage anxiety and stuff like that,

the amount of anxiety that they experience just becomes night and day once you're sober. So I've seen this a lot, especially with alcohol and weed, where like people just become different humans, also opiates, but opiates is so much clearer. So alcohol and weed are the two that I don't think people realize, like, how negatively it impacts them. Like usually people who are, you know, fucked up on opiates, like recognize that they're kind of like screwing up their life and they're, like, not functional when they're using opiates. Whereas people think when they're using weed and alcohol on a daily basis, that they're, like, relatively living life normally.

Okay? So next thing. So these are just a couple of things that you need to hopefully will sort of help you understand your partner. So as a partner, what can you do? Okay. So the first thing that you can do is listen. So what I'm sort of, I think you probably already do a good job of this,

but let's kind of like go through this. But it's so hard when it feels like there's nothing I can say to comfort him or give him advice. So that's what I would, that's what I would, like I recognize that. So this is the hard thing about listening is when someone shares a problem with us, we want to make their pain go away, right? And we want to make their pain go away. We don't want to just listen. What we want to do is help them.

And the way that we help them is by providing advice, and also comfort, right? We want to give them comfort or reassurance. We want to say, hey, everything's okay. Here's a road forward. We'll figure this out together. Like, here's how you do it. Like, you know, everything will be okay.

Like, don't worry, you're growing up. You're doing a good job. Right? So, like, it's kind of interesting, but even comforting may have the effect of infantilizing him. Oh, it'll okay. It'll be okay, boo-boo. A little boboo.

Oh, it's okay. you're going to be such a big boy soon. You're going to work at that job for 27, for seven more months, and then you're going to be a big boy, right? Providing advice can also be like, you know, you're sort of falling into the parent role. You're not like a partner. So you're saying, like, why don't you do this? Why don't you do this? So I'm not saying you shouldn't provide advice, but like just be careful about the possible effects, right?

And this is really common. Like, everyone does this. So if you love someone, you want to help them. and when you want to help them, sometimes you fall into these patterns that don't end up working, and they can sometimes backfire. And then you is the partner who loves this person, feel incredibly frustrated, feel powerless. Because it's like, these are the two tools in my tool belt. Why aren't they working?

What do I do? It's hopeless. So instead of what you should do is just listen. So ask questions. Okay. Now, this is where, you know, like, you shouldn't necessarily become, or you should not become your partner's therapist. but there are some questions here that you could ask,

which go to some of these things. So these are going to be your clues, okay? So, you know, I would even lay out for them and say, like, you know, it sounds like you're feeling really trapped. Can you tell me about that? Like, what's going on? Okay? So you can start to, like, ask questions about feeling trapped,

fallen behind, right? When he says, I'm so far behind, I feel like a child in an adult's body, you can say, no, no, no, you're not. You're clearly an adult in an adult's body. I don't, you know, don't try to comfort or reassure. just ask them like, what makes you feel that way? What is that like for you? Okay?

So you can just like listen. So the way that I want you to understand this is here's your partner. Okay. And they are hopeless, right? So here's what hopelessness is like. It's like they're filled up with all this negativity. And what they do is every time they use pot, it kind of like covers it up some. But all that negativity is there.

So when you listen to people, what happens? is we sort of like let that negativity like out. Okay. And as we let the negativity out as they just kind of listen and he gets his feelings kind of out, you know, the negativity will reduce on the inside. And so I know it's kind of weird, but like sometimes like really all you need to do is just listen. Just let them emotionally decompress. And they can start to feel a little bit better.

Hopefully they can start to feel a little bit more hopeful. So just listen. Okay. There's more to it than that. But that's the first thing to do is just listen to your. partner, right? If they say, oh, I feel misunderstood by my therapist. Oh, what is it that your therapist doesn't understand? Now, you may have a reflex to try to say, okay, well, then why don't you explain it to them? So don't give them advice. Don't give them suggestions. In your mind for like two or three

times a week for up to like half an hour or 45 minutes, set in your mind that this is a conversation where I'm not going to give any advice, I'm just going to listen. Right? So two to three times a week, presuming you guys like talk like this for 30 to 45 minutes, right? Just listen to what they've got to say if they've got to say something. Next thing that you can do as a partner is encourage some positivity. So we don't want to be like, how can I say this, blindfully positive, but what I'm hearing in this post is a lot of things that are wrong with your partner's life. So sometimes what happens in our mind is if our mind is like filled with negative thoughts that are just swirling, swirling, swirling, right? Like it just feels bad.

So sometimes what we can do is we can like insert some kind of like positive thought in there. Right. So what that just means like expressing gratitude, having a good time, like saying like, you know, everything here sounds awful. But what we want to do is like not have, you know, you could, there's got to be some stuff. in your life that's good. There's got to be some reason you're with him. And you can just dwell or talk about that. Right? So you can sort of say like, hey, you know, I really enjoyed what we did this weekend. Like, what did you think of that movie? Oh, did you see Dune? Like, man, Dune was awesome. I'm so glad we went. Like, what did you think of the movie? Like, you know, you can

talk about something that's positive. It doesn't have to be to the exclusion of negative things. So like, I'd say, like, you know, one to two conversations a week where you all are dwelling on the positive. The second thing that you can do to encourage positivity is just, encourage certain kinds of positive behavior. So this is where, like, I don't know if you all go for walks, but just like getting out of the house and saying, hey, let's go for a walk. And then he's going to say, I don't want to. And say, like, hey, that's really important to me, will you please come with me?

Right? So, like, we'll get to that in a second. But I encourage some kind of positive behavior. Because right now there's a cycle of, I don't know, like video games, weed, terrible work, and panic attacks. So you just got to break that up with something. else. So, like, I would try to go for a walk if you can. I don't know where you live. I don't know if it's safe to go for a walk. You know, like, but I'd just go for a walk, like once a

week, twice a week. And then, like, afterward, you can express gratitude, say, hey, I'm really glad you did that. We did that. How did that feel to you? And they say, oh, I was like, it was okay. It's like, cool. You know, so try to do that a couple times a week. Next thing that you can do is let him help you. So one of the things that's really interesting is if you look at people who are stuck, oftentimes they can help other people, even if they can't help themselves. And we see this a lot in like addiction and recovery, where once you start on the path of recovery and you start helping other people, it like really helps you like grow as a person.

So like even if he can't help himself, so this is why I would, you know, ask him for the walk. Like you can frame that as something that you need that you need him to do for you. So that's going to give him like the opportunity to first of all, like step up. up and do something in the relationship, right? So he's going to feel like less infantilized. He's going to feel like he's contributing. He also like makes the world a better place and like helps you out in some way. You should always express appreciation afterward. But let him help you ask for his help if you need his help with something. Okay. You can say, hey, like I really need to get out of the house. Can you please take me somewhere? Right. So if like depending on what your gender dynamic is, you just like take me

somewhere. Right? So, and like let him kind of figure it out and stuff like that. And so that, that can actually be really good. But giving him the opportunity to help you can actually be very, very healthy for him. So, and then at some point, you know, if you want to, you can try to talk to him, but this is really more for a therapist. You could talk to him about the therapist, right? Help me understand what's going on there. Like, do you want to try switching? I know you don't believe it'll help you. Oh, by the way, speaking of the positive, you can also highlight a couple of things that are actually big wins here. So this post looks like a bunch of losses. But there are things that are wins, which even if you share with him in that moment, he may swat them away. So be prepared for that.

But remember, if you're trying to help another human being and they swat away some kind of positivity, it doesn't mean that it doesn't have an effect. It's just reflexive for them to swat it away, right? But like, it'll still have some effect. You know, it's kind of weird, but that's just how our mind works. Because his mind is trapped in this cycle. So anything possible, positive that you try to do, he'll kind of like knock it away. But it still lands in some way. So it's hard to describe, but this is just something once again from my experience I've come to understand. Is that they might not consciously, like it may not make a difference to them, but subconsciously it can absolutely have an effect. So a couple of things. The first is that

they've still got a job, right? And so what you can kind of point out to them is like, wow, like you're suffering every day. It sounds like your job is an absolute mess. I think it's pretty amazing that you've been able, like, you have so much endurance to be able to tolerate that. That's insane. Right? Like, it sounds so awful. And then, like, what are they going to do? Y'all have hopefully heard devaluing, right?

It happens in all of our interviews. Oh, no, it's not that bad. Oh, what, what, what? Oh, interesting. Okay. Just leave it. Don't push it. Don't say, like, what do you mean?

It's not that bad. What, you like it? Tell me more about it. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, okay. I didn't realize that. It sounded pretty awful the way you're describing it. Other thing is there was one other win.

Oh, yeah, they're going to therapy. Right? So, wow, like, I really appreciate your commitment to getting better. Because I'm hearing that your therapist doesn't understand you. I'm hearing that, like, you know, you don't think it's going to work. And you're going anyway. Like, I really, I can really, like, respect you for that. Because what that signals to me is that, like, even if things are

hopeless, you're going to keep trying. And that gives me hope because I think it's when we give up that, like, really things are at a loss. But, like, at least it's got a chance of working. And, like, I think it's really great that you're setting aside your own kind of prejudices against therapy and giving it a shot anyway. So you can, like, encourage them in some way. There are actually a couple of wins here, right? So when I look at this situation, you know, like, if we remove the job and remove therapy, so smoking weed all day, bad anxiety, playing video games, feeling fallen behind, feeling trapped. Two huge steps forward for this person would be getting into therapy and getting a job.

Those would both be steps forward, right? So this person is doing those, like you can acknowledge that. Okay? So those are the wins. Now, let's say you do all this stuff and it's still not working. Okay? So let's talk about breaking up. Now, as we mentioned before, this is the kind of situation where, I don't know that we're going to need notes for this.

This is the kind of situation where a lot of people on the internet are friends or family would say, dump his ass and move on, right? And like, I can get behind that sentiment up to a point. Like I just said, I think there are a couple of things that your partner is doing that are actually like a real step in the right direction, which gives me hope that y'all will eventually get through this. So how do you know when to break up and how should you have a conversation about it? So the first thing to understand is that like you can do as much as you can do, but if your partner is not willing to put in the time and effort to change, then either you have to accept the relationship and your partner the way they are or you should leave. Right. So like there's there's no, don't plan on him magically transforming one day. but he is doing things that I think are really, really important in that process of transformation.

One is that he hasn't quit yet in the second. He's like seeing a therapist, right? So I also don't know the duration of time in terms of therapy. But if he's been seeing a therapist for six months and doesn't feel like it's not helping, that's a problem. But let's remember that the clinical trials on therapy usually are looking at a minimum of eight weeks. So eight weeks is sort of the amount of time it starts to help. So then what we're talking about is like eight weeks to six months is really like two to six months is really when I hope to see a therapeutic benefit in therapy. And then hopefully post six months you're just like getting better, better, better, better.

And then within a year or two, I think most people that I work with are like in pretty good shape. Okay. So how do you have a conversation with him if you are getting frustrated and like, you know, what should you say? And like should you break up with him? Is he terrified that you should break up with him? So this is where, you know, if he says things like, you'd be better off without me, and you can say, like, you know, that may be true, but I'm choosing to stay with you. The reasons that I'm choosing to say with you is because you're working on yourself. So the main thing that I would emphasize here for what you respect and also what you blame when you break up with him is choice. So like, it comes down to your partner's choices. So this is where a lot of people, like even they'll say, oh, you'll be better off without me. You'll be better off without me. And then you break up with him. right? And then what happens is he leaves the relationship thinking all these kinds of like hopeless thoughts. Oh, I knew it. I knew I wasn't a good person. I knew I like, like I would never be happy.

I knew she was too good for me. And so you want to be careful because I don't think you want to let him get away with that. What you want to emphasize is the reason that you're staying with him and the reason that you're breaking up with him. This has to feel internally right to you. Or his choices. Right? It comes down to choices usually. So like if he's willing to work on himself, if he's willing to make the right choices, then you're going to stick with it and you're going to try to support him. If he's not going to make the right choices or refuses to make choices, if he's not willing to give sobriety a shot, if he's not willing to give therapy a shot, like if he's just like basically turning the hourglass day after day after day, hoping that something

will get better, and then you decide that this is not the person that you want to be with, like, I think that's totally fine. And then when you do break up with him and he says, oh, like, I knew like you're too good for me and like you can say like do you want to hear why I'm breaking up with you like what my reasons are my reasons are what you choose to do has nothing to do with your looks has nothing to do with you being a man child or anything like that like all the psychological crap it's just how you choose to spend your time so we've talked about certain things that you choose not to do and if you had chosen differently like I would feel good about this relationship but what I'm getting from you is that like you're not willing to put in the effort that it takes

to change. And I'm happy to try to support you if you're willing to put in that effort, but I can't fix your life for you. You've got to fix, you know, like I'm happy to help you, but it requires some effort on your part. And I don't think you're making the right kinds of choices. I understand that sometimes those choices are hard. I may not understand how hard they are. They may feel impossible to you, but they don't seem that way to me. So it also like when it comes to like conversations about breaking up, like if you're starting to lean in that direction, I would talk to him about it. And this is where partners tend to get terrified. because they're like, oh my God, it's happening.

Like, you're going to break up with me, aren't you? And you can say, like, no, like, I don't want to, but this is what I need from you in the relationship to try to, like, stay in it. Like, I can't carry this shit on my own. This is what I need from you. And this is where, like, sometimes, like, that thought can be shattering for a person. But this is where we have to remember that this is, like, a romantic relationship between partners. Right?

there has to be some point at which you're honest. Like the foundation of this relationship should be authenticity and reciprocity. That's my belief. So if you disagree with that, that's fine. Nick, should you protect your partner? Sure. Should you support your partner? Sure.

Should you protect them? I'm not so sure. So that's where like there should be a lot of positive encouragement. I'm not saying jump to this conversation, right? I'm saying like there's a lot of other stuff. You should listen first. You should ask for their help. You should point out all the good things that you're doing.

You should give them positive feedback. support them and finding a new therapist if that's what they need to do, tell them that you love them, tell them that you're in it for the long haul, and also that you can't be the only one in it for the long haul, right? That they have to choose to try to do particular things. And even if they don't want to make your choices, that's okay, right? Because we don't want necessarily be controlling and say, like, oh, you need to do X, Y, and Z. Like maybe with weed, you know, or there are some things that are very significant that, you know, is like a deal breaker. But generally speaking, if he says, oh, I don't want to give up weed, then you can say, okay, what else are you going to do?

Like, I'm on board with a plan, but tell me what that plan is. Tell me what you're doing to try to get better. Tell me what you're doing for our relationship. And I know that that can feel like a lot for some people, and it may be a lot for some people. And those people may not be ready for a relationship. Because the whole point is that you don't want to preserve the relationship by infantilizing your partner, because then you're just going to be, like, resentful, and it's like they're not going to grow anyway, right? Like, people have to grow in relationships. That's a big thing that people don't get is that, you know, when you start dating and you're

21 and you're both 21, that relationship is different from when you're both 25. Like, you all have turned into different people. So the relationship has to evolve and change. So I would really emphasize choice and really think about choices. like is he making the effort to try to put his life back together? And if the answer to that is yet, I think it'd be nice if you stuck with him. You don't have to, right? It's your life.

And at the same time, like, if he's not willing to put an effort, like, you can't, you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. And so, like, you can try to find him a therapist, you can try to do this, you can try to do that. But if he's unwilling to have conversations with his therapist about how he's feeling misunderstood, if he's unwilling to consider sobriety or, talk about sobriety if it's causing all these problems, right? Like, if he's unwilling to do that stuff, and sobriety is a big one.

Because it may not, I mean, this may not be rebound anxiety, right? We don't really know. But, like, I think at the end of the day, it comes down to choices. And in that way, like, hopefully, if you do break up with him, you can feel good about what you did, right? You can feel good about, and this isn't just, like, an excuse to, like, live guilt-free. No, this is about being a decent human being and recognizing that, like, I did what I could, and I can sleep at night because I did what I could.

Like the goal isn't to like necessarily avoid guilt. It's like I'm going to be a good human being. I'm going to be there for my partner. I'm going to try to support my partner. And also like I can't fix their life for them. Right. That's the role of a parent. That's not the role of a romantic partner.

Questions. So just to wrap up, really common scenario that we see thankfully in this community, which is awesome, right? So we want to help people that we love. It's fantastic. Sometimes the people that we love are struggling. Really bad anxiety. on the brink of quitting, panic attacks at work.

If they quit, they're going to fall behind. They're going to feel pathetic about themselves. Smoke weed every day. Play video games every day. Try to go to therapy. Therapy doesn't work. It'll never work. I'm so broken.

It can't help me. But he's still going. So what do you do? First, understand him a little bit. Second thing, think about how you're going to interact with him, right? Listen to him. Don't necessarily solve his problems for him. He's like, let him put his big boy pants on and solve his problems himself.

Right? That's going to give himself respect. So don't solve his problems for him. Support him in his endeavors. You also want to be a little bit careful about, you know, how you encourage positivity. So point out that not everything in your relationship is a loss. And when good things happen, appreciate those things. Ask for his help.

That's sort of like the secret technique. When someone's feeling really, really bad about themselves, oftentimes they can help you, even if they can't help themselves. It's part of the reason why altruism is like a thing, right? It's really cool. that being a good human being is like good for your own mental health. Next thing is, you know, at some point you're going to have to probably have conversations about your relationship, which could be moving towards the direction of breaking up.

And generally speaking, you know, I think the best reason to break up with someone is because of the choices that they make. It's not because of how they look. It's not because of their luck. It's not because of their health. It's the choices that they make, right? Because that's really the only thing that's in their control. And even if you break up with them and you say, I don't think you made the right choices,

you're at least leaving him with the seed that this was something that was in your control and you screwed it up. Which doesn't that result in shame and stuff like that? Sure. But that's the truth, right? That's life. Like, we have to hold people accountable for their actions on some level. Right? We may not understand them fully.

And we don't want to, like, judge. But at the same time, like, we want to give him the message that, you know, what I fault you for is your choices. and then they feel devastated because I screwed this up and it's like, yeah, you did. Right? But that also means, like, you can't have the power to fix things unless you have the power to screw things up. Like, the power is the same. It's one and the same.

So you have to accept responsibility for your actions. And if we chalk up your circumstances to things that are not your actions and stuff is out of your control in the first place. So you want to give him responsibility or not? If you want to give him responsibility, you have to hold him accountable. to that responsibility. And may it hurt him? Sure. But that's like, that's part of the process of becoming an adult, right? Is like recognizing that you have power and you can make good choices and you can make bad choices. Questions? Okay, someone's saying, my girlfriend is struggling with some

mental health stuff, suicidal issues. I don't know if I really love her anymore and I have a crush on someone else. I think I'll feel like a POS if I leave her because I still care about her. But I don't know if I love her if I just care about her and don't want her to be sad, suicide. idle. So this is a really, like in this scenario, right? So sometimes we get caught up in a romantic situation where we have a dual role. Okay. One is like caretaker or pseudo-therapist, and the other is like boyfriend or girlfriend. Now, when we think about a romantic relationship, we think that these two things like should go hand in hand, right? So like, it's kind of like till death do us part through sickness and through health. So you don't want to abandon your partner

because they got ill. But at the same time, if you've shifted, like if their illness is so profound that you're not really like feeling like their boyfriend, then that's kind of like it's a tricky situation, right? The other way to kind of think about it is if they were not suicidal, would you break up with them? And if the answer to that question is yes, because you've, you know, because people fall out of love. And like, that's just part of life until hopefully you find the one. And then it's really tricky because if you would be breaking up with this person except for their mental health, then like, why are you staying in the relationship? That's just really weird. So I'm not saying that you should break up with them because of their mental health.

But at the same time, like if you're feeling like the relationship is changing, I think you can also in a sense stop being their romantic partner but still care about them as a friend and say like, hey, I'm really here for you. I'm going to help you, like, you know, get your mental health and stuff in order. I just don't know that I feel like comfortable being your boyfriend anymore because I'm just not feeling those kinds of feelings. She's like, are you breaking up with me? And you're like, well, sort of. And I wouldn't start dating your crush, though.

Like, I would give her some time. Right? But like, it's okay to tell people like, hey, like, I think it's, you know, like, I really care about you as a person. I just don't know where this relationship is right now. And you can try to support her. but if you're not, you know, if you're not feeling a romantic connection anymore, I wouldn't rush out of it and jump into another relationship just because you're crushing on another girl.

That feels bad. I would try to genuinely support this person and try to help them get their mental health back on track, kind of give yourself time and space to like see what feelings arise. But so I wouldn't abandon them, but at the same time, you don't have to like, you don't have to stay in a relationship that you would have left a long time ago because your partner is like kind of suicidal, right? Like, a romantic relationship is not treatment for suicidality.

Mental health treatment is treatment for suicidality. And sometimes the two can get really conflated and you can feel really guilty. Sometimes you should listen to those feelings. I'm not saying you should dump your partner and start dating the crush. Like, that feels like an ass kind of thing to do.

So I'd give it some time and definitely try to help her. Don't leave her hanging. But you can also, like, take a step back from some of the romantic aspects of the relationship. Like, don't have sex. Right? Like, say, like, you can't got to give that up if you're transitioning out of a romantic relationship, I think anyway. People may disagree. Seems to complicate things immensely.

I fear my partner would leave me for someone better. I don't really make bad choices. Well, that's their choice, right? So I don't know why you think that other people out there are better than you are. And if you're making good choices, then your life is probably on the right track. and if your partner wants to leave you for someone better, let them. And then you're going to continue making your good choices. And then you'll run across someone who will respect you for the person that you are and respect the choices that you make. If your partner wants to leave you for someone better, right, you're going to be the best human

that you can be. And the partner that you want to end up with is the one that recognizes that. Not the one that you try to trick into staying by, you know, changing the person that you are to try to avoid them from like finding someone else who's better. Like you be the person that you are, you be the best version of yourself. You try to grow as a human being. And as long as you're trying to keep your partner from leaving you, like what, you're not a jailer. Right?

Like your partner is not a prisoner. They're free to go anytime they want to. Relationships are based on choice. And so you just be the best human being that you can be and let them choose to stay with you or not stay with you. someone else is asking, my therapist only has counseling every three weeks. I have a feeling I'm not getting anywhere. Am I phomowing or is this a legit worry? I'd say that's a legit worry. So if you look at, so people say that therapy is effective, right?

So it does things like reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety and even like improve schizophrenia and things like that. So when we make that claim, it is based on a certain dosage. of therapy. So generally speaking, the clinical trials on therapy are one hour a day, once a week, for a minimum of about eight weeks, and we're usually looking at months. So let me put it to you this way. If you had pneumonia, and you got prescribed an antibiotic, and let's say you get prescribed azithromycin, okay? So you're taking 500 milligrams a day. If you suddenly start taking 500 milligrams every three days, if you're using the dose at a third of what the recommendation is, you're not going to treat your pneumonia. So there's a certain effect size that is, generally

speaking, necessary for therapy. I think I'm a bit rusty. I mean, there are, you know, cases of brief psychotherapy, for example, like brief intensive psychotherapy. There are also cases of once a week psychotherapy, once a month psychotherapy. Generally speaking, as a clinician, I'll see people once a week for an hour until they get into a good place, and then we can start spacing things out. Okay, let's check in every two weeks. As they start to learn coping mechanisms, as they start meditating, as they start to get better at communicating, then they don't need to see me as often.

So it just depends. But generally speaking, if you're not getting better and your dosage is small, like I'd up the dosage. Do you know if meditation can cause mental disorders, trigger a psychosis or something? Yes, absolutely. There are scientific studies of that. I will just show you quickly. Right? People are wondering, can meditation cause psychosis? Absolutely. Right? This is a paper from 2007. I'm sure there are other case reports, reviews, things like that. So I think this is a good conclusion. Meditation can act as a stressor in vulnerable patients who may develop transient psychosis with polymorphic symptomatology. The syndrome is not culture-bound, but sometimes classified in culture-bound taxonomy like

Qigong psychotic reaction. So can meditation cause psychosis? Sure. Anything that can help you can hurt you, right? Oh, wow. I missed something. Okay. All right.

Let's move on. Yes? Chat Fars? Oh, this is a good one. This stream always makes me feel worse. Is that bad? Yes. I don't know why it's making you feel worse,

but you don't necessarily need to do things that make you feel worse. The stream is supposed to help people. And if it's having the opposite effect, like, I, because sometimes, like, feeling worse is, like, on the road to healing. I don't know how to put this, but, you know, when you're, like, sore and you stretch a muscle and it kind of hurts, but it, like, sort of feels good over time.

like if it's that kind of worse, then sure. But if you like leave stream and you're like sad all day long because of what the stream did, then don't watch it. Right. We're not, we're not perfect. Now, if you feel like attacked, but you gain insight and then you start to make positive changes in your life, that's fine. We're happy with that.

But, you know, if it's not helping, like, You know, I've seen no studies that show that Dr. K is always helpful and makes people feel good. Like, there's no such science that exists. So we, if it doesn't help, don't do it. I mean, I'm not saying just leave, but, you know, someone's asking, how do you stop repressing? Okay, look, we're going to get to this post in a second. We're going to talk about this. Don't stop repressing, okay?

Repressions are there for a reason. And when you're ready for it, then it's time to open the Pandora's box. But, like, there's a reason. So remember, most of the stuff that your mind does is good for you. Right? Like, that's the way it's developed. So I see this a lot with people who have, like, trauma. And there are even studies about this.

So there was a study, not one, many studies that have been done on, like, brief, intensive processing after traumatic experiences. And so a group of, like... psychologists who were like, we're going to save the world, went to some trauma-stricken Sudan or something, and they were like, let's process your trauma, baby. And they were like, tell me about how much you were starving and tell me about what happened. And oh, my God, where is it like to starve? And then what happened? And then what happened? Turned out that they like retramatized people. Right. So we stopped doing that. Thankfully, as a profession. I don't blame those people. They thought they were doing the right thing. They were smart. They did research.

They respected their results. They did not conduct scientific misconduct. They didn't lie about it. They're like, oh, this was a mistake. We should stop doing this. Awesome job. Good job, psychologists. Your attempt to help the world actually hurt it. And then you owned it.

And then you told everyone else, hey, we need to stop doing this. It's awesome. Right? So we learn. That's what we do with science. So if you're repressing things, don't just go and unrepress them.

Now, do you need to unrepress some memories to heal and stuff? Sure, but do it in a safe, slow manner when your mind is ready, right?