u/HeftyMoneybag

Some days ago I responded to a comment that therapists are not incentivized to disagree with the system, so they won't teach their clients to stand up for themselves or see the world for how it truly is. It's not their job to acknowledge how fucked up the world is and how your abusers did you wrong. Their job is to make you more comfortable with a messed up world and to teach you to accept your place, whether your place is that of a victim or even of an abuser as long as it truly fits with where you are/can be in the hierarchy and how you continue to serve the status quo.

Therapists also don't benefit from no abusers. If a couples therapist tells an abuse victim to leave every single time they see it happening, then they won't have a job. If therapists "specializing" in trauma therapy actually truly helped you, then you would heal too fast and stop paying up. If a therapist is met with an abuser then there's no point in trying to teach them to stop abusing because how else will they have clients, victims of such abusers to handle and treat? They are taught to view our mental illnesses - our reactions to repeatedly having to deal with fucked up actions - as pathologies instead of what would happen to any mammal in constant distress.

I recall my last therapist telling me that she had corporal punishment in school too and that the brain can differentiate being hit by a teacher or being hit by a parent as discipline vs being hit by a figure of authority for no apparent reason other than abuse, the latter being a traumatic memory for the brain. I thought to myself "huh, she really thinks she's helping me with this advice?? This is supposed to soothe my mind? How about we teach people to not hit kids at all????".

Funny thing is I'm less traumatized by the beatings themselves and more upset at the world. Nobody that actually can do something stops evil people because our world is designed to be fueled by evil. THAT upsets me WAY MORE than actual memories of being beaten up. The fact that the therapist simply tried to justify it thinking it'd help me move on instead of acknowledging that our world is messed up was just insane to me. I could tell she really thought she was helping and that makes it even worse.

I'm 26F. I'm in STEM. I'm into politics, writing, music, traveling, bedrotting and memes lol, love to go on hikes and I love to learn new things in general. I love animals so if you have a pet please share. I'm also open about mental health (i have depression and anxiety) so if that's something you're judgmental about you can leave me alone. I'm also not racist/don't care for tribalism or stereotyping so leave me alone with that stuff too. I'm left-leaning and pan-african.

I'm looking for Sudanese friends in my vicinity. We don't have to be in the same country (I'm in western Europe) but if we are that'll be great and make meeting up easier! Looking for someone willing to talk a few times a week and prefers calling than just texting all the time(im not good at that tbh) or voice notes.

Men and women both welcome. NO CREEPS! If you're looking for more than friendship then don't reach out to me. Otherwise if this resonated with you, hit me up!

بالعربي ولا الانجليزي كلو ماشي

One thing I've realized recently from my abusive parent is that she is completely incapable of emotional regulation. I thought it was only directed at me - I definitely bear the brunt of most of her insanity - but I think it's just a general theme and it's starting to make sense.

Abused individuals who grow to become abusers themselves cannot find emotional regulation in routines, hobbies, or healthy social dynamics. They can only dysregulate others when they feel overwhelmed - which is every fucking day and every waking moment - so that they can bring themselves down to a calmer level. This becomes a vicious cycle because there is no "normal" or healthy middle ground for them.

One theme I've noticed is that traumatized people who haven't deconstructed or accepted their trauma LOVE to dysregulate others. They love to keep you in the loop about every negative political thing on the planet. They love to try and negatively impact you in any way. They'll talk badly about any and everything even if you didn't ask. They'll try to yuck your yum in any way they can, so to speak. They love doom, nihilism, cynicism and commiseration. They hate to see you try and be positive or have anything good going for you.

For toxic traumatized individuals it goes even further, they cannot stop themselves from perpetuating the same toxicity over and over again despite knowing it's toxic just because that's their only way to feel regulated. They have to make you miserable too to feel better about themselves.

As a Sudanese woman living in Europe (grew up in the gulf and Sudan) this baffles me. Can we PLEASE get that racial self-esteem up? Can we stop associating whiteness and arabness with being up in the hierarchy? Can we blame society instead of blaming ourselves and our DNA for being "less than"? We're not less than we were exploited and this is what the system wants you to believe.

This is one of my biggest issues with living abroad. No one is proud of their heritage. Everyone associates blackness and being from Africa with being less than other humans. Why? As someone who grew up in a family with privilege and who are intelligent and who provided so much in terms of material privilege and education, I can't relate?? But Sudanese ppl and even other people of color always want to project their own problems and self-hate issues onto others who don't believe the same things.

I'm tired yall. We need to sort our shit out or Sudan will NEVER prosper.

جد جد يا جماعة انا في بلد اوروبي و مفكرة امشي دولة افريقية ولا عربية و بعداك شمال امريكا. لو كنتو مكاني كنتو ح تعملو شنو؟ مثلا لو كان عندكم الخيار انو تمشو اي مكان عشان الراحة النفسية و برضو عشان الاخلاق لانو الحياة في اوروبا منحطة و صراحة لو انت زول ممكن تتقدم شديد ما ح تلقى الفرص هنا زي ما متخيل..

I'm curious about this because I come from a family with actual diagnoses. I personally exhibit some behavior that could be interpreted as ND, especially living abroad in a different culture. However, I'm in a field where a lot of people seem to be neurodivergent and it actually makes me nervous/anxious/I start to behave like them to fit in and I just end up becoming awkward as hell. Also direct communication makes me uncomfortable as a Sudanese person whereas not all Western cultures are ok with or understand that.

So my question becomes: why is this way more apparent and talked about in the West? Why is it rare to meet a "weird" or ND Sudani? Are we naturally high masking since our culture emphasizes conformity and indirect communication?

Hey everyone! I'm a woman in my mid 20s pursuing a STEM degree abroad in Germany. I speak fluent German and my plan was to finish my masters and maybe pursue a PhD as well or work here, but as of this time I'm not interested in living here anymore and want to move. I'm originally East African and wish to be in an African country for at least a few years. I am thinking of pursuing my masters in SA.

With the rise in xenophobia in SA, will it be a problem, say, between 2027-2029? And how is life there for women? I have heard of issues with DV and safety concerns, but honestly my home country isn't any better so I'm not judging just gaging what I need to look out for.

Anything I need to do or know before moving there? Anything to learn about the culture ? Will working part-time as a student be feasible? Overall I'd just like to know more about how life will be before I move and if it's a good idea or how the adjustment is, especially if anyone has also moved from an EU country to SA.

So I thought I'd start this thread to share some things that aren't really widely accepted, but have really elevated my look. Share your own experiences too please!

1. I lost a significant amount of weight, I'm now quite skinny and stay active through walking and some bodyweight exercises until I start lifting again. I really don't see an issue with this and feel fine, and as someone who is very tall I just find it elevates your look when you're tall and skinny.

2. Using a cream to lighten my joints and any hyperpigmentation. I then started using it all around before I stopped it alltogether and got slightly lighter(i had sun damage all over and lots of hyperpigmentation though). Also taking NAC and using benzoyl peroxide and some actives like lactic acid, retinol lotion, tret and always using sunscreen to stay lighter.

Idk if much else of what I do is controversial but these are the main ones that people wouldn't usually agree with that have worked for me.

I'm female and in my mid 20s living abroad. I mostly grew up in Sudan. Honestly I have certain values and opinions that don't really align with Sudanese culture, and others that don't align with Western culture. I also don't befriend westerners - if you know you know - and I don't get along with Arabs either. Overall I prefer black Africans and Sudanese people as friends, but I prefer "liberal" (I mainly just mean fairly progressive and left wing socialists here). I would also not like to befriend the other Sudanese immigrants living abroad just because we're both Sudanese since many of them have family in the UAE, or are keizan or RSF & Sumood supporters. I'm quite exhausted from running into the same kind of people honestly.

Also of course as a woman I'd like to stay away from Sudanese men living abroad who are living a degenrate lifestyle or are creeps(before I get attacked, this is unfortunately kind of common). I haven't found many women living abroad either who i get along with and who are in the same position of studying and working and living a more leftist lifestyle. And if I have found them, they live too far away for us to regularly stay in contact.

Anyone know of any solutions? Ways to come in contact with other Sudanese people living abroad faster? I don't have many friends in my city and I'm not really open to other demographics at the moment.

Hey everyone! I made this server mainly for Sudanese women to discuss hobbies, politics, societal issues and any and everything under the sun :). I will also post it in other east African subs eventually, but for now I'm focused on it being primarily for fellow Sudanese women. 17+ only please!

DM me for the invite link!

Hey everyone! I made this server mainly for Sudanese women to discuss hobbies, politics, societal issues and any and everything under the sun :). I will also post it in other east African subs eventually, but for now I'm focused on it being primarily for fellow Sudanese women. 17+ only please!

DM me for the invite link!

I can't even begin to open up about it. But basically my life is fucked up. And I'm the only one out of my siblings that gets burdened by this information. I'm also the one that is always expected to react nicely and never get mad, never judge anybody. And when I do it's my fault. I'm a woman so I understand why that's always expected of me but it just pisses me off how I'm treated like some free therapist and some object rather than a real person.

The kind of shit my family has done to me and to other people is the kind of shit I can't ever come back from. I've been feeling so guilty, carrying a burden that isn't of my doing. And idk what to do anymore. I can't be a real person knowing all of this and not drinking myself to oblivion every week. I can't live with the fucked up shit they've done. And everyone moves on because no one blames them including my siblings, the rest of the family and everyone we know. The world just forgets and moves on. And they just pay everybody to make it all okay. As if they're not complete piece of shit assholes. And I'm supposed to just be ok with it all while simultaneously being constantly told I can never do anything wrong or harm anybody. I get judged for any and everything, but they get away with everything.

Man I fucking hate my family. I hate my life. And opening up to ppl does nothing. It all just fucking sucks because nobody actually understands. We're all alone in this world. No wonder this world is so fucked up.

I am making this thread because I think it'd be useful to actually list helpful ways to move past your issues and process them healthily rather than rely on capitalist and discriminatory institutions like therapy. Too many psychologists out there are underqualified and have poor diagnostic skills, and have no idea how to navigate building a good therapeutic relationship with a client. So it's time we take our healing into our own hands!

I'll share a few things that helped me, but ofc it's still a long way to go and a work in progress:

1. Developing a deeper understanding of yourself and how the world works, and how you wish to navigate the world. Sounds simple but it's not. It takes an active daily effort to deconstruct a lot of issues and a lot of reflection to understand my patterns, mood changes, and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

2. NEVER relying fully on others to decide anything for you. Therapists will try and steer you in a certain direction whether you notice it or not. They will take your vulnerability and throw it back in your face if you give them ultimate power to tell you what to do(or suggest something that you know won't work). This ends up creating doubt in our minds and we trust our judgment less and turn into NPCs or it'll worsen our mental health issues. Always do what you ultimately feel like is the right thing to do for you. If you believe your diagnosis is false, don't accept it. If you believe you have other health issues and are being gaslit by professionals, never listen and seek a second or third or fourth opinion. If you know your problems are systemic and the therapist knows fuck all, don't let them tell you anything because clearly they're uneducated where it matters.

3. Taking strict measures to protect yourself in this world. Toxic friends? Remove them from your life. Toxic workplace? Document, learn the law and your rights, greyrock, disengage as much as you can, be on high alert at all times, lawyer if needed, finding a new job if possible. Toxic family? Creating as much distance as possible or cutting them off. Bad therapist? Report them if you can (even if nothing comes out of it. Just to make sure it goes on their record or so you can move on from the experience easier knowing you did _something_ ). Social media? Delete/unfollow/spend less time etc. Inaction has been the one thing that has really made me spiral and caused more problems. Any time I am faced with a toxic situation now, I would leave the situation or person quickly if I knew it was to no avail.

4. Accept that there will always be external factors out of your hands that will affect you, and you're valid in struggling because of them. Actually, if you're systemically oppressed in some way or have a disability, or are stuck with problems you have 0 control over then you're supposed to struggle. The level to which you're affected depends on many factors ofc, but to some degree most people will not thrive under harsh conditions. Showing yourself this acceptance is important. I have started this last year, where if I don't do well in something or feel depressed I say to myself "it's ok. I accept that I am struggling today and I don't need to do anything about it right now if I can't, but I'll do what I can when I can". This has done more to help than any therapy ever has. If anything giving yourself grace will help you snap out of things faster than hearing generic suggestions on what to do or having someone else do it who, in the end, doesn't really know you or how your brain works, or how you live your life.

I've been thinking back on therapy sessions I had before I stopped around a year ago, and my experience with different therapists. In the country I live in atm - I'm not originally from here/came here for studies and work - there's a lot of emphasis on respecting rules, laws and in turn that also means hierarchy/classism/social norms etc even if those things come at a major disadvantage. I've also noticed from talking to other ppl that the type of advice they get from therapists vs what I get differ vastly depending on how each of us places on the social hierarchy.

I will never forget that my first official therapist tried very hard to label me as someone who is under others, at times even explicitly stating that I'm not as good as other ppl here bc I wasn't born and raised in this country. She also really wanted to force a diagnosis of cptsd, and kept trying to find ways to get me to say that I feel disproportionate shame and guilt (which I didn't and still don't lol) and when that didn't work she would make digs and comments at me to sort of manufacture that in me so she could proceed with a certain pathology. I am even more sure of this bc I looked up this therapists past work experience and she had oversold her expertise. She was trying to pivot to trauma therapy and CBT recently and was quite young & inexperienced.

I didn't stay too long with her before I switched to a different therapist who was older and more experienced, but also had this habit of trying to remind me of my place in the hierarchy. Constantly mentioning politics and how views are changing for the worse, and pointing out my skin color whenever I'd rant that someone doesn't understand my experience or empathize(most times I wasn't even talking about race nor was it relevant when I spoke about family, for example...).

I think a major flaw with therapy is that it's ultimately a purely capitalist tool. If you are aware of how the world works, you reflect a lot and you have good insight into the cause of your problems then a therapist can't help you much. For therapy to work for you, your problems would have to either not be complex/systemic (e.g. any status/class/race/gender/health etc based discrimination) or you would have to have a higher level of ignorance and hopefulness to let the therapist steer your thinking in a direction that brings you relief. To avoid inducing more cognitive dissonance they have to find ways to make you believe a certain version of reality so that you're, at times, actually delusional and simply lying to yourself instead of believing in conflicting opinions and feeling distraught.

Through this kind of treatment you become a servant in society. You learn your place, you accept less and you learn how to be happy with it instead of calling it out or rightfully not wanting to be mistreated/humiliated or subjugated to the many corrupt systems that govern our world and societal issues we all navigate to varying degrees(i.e. accept that this is why many of us humans turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms or develop mental health issues in the first place. It's the minds attempt at purging out what is unhealthy and unsafe to us the more we keep being exposed to it but cannot escape it..). We are already taught to accept this in school, in our families, in politics, in social dynamics and at work especially. You have to almost jovially embrace the fact that you will need to go through humiliation rituals from others and accept your place in society so as to not be in constant mental distress from the degradation of navigating this world. That requires therapy to paint a picture for you of who you are, despite them saying they can't "tell you what to do or say anything about who you are directly"(and they will if they're desperate enough like the one therapist who really needed her sessions to go a certain way).

This is why oftentimes morally corrupt people just end up becoming worse people after therapy, especially if they're already succeeding in a material way in society. The therapists job isn't to teach them to be ethical or good people. It's to preserve the natural hierarchy and make sure this person continues to be a "productive" member of society (and line their pockets through the sessions).

Tbh I relapsed so that >! I wouldn't make it too far into next year. !<

I'm an international student abroad and even tho I'm technically living the life I wanted and can accomplish my goals here, I'm tired of the political and societal issues that are increasing. I study and work somewhere very toxic and I'm tired of dealing with misogyny and racism.

I have a different health issue(debilitating GI issues) that fueled my ED. I was neglected pretty bad since I was a toddler so I developed >!BED!< since my family would leave me shitty snacks around and I'd make my own food starting at the age of 3 while they stopped hiring nannies for some reason. I also ate stuff ur not supposed to eat which I'm sure didn't help with my congenital GI issues that I still have now. Add to that the stress of growing up with my toxic family back home and now living alone abroad and trying to stay afloat, I just cant seem to break out of the cycle. I have had >!anorexia b/p subtype!< since I was 17, and then "recovered" for a few yrs, went back to >!binging!< when I moved abroad and since 2024 my chronic health issues have been horrible and I've been >!restricting!< and slowly withering away. I'm now >!very close to being underweight!< and I don't see a way out. Therapy was awful(genuinely had toxic, racist therapists) and i hate life where I live. I have no support system and tbh >!I have 0 will to exist in this capitalist, corrupt, sexist and racist world!<. I don't want to escape reality, I want to completely opt out. I have no way to do that than this ED.

I've found peace weirdly after relapsing??? Like i am truly sort of happy bc this time I can't actually stop. I'm getting there. For the first time ever I might successfuly >!not be here anymore by next year. I might actually do it!<.