Practical strategies to cope with being alone?

[ApatheticNoMore]

I can't imagine being in a relationship meaning be on the same page financially. My boyfriend wants to look into buying a house and work on starting a business. I don't particularly want either of these things for myself. I more often see a life of renting (I sometimes consider otherwise), contributing to the 401k and other savings, and improving job skills and education, and finding some career I can do into my old age even if part time or something some day. So no we're not really on the same page.

[JaneV2.0]

therapy very seldom works on the real causes of one's problems:

1) circumstances. If these can't be changed or one has absolutely ruled out changing them therapy is useless here. If they can be changed and there is some desire to change them therapy is actually BEYOND useless as it tends to not want to focus on changing actual circumstances of one's life but only changing one's thoughts toward one's circumstances.
2) actions, therapy might give some encouragement to changing actions. Changing actions might be enough for simple phobias, complex phobias are more difficult. Changing actions can be a useful approach but noone needs therapy for that really. Might be helpful if one literally has no other emotional support in life.
3) temperament, therapy isn't going to change one's basic temperament very much. Meds might some for some people.
4) human condition: therapy isn't going to help with the human condition - death of loved one's, fear of one's own death etc.. It's probably less useful for this than all the various thought systems one can study that over time have addressed them, as therapy can twist natural things like grief over death of loved ones etc. into weird things they aren't if it tries too hard to "analyze" them.

And, in some cases, diet, lack of exercise and/or sunlight, etc.

[Teacher Terry]

UL: the world is not the problem. Your reaction to it is. St. John's Wort is a supplement you can buy over the counter and it has helped some people with depression/anxiety. These two issues are different sides of the same coin. A good therapist does not solve your problems for you but helps you identify the solution that will work for you. Modern therapy techniques does not involve analyzing your past in a deep way to understand your problems now because that is really not helpful. We live on the West Coast and the first thing I said upon moving here is "Where are the black people?" So not a good choice when this is a population you are attracted too. There is no magic wand and no one is going to solve your problems. It is an inside job that often is facilitated by a helping professional. I used to tell my clients that if I was working harder then them we had a real problem.

[Ultralight]

therapy very seldom works on the real causes of one's problems:

1) circumstances. If these can't be changed or one has absolutely ruled out changing them therapy is useless here. If they can be changed and there is some desire to change them therapy is actually BEYOND useless as it tends to not want to focus on changing actual circumstances of one's life but only changing one's thoughts toward one's circumstances.
2) actions, therapy might give some encouragement to changing actions. Changing actions might be enough for simple phobias, complex phobias are more difficult. Changing actions can be a useful approach but noone needs therapy for that really. Might be helpful if one literally has no other emotional support in life.
3) temperament, therapy isn't going to change one's basic temperament very much. Meds might some for some people.
4) human condition: therapy isn't going to help with the human condition - death of loved one's, fear of one's own death etc.. It's probably less useful for this than all the various thought systems one can study that over time have addressed them, as therapy can twist natural things like grief over death of loved ones etc. into weird things they aren't if it tries too hard to "analyze" them.

Therapy is at least 90% "rent-a-friend."

[Ultralight]

UL: the world is not the problem. Your reaction to it is.

I disagree. Here is why:

We live in a world where/that is:
-Overpopulated by like 8 times
-On the verge of an antibiotic efficacy crisis
-Trump is President
-Terrorism and war are rampant even in the most advanced nations
-Cancer kills children and adults daily
-Starvation and access to clean water a huge deadly problem for millions and millions if not billions of people
-Reality TV
-Global Warming
-Murder and crime rates
-There are gun nuts all over
-North Korea probably has nuclear weapons
-ISIS and other terror organizations are seeking out nuclear weapons
-We still have to struggle to keep things like Creationism out of public schools
-AIDS and other STDs
-Boy Bands
-At least a third of all dogs die without a forever home
-Literally every body of water is polluted in the world
-The rain forests (the lungs of the planet) get deforested more each year
-There are huge islands of plastic waste in the oceans and they grow every year

Should I go on? Are you seriously -- like seriously -- going to tell me that having anxiety and depression in a world like this is an inappropriate reaction and I should just take some pill whose efficacy probably is not even evidence-based?

Wake up and smell the burnt toast! Or don't, because it will only depress you and make you anxious.

[iris lilies]

What? North Korea definately has nukes. Please update your list of horrors.

[iris lilies]

And yet, UL, what allows some people like me to ignore the shit out there? I believe it is brain chemistry.

Just this week I had a disappointment and spent a helf day ruminating about it, but was able to fully feel the disappointment, sit with it, and then move on, putting it behind me. I thought about self -soothing and how that is a life skill.

Some people cannot self- soothe or cant do it well. Probably that has something to do with brain chemistry, not necessarily nature, but chemical reactions developed in early childhood. Instability in early childhood causes all kinds of problems.

[ToomuchStuff]

I disagree. Here is why:

We live in a world where/that is:
-Overpopulated by like 8 times
-On the verge of an antibiotic efficacy crisis
-Trump is President
-Terrorism and war are rampant even in the most advanced nations
-Cancer kills children and adults daily
-Starvation and access to clean water a huge deadly problem for millions and millions if not billions of people
-Reality TV
-Global Warming
-Murder and crime rates
-There are gun nuts all over
-North Korea probably has nuclear weapons
-ISIS and other terror organizations are seeking out nuclear weapons
-We still have to struggle to keep things like Creationism out of public schools
-AIDS and other STDs
-Boy Bands
-At least a third of all dogs die without a forever home
-Literally every body of water is polluted in the world
-The rain forests (the lungs of the planet) get deforested more each year
-There are huge islands of plastic waste in the oceans and they grow every year

Should I go on? Are you seriously -- like seriously -- going to tell me that having anxiety and depression in a world like this is an inappropriate reaction and I should just take some pill whose efficacy probably is not even evidence-based?

Wake up and smell the burnt toast! Or don't, because it will only depress you and make you anxious.

Yes.
Unless your going to take over the world, get a vasectomy and then start eliminating population through Eugenics and death camps, it is only your reaction to this you control.
If you go back over what you listed, so much there is both man (part of nature) and nature reacting to man, and the population and taking care of the problem.
Of course we should't worry about your worrying, as developing anxiety (ulcers and other medical issues brought on by stress), and depression (and the want of self termination) is just a slow way of the world taking care of the overpopulation one person at a time.

[JaneV2.0]

Life has always been scary, less so now for most of us.
Work to fix what you can and don't dwell on the rest of it.

[Ultralight]

Life has always been scary...

I know. When I was a kid and said: "Mom, I wish I had never been born!" I really meant it.