Why Can't Some Of Us Talk On The Forum?

[moonbeam]

I'm pretty sure I am not one of the clique people because I would know if I was in a clique right?

Everything I say has always been with the intention of helping. And I feel a lot of others are doing the same. I can't think of any times when I have read a post and thought the writer was being malicious or attacking someone. We all try to help in our own ways.

If you ask your friends "Does this make me look fat?"

Some will tell you no even if it does. They aren't actually doing you any favours.

Some will tell you yes. Which while helpful can also feel hurtful if you take it as them judging or criticising you.

And some are a bit more tactful and say "I don't think that dress is very flattering, the cut is wrong..." Personally I prefer this out of the 3.

They are all trying to help but doing so in different ways. How we interpret their help be it accepting it for what it is, or feeling victimised or judged by it, that is our choice.

 

[shimmerz]

I can't help but wonder if people seek only to paint themselves as victims in all of this. That is, getting responses you don't like only seeks to solidify that you are the "victim" who is "under attack"

I think it is important to understand what a victim actually is and what 'under attack' is. I know in the gaslighting process many times people throw the victim label onto the target of an attacker to scatter them, making it the victim's fault for just 'being'.

I think it is a slippery slope when we start throwing out the 'you are acting like a victim' phrase. I think there is a true insecurity that is being expressed here....and I feel like that needs to be addressed. It does no good to shut down the conversation by coming to the conclusion that one is playing victim. That is, btw, the ultimate form of being helpless and I for one don't want to use it to shut others down when they are attempting to work something out. It is too easy.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

uhm @shimmerz, I have never seen gaslighting here on the forum. I think that your gaslighting claims are yet another effort to deflect the simple fact that people do indeed want to be victims in all of this. The OP has repeatedly gone into MANY threads and claimed to be told she is throwing a pity party when a moderator (@joeylittle) dissected her past posts and found that she is the one who is painting herself as the victim. When Joey pointed this out, the OP got defensive and told her to not reply to her posts any more. Uhm, that is NOT gaslighting. That is someone running around claiming to be a victim in an effort to garner support and personally maintain victim status. I have seem this behavior in another person recently, too, someone who has posted on this thread and seeks to only solidify her position as a victim in this world.

If the shoe fits, wear it. This is clearly victim behavior as set up by a SERIES of posts in both instances I am thinking of off the top of my head. These are situations that have occurred over time, in one case the victim playing has gone on for well over a year as this person repeatedly paints herself as a victim in post after post after post. This is not a one-off gaslighting situation. (Nobody is that demented as to follow someone around here on the forum and gaslight them day after day, post after post.)

PS You use the term "gaslighting" but I do not think it means what you think it means.... I think you're broadening the term to encapsulate a much wider range of actions than it is actually applicable toward. Gaslighting in this sense? No. It shouldn't be used as a catch-all sort of phrase as even THAT can be seen as another effort to relinquish any sort of self-responsibility! Its too easy to say "its gaslighting" and have that be that, throw all of the responsibility on the other party and continue your "victim" status. Uhm, because even in gaslighting, there is a victim, right? Right.

 

[shimmerz]

Agreed @Solara. I don't believe people follow people around here to gaslight others either. I didn't allude to that either and you know that.

The gaslighting example, although not clear and I should have expanded on it, is only one example where one can throw around the term victim to quiet another. Perhaps the OP and others are attempting to work through their insecurities by throwing out there that this is how they feel? I don't think we can always fit this type of insecurity into the 'you are being a victim box', nor can we always say that only gaslighters use the word victim. I feel that posters here should be challenged to review their thought processes and that ends when we throw 'hot words' at them.

Encouragement to challenge the thought process rather than humiliating to shut people down is a much better way of going about helping someone to gain self confidence. I am here to help encourage.

 

[The Albatross]

I am responsible for the associations I make with words. For example, "pity party". As has been shared here, someone associates the word with someone's abuser or an abusive situation. I though associate the words "pity party" with recovery as that was where I heard and experienced it. The difference being that one person hears the words and the thought cascade goes to abusive situations.... another person like me, hears it and the thought cascade brings forward the various people in AA and in recovery forums who were kind enough to take their time to reply to me, listen to me and care enough to call me out on my perception of something, and what is the significant difference?

It is intention. How I interpret posts or uncomfortable words and phrases on any given day or even to receive words that can illicit a triggering response can be a very big tell for me about how I am "scanning the world". Am I scanning for insults/offensive/defensively? Or am I scanning for well intentioned people who share personal experience and opinions with me honestly or candidly their perspectives and who take the time to respond to me?

An example of this, personally would be a run in I had with a situation at work where I was clumsy and fell up the stairs holding a very expensive manufacturing item (printed circuit board). The stairway was near the company break room and there were about 6 people in there. A co-worker who was also ascending the stairs behind me remarked, "Grace!". When I heard the word and looked behind me, she was laughing. The combination of the word and the laughing at my expense cause me to fall apart almost immediately. I cried out, began sobbing, and scrambled blindly up the stairs and ran to my office where I sobbed, head down for apparently quite a while. I was ashamed, shocked and as I began to recover I realized it wasn't Linda, It wasn't the fall up the stairs, it wasn't the people watching... my abuser called me what my abusive father called me frequently. I had not heard that word in over 20 years.

I made the association of the word "Grace" to my abuse. The co-worker (who did come forward later that day and told me how awful she felt about what happened, and told me that she didn't understand my reaction that she meant no offense) was not at fault, she was just the catalyst. The short term result was a melt down very publically at work, but the long term result was that I realized at about 32 how I reacted to that word... even when spoken by someone with no ill will or derogatory way to me. Her word association was different than mine, in her family she shared that it was a light hearted remark about clumsiness.

I did not shoot the messenger, I continued to work with and around Linda without bias.... I got the message. That I had work to do... so I rolled up my sleeves and normalized the word. I named our boat "His Grace" (as it was my father's word that was so emotionally abusive), I named my next adopted cat Grace, and I adopted a nickname on a recovery forum with "grace" in it too. In time, it normalized and being called that word no longer affects me. If the incident did not happen, my attention may not have been called to the trigger word and I wouldn't have had the opportunity to process it.

Finding out how you are scanning the world or community can be unpleasant... but seldom do I find insult or injury when someone takes their own time and resources to respond. When I am reactive... most often, almost always... the problem is me and how I am scanning the world. It is a shift in perception that can signify a low ebb that day, or the beginning of a down cycle. But I know I need the feedback from others in order to draw an accurate picture of my mental/emotional landscape at times...a sort of "not being able to see the forest for the trees" kind of thing.

All community is a spectrum... perspectives and experiences as broad as all the colors and variations of color in a rainbow. If I am uncomfortable in a response almost always taking the time for some self evaluation and being willing to take a look at my beliefs about a poster or situation or offending phrase or word.... benefits me in the longer term BECAUSE this is a recovery forum, not in spite of it. Just my take.

 

[The Albatross]

I feel that posters here should be challenged to review their thought processes and that ends when we throw 'hot words' at them.

It is not the responsibility of other people to "mind read" me and "know" what a "hot word" is for me. I used a personal example in my post above. It was not, in that example, Linda's responsibility not to say "Grace!".... it was my responsibility to self examine the reaction and my perspective when she did so.

 

[rightkindofme]

Recently I had an issue with a running buddy of mine. She has PTSD too, so we are both uhm, emotionally reactive. That's tactful. :D

I told her that I was having a hard time with some stuff she was saying to me and she exploded that she was a worthless human being who should DIE DIE DIE. I had to take a deep breathe and say, "I can understand that you feel that way right now. Your feelings are your feelings. I do not feel that would be an appropriate reaction to a minor social snafu."

Sometimes it is hard to have perspective on the emotional reaction we are having while it is going on.

 

[The Albatross]

I can't think of any times when I have read a post and thought the writer was being malicious or attacking someone. We all try to help in our own ways.

If you ask your friends "Does this make me look fat?"

Some will tell you no even if it does. They aren't actually doing you any favours.

Some will tell you yes. Which while helpful can also feel hurtful if you take it as them judging or criticising you.

And some are a bit more tactful and say "I don't think that dress is very flattering, the cut is wrong..." Personally I prefer this out of the 3.

They are all trying to help but doing so in different ways. How we interpret their help be it accepting it for what it is, or feeling victimised or judged by it, that is our choice.

I think Moonbeam said it succinctly. The difference, to me is responsibility. I accept my thoughts/feelings/emotions/reactivity as my own responsibility... I do not presume or expect that another poster will be able to do so. It is, to me indicative of my thinking styles, habits and behavior at that time. It is also a cue for me to examine my own wants/needs/desires and perspectives.

Someone else mentioned it, aptly, I thought... about expecting others to provide a want/need/desire when it would be opportune for that person to meet the need themselves or change their perspectives. I whole heartedly agree.

 

[The Albatross]

Sometimes it is hard to have perspective on the emotional reaction we are having while it is going on.

That is why cultivating a habit of "pausing" is important before if possible or after reactivity is necessary for us.

 

[The Albatross]

To answer the topic title question: Why can't some of us talk on the forum? Some of us can. Some of us though too have unrealistic expectations or negative perceptual viewpoints... scanning their world, communities, families, relationships, communications for hurt, offense, criticism, judgment because it is their habit and engrained behavior to do so. So they either can't or they go into the victim mode... it is a maladaptive coping style and a form of defensive living which leads to a life of diminishing returns.

In every day life, in real communities... people are likely to say off the cuff things even without being well meaning and the result for these personality types is sadly often the same. They go from hurt to hurt, offense to offense.

I chose not to because, ultimately what life is to me, is RELATIONSHIPS. I want them, I need them, I care about them and I am willing to forgo the defensive living, endeavor to form new beliefs and cultivate new habits and behaviors to insure I get and maintain them. I make myself personally responsible because I am a social being and am willing to roll up my sleeves and do the work to meet my own personal need.

I have a mother and mother in law who have given me adequate evidence that staying stunted and continuing defensive living behaviors drives people away. They are two very bitter women each in their own way... and that is absolutely what I will not be. I choose personal responsibility, extending the benefit of a doubt, and examining intentions.... It's working for me so far. I've blathered on and got to get on with it.

 

[shimmerz]

"I am so sorry you were attacked! [coddle, coddle]" response.... Actually, you're doing the poster no favors. You're feeding into the whole victim mentality by throwing sympathy toward someone who only seeks to further their victim status.

I feel like there is a ton of wiggle room between what is expressed in the above statement and this.....

The difference, to me is responsibility.

Sometimes it takes a bit to get to the responsibility piece and sometimes that bit is about encouragement. Just because one can't do something or see something the way we do, doesn't necessarily mean that they have slid down the pit of 'victimized'. There are a ton of stops between responsibility and victimized.

I believe @joeylittle was challenging the OP to look at perhaps a pattern of self talk that is damaging and I think that is a good thing. Yes, the OP reacted...it is a large thing to process. Does that make her a 'victim'? That is up to her to figure out not us to assign the label to her.

I wonder as to the value of throwing out 'hot words' (yes, I said that again), without measuring what the impact of those words may be. Some phrases are going to be universally hot so I don't buy that the word 'Grace' is on par with throwing out the big 'you are such a victim phrase'. I am not without culpability here. I was less than kind last week.

Anyways, I fear I am starting to get back into my old 'in defense of others' mode, which is not healthy for me, so given that, I am bowing out of this conversation. It is my hope that this posting will have helped some to feel freer to express themselves.

 

[joeylittle]

I feel that posters here should be challenged to review their thought processes and that ends when we throw 'hot words' at them.

I agree. And honestly - it's also what the OP did when she posted that she is repeatedly told to get over it and that she's throwing a pity party. Those are hot words. But the fact is, the person telling her those things is herself.

I'm bothered that someone can start a thread claiming to be constantly attacked, only to discover that it's not true - but people are believing it anyway. That's a pretty succinct definition of gaslighting. It's just that, in this case, the OP re-wrote reality.

Encouragement to challenge the thought process rather than humiliating to shut people down is a much better way of going about helping someone to gain self confidence. I am here to help encourage.

I like to think I strive for this as well. And that's why I bothered to go back and find out who was attacking the OP, perhaps to see if there was a different way to read the situation. And it's why I showed her all the ways in which she is doing this to herself.

Facts are always the best things to use to challenge. I think she could get some relief for her current suffering if she would see that she is attacking herself.