Western psychology, and I say this as a former psychologist.
Like so much else, any potential at being a science was bastardized long ago in order to make it an industry focused on getting people productive again instead of focusing on their wellbeing which usually has an inverse relationship to getting them back to work in the short and medium term.
Meanwhile the small population of people that can afford actual psychoanalytic therapy that isn’t throwing pills at them and teaching them coping strategies within 3 covered sessions tend to be the reason so many others are miserable.
For the non-wealthy, mental healthcare in the US is a complete and utter scam that is geared to serve others at your expense and shoehorn you right back into the stressors that got you into therapy. If you need help, you’re out of luck.
Law. I was pretty hyped up when i went to university to study it, but the more i learnt on the foundations of it and discovered the people it created, the more i hated it. Now I’m doing completely different things, and i’m glad my parents didn’t force me to keep doing it.
America.
And my dad.
The worshipping of the self-made man and entrepreneurship in popular American culture
I think I was just too young and fashionable, maybe I was one of those guys that saw themselves as a “temporarily embarrassed billionaire”… then got old enough to see through the nonsense
The United States government and the United States citizens.
Growing up I was taught about all these checks and balances. How the government is slow and that’s good because it makes sure people get what they really want. Come to find out in just one presidential term, this one guy just executes executive orders left and right and just gets things done.
I thought U.S citizens would vote in their best interests but they would glady vote for a facist who’s against their best wishes.
Republicans. When I was a child, slogans like “fiscally responsible”, “family values”, “smaller government “ sounded like good things. Republicans always claimed the moral high ground. But they’ve spent my entire adult life proving it as manipulative bullshit for personal greed and power, holding themselves above the law, the worst in humanity, rising to our current flirt with fascism.
Google. It was once a good search engine. Now I find myself getting only the most irrelevant results based on my keywords and more often than not an advanced search turns up nothing of value
Elon. Turns out he was always a conman and liar.
At one point, between 2021-2022 I had thought absolutely nothing of him and just thought of him as an eccentric rich person. Even wanted one of his “The Boring Company” flamethrowers because who wouldn’t want a flamethrower? Then comes the election and out comes his true colours. Now there’s no change in hell I’d support him.
So many people sabotage themselves by being bad people and going mask off.
I thought he was a great guy when he loaned those solar panels to the hospital in Puerto Rico. Then he bought Twitter and started firing employees, banning reporters, blocking the api so researchers couldn’t have access. This was the start for me. Jerk has only gotten worse.
Police
Cops (1989) ruined america, taught us to trust these ass holes and they royally fucked us over.
Not making light of everything before 1989, but even after all that shit, the show painted them in a decent enough light to where people spill their guts and trust them, just because they have a uniform and they took full advantage of us.
Police propaganda goes way back before Cops (1989). Dragnet started in 1951 and inspired dozens of police procedurals that made cops look like street smart scientists who studied at the intersection of crime and humanity. In reality they are just a disappointment. ACAB
vaguely gesturing at everything
Google. Do no evil
Nintendo.
Things got worse once Bowser got ahold of the American castle.
The fun dissolved with Iwata and Reggie gone.
The line to far for me was their retroactive bs patents used to attack Palworld. It’s one thing to be strict on your own systems, but another to do it to others. 80s Nintendo is back and possibly worse than before.
Jk Rowling. She was (I think) the only billionaire to ever debillonaire themselves without dying (i.e., she donated so much wealth to charity that she was no longer a billionaire).
But then she decided to dedicate herself to making trans people’s lives miserable…
I’m curious which charities she was donating to before she turned into a massive cunt. Cause all she donates to now are hate groups.
Can she just die already? I normally don’t wish death on anyone. Just people that do extremely evil things.
Romantic relationships as promoted by society. After dating so many different types of men and always being let down, I’ve decided it’s not worth my time.
And after hearing so many stories of cheating partners doing shady shit, breaking people’s hearts, perpetrating abuse, gambling life savings away, etc., I’ve decided it’s a bunch of BS that either works for very few people, or you need to seriously compromise and overlook a lot of shit with the average person. And I’m so done with that and I’m also frustrated and jaded.
So now when I see a couple all lovey dovey i see them with derision and I start to wonder how long they have until the inevitable breakup or if one of them is doing some shit on the side.
On average, only 14% of those in a couple say they are not very or not at all satisfied with their relationship with their spouse or partner, while 84% say they are somewhat or very satisfied.
And this
The failure rate for first marriage is roughly 48%, 60% for second and 70% for third marriages [source], but at the same time, in 2019 for every 1000 marriages, only 7.6 resulted in divorce, which is the lowest divorce rate in the past 50 years.
So I would not say it is that rare to live happy married life. But it is not like everyone is getting this life. With a hard work I think it is totally possible and is not that rare at all… Although none of those studies give a direct answer on how many happy lifelong relationships there are. One can conclude somewhere between 30-40% of relationships are happy lifelong relationship. And even if this number is lower like 10-20% this is still a very significant number.
When I talk about relationships with my sister she has similar view as you. She can almost never see a truly happy relationship. While I can see it everywhere
It turned out our environments are drastically different. For example she met all of her partners at parties. This is not a general population. While I met my wife in school.
I made most of my friends in school or at work or from being a neighbor (ie owning a house). Most of them are educated and with higher income. If I remember correctly those also have better statistics for relationship success. While my sisters friends are none of that.
I believe it would be wise for you to check if your environment screwed your view too.
Many moons ago I thought Israel was just defending itself. For two decades now I’ve come to believe they are the problem, and are now committing wanton genocide
