And please don’t tell me “just change jobs”.
Your job change, you should. 🙂
Joke aside, depends what is the issue here:
- Are you unsatisfied with your job or
- You enjoy/value your free so much.
As others have mentioned, find something to look forward to. If you’re miserable at your job, see what you can do to change that. Any small wins you can look forward to?
If you’re in a position “do I really need to do this for the next 30-40 years”, that’s a more difficult thing to resolve. We’ve set up a system for ourselves where that is the only possibility of surviving in this world. To change that you’d need to move somewhere to the highlands of Scotland or a tropical island somewhere and live completely off the grid. Unfortunately, though, that life is not easy.
Your best bet is to be born rich. Other than that, friends help. Having a support net and something to do that brings you joy makes this a tiny bit more bearable. Go read books. Go to the park. Sign up for dancing lessons or martial arts. Learn a new language. Travel. World is so much more than what we see on TV.
Seize the means of production
I like my job
Start your own business
It’s just that, but every single day
Then you get to send invoices which is like Christmas
Have you considered a life of crime?
Thinking about dieing is like a light at the end of this sewer tunnel.
You need things to work towards.
Also, if one thinks going to work is bad, there will not ever be a worse feeling than coming home fired and pondering how you’re going to upkeep your expenses and a roof over your head.
Quit.
Having a fulfilling weekend helps. The weekends where I sit and rot are where I get to Sunday night and feel like “oh shit I don’t want to go to work I didn’t enjoy my weekend”.
But weekends where I’ve worked on projects, hung out with family and friends, gamed, maybe done some chores or just got out the house help lessen the blow. It also helps that I don’t really sleep in much these days, like I’ll usually get up at 9:30 or 10 and those couple hours instead of getting up at noon help make the day feel more worthwhile.
Doing all that usually has me tired enough going to sleep rather than doom scrolling or brain rotting. Which in turn leads to a gentler time waking up Monday.
And then on Monday itself I kinda ride the high of having a good weekend and that I can push through 8 hours to get back home and continue some of those activities
That’s the good part, you don’t.
I disassociate entirely. I’m sure there will be no long term consequences to this…
I highly recommend Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. CBT is the best medicine I can afford, because all you need is pen and paper.
If you don’t think you can change your circumstance, then you can try to change how you react to it. The core model of the therapy is to analyze your thoughts and look for patterns in which your brain tries to fuck with you. Identifying distortions and fallacies helps to replace your automatic thoughts with more positive ones.
Example:
Thought: I hate my job, everything about it sucks
Distortions: Overgeneralization, All-or-Nothing Thinking, Feelings as Facts
New Thought: I hate certain parts of my job, but I like X part of it
The whole thing only works if you believe in it, and the important thing is that you’re not just putting a sunny face on things that make you feel terrible. You’re working to restructure your thought based on objective truth.
I’ve struggled for a long time with the Sunday Scaries. Sometimes it feels like it’s never going to get easier, and I’m going through it right now, but I know if I take the time to untangle my feelings then things end up easier in the long run.
Good luck out there, partner
Cope
That’s the plan, yup
You’re literally in a thread about coping with work, brother…
To me, CBT has always made it feel like my thoughts and feelings are not valid. As someone who has had invalidation problems with these my whole life it makes it feel really offensive.
I know people get great things out of it, and that’s good. But yeah not for everyone and (unfortunately??) it’s the “trendy” thing with therapy nowadays. I just wish there was a therapy modality that acknowledges one’s thoughts and feelings as valid, even if they aren’t perfect, and instead finds ways to work with them instead of against them.
It’s not that your thoughts aren’t valid. Let’s look at it differently. You are aware of muscle memory right? The idea you can train your body enough that an action can become easily repeatable.
Your mind is similar, it has a mental muscle memory. If your mind is filled with a reservoir of negative emotions about a particular thought, when your mind reaches for an emotion to react with, there’s a high chance you’re going to pull a negative emotion out of your emotional tool belt.
CBT is about manually forcing yourself to recognize and reframe those negative thoughts so that you slowly build up that positive reservoir of emotions.
You want the odds you’re going to pull a positive emotion out of that tool belt to be more 50-50. It’s not about eliminating negative thought or emotion entirely, but rather just giving yourself an even chance at reacting positively. Leveling the odds.
Negative emotion is just as valid as positive emotion and vice versa. And negative emotion isn’t inherently negative. It’s what you do with the emotions that truly makes them good or bad for us. Rage could inspire someone to murder but it could also inspire someone to act against injustice.
Conversely, there’s nothing wrong with recognizing that an overly negative mindset is just bringing unhappiness and forcing yourself to slowly recalibrate that negative baseline.
I’m feeling exactly the same, I’m in a CBT Therapy group rn which feels double invalidating because everyone else seems to have the exact opposite problems.
I’m currently working through a book on Inter Familial Systems Therapy and it’s a much better fit - it works by assigning personas to specific problematic thought patterns and talking the issues out with those personas. Way more validating in my opinion, as it’s focused on being empathetic towards them and guiding them in a better direction.
To me, CBT has always made it feel like my thoughts and feelings are not valid. As someone who has had invalidation problems with these my whole life it makes it feel really offensive.
Therapy in general is about accepting problems instead of solving them. This is because therapists are not real doctors and cannot actually cure anything. Psychology is a scam.
Psychology has come a long way in the last 50 years. I used to think like you, and even now maintain a healthy dose of skepticism, but therapy absolutely can improve your life. It’s not much of a scam if it’s working for most people. It’s just not going to solve all you problems. If anything it just makes you more aware and better equipped to deal with your emotions.
Honestly, that’s tough, but fair. No therapeutic tool is going to be a magic bullet solution for everyone.
My wife struggles with something similar. When we try to walk through an exercise together she thinks it’s about saying that her problems are “all in her head.” For my own outlook, I liken it to thinking that although my thoughts might be faulty, my feelings are valid. But hey, I’m not an authority, I’m just another struggling human trying to make sense of it all.
For what it’s worth, one stranger to another, I think that whatever you’re going through you’re totally valid. I hope you find or have found some relief - goodness knows we’re still looking
CBT can definitely feel that way but maybe if you view it as a way to explore the feelings and thoughts you have an examine if you really believe they’re true, that might help? Like… Not everything you think is true. But it makes you feel some kinda way. So summertime pulling it out and examining in and looking for a new direction to take some thoughts can be really helpful.
Similar experience for me. It wasn’t that I felt my thoughts were invalid, but I didn’t feel like it was impacting me in the moment, and then every session was like “sure, that was illogical, but I still felt that at the time”.
I’ve been trying ACT, and while I don’t know if it’s been effective yet, at least it’s helping me process and understand my thoughts better.
That’s a great example! I haven’t heard much about CBT, but that makes a tonne of sense.
I remember reading somewhere that one of the possible reasons for that feeling might be because of the change in times.
As in, when we go to work, we usually have to wake up early and then have our routine during the rest of the day. But on holidays/during the weekend, we tend not to follow any schedules. And then after getting used to waking up whenever we want (or later than usual), we get cranky because our body is (forced to get) used to our working schedule.
So a solution might be go to bed at times that aren’t too different from your usual times during your working days.
Basically, some consistency with your sleep might help.
And please don’t tell me “just change jobs”.
Fair. Can I then suggest a social and political revolution to change the current system in which we have to waste our lives working for rich fucks who don’t care about us?
This really does help. I get up at the same time every day even before my alarm goes off during the week. I have a coffee routine that I follow 7 days a week and I enjoy it. I made myself learn to cook breakfast daily (not just eat cereal) so I eat eggs and some form of toast and maybe some meat. I spend 30 min following this routine and by the time I have to leave for work I feel pretty good about the day. Being hangry and rushed when you get up makes everything suck. Change the routine.
You find out, let us know.
I try to remember the little things I like about going to work. Drinking the good coffee I keep there. Chatting with people in the office. Driving home through the summer weather at the end of the day.
Too bad I don’t like anything about it.
I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do if your job truly is that terrible. I know changing jobs isn’t easy or necessarily doable, but it seems like that’s the only “real” option.
I like going to work every day to see some of my coworkers.
