Self care has been all the rage the past few years. Everyone’s in therapy and is protecting their peace. This is all well and good butttt, we’ve taken it too far and social interactions are breaking down.
- Protecting one’s peace has become calling everyone who holds up a mirror toxic and keeping enablers close
- Developing grit and resilience has become toxic
- Showing up for people has become I don’t owe you anything
- Having basic social courtesy has become you don’t know what demons I fight
- Having normal social interactions has become emotional/mental/psychological labour (a few days ago, someone sat in front of an event left prematurely. When the artiste asked why, they said, “I don’t owe you anything explanation”. No one said you owed them, ffs!)
- Being a decent person has become protecting my energy
No, you don’t owe them anything. Yes, you have your reasons. Yes, you fight your demons. No, I do not understand. But you could be a decent person and show up. Say something. Something nice. Do something. Something nice. Share. Care. Empathise. Treat others how you’d like to be treated. And teach your kids. I know it’ll only get worse, but I shudder to think what worse would look like.
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Agreed
Alot of SELF CARE is just selfish care
You pretty quickly realize, most people are not worth the effort.
Welcome to late-stage neoliberalism.
I’ve said this before. All of the mental health stuff as well gives a lot of people excuses to be crappy.
Tbh I don’t think the quantity of assholes has actually changed at all.
The difference is that they’ve all learned how to imitate therapy-speak.
This should be a popular opinion. It’s insane out there and we are suppose to act like it’s not.
There is no but. You’re wrong.
Thank you.
Therapy is great, if you want it, and can afford it. It’s not for all people at all times though.
Yeah bro, being a friend may mean you need to be there for your friend even when you don’t feel like it. Even after you’ve had a hard day and your boss is being a dick
Yes, if you tell your friends you’re going to be there, actually show up.
If your boy/girl texts you, just respond. You can say, “Hey man, had a real tough day at work, but I’ll get back with you tomorrow.” I don’t know. Something. Let them know you acknowledge their existence.
Meanwhile Gen Z listens to all this TikTok therapy speak bullshit and is like, “Why am I so sad and lonely?”
Agreed, however you’re not even taking the point to its conclusion.
Life is a journey, self improvement, growth, etc, is a journey. There is no destination.
Acting like wanting to couple or be friends or whatever while not being “perfect” and “fully discovered” is to completely misunderstand the point.
Of course learn. Of course be solid. Of course be kind to self and others.
But don’t be isolationist or judgemental of others for wanting to connect without being perfect.
The whole model of connecting and socializing is absolutely broken and its beyond a silly internet meme or conversation its meaningfully affecting or societies and outcomes.
Once you reach a certain point in your life; you realize just how “two faced” all that shit is…
I show up for people if I like them. I don’t really care about social norms as a whole, never really have. I don’t feel any kind of guilt or shame for bailing on things and I don’t really feel an obligation to do things for others unless I want to.
Do you have personal experience with people who’ve done this, or has social media just told you it’s a problem?
Ok I’m with u on this. If one doesn’t truly care and engage meaningfully with a close friend, for example, don’t expect a close relationship
Yep.
I whole heartedly agree. The whole non-sense, what is red-flag, protecting my peace, gaslighting and such has become ridicilous. As well as all attachment style- converstions. Whole pseudo-nonsense-psychology is just trash but it sells.
My ex was deeply debressed and I did all I could. Household chores, shopping cleaning and work while she laid on the bed and spent her unemployment checks on on-line shopping. Which I brought home dutifuly.
She just slid into some sort of coma, and I up kept her and did her every whim. Somehow still she found the energy to cheat on me. Had the gulls to drive me out from my home, which I paid for, because this new man doesnt have any Red flags.
She texted my Sister and Red flags in a man were enjoys sex, has beer or two every now and then. When she broke up with me, she was distressed that I was interessed about her goings on and what she has done during the day. If your partner asks you how your day has been, its a Red flag, because he is trying to control you. If asked how she felt, it was a Red flag, because man only asks about feelings to manipulate you.
Not to leave you hanging. She understood quikly that she cant have the quality of life without the “oppressor”, she didnt have afford alone the appartment I paid. The new healthy and vigorous man with clean ideas wanted only sex all along and Im not coming back to cheaters
A real unpopular opinion. And I totally agree. Communities will NEVER be perfectly working and people will get hurt constantly and thats OK
Sounds like people stopped putting up with your bullshit OP, and you’re wondering where your friends went
Some people simply can’t figure out how to put away their bullshit issues for the good of all. It’s not up to everyone else to cater to your many different needs even though most of them are made up in your own head. You’re just as miserable when you get your way.
One of my friends is about to get divorced because his spouse turned self care into hating anyone who isn’t her. She asks him to help her do something, like plant a flower. He gets ready to help, and then she asks him to just do it himself. So he plants the flower. Then she never waters it, it dies, and she blames him.
They went to 5 different therapists- all women because she would never accept advice from a man. The therapists keep giving her things to work on, and she tells them she doesn’t need to work on anything because this is her true self, and he should love her true self. She says she’s not going to apologize for being who she is. Then she fires the therapist.
He knows he’s not perfect, but he can’t do anything right in her eyes because the only right thing for him to do would be to never question her, read her mind, answer questions before she asks them, and do everything around the house, with the kids, and at work.
Her self care became 100% selfishness.
self care is absolute. if it breaks down your social interactions, then it needed to be broken. it means you have shitty friends.
good friends would be supportive.
Self empathy and therapy is meant to get us closer to ourselves in a compassionately empathetic way which then allows us to connect more effectively with others.
“Self care” may often be misconstrued with self-indulgence. In that case, I’m with you.
That’s one of my main reasons for being against the term “self love.” Nobody has the same definitely of love. Some people’s love is selfish. For some, it’s overly giving and self-abusive.
I prefer self-compassion, self-empathy, self-awareness, self-consciousness, etc.
Meme-ified therapeutic care will often be taken out of context and plastered over people’s pre-formed biases. When that happens, it’s like bandaid psych-speak disguising dickishness.
So yeah… I think your point is somewhat valid but it’s not because we’ve taken it too far. It’s because people have personalized unclear messages and not gone far enough.
I hate therapy speak.
Is this an american thing?
edit: read through the comments,- this is an american thing.
Can’t say my social experiences reflect this
What a jaded take, and a useless one at that…
Your take boils down to “we’ve taken self care too far” which makes absolutely no sense… all the points you bring up are simply assholes using self care speak, guess what pal, they were assholes before self care too, just now they are self righteous assholes.
Good people remain good people after learning self care, a good person doesn’t hear “focus on yourself” and think to themselves “I don’t owe anybody anything”, that’s stupid.. I think you know that but like, what are you even trying to say with this post? Self care is a good thing, assholes are a bad thing, self care has nothing to do with a holes bein a holes.
Anything that is branded as “self care” that is actually just selfish narcissistic reinforcement isn’t self care, they just call it that again because they are being self righteous. You can’t say self care has gone too far just because people use the word incorrectly
Selfcare has been copied by the self indulgent to mean having no responsibility or drive. I’m all for meaningful self care but 99% of people who actually use the term in regular speech just use it as a way to excuse their uselessness and to get out things they rather not do. Trauma is another term that gets used in a similar fashion these days.
most people are still decent. We just gave the assholes megaphones in the form of social media.