@ Anf: Initiating change is hard, and the attention one gets when they start rolling around in their own pity brings mild satisfaction without much effort. It's the easy way out.

That's ridiculous nonsense. How can you say they get satisfaction "rolling around on their own pity"? Not only is it offensive, how did you even reach that conclusion?

edited 7th May '12 8:26:37 AM by Anfauglith

Because I and most people I know closely have all been guilty of it at least once in our lives. It's not a conscious decision; it's one of those things where you fool yourself into thinking you have different motivations.

Example:

• Person A: "I'm such a disgusting, fat pig. I hate myself."
• Person B: "No, don't feel that way! You're fine the way you are!"
• Person A: (Thinking) "I guess it's not so bad to stay the way I am."

And some time later the negative feelings re-emerge, because the problem has not actually been solved, and the cycle repeats.

edited 7th May '12 8:31:03 AM by RTaco

Ouch: that may be so. However, when you are in that kind of downward spiral wallow-hole, getting what amounts to a slap around the face? Bit much.

Also, empty support like that example is no support.

It's a bit like grieving: you need to do it, and when you're doing it your way, others around seem to expect you to have gotten over it already. The wallow is often part of the process and putting it on the shelf outwardly can help you deal with the day to day, but it won't stop it biting you at night.

edited 7th May '12 8:33:06 AM by Euodiachloris

That's not someone wallowing in self pity in order to attract attention, that's someone with self-confidence issues looking for reassurance. The problem is that most people are shallow so the dialogues can go like that instead of being meaningful and at least mildly helpful. It isn't about people not wanting to change because they want to attention whore. It isn't that at all.

Other people hate low self-confidence issues so they punish those that say "I am unlikeable" "I can't do X" when there's nothing wrong with discussing those sort of thoughts. The negative feelings re-emerge because of the shallowness of the conversation.

edited 7th May '12 8:54:21 AM by Anfauglith

I'd assumed that was what we were talking about. If it's not, then that was my mistake.

It is rare, though, for someone to say they hate themselves without the intention of drawing sympathy from others. It's dishonest, though understandable.

edited 7th May '12 10:59:25 AM by RTaco

What it comes down to Anf, is not everybody has the time or desire to help you with your problems. Sometimes you just don't want to hear it. "Man up" is often "Unavailable for group therapy, go take care of it and stop talking to me about it."

Like say for me, just found out the head gasket on my car blew, and I don't have the money to get it fixed right now. If you want to have an in-depth conversation about you finding a lack of meaning in what you do for a living, I'm just really not in the mood for it. You'll probably get a noncommital "That's just how it is sometimes dude." from me.

Not everyone wants to help everybody sort out their problems or listen to them. I'm a good sounding board if a friend has an issue, up to a certain point.

As an example, a guy in my squad was all freaking out because his fiancee was deployed. Not because of the danger, but he kept going on about separation anxiety and all this stuff. I empathized for a while, but after 5 straight 12 hour shifts where the only subject he could talk about was his fiancee and how sad he was, I got fucking tired of it. I didn't want to talk about that anymore, I got sick of hearing it, and sick of him unburdening his problems on me all day at work.

"Dude, I understand, but you need to sack up and press on until she comes home. Wallowing in it isn't going to do any good." is some measure of what I eventually told him. I did care, but after a while it just got fucking obnoxious.

Pretty much what Barkey said. I'm a friend, but I'm not a therapist or a psychologist.

If someone wants to rant because they had a particularly bad day, that's fine. But if they're like a certain person I know, who only rants about how all their days are terrible, I'm going to tell them to get therapy, and if they balk at that, then I shrug and tell them to man up.

I don't mind offering advice on things that I feel confidant about knowing, but just because I was doing a Bio/Psych double major doesn't mean that I'm qualified to offer in-depth CBT.

Oh and then you were all reviling the selfish-ness of those that angst.

I'm pretty sure everyone was reviling the selfishness of those who angst and don't want to actually do anything to fix the source of their angst.

Going back to that one person I know, she hates her job, refuses to go to college, hates the way she looks, refuses to buy flatting clothing or get her hair cut or anything like that (because she'd be drop-dead gorgeous if she did a little more than dress in her pyjamas), hates her life, refuses to go to therapy.

I used to be sympathetic. I gave her advice, I counseled her on how to do better at work, I helped with fashion advice, I was a shoulder to cry on and a supportive friend for years. But because she doesn't want to do anything but angst, I've stopped hanging out with her, and yes, I do consider her behavior selfish.

She could be depressed, or I don't know, anything. It sounds like apathy towards life caused by whatever happens to her (thus contradictions like her not worrying about her physical looks and then complaining about it) but I couldn't say because I do not know her at all. Anyways:

Here lies the main problem. People do not WANT to angst because it's not pleasant (despite previous claims of attention being awesome and whatever). Not all is about cold reason, sometimes you just say things or act in a certain way because you just need to and can't avoid it.

Who does not expect sympathy from friends?

Let's not turn this into Troper Tales for Jerk With A Heart Of Jerk.

edited 7th May '12 12:35:28 PM by Anfauglith

Expecting sympathy from friends is like expecting favors from friends; they'll probably help you, but they're not obligated to and you shouldn't blame them if they choose not to. Don't feel a sense of entitlement.

And people don't consciously think "I want to angst", but many do make that decision because it's easier than working towards change.

edited 7th May '12 12:38:53 PM by RTaco

Yes, she is depressed. I'm fairly certain that she suffers from chronic depression, and would benefit quite a bit from a combination of antidepressants and therapy.

However, you're taking the wrong word as emphasis there.

While she may not like angsting, she is also not taking any steps at all to help alleviate her angst. Ergo, she doesn't want to do anything but angst. Or, in other terms, she has a choice between angsting, and seeking legitimate help for her problems, and she consistently chooses angst, despite the support of family and peers.

edited 7th May '12 12:40:08 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

No, I just didn't have goddamn time for it.

Listen Anf, not everybody is charitable enough to want to sit around and listen to people cry all day. I do have empathy to an extent, but there are limits, and those limits are reasonable. Wanna talk about an issue you're going through? Cool, I'll give my two cents and some support to a friend in need. But if it's a problem that can't be changed, then I don't want to hear about it 12 hours a day for a week straight.

My squaddies fiancee being gone is a problem he can't do shit about, and I got tired of going around in circles about it because the only thing I could say was that yeah, it sucks, but to just hang in there. It wasn't a problem he could do anything about.

If you have the time and inclination to be an infinite sympathetic ear to everyone who talks to you, that's great, I'm envious. I don't, I have a limit. Most normal socially adjusted human beings have a limit.

edited 7th May '12 1:14:35 PM by Barkey

The limits are true: I'd love to be more of a shoulder. But, I do try to warn people: I don't have infinite energy, and have to look after my own health. But, I do try to at least steer them away relatively gently.

And, if that doesn't work, I bribe with food. That generally plugs the mouth.

I sense that there is a number of people here that are taking past one another.

I've been on the receiving end of "man up", once (that I can clearly recall). Much as Barkey's real-life example went, after basically whining about something I couldn't do much about for about a week straight, my carpool friend told me to shut up, grow up and move on.

After a few days of absorbing his rather blunt statement, I finally did get over it, found out how to better myself, and actually managed to do something about the situation.

He was right - I was whining, angsting non-stop, and basically feeling sorry for myself, instead of actually doing something useful for a change.

"But that's just a personal anecdote, " I can hear someone say. Well, no crap. We're all human beings here, right? Do we really need peer-reviewed white papers to tell us these things? Do we have to resort to cherry-picking definitions and evidence to support our own conclusions? What better look into the human condition than the word-of-mouth from a fellow human being?

If you're from another planet, I can understant the skepticism, but if you're from another planet, there's an entirely different conversation we should be having right now.

Sorry, but I think you've swung the pendulum too far on the other side now.

For all your question but your last one, yes. It is precisely because we are human that we need to see the world based on evidence as impartial as possible rather than something as fickle as perspective of a single person. Until it has been compared with other anecdotes and other samples, you never know if your experience is an outlier to the norm or not. This kind of attitude is precisely why nonsense with terrible repercussions such as "vaccines cause autism" and homeopathy gets spread around.

You could be lying or you could have misunderstood what happened. I lean towards this latter explanation. I mean look at this atrocity:

Congratulations, you have debunked science!

After seeing this I was going to say that your argument sat on weak foundations, but no, your argument does not compare to a building, it compares to an orangutan playing with Lego bricks.

—

x4 I can understand that, and I'm not one to judge you.

edited 7th May '12 4:55:12 PM by Anfauglith

You appear to be stating that I'm making some effort to debunk science, when I did nothing of the sort, nor would I intend to. Merely, it seems to be that there's a lot of definitions and studies and things being tossed about, from both sides of the argument. Since I have not the resources to dig up and cite these studies, I can only frame the discussion using what precious little I do know - experience.

My personal example is only to highlight a case in which telling someone to "man up" has actually worked. Am I to suppose that since my example is not listed in some medical journal, it is not valid?

^^

The thing is, you're saying that a blunt explanation that things aren't that bad has never and will never help. Ever. Saying that obviously Pvt is lying or remembering his experience differently because it never serves a purpose to be rebuffed for angsting too much is rather insulting to him to be honest. He is not everyone, but it worked for him, which means for some people, manning up really does work.

Similar to Pvt, I've seen it work before. I've had it work on me before. Sometimes some blunt honesty really is the best medicine. Not every problem needs a good pat on the back and tons of positive support to solve, sometimes a good blunt slap of "Dude, quit bitching. It really isn't that bad." is just the right thing for the job. It's not something I've ever realized immediately after the conversation, but it's something I've dwelled on later and found wisdom in.

edited 7th May '12 5:31:18 PM by Barkey

No. It will be taken into account, and compared to the samples in studies, just as other anecdotal evidence. I am not saying that it is invalid, but saying that "my anecdote trumps your science" and "we don't need science to understand the human condition" reeks of anti-science and anti-intellectualism.

edited 7th May '12 5:41:04 PM by IraTheSquire

^

If science says that nobody ever benefited from being told to sack up, but multiple people out there have benefited from sacking up, then the experiment is incorrect.

If anything this is a topic that doesn't really have room for sciences beyond psychology. All you can do is sample and trend, you can't definitively prove much of anything.

I will just drop the thread because I hate that moment when I see "You have a private message" and then I open it, excited about its potential, and I see that the subject says "Thump". And worse, after opening it I see "Wow. That was rude. Thumped." or the good old "Too many of this sort of Thump can bring a suspension".

I believe what I'm saying and I won't change my opinion (I'm explaining why I believe that since several pages ago) but my presence here will only breed arguments. Oh and it's not like I can sway any of you into what I believe is right.

So...see you soon.

P.S.: This topic was amazing, it had all 3 of my Berserk Buttons: Bias against complaining, bias against angst, and the word "entitled"/"entitlement". Heheheh.

I enjoy discussions/arguments, I just don't want a suspension. And I don't really agree that telling someone to "man up" is ever good. Even if there's some anecdotal evidence of it working, you never know if it will help or not, and it has the potential to do a lot of damage, plus I believe it's a quite dickish move (plus the implications of "man up" "tough it out" etc are unfortunate). I'm not even sure of that "evidence".

edited 7th May '12 5:53:55 PM by Anfauglith

Speaking in absolutes is how you got into so much conflict. You think people need to be more nurturing, ok, I get that. That's understandable.

But to say that every complaint is a valid complaint that requires nurturing and support in any environment, regardless of what it is, is simply incorrect.

Yes, but the only way to find out whether your anecdotes fit into with all the other samples within studies is to compare the two, right? For all we know, it could be your anecdotes that are outliers. Or it could be that the studies did not have enough samples to begin with (and thus, wrong). How are you going to know if you don't take both into consideration?

Edit: We can study trends and tendencies through statistics, looking at the mean and probability and all that. Whether or not most people need consoling every time they hit an emotional snag is going to be probabilistic, and you can't just use counterexamples to contradict such claims. It will be like saying "vaccines does cause autism because that's what happened to my friend's friend" or "I debunk the claim that smoking cause cancer because my grandfather smoked and he didn't die of cancer". There is a reason why there're things like T-tests and null-hypothesis and whatnot to test whether an observation is something due to pure chance or something real in medicine and psychology.

Note here: when a medical/psychology study says "X causes Y", it always mean "X increases the probability of Y" happening.

edited 7th May '12 6:07:42 PM by IraTheSquire