In the west we’re trained to believe that if something happens there should be some sort of tangible reward on the other end, no matter how minute. Death takes and leaves nothing tangible and it’s the absence that drives us crazy. Since we’re trained this way we seek out some solution with the other trained aspect, spending money. Which in turn only temporarily numbs the grief until you deal with it.

We also stigmatize mental health care in the west, telling people to “suck it up” or “get over it”. So our money spending usually doesn’t direct us to a more helpful path.

I often wonder how dealing with death compares to the east where ancestors are commonly remembered, contemplated, and revered.

▲

AlexandrB 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> We also stigmatize mental health care in the west, telling people to “suck it up” or “get over it”.

I think this idea is ~10 years out of date. If anything, we now seem pathologize every behavior and personality quirk into a mental health issue. At least on social media, it's also trendy to have a mental health issue to the point that people will claim to have ADHD because they're easily distracted by their phones. I've also lost count of the number of big "content creators" who casually mention their therapist or going to therapy. If there is a stigma, it's not found among the younger generations.

▲

SoftTalker 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think for people over 50, I guess "Gen X" and older, this is still often true. I've never considered therapy or medical help for any way that I was "feeling" and certainly have had times of grief and loss and sadness in my life. In some of those moments, when peers or friends noticed it, the gist of their advice was to “suck it up” or “get over it”.

I am also introverted, procrastinate, am not very organized, and am not very good at housekeeping. My view on how I would change those things would be to just suck it up and do better, if I had to. And when it matters, that's what I do.

I don't mean to say that this is the only correct way to approach life but it is how I look at things.

▲

samarthr1 5 days ago | parent [-]

I tol am unfortunately also introverted, prone to procrastination and seem quite unable to keep my house as spotless as I would like

Do you have any advice for overcoming my problem with atleast procrastination (i suspect that it is probably causing the other two issues).

	▲	SoftTalker 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Suck it up and just do it.

▲

righthand 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I do not agree. While there may be a flux of people who have therapists, the majority do not and that is why you hear about it on Youtube.

I do agree that younger people are trying to take more care of their mental health but I do not see healthy reasons for which they are chasing that improvement. For example the “pursuit of happyness” is indoctrinated and people think they always need to be happy. At the same time I think people are self-diagnosing which I do not include as “health care” as I meant it, but rather self care or even passive-hypochondria.

▲

graemep 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It used to be in the west. The Catholic Church discourages the scattering of ashes for just that reason - so that there is somewhere physical where people can be remembered. There was a tradition of memorial services. People still look after the graves of their loved ones.

I also think its not a simple east-west divide. Different cultures have many different ways of dealing with death. The contemporary west does have a problem, although i doubt it is the only culture for which that is true.

My family follows a mix of Christian tradition (e.g. memorial masses) and Sri Lankan (e.g. donations of food in memory of the dead).

	▲	righthand 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree it’s not a simple divide. I was trying to paint that there are many reasons why we handle death poorly in the west and I honestly only know a raindrop about the east. I can only fathom the handling of death and the reasons why gradients across the globe in every direction.

▲

Rooster61 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I often wonder how dealing with death compares to the east where ancestors are commonly remembered, contemplated, and revered.

In what way is this not western as well? Implying that western culture does not remember, contemplate, and revere those that have gone before us is a bad take.

▲

xyzelement 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I agree with you on the western religious tradition, but I think it's less true for the secular west today.

With ample exceptions of course, a stereotypical "secular" person thinks of their ancestors as racist people that lived in an irrelevant time, and doesn't feel some sort of connection to them, or an obligation to continue them. So I think the poster you're replying to is kinda correct from a today point of view.

▲

SketchySeaBeast 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> a typical "secular" person thinks of their ancestors as racist people that lived in an irrelevant time,

I think you missed the "stereo" in front of your "typical".

▲

xyzelement 5 days ago | parent [-]

I went ahead and added that "stereo" to my comment. I think you're right, but I also think that stereotype is grounded in reality with a lot of empirical observation. So yes, not exclusive but certainly common.

	▲	SketchySeaBeast 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Well, as a secular individual whose friend group is mostly secular people, I haven't see people express such black and white opinions, but I'm guessing we move in different circles. As far as observation is concerned, we tend to see what we want to see, don't we?

▲

watwut 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Your made up straw man secular person is, frankly, ridiculous. Like, we all get it, conservative Christians hate the rest of us and look down on us. Duh.

▲

mc32 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I also think seeking mental health is more popular in the west than the east where it's even less of a thing to seek.

▲

5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

▲

righthand 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

In the way that most people don’t have a routine of that contemplation and remembrance and that individual self, ego, and your future is placed as more important in the day-to-day.

	▲	Rooster61 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's moving the goalposts. Implying that people do not go through that remembrance vs implying that they do not do so on a set routine are not the same thing. Not to mention that such a routine might very well be part of the medical therapy that we are talking about here.

▲

pastage 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I wonder how traditions around death help us to deal with it. I feel completely incapable of handling death.. I do not know how to comport myself.

	▲	embwbam 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		A lot! Maybe it's obvious, but I've long thought that religion's primary function is to help people process death (and other suffering). Now that life isn't constant suffering, many of us have discarded religion, but then we are blindsided by death. I was very religious for 30 years, and have a very religious family. I've been athiest for more than a decade now, and it's sad to me that to leave religion behind I had to give up all my family traditions to process death. Those traditions are still there, but I can't relate to them since they are based on a belief I no longer agree with