hummingwolf

Current Mood: sore

GAH!

A few days ago, I was feeling frustrated by the impossibility of communication with certain people in my life, and felt the need to vent a bit. So I wrote this post, with, by my count, six basically positive comments, two negative, and one neutral. Of the two negative comments, one was in reference to food left out by a housemate to rot--not sure which housemate, which frustrated me because I would have loved to have spoken with them directly. To the best of my knowledge, none of the housemates has a LiveJournal. Which leaves one and only one negative comment anyone on LJ could possibly even think was in reference to them.

Look--if you are my friend, if you know that I have a high opinion of you, why would you read

"You think nobody notices what your real obsession is? Dream on, honey. People become what they focus on, and what you're focusing on isn't pretty. You haven't yet become the thing you hate, but you are closer to it now than you were a year ago."

and think it applied to you? I can understand having a paranoid attitude, and having as your first reaction to a negative the thought that it was a negative reference to you. I can understand that a first reaction is something over which you have little to no control. I get that. But afterwards, when you have time to think, anything you believe after that is your choice. Why would you choose to believe negative things about yourself?

The post was never meant as "One of those posts about people on my friends list--let's see if they can guess who I mean, ha ha!" It's not about you at all. It was a journal post. This is my only journal, and I had a really desperate need to say a few things I could not, for one reason or another, actually say to the people I wanted to talk to. Even the positive things aren't always things you can say directly to people, or at least they're not things I could say directly to the people I wanted most to speak to that morning. I felt if I couldn't say them to someone, somewhere, I would explode.

It wasn't about you. It was only a page in somebody's diary.

All this reminds me that

pronoia really needs to get more active.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

All this reminds me that pronoia really needs to get more active.

Amen.

Well, to be fair, i did think it was a rather dangerous post at the time. There wasn't any warning on it! Like, "this is not about LJ people," or something. Or maybe a title like, "Things I wish I could say to some people IRL right now, that I can't." Hell, even i was a bit paranoid reading that post! Deep breaths, magnifelyn; she's not writing about you...

And hell, yeah, i believe a LOT of negative things about myself. Lots and LOTS. It's not pleasant, but it's true.

Oops, that was me.

Hell, even i was a bit paranoid reading that post! Deep breaths, magnifelyn; she's not writing about you...

I'm so happy that you took those deep breaths and recognized the bad stuff wasn't about you.

::hugs for magnificent

magnifelyn::

Wow, as much I believe the previous post wasn't meant to be cruel, this one feels cruel to me.
Those of us who have self esteem issues that cause us to read negative unclairifed vauge publicly made comments into ourselves should not be chastized either for feeling that way or for expressing it.

To me, a lot of them seemed tinged with negativity.
For example, this one:
Quit trying to "Think Positive" and just take an honest look at the world around you. You are so intent on finding the supposed bright side to each dark cloud in your life that you don't notice all the genuinely, unequivocally good things there are. You would be much happier if you didn't waste so much good energy trying to be happy.
felt like something that someone who was maybe frustrated with my always trying to look on the bright side of things despite struggling with it a lot might say.

And I'm not saying I assumed or even reasonably thought you were talking about me. But the fear that you might be was enough for me to feel a twinge of anxiety and to agree with the other person who commented about it.

And how do I know if you have a high opinion of me or not? We're not terribly close, and maybe your opinion of me has changed since we first friended eachother and your claim that these are comments you want to make to people and feel you can't means you don't want to tell me directly for some reason.
Again - I don't actually feel that's the case. But how am I, or anyone else on your list, supposed to know that upfront if you don't say otherwise?

A lot of people do make "those kinds of posts" and whether you intended it or not, yours felt that way to some of us. And the people who do make them do often make a lot of the comments within them about the people who are reading, and it can be really hurtful.

Why would you choose to believe negative things about yourself?
I don't. I just have them. And I fight them so hard every day with everything in me. But sometimes they win out anyway.
And to have someone get angry for the times when maybe I slip and admit so? That really hurts.

Please, do express what you need to express in your own journal. But also please keep in mind that LJ is more than a journal - it's a place for communication and dialouge and there are folks out here reading and sometimes taking things personally. A simple caveat of "this isn't intended for anyone who can axtually read this" would have sufficed. Or ... writing it privatley to yourself in a private entry or on paper.
Or go ahead and post it publicly without clarification - but don't get upset when the people who can read your words sometimes take them the wrong way and express that to you.

I'm all for pronia. Especially because I am so naturally paranoiac.

Just a suggestion... but perhaps the way to apply pronoia to this (since it is the belief that the Universe is conspiring to shower you with blessings), is to look at the negative things the way I do - rather than assuming they are about you, assume they are not but see them as a Gift in the form of a chance to stop and look at yourself and see if there is any area you need to work on. This makes it non-personal, but still a tool for personal growth.

It's a conscious choice to make something into a positive experience.

And I do understand natural reactions. I have a few glitches in the wiring (actual neurological ones) that cause some anxiety issues. They've been there my whole life. I'm rather agoraphobic, technically, and out of that comes a whole slew of social anxieties. I've just learned to work around them. My little neurons still fire off with their silly false alarms, but I don't pay them any attention and it goes away faster. There are many people I have known well for years who didn't actually know about that problem until I mentioned it. Some probably still don't know.

Okay, I want to clarify that I never assumed anything was about me. I felt twinges of anxiety at the moment of reading them, saw that someone else also expressed a similar sentiment, and agree with that person. And upon reading this post, felt that I was being put down in some way for having felt and expressed such sentiment.
I was not incapacitated by anxiety or feelings of dislike or anything like that.

I'm actually a very positive person, but also someone who has a lot of negative stuff in the background that I'm comabting. And I do work hard on my issues as I become aware of them.

I wouldn't assume that someone was incapacitated by something like this just on the weight of what I've read here. I do think that when something gets to the point where you have to request that someone else modify their behavior in their online journal, though, things are at a level that is disruptive.

While there is nothing wrong with admitting "Hey, this is how it made me feel", it does seem a little more drastic to actually suggest people put up warnings or otherwise go out of their way to cater to the insecurities of others.

I suggested a way to maybe make it easier on your end, because I didn't think it really fair to expect someone else to do that. Requesting people not do things that bother you in your own journal, okay... but it isn't fair to ask them to worry about everyone else's feelings, when those feelings are not healthy ones to start with, in their own journal.

I've just seen this get way out of hand. It starts with disclaimers, then moves on to "trigger warnings". It might get worse than that, but I never stick around long enough to find out. I refuse to put up trigger warnings, myself, and the closest I ever come to a disclaimer is when I wrote up the Bitch Manifesto and posted it. If I tried worrying about everything that might set anyone off, I'd have to put up warnings for everything from BDSM to fluffy bunnies in easter hats, before it was all finished.

In the interest of being constructive and helpful, perhaps it might have been a healthier and happier approach to read this post and ask yourself if there was *more* you could do to combat the insecurities, and if the defensiveness you felt over this might not be another manifestation of those insecurities.
Because I just can't think that having to ask someone to post things with disclaimers is a healthy way to face the world, nor do I think it fair to ask them to just *accept* that they have to catch flak for what they post in their own journal. It isn't their Issue, they shouldn't have to deal with it at all.

Again, I don't think it's totally unacceptable to ask for a very tiny clarification in a post in order to save a lot of other people anxieities or harsh feelings. And I didn't demand it or even say something like "if you don't do this, I'll stop reading your posts" or any other silly thing. All I did was offer a few suggestions on how to defuse possible future situations, and then add that if she wants to keep posting in that mannter - more people will be upset again in the future.

I also don't think there is anything wrong with using, for example, a trigger warning in situations where someone is talking graphically about something violent or otherwise tramatic. If I'm discussing something about an abusive situation in my past, I recognize that it might further traumatize some of my friends with similar backgrounds. So putting it behind a cut so that they can chose for themselves whether or not to read that post is just giving them some respect as people with needs like anyone else.

but it isn't fair to ask them to worry about everyone else's feelings, when those feelings are not healthy ones to start with, in their own journal.
I guess we disagree about this, then. I do think it's a responibility of mine to worry about other people's feeling and to say and do things that won't hurt people if it's possible to avoid doing so.

In the interest of being constructive and helpful, perhaps it might have been a healthier and happier approach to read this post and ask yourself if there was *more* you could do to combat the insecurities, and if the defensiveness you felt over this might not be another manifestation of those insecurities.
That would be very wise if I had become inoridnatley upset about the post. I wasn't. It was a fairly normal healthy common thing, imo, to stop and say "oh crap, some of those might apply to me and these typs of indirect vauge posts really bother me and I'm going to tell her so." I fail to see what's so insecure and defensive about that.

Because I just can't think that having to ask someone to post things with disclaimers is a healthy way to face the world, nor do I think it fair to ask them to just *accept* that they have to catch flak for what they post in their own journal. It isn't their Issue, they shouldn't have to deal with it at all.
Yep, we really disagee on this one.
I don't think there is anything unhealthy about saying "it bothers me when people post open-ended comments like that without clarifying who they're talking about, could you clarify next time?"
It's a pretty simple request and could save a lot of people a lot of unneccasry anxiety and confusion and hurt.

And LJ is more than just a journal, it's a community of people reading and commenting on eachother's entires. Anything you write publicly in this place lands you in the position of people saying "hey, I don't agree with that" or "hey, that hurt my feelings." And those people have every right to say those things. Both in LJ, and off the internet.

It isn't their Issue, they shouldn't have to deal with it at all.
If I say something that upsets someone, you bet it's now become OUR issue. Especially if that person is a friend or they have a valid point or I realized that yea, I shouldn't have said that.

Since we seem to be arguing from totally different viewpoints of how people ought to treat one another, then maybe this dicussion should just be over now and we can agree to disagree. But I'd welcome more discussion if you want to keep going.

As for the issue of LJ being more than just a journal - I see it much like I do with going into someone's house. Reading their journal is like visiting their home - it is a choice. If you don't like what they say there, you can choose to leave or not come back, but it is really not the place of a guest to say "you can't state your beliefs in your own space because of my presence."

And regardless of the community aspect, it *is* a journal. It is a privately held virtual space, loaned or leased to one individual for their personal use. So long as they do not break rules in public spaces, in spaces held by others, or break widely held laws, they are granted that space to do with as they please by individual contract.

I currently have 138 people listed as a "friend". I have had up to about 160 at different times. I personally have certain things I would prefer not to see or read. For instance, I have an anti-foot thing because... well... they're feet. I don't happen to be the only one in the world, or in my corner of LJ, who feels this way. People on my friends list sometimes post pictures of feet. Some have icons showing them. Often it's a girly thing, and the photo is posted with stuff about their pedicure experience. Not everyone cuts photos, some just optimize them. Photos of feet can literally make me lose my appetite.
I would still not presume to expect that anyone on my friends list should have to cut their posts of this sort just because it bothers me and a few others who might be reading. It isn't *their* issue. It's mine, and that of the other people who strongly dislike looking at such images. I would not presume that 138 people all worry about *any* Issue of mine, just because I happen to be reading their journal. (Ok... 137. One of them is actually my other journal, and I *know* I am not going to cut myself any slack.)

While I can see cutting strongly emotional posts - like rape/abuse/etc - my problem is when it gets into areas of more intangible emotional insecurity. Hel, I cut and put up context headers for posts just dealing with general "not everyone might be interested in this" type stuff, because not everyone wants to read about my health issues or whatever. But *disclaimers* are different. That requires someone looking over everything they write and asking themselves "If I were insecure/paranoid/whatever-unhealthy-issue-might-be-out-there, would I be offended by this?" and then writing up a notice that hopefully covers all of the bases and coddles everyone who needs coddling.

I do believe that people should treat one another with consideration. Consideration, however, needs to have limits, or it becomes just another face of social paranoia. If a line isn't drawn, you end up with people too paralyzed by the worry that they are going to upset someone to be able to express themselves with any honesty. I believe that little trends lead to bigger patterns, and what starts off as having to cater to the insecurities of others in your own journal leads to Political Correctness Games that rather resemble playing Twister with five people calling the colours at once and the stipulation that you aren't allowed to touch any of the other players.

I agree that reading someone's journal is like entering their home. And I certainly wouldn't demand someone say or not say something or say something differently - in their homes or elsewhere. And I don't feel I did that here. It was a request, a suggestion - and that is something that I feel is okay to do. A simple "it seems that not only I but many other people took offense to that, maybe if you said it another way next time it would be better for everyone." I fail to see anything wrong with that.
I know that it's hummingwolf's choice whether or not take my suggestion, and I won't stop reading her journal or being friendly with her if she doesn't take it. It was just me sharing my opinion. And I feel like it's been taken way out of porportion.

And just so you know - if I had a friend who I knew reacted really strongly to pictures of feet - I'd probably try and remember to put any such pictures of mine under a cut with a warning. Not because I feel responsible for their feelings and reactions - but because it's a very simple nice thing I can do for people I care about.
I'm not talking about coddling people's insecurities - I'm talking about simple human respect for other people's feelings.

Is it completely unreasonable to tell someone "Hey, this sort of thing kind of bothers me."? No. That is well within your rights and is a perfectly normal part of human interaction.
But it is also fine for someone to say "Sorry, I disagree that it was a bad thing, and I chose to continue as I have within my own space." It is not reasonable, in my opinion, to tell someone they have to accept continued complaints once they have made a statement of that sort. I believe that by posting this, our hostess has indicated she believes this Issue to be the responsibility of the person suffering from insecurity, and not her own. She can *choose* to take on the situation and deal with the person who is upset... but telling her "but don't get upset when the people who can read your words sometimes take them the wrong way and express that to you" if she opts not to bow to the pressure to coddle the neuroses of others is not reasonable. I don't see how telling someone they are not allowed to get upset in their own journal if they choose not to make life easier for people who have Unhealthy Issues is anything resembling fair or reasonable.

If she didn't *care* she wouldn't have posted this entry, expressing that she believed people could make a choice to see things better and getting frustrated and concerned that people she thought well enough of to have on her friends-list (and thus use some of her valuable resources/energy keeping up with) would choose to see things so negatively. She did it in a much nicer fashion that I would have - I am not nice, I am fair.

I think there is a dangerous trend of Entitlement on Lj; one that leads people to believe they have a right to start pushing their unhealthy issues on other people. I think that it *is* important to take a stand on small issues like this one, because it grows.

I don't believe that the most caring thing you can do for a friend is coddle their insecurities and Issues; it is telling them "Hey, you have a choice to change this, and I believe you capable of making it." This is not cruel - that is the kind of friend I want at my back when the chips are down.
Anything else is just a sugar-coated form of enabling.

I completely agree that it's well within someone's rights to say "I know this bothers you, but I'm not going to change it." It is then the first person's choice to either accept that and make peace with it, or stop interacting with that person. (Or, as I prefer, the two people can sit down and sort things out and make sense of it together until they both feel good about it.)
I really don't think I was being demanding in my first comment, but if it seemed that way, then again, I do apologize to hummingwolf.

When I said "but don't get upset when the people who can read your words sometimes take them the wrong way and express that to you" it was due to a misunderstanding in the tone of the original post. I felt she was angry that people were upset and had expressed that to her. That's what was bothering me.

Those of us who have self esteem issues that cause us to read negative unclairifed vauge publicly made comments into ourselves should not be chastized either for feeling that way or for expressing it.

Actually, no. Those of us who have issues should learn to take responsibility for their own issues and learn to communicate in a healthy way, rather that sounding passive agressive or lashing out at any perceived offense without warrant. That is the adult thing to do, rather than automatically assuming what appears on any person's LJ is "all about you".

You should also not read into things what is not there, and if you fear you are doing that, learn to communicate with said person and ASK if your fears have any founding. And, if you know you have a self esteem issues, again, look at the patterns in YOUR behaviour that lead to you reading into these kinds of texts and then deal with them in a way where you can properly self examine and questions your own reactions.

The world is not fair. It is not kind. It also is not required to cater itself to any one person's personal peeves, issues, and social disabilities. When low self esteem becomes that much a social issue that you are that sensitive, it is your issue and not the world's to deal with.

This will sound cruel to you, but it is not mean to be cruel. You will say, "Oh but you do not know me"--that is true--and "you do not understand"--well, you're wrong, because your issue is certainly not unique. Heh, in fact, most of human experience, while perhaps unique to the individual experiencing it for the first time, is not in and of itself singular and unique. There are people that go through great cruelities in life, great catastrophy and damage--and they still need to learn to function in society.

If a little thing--and it IS a little thing--like the internet can cause you that much trauma, it is something you should find a healthy way of dealing with, even if that means leaving behind the triggers that set you off. You will be a happier person for it.

I totally don't know you, but I swear if you poke through my journal you'll find pretty much what you've said here in a rant, somewhere. Only with more swearing and stuff.

I think this is just beautiful:
The world is not fair. It is not kind. It also is not required to cater itself to any one person's personal peeves, issues, and social disabilities. When low self esteem becomes that much a social issue that you are that sensitive, it is your issue and not the world's to deal with.

Yay.

Thank you. Advice hard won, with experience.

See,I used to read into things as being all about me, and I used to think that my way of dealing with everything was unique to me (maybe) and must be respected (no, not if it's harmful). I used to believe that my emotions were a tide that I must feel and experience and be buffeted by like an unruly sea.

It turns out that the best advice I ever received was from an ex-friend (for other abuses--she had her own issues). It was, simply, that you are responsible for how you feel. Period. I thought this was a lie, but I was only lying to myself. In truth, that attitude is merely an excuse that shelters you from self reflection and change. Because suddenly, if it is your issue, then it is up for you to find out why you are living with these fears/problems. You must become proactive rather than reactive.

And it is a frightening process, but it is a growth and strengthening process, and in that crucible you really learn to recognize just what is yours and what is truly external--and then how much of the external you can just shrug off.

People do this when they are ready, but I figured I'd pass on the advice.

My own lessons were hard won through experience, as well.

I have actually always had the idea that we are all responsible for how we feel, and that we have a choice... I just had trouble applying the theory to myself in certain areas, because I fell into what I believe to be one of the most dangerous traps there is...

Thinking I was different.

I had neurological issues. I was going through things other people wouldn't understand. I had bad experiences. Blah blah blah.

One day it occured to me that I was making myself into more of a Victim than anything else had ever done. Here I was rolling with some pretty big f'n traumas in life with no problem, and then caving to stuff in my own head because I thought I was somehow broken in some special way that meant I had less of a choice then anyone else.

I realized that all I was doing was dodging responsiblity, and this was something I *hated* in other situations. Sure, responsibility can seem scary, but I have actually found that since I said "What I feel and what happens in my life is up to me and no one else," I have felt more empowered than ever before. It's an incredibly liberating thing.

and in that crucible you really learn to recognize just what is yours and what is truly external--and then how much of the external you can just shrug off.

That sums it up nicely.

Actually, no. Those of us who have issues should learn to take responsibility for their own issues and learn to communicate in a healthy way, rather that sounding passive agressive or lashing out at any perceived offense without warrant.

If my stating how I felt honestly and sincerely was taken as passive aggressive or lashing out unhealthily, then I apologize to hummingwolf. It was not my intent. I'm simply attempting to share my thoughts and feelings about it.
I'm willing to take responsibility for the fact that when I see a post with unclarified comments about people, I often wonder if some of them, especially the negative-sounding ones, might be about me.
I further wish that people who make such posts take responsibility for doing something that clearly makes quite a few people uncomfortable or anxious - or at least not getting angry with them for expressing that anxiety in a direct and honest manner. I don't think that's unreasonable.

You should also not read into things what is not there, and if you fear you are doing that, learn to communicate with said person and ASK if your fears have any founding.
I suppose my commenting and saying that posts like that scare the hell out of me was a way of asking if any of it was about me. I also suppose I could have been more direct. I also suppose I was exaggerating my fear for the sake of humor to make it light, because I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, which obviously didn't work as planned.

The world is not fair. It is not kind. It also is not required to cater itself to any one person's personal peeves, issues, and social disabilities.
I never assumed it was. Again, I'm simply sharing with someone how something made me feel and asking them to maybe be more sensitive to that. And again, I don't think that's totally unreasonable.

And the fact that my issue is not unique was part of my point. If I were the only person to take posts similar to the one in question the way I did, I would just suck it up and move on. I saw another comment saying something similar, and I happen to know a great deal of people who feel the same way I do about them.

If a little thing--and it IS a little thing--like the internet can cause you that much trauma
It did not and is not causing me any trauma other than at first a bit of anxiety and now a bit of anger and confusion. I'm not curled up in my bed crying about it or anything.
And I also don't think the internet is a little thing. It's a huge thing. It's a major form of communication, information sharing, education, storage, forming and maintaining of friendships and other relationships, and a way to share thoughts and feelings with everyone from your best friend to complete strangers.
This individual situation has not caused me trauma, but I have felt great joy and great pain via the internet and I don't think there is anything wrong with it.

And I do believe that my communicating my feelings with the person who the feelings relate to is a healthy way of dealing with them.

Wow, as much I believe the previous post wasn't meant to be cruel, this one feels cruel to me.

Could you tell me why? I have re-read it and can see nothing at all cruel in it.

Those of us who have self esteem issues that cause us to read negative unclairifed vauge publicly made comments into ourselves should not be chastized either for feeling that way or for expressing it.

And I never chastized anyone for it. What I did was express frustration about the fact that people I care about are choosing to hurt themselves.

To me, a lot of them seemed tinged with negativity.
For example, this one:
Quit trying to "Think Positive" and just take an honest look at the world around you. You are so intent on finding the supposed bright side to each dark cloud in your life that you don't notice all the genuinely, unequivocally good things there are. You would be much happier if you didn't waste so much good energy trying to be happy.
felt like something that someone who was maybe frustrated with my always trying to look on the bright side of things despite struggling with it a lot might say.

I can understand that it feels like something that someone who might be frustrated with you would say, but where do you see negativity in it? Sure, the "Quit" is abrupt; this was a journal post, not a direct conversation with the person involved. I was expressing my feeling at the time, frustration with a friend who was making their own life more miserable than it has to be. But I don't see anything negative about it. Maybe you could explain so maybe I can understand where you're coming from when you interpret things this way?

Why would you choose to believe negative things about yourself?
I don't. I just have them.

No no no, I wasn't talking about the first, initial reaction. Like I said earlier, "I can understand that a first reaction is something over which you have little to no control. I get that. But afterwards, when you have time to think, anything you believe after that is your choice."

I get that the first reaction is not something you have conscious control over, but something that feels instinctive. But after that, when you can look at your reaction, look at the stimulus, and see whether your reaction is really related to what you're reacting to: Why would you then choose to hurt yourself by believing only the bad things and not the good ones? Because after the first response, when you have time to think, it is a choice. I understand that the choices you make then may be coming from old, bad habits, and that those habits can be really hard to break. But habits can eventually be broken when someone recognizes that they can choose to break them.

And I fight them so hard every day with everything in me. But sometimes they win out anyway.

Have you ever heard this story? (There's more about the story on Google answers, which I find pretty interesting.)

And to have someone get angry for the times when maybe I slip and admit so? That really hurts.

Who got angry? I was frustrated that people I care about choose to hurt themselves. The more I care about someone, the more I want them to stop making decisions to hurt themselves. I want them to feed the other wolf for a change.

Yay! My favorite wolf story. I so love it everytime that pops up around me.

Looking back at it now, I wouldn't use the word cruel, so I apologize for that. My feeling on reading that post was that you were upset at the few of us who were upset about the previous post. I didn't catch the "becase I don't want you hurting yourself" bit. To me it felt like it was all just about the fact that we'd shared with you how we felt and were angry that we'd done so.

And also like it was somehow wrong of us to have felt anxiety or paroania or fear or whatever about the post. And it was angering to me that it was suddenly on us to just make a choice not to let it bother us anymore, instead of being allowed to communicate our feelings to you.
Because that's really been my whole point in all of this - it started out as something funny but also true about my getting anxious about such things - and then got blown way out of proportion. And it seemed like you were having trouble understanding my point, which has basically been "hey! I feel this way and so do other people, so please just accept that and possibly be more sensitive to it in the future?"

And I never chastized anyone for it. What I did was express frustration about the fact that people I care about are choosing to hurt themselves.
Okay, here my resentment towards people telling me that my feelings are a choice pops up, I guess.
I know that over long periods of time I can slwoly change the ways in which I think and feel about the world. But by reading something in a post like that, and feeling a sudden twinge of anxiety or even fear about it - I think is a fairly common experience - and it's still just something that I do. It doesn't ruin my day or make me curl up in bed with cookies or anything like that. It just gives me willies and makes me wonder if my friend or acquaintance had this negative (or even positive, or neurtal, or negatively -twinged-positive or whatever) thought that they somehow didn't feel they could tell me about, which then gets me wondering why they felt they couldn't tell me about it, and ... yea.

[comment wouldn't all fit, so tbc]

I can understand that it feels like something that someone who might be frustrated with you would say, but where do you see negativity in it? Sure, the "Quit" is abrupt; this was a journal post, not a direct conversation with the person involved. I was expressing my feeling at the time, frustration with a friend who was making their own life more miserable than it has to be. But I don't see anything negative about it. Maybe you could explain so maybe I can understand where you're coming from when you interpret things this way?

The possible negativity in it, I suppose, is in the "quit doing this thing that you do because it's not working for you and do this other thing instead because it will make you happier." which to me implies - H thinks this person is doing something wrong, wasting their energy, not seeing their world clearly, etc. Which feels very negative to me.

And again - I want to make sure you know I'm not saying that you shouldn't say these things, vent them, etc. My only point is that such posts filled with comments like this that aren't clarified in some way and posted publicly is almost always going to make a few people nervous and uncomfortable, and that's something to watch out for.

Why would you then choose to hurt yourself by believing only the bad things and not the good ones? Because after the first response, when you have time to think, it is a choice.
Okay, I want to say again that I never assumed anything about any of the comments being directed to me. My statement was "posts like these scare the hell out of me" and that's often even if there are positive ones in there, too. Because the whole "guess which things are or aren't about you" thing just messes with my head, and I don't know why people can't just tell me directly.
I'm also still hung up on this whole choice thing. I can decide how to manage my feelings, how to experess them to people, how to cope with them and explore them and learn from them. But I can't just out-and-out change them. I'm not understanding that, I guess. I don't chose my feelings. My feelings come to me. I have choices once they've arrived, but by deciding what to do with those feelings and acting on them - those feelings are still mine.
I mean, if I had really thought one of the things in one of the posts that people had made like that were about me. I'd be hurt in the moment, and hurt while discussing it with them, and hurt until we resolved it.
Now, with this situation, I felt anxious about - and moved on. Because it wasn't the kind of thing that impacted me very greatly. Unil I later started feeling as though I was being put down for having had the feeling and expressing it.

I appreciate the idea of feeding the other wolf in me, and of pronia, and of positive thinking, and of making decisions about my feelings and seeing the positive in my life. That's all a huge part of who I am.

I just don't get how telling someone that their post made me uncomfortable goes against that in any way.

I do, however apologize for much of the content of my first comment to this post. Because after you explained your view point more, I understand that you weren't just blasting anyone who had the audacity to tell you that your comments hurt them or made them anxious or whatever. That part was my misunderstanding.

I do hope we work this out. I certianly didn't enjoy feeling upset with you and would prefer not to be upset with, either. Er... sorry if that made no sense. I'm already on my sleep meds, but really wanted to respond right away, anyway.

Okay, I am going to step in here, and because you don't know me I am going to tell you that you *can* just tell me to shut my yap and go away. I promise you, I won't be offended. (CB can, as well, but I think she already knows that I am big on House Rules when 'guesting' in someone else's journal.)

This part is what I wanted to address:
"I'm also still hung up on this whole choice thing. I can decide how to manage my feelings, how to experess them to people, how to cope with them and explore them and learn from them. But I can't just out-and-out change them. I'm not understanding that, I guess. I don't chose my feelings. My feelings come to me. I have choices once they've arrived, but by deciding what to do with those feelings and acting on them - those feelings are still mine."

If you look further up in comments, you'll see in an exchange between

lyssabard and I that we have both been in that whole "My feelings just happen" phase. I understand how it could be easy to believe that is the only way it can be, and that emotions are something you can't control. I really do. Personally, I blamed it on the fact that I am a Quadruple Pisces for a long while. (I also wrote a lot of bad poetry about it, but we'll overlook that part.)

Emotions, however, are based on Perception. The more important you *perceive* something to be, the stronger your emotions relating to it will be.

Sometimes, emotional reactions happen out of habit. The way to break the negative emotional habits is much like that story that CB linked (which is one of my favorites, and oft-referenced in my journal). As each little emotional reaction surfaces, right as you become aware of it, decide if it is the wolf you want to feed.
And something a friend once quoted to me, that says *so* much: "Where attention goes, so energy flows."

The way to *Choose* your emotions?
Let things go. Decide what is *really* important.
Honestly? Outside your chosen inner circle, social interaction deserves a lot less energy than people feed it. Invest your soul where it *matters*, your heart where it *counts*, and your attention where it is *needed*.
The rest will, surprisingly, usually take care of itself.

I often wish there was a formula I could hand people, to make them see how this is possible... but there isn't. All I can say is that one day I got tired of being subject to the whim of emotions that were doing nothing for me (except inspiring bad poetry), and I decided I was going to take responsibility. I am sure that at the time leading up to that moment, my thought process was much less concise and much more melodramatic, but suddenly something switched over in my head. I'm not saying that I broke all my habits (or stopped writing bad poetry) all at once... but there was a very marked change there. Simply through *believing* such a change was possible.

(cont'd, because I am long winded like that...)

I'm not going to tell you to shut your yap. I am feeling frustrated that I seem to be misunderstood in what I'm trying to say, but I do appreciate other people's perspectives and good discussion.

Okay, when I say I can't just change my feelings I mean in a sort of presto-snap-my-fingers-it's-gone kind of way. For me, feelings are a process and they change over time and I think about them very hard and work through them. But I feel like people here are telling me I have complete control over my feelings in the moment, and that's simply not true.
If something makes me feel anxious, it makes me feel anxious. And I'll express that anxiety if I want or need to. It doesn't mean I'll continue to feel anxious forever or harp and stew on that anxiety. It's usually a momentary feeling and it passes.

In a lot of ways, you are preaching to the choir, here. I'm all about being positive and looking on the bright side and nurturing what's good about myself and about the world at large.
But that doesn't mean I stop seeing the reality of the darker side of things and working on that, either. All of that still exists and, if ignored, will just grow bigger.
So, yes, sometimes I get sad or angry or frustrated or anxious or scared. And I let myself feel those things, too. Because they're important feelings, as well. And they are often cues for things that need change.

Okay, when I say I can't just change my feelings I mean in a sort of presto-snap-my-fingers-it's-gone kind of way

But nobody said it was easy; we said it was possible. You seemed to be saying that your feelings weren't under your control at all. That's a dangerous belief to have--which I say not out of some feeling of superiority, but because I actually made that mistake.

But I feel like people here are telling me I have complete control over my feelings in the moment, and that's simply not true

Yes, I understand that. But after you feel, you have the choice to think. Like, after the original post, when you realized that your initial feelings that you might be targeted weren't realistic. When you thought about it, you could see how your feelings were your reaction to the post, and not something coming from the post itself. That's how you get power over your emotions, you see? You make a habit of checking your perceptions, and when you start to see differently, you start to feel differently. It's not easy--believe me, I know how hard it can be to stop and think! I'm still working on breaking the emotional habits of a lifetime, and I don't always do all that well some days. But learning that I am the only person in the whole wide world who is responsible for my emotions is the thing that kept me alive when I'd desperately wanted to die.

You seemed to be saying that your feelings weren't under your control at all.

I absolutley do not believe that.
A feeling hits, and it is what it is in that moment. And sometimes it's a feeling to be nurtured and allowed to exist and pass. And sometimes it's a feeling to work on and work through and work harder not to keep feeling.
But in the moment that it's felt - it just is. That's my point.
I actually feel like I have a pretty good handle on my feelings and emotional responses. I'm human just like everyone else, of course, but a lot of what you keep telling me is stuff I already know and do.

And after letting myself sit with it for a few days, I feel like maybe this is needed as extra explanation:
Why I reacted so strongly to your post was because, intended or not, it seemed very much like the kind of post that is actually quite a bit meme around LJ. That meme is to purposefully post a bunch of comments directed at people on your friend's list (or just people in your life in general which can include people on your friend's list) - some of which are negative, some of which are positive-seeming but are basically saying something along the lines of "I love you, but you suck in the following ways..." and some of which are actually positive.
And then the people on this person's friend's list are supposed to guess which comments, if any, are about them. These posts are passive-aggressive, cowardly, and cruel in my opinion. And they have hurt a lot of people's feelings and ended a lot of friendships and are just generally very uncool.

I now know that your post wasn't meant to be that. But without some kind of clarifier - it very much seemed like it.
And so I did read it in a manner of "uh-oh, am I in there?" because usually when I see a post like that, I'm meant to think that way about it.

I hope that makes sense.

It wasn't me chosing to believe something negative about myself. It was me wondering if someone else was thinking something negative about me. That's a HUGE difference.
So I had what was an initial response to something that felt very much like these other experiences.
And I've said over and over again, now, the feeling of anxiety I personally felt reading the post actually was very brief. But I wanted to express it to you in order to share how a post like that can affect people.
Because I believe that's the only way we can really understand how our actions affect one another - communication.

But I feel like people here are telling me I have complete control over my feelings in the moment, and that's simply not true.

What I am saying is that as long as you don't believe you have control over your emotions, you won't.

It is a Choice.

pt. 2

I also realized why so few people make that change. Most cannot believe that Belief matters. Most refuse to believe anything can be so simple, or refuse to believe something so simple can have any value. And very few really want to face the idea that they can be (are) Responsible for what happens to them on that many levels. In a weird way it is "easier" to just see yourself as being at the whim of these Emotions that happen. Some people insist on going back to that, even when they know better.

I don't think you are the kind of person who wants to hide behind that kind of thing. I've seen in your comments here a desire to understand and to work your way through your bad habits. I just wanted to share this, because I *do* know it works. It ties into the heart of pronoia, and Authentic Living.
There is so much out there that wants to tell us it is okay to keep struggling, because the struggle is necessary or all there is. Sometimes, it is as hard and as simple as Believing that there is something else besides a long, slow, messy fight to get to the surface...

The way I put it to people I know, who have heard me go on about enough of the related background stuff to understand, is "You can't always change your life, you can only change your Mind. The rest will follow."

It *is* a Choice. Deciding that you can dictate where your attention/energy/priorities go, and thus decide which Emotions to feed, is one of the most liberating choices you can make... ever. It goes beyond just deciding how/when to express the emotions that happen to you when you aren't consciously deciding these things. The little voices that pop up and tell you "you can't do that" are lying. You can. Belief is the key.

"after you explained your view point more, I understand that you weren't just blasting anyone who had the audacity to tell you that your comments hurt them or made them anxious or whatever. That part was my misunderstanding."

I just wanted to note that my other comments to you were written in reference to the first post you made. If any of that is no longer valid, please take that into consideration when reading my responses. My concern was addressing the patterns of ideas there, as they were, because I believe ideas are contagious, and sometimes that is a dangerous thing.

Well said and good advice. *grin* I'll second the reference to our conversation that we--and so many others--have "been there", in feeling victim to our emotions.

Another good thing to question in addition to habit, is simply, why do I do this? More pointedly, What do I GET out of reacting in X manner that supports me continuing said behaviour? That's the kicker; we don't continue to do harmful things because they make us 100% miserable. We do them because we get something out of it. In my case, constantly having a crisis of low self esteem got my friends to respond with praise, good words to try to disarm my negativity, etc., but being in a place that I was unable to SEE the meaning of their words, I fell into simply needing to hear them to combat my own pain.

Not. Good.

And that was a frightening realization. Not that needing support was a bad thing, but only taking it as a salve to my own broken ego and then doing nothing to address what in me perpetuates that feeling was wrong.

So, ask yourself sometime, why do I take this this way? Why do I feel the need to speak to my defense of X? What do I get out of X behaviour that I want/need? (And then, how can I get this in a better way?)

Yay self checks.

And yes, I think a lot of this has sprung from your misunderstanding of my misunderstanding of the original post. Hopefully we can move past that part now?

Don't forget, don't ever forget: some people on your friends list have personality disorders that include delusions of reference, as well as plain ol' paranoia.

Not that this should stop you venting. Nothing ever should. Almost nothing, anyway. The point I'm trying to make is if the sentiment is "this is not anybody on my Flist", you ought to consider whether you're better off stating that explicitly. I, for one, don't read people all that well.

This is intended as chit-chat, not criticism, and certainly not an attack.

Oh, I knew about the ways people read things about themselves into things that weren't written with them in mind (I'm the person who's posted horoscopes by MegaHAL after all!). But I was surprised once again by the directions some of the responses came from.

Also, it does bother me that only one person admitted to thinking that the good things are about them. (Though somebody else actually asked to have two of the notes apply to her, even though she knew they weren't originally written with her in mind. I happily agreed that if they fit, she should wear 'em. :-))

Boy Howdy C, you stirred the pot! I love the one comment you re-posted. It's like one of those ambiguous horoscopes that we all are so certain is about us. Well, not me of course. Heh. Oh, and the person who it WAS about will never thinks it's about them either. Oh wait. Was it about me????

Wow. You just reminded me--I haven't posted any HAL-o-scopes since these last year! I'd better do something about that. It's a shame to neglect poor MegaHAL for so long.

(People do become what they focus on. I should focus on the beauty of blooming cherry trees this week. :-))

People do become what they focus on

Hah! That explains it!

I've been focused on the Mess in my room for weeks!

I'm still waaay too focused on bureaucracy. This would explain why my room is full of useless papers. (I think I need a shovel.)

Yup, that was why I chose the one about enjoying bouncy mood swings to be about me. The post was a lot like picking from a bunch of horoscopes, and Hummy told me none were about me but I could have one if I want, so I chose my favorite.

And of course, just like with horoscopes, once you've determined which one is yours, the rest of them Simply Don't Fit, so paranoia wasn't a problem.

:)

It's very cool that I just read this post because it inadvertently answers a question that I just posted in my lj. My question was about the "why" of keeping an lj. Your inadvertent answer is:

"This is my only journal, and I had a really desperate need to say a few things I could not, for one reason or another, actually say to the people I wanted to talk to. Even the positive things aren't always things you can say directly to people, or at least they're not things I could say directly to the people I wanted most to speak to that morning. I felt if I couldn't say them to someone, somewhere, I would explode."

Did that make any sense? I'm sleep-deprived, again.

That was me, by the way. I didn't realize that I wasn't logged in. Sorry :)

By the way, I'm glad I answered your question, even if inadvertently. :-)

Hmm, wanted to reply to a reply of yours but it was screened, so will just pop it down here. If that's not cool, I'll understand if you screen or delete it.

Whoah, no. I don't believe anyone is responsible for anyone else's emotions. We are all responsible for our own.
What I'm saying is that we do all affect one another's emotions, and being sensitive to that is a good thing.

So, I'm not saying I (or anyone else) felt anxious by your post, and therefore that's your fault and you have to make us feel better. Not at all.
It was more like "hey, that post seemed to make a lot of people feel anxious, so maybe if you do something similar in the future you could do this one small thing to ease that discomfort?" Which was a request or a suggestion - not a demand. And you have every right to discard that, and I know it, and that's fine.

I really feel like a lot of this has been blown out of proportion, which is definately partially on me for the way I misunderstood your post above.

The initial comment in the initial post was really meant as a humrous statement expressing a brief twinge of anxiety and nothing more.
It was just after I felt as though you were angry with me for expressing my feeling that I got upset and said more.

Gah, I hope this all makes sense.

What I'm saying is that we do all affect one another's emotions, and being sensitive to that is a good thing.

We do affect each other's emotions by being a part of each other's environments, but the effects aren't always predictable. If I wrote a post today about the death of my mother from lung cancer, someone who is totally pissed off because people keep telling them not to smoke when they want to would react differently from someone who's dealing with their own loved one's recent death. They would see the same post, but read different things into it based on their own recent experiences.

Yes, if I write something here which I know is likely to upset a group of people in a predictable way, I do tend to give a little warning. If I'm linking to something that's heavily biased politically, I will say so so that people can be warned to expect things that may piss them off. I also appreciate it when links are marked with information about whether it's image-heavy or a video so I know if it's worth my time as a dial-up user to click the link. I'm not totally against disclaimers in cases where reactions are predictable. But I don't believe that every page in my diary needs to be marked as "This is a page in my diary and is about my life, not yours." I think that is kinda obvious.

this one small thing to ease that discomfort?

Y'know, of the three people who told me that they had an initial feeling of anxiety when they read the first post, you are the third one to tell me that you didn't really think I was attacking you after you thought about it. Every one of you eased your own discomfort. And I do the same thing--when I heard something that someone else said today and felt angry about it in reaction, I stopped and thought about whether my anger made sense, and then I realized that my reaction was related to my own problems and not to what the person meant when they were talking to me. Or going back to your first comment to this post, when you said it was cruel, I could have taken it as an insult--you were suddenly thinking that I was a horrible, horrible person--possibly on the level of George W. Bush! But I thought about it and realized that you probably didn't mean to insult me at all; and even if you did, I didn't have to react to the insult as if it were an excuse to invade Iraq.

I guess my thing here is that I don't see the need to do something for someone which I know they are going to do for themselves.

We do affect each other's emotions by being a part of each other's environments, but the effects aren't always predictable.
And I suppose what I've been trying to get through to you is that now you know that making a post with a bunch of statements towards people without clarifying that they aren't about the people who can read them is something that you can predictably expect to upset a large amount of people. And you know that because some people, myself included, said so.

And again, I don't mean to sound condescending or anything like that in any of my comments. It's just that I wasted a lot of energy over the years on certain mistakes, and I don't want anyone else to go through the things I went through, especially someone who shares some of the same problems with lack of energy that I have.

I wasn't angry with you for expressing your feeling. I wasn't angry with you at all. I was worried.

And yeah, this has been blown out of proportion, but it's led to some interesting discussions!

I have to admit that, yes, I have found some of the comments from you and your friends to be condescending and patronizing.
I understand that you're working through things in a certain way that's been incredibly important and helpful to you. But it's not something that I feel I need to have pushed on me right now. We all come to things in our own time and space, and I understand that you feel you're trying to help me. But it feels more like you're trying to justify doing things that hurt other people by saying that you're not responsible for their feelings.
And I'm not saying that to mean that you were intentionally being mean, or even that you were mean unintentionally.
But what I've gotten from all of these comments is a pressure to not feel my own feelings at all because somehow they must be invalid if they aren't the feelings you expect or want me to have.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with feeling anxiety or fear or sadness or anger. They're all valid feelings that need to be expressed. And sometimes they're founded on misunderstandings, and discussing them with the people who you're having them about can be really helpful.
But being told that I'm responsible for my own feelings and then that discussing my feelings is somehow unhealthy - just did not feel helpful to me.
I know I'm responsible for my own feelings. But I also know that things that other people do and say can trigger certain feelings in me. And sometimes that means that they need to apologize and maybe modify their behavior, and sometimes means I have to apologize and modify my behavior - but I think it usually means that everyone involved needs to own up to their own feelings, accept the feelings of the other people, and think hard about what behaviors they might need to modify.

Okay, previous comment was harsh and I have deleted it. However, you do need to be aware that your recent comments can be seen as insulting as well.

And if you felt insulted by them, then I am sorry.

And I must say, I'm really confused by some of the things you said in the comment you deleted. If you would like to discuss them further, I'm open to doing that. I don't want there to be a lot of hurt feelings between us.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

GAH!

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pt. 2

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