Crazy: The government planned COVID!
Me: This government couldn't plan a fucking beer run.

It's not saying that they want to stay angry, it's that being angry about it is righteous and justified, and everyone should be angry enough about it to prevent something like it from ever happening again. But half of people still don't even acknowledge covid was real, nevermind the social issues it exposed. Being angry is a reasonable response.

That's basically what the op is about. Anger is an appropriate reaction and the therapist is treating it like it isn't.

But the stabbing needs to stop first

One of the most insightful comments I've heard, iirc from thecollectress on Instagram (hope I got her username right, it's been a while), is that the emphasis on maintaining a non-confrontational nature is a core component of white supremacist thinking (and by extension, capitalist thinking). That it's more important not to upset anyone than it is to argue for righteousness.

"The obnoxious peace which is the absence of tension, rather than the righteous peace which is the presence of justice" and all that.

What restrictions do we consider reasonable if its justified by saving lives? Most would say 1984 to save some lives isn't a desirable option.

At the same time, millions dead just to save wearing a face mask in public seems unreasonable.

So where is the reasonable line? I remember being told I was reckless for going for a swim. At no point was I within even 20m of anyone else except when cars drove past me as I cycled to/from the beach.

Some acted as if leaving your home for any reason was endangering others, others acted like the slightest inconvenience was an unacceptable infringement of their rights.

"If you're conscious you must be depressed, or at least cynical" - MGMT

If you put an animal in a cage which is too small for it, or where it's mistreated, or where it just lacks any enrichment, you don't diagnose it as insane when it starts slamming its head against walls or pacing back and forth. You recognize that the environment is the problem. Humans are animals too, even though we like to pretend otherwise.

"Oh I'm sorry I didn't realize I had to recommend things that are realistic"

Liberal spotted lol. Working class organization is the solution, not running away.

This is a difficult situation. There are many things one should be angry about, but one has few options to deal with it: either you can let it go and move on, actually try to do something about it (even if you fail or it takes a lifetime or not always possible), or just stay angry.

I’m not going to tell anyone how to feel, but I personally would either let it go or try to do something. I’ve lost people before and I refuse to feel that shitty all the time; it is hell.

Get organized in a different country the us government hates you and wants to kill you and that's what the majority vote in favor of.

And I agree that it's reasonable. Which, in my mind, translates directly to "I don't want to stop being angry, stop trying to make me calm down."

You do need to have some dissonance in order to be happy. The unfortunate truth is that we cannot fix everything going on around the world; we just aren’t equipped to handle such information as often as we do anyway (or so I’ve read). I stopped watching or reading most news and focus on my local communities for the sake of my own sanity, focusing on problems I can actually help with.

The problem is there's no accountability anywhere. I'm a bit older so for me it's been 9/11, Iraq with WMD lies, Afghanistan Taliban replaced by the Taliban, Arming the Latin Cartels, Panama Papers, COVID, Epstein Files, Bailouts for Wallstreet, there are more for sure but nobody is ever held to account for anything. The bigger the lie the bigger the corruption the more it just gets swept away like nothing happened. It causes you to lose faith in your country and die a little inside each time. So I get it.

I see no lies here. I think it's insane that people just expect anger to be swallowed when there has been no justice, no change in the circumstances that caused the anger in the first place.

I think it's more "stop telling me that being angry isn't an appropriate response to current social issues." The therapist could be working on coping strategies or mindfulness techniques to deal with the anger in constructive ways.

I’ve lost people before and I refuse to feel that shitty all the time

Were they murdered?

Do you have to interact with their murder every day and be 'normal' around them?

Again, are you footing the bill for that or just preserving yourself while saying "fuck you, good luck" to the masses who are to poor to leave their entire lives behind?

Ellen DeGeneres type shit.

The problem isn't anger nearly so much as "What are you going to do with that rage?"

And the answer seems to be "Go on the internet and type in all caps at other people!" Which... hey, I guess that works. We seem to have a lot of very angry people online and they do seem to be venting their frustration at one another very effectively.

We also have a growing number of police, military recruits, and paramilitary forces who also spend a bunch of time online working themselves up into terrified rage. And then they get to go out with guns and batons and tear gas to square off against civilians who have been terrified in turn.

Then we have a congo line of politicians show up to say "Vote for me and I will end the terror!" And then we get an even bigger police and paramilitary state, which maybe gets used to suppress the political opponents some of the time. But mostly just gets used to attack the homeless, round up immigrants, and bomb brown people living abroad. So now the whole world can feel terrified and angry. And we can be terrified and angry of that in turn.

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN MAGA DOUBLED DOWN

BIDEN WAS THE FUCKING PRESIDENT FOR ALMOST THE ENTIRE PANDEMIC

SPECIFICALLY THE PART YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT

I don't know if that's what the therapist is saying. But even if so, the patient needs to be (or at least try to be) clear with what they're hoping to achieve in therapy. If the therapist is ignoring what OOP has told them, that would be the problem but we don't know if that's what's happening.

Even survivor families of murdered people struggle but eventually have to move on and rebuild their lives. Your continuous suffering does not bring them back. Your eventual happiness does not disservice the loss. That's the hardest part of grief and injustice.

Feeling angry at the event is normal, but if it is crippling your ability to take care of yourself or others who depend on you. Then that is what is unhealthy. Holding on to the pain and anger to the point that you don't function properly is actively hurting you further.

Sometime last year, I heard someone say something to the effect of "I think the pandemic had a pretty major effect on all of us," and for a moment I thought "honestly I think I got through it fairly unscathed" because I was only considering my tolerance for the disruption to my life at the time. I was in a financially secure position and had plenty of social contact with friends through online gaming. I never felt any more depressed than normal throughout "quarantine" insofar as we even had one. Got my vaccines. Never tested positive. Didn't lose anyone close to me (to the illness). Overall, I thought I'd made it through pretty alright.

Then I thought for just a few seconds more and I realized that the pandemic is what caused me to literally give up on humanity. Seeing how little everyone cared about anyone who was actually affected. People making posts online about how it was "fake" when people all over the world were dying. The ones who refused to wear a mask. Such a simple fucking request. Put this cloth over your face for a while and you can help not get people killed, but they still wouldn't do it. I lived in a more rural area at the time, so it took a while for things to get really bad there. I remember thinking "you idiots will change your tune when it's your grandmother dying" and then they just didn't... Their own friends and family dying around them and most just slid further into conspiracy and paranoia.

The whole experience just fundamentally reshaped what I believe about humans and I don't think anything will ever be able to switch things back. It reminds me of the scene in Terminator where John Connor says "We're not gonna make it are we? People, I mean."

Just a quiet resignation to the reality that left with nothing more than our own devices and all the resources we'd need to persist until the heat death of the universe, we'll likely end up going extinct due to something completely preventable and probably caused by us. We choose our own destruction.

I didn't feel this way before covid. I used to believe we'd eventually figure things out. Not anymore.

actually try to do something about it (even if you fail or it takes a lifetime or not always possible), or just stay angry

In my experience, these are conjoined. You try to do things (or, at least, stew about wanting to do things) while you're angry. And as the anger fads, the impulsive need to act fades with it.

So then you've got a group of people who are still angry. And they can turn to the people who have burned out from their anger and scream "Why are you not still angry?! Why are you so apathetic?!" And then these angry people can blame the burn outs for whatever failures accrue.

But it goes one step deeper, because there's no just one group of angry people. It's a melting pot of people with different views all competing to impose their will on the world. And any time any individual or group fails, they need to root out the cause of that failure. Which means blaming the out-groups and self-flagellating over personal weakness and bemoaning the neutral third parties for not being on your team.

Also, lots of money in selling people an outlet for their rage. Or selling them a cure for it. Or selling them a means of inflicting pain on the people they're angry at. Or just selling them on the promise of some future satisfaction.

An endless conflict fueled by rage, fear, greed, and ambition.

Pay for what? Yes things cost money, organizing does too. Sorry you have Stockholm syndrome about a country of people that votes for you to go away and die.

Pay for emigration / legal fees, plane tickets, new housing / rent while they secure a job (assuming they're even allowed to work)?

I'm sorry you lack compassion and empathy for those who are dumb enough to believe themselves to be your enemy. Except for the real enemies, as determined by the value of their net worth. I'm sorry you're so selfish that you would rather preserve yourself from hypothetical, future harm (because I'm guessing you're a relatively privileged white liberal, could be wrong) than work to protect other people from real, present harm. I'm sorry you lack any moral fortitude.

Well you got everything about me wrong which is understandable because you literally know nothing about me

Can't all be wrong, some of it was just your own words.

I don't see you answering my question, I see you ignoring my point.

You can tell he has money, with his absolute callous incapability of considering other people cant just afford to uproot their lives and move to another country, even if they spent years planning for it.

Yeah exactly

I'm not the one you asked the question to, just commenting on the general discussion. But let's play at that. Yes, I have murdered family members. Yes, I'm angry. But my anger won't stop me from living my life. It's very important to remember that there are things within our control, and things outside our control. The attitude we assume towards the hardships of life is one of the things under our control. We can't control how we feel, but we can decide to not let our tragedies dictate our lives. The emotions after tragedies and injustices can be fuel to lead us into meaningful actions. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. The fear people see on others who are consumed by their emotions is not from some need to take a moral high ground. It is fear that we will lose them as well, to grief and depressive spirals.

You are conflating the pain of loss with the emotion of anger.

If you have an ounce of humanity, sympathizing with this person should be automatic. They have every right to be furious and there can be no resolution until the underlying material conflict has been resolved. That is the purpose of that emotion, to drive behavior towards affecting change.

The approach/philosophy you are approaching this from is useful for when the brain gets "stuck" after the underlying conflict has been resolved or when someone is hallucinating blame to deal with the pain of loss. There is no possible interpretation where either of those is the case. The situation has been logically analyzed and the emotion has been checked.

If you have an ounce of empathy you should be mad as well. You have been informed of the situation. You are aware of the pain they are experiencing. You understand that without change this can/will happen to you. Why aren't you angry?

It takes money to be batman.

Batman isn't real. But we've got a bumper crop of Lex Luthors.

No youre right dude im a secret billionaire and when you go to your first protest the rest of the country will realize their mistakes and we'll live in utopia, too bad ill miss it because i emigrated and didn't keep the faith

"This" was meant to be a direct question about the person in the original post's anger and grief.

But I do think the therapist is actively making things worse by expressing this medical opinion this way to the person in question. It's clear to me that they view this as a chemical imbalance of some kind (and as a result may be trying to push drugs on this person). But this persons anger and grief are valid, and I have found that a lot of drugs just paper over the cracks instead of working toward an understanding that the world is wrong and we do the best we can. This person is self aware. They recognize their anger. They know why they are angry. They understand that other people might have let it go, and they seem to even to some extent understand why they can't. They are actively seeking therapy and help.

I'm contrast, this therapist has expressed that something is wrong with them for being angry. In a society where we are constantly told anger basically isn't allowed. And the triggering events for this person are front and center most of the time. They don't get to have the space to distance themselves.

So while I can agree that anger and grief shouldn't be your personality and you should deal with your emotions and trauma as constructively as you can, I don't agree that because you happen to fall outside the norm to remain angry or to express it.

I may be reading a lot into what was said in the original post. But lots of other comments here seem to have hit the nail on the head.

When society fails you and continues to pretend it didn't, that causes what's called generational trauma. The medical community fully acknowledges that this is a real phenomemon.

So, does "healthy healing" mean op can no longer be angry?

I think you're looking at the stages of grief and relying on that to inform you about this post without thinking about the fact that this isn't just about grief. This is also about societal failure.

Dude I'm older than you, so I remember all that, as well as Iran-Contra, AIDS, Watergate (the last scandal for which there were consequences), Vietnam, My Lai, Nixon, the Arab Oil Embargo, the insane inflation of the 70s, Kent State, a whole bunch of assassinations, the Iran Hostage Situation, and a lot more.

Imagine over 60 years of seeing your government do all sorts of stupid things, with virtually no consequences at all (except Watergate, a little bit).

leaving your home for any reason was endangering others

It was, and that is still true if you are sick or think you might be. That risk needs to be measured against your needs.

others acted like the slightest inconvenience was an unacceptable infringement of their rights.

Because they're entitled selfish people who lack empathy and have been trained into anti-social behaviors.

I was reckless for going for a swim.

It doesn't seem like it, it sounds like you measured the danger you presented to the public against your needs for exercise and space. However, shaming you for it was/is a necessary component of helping to prevent the entitled anti-social fuckwads from killing people. Which does lead to some incoherent/inconsistent messaging.

So yeah, fuck you for going swimming.

I'll validate that shit! *stamp

Just speaking for myself (as someone who tends to go online and speak in all caps) I think that is perhaps a better way to deal with my rage at the world than taking it out on other people in the real world, or picking up a gun and shooting at other people in the real world.

It might annoy the people at whom I am speaking in all caps, but on the other hand at least no innocent bystanders end up with bullet wounds in them.

I know you mean this as sarcasm, but not only was Biden the president for the majority of the pandemic, there was a democratic supermajority.

It wasn't just MAGA doubling down. It's a concerted doubling down from nearly every major institution and demographic. It's easy to blame MAGA, but it's plainly obvious that the problem lies much deeper.

MAGA is leading the charge I mentioned. You can try to blame the apathetic and confused all you want, but they're not the ring leaders.

I actually do know someone who was murdered, and while I don't have to face their murderer every day, the event changed my life more than any other.

Somewhere else on this thread you'll see a post by me saying "I let things go". It's true - since then I just don't hold on to anger, because I just don't see the point. If I stayed angry at the person who murdered my friend, then that person would be the one in charge of my life. They would be the one controlling me, the one for whom I was living my life.

And that applies to everything else. If something annoys me then maybe I think about it for a few minutes, maybe an hour, but then - it's gone. Because if I give more thought than that - if I let it fester, then I give it power over me. Which is just...... not how I want to live my life.

No one said "billionaire" lol, trying to change the argument because you're definitely privileged

You're not very good at this

see a terrible opinion

look inside

.ml

look at posting history

"actually russia is anti-imperialist, western propaganda etc etc"

Mood

It doesn't even require empathy. It requires an appreciation for basic cause and effect slightly above that of a toddler. Covid denialism is an ego thing. These people made a decision and are so fragile that they would rather deny basic observable reality before admitting they are wrong. "Don't look up" fucking nailed it.

Liberty is the twin sister of responsibility. In a world where people are aware, cognizant and rational, nearly all regulations reduce to common sense. That's a big part of why I feel like actual libertarians should be royally pissed off at that shit - because people seriously behaving on behalf of idiotic conspiracies erodes everyone's freedom.

Sorry brother, guess it's par for the course.

I work in the brain injury field (long term rehab). It's uncanny how similar it is. Post injury, you get two varieties: They recognize they've suffered the trauma, but refuse to acknowledge deficits or are completely incapable of registering the injury in any way, shape, or form.

I'm astounded as to how many of them that are high functioning fall into the 'there was no COVID' crowd.