Reporting the mods

That's a good thing to do for your own self care. I would ask that if you do this that you don't make a fresh thread to discuss the same stuff later. Maybe ask for this one to be moved? There's just. a lot of threads. and keeping it in one place makes it a more useful resource for you later.

 

I did, yes. A few pages ago I think. I'm getting tired so it's hard to keep track.

 

Yeah, I just checked. You did. Speaking of self-care, get you some rest, Kathy. I assume you could really use it.

 

I tried to do that from the beginning as much as I could, I'm sorry that I tried to talk about something that was giving me nightmares from bottling it up instead of just bottling it up so it wouldn't hurt people.

This is going to get wiggled because I used phrasing that implies I'm not people.

 

No, that's not why that would have been wiggled, if it had been.

If that had been wiggled, it would have been wiggled for passive-aggressiveness.

You could have talked about nightmares and stuff in your personal thread, that would have been appropriate. This looks like you are blaming us for your nightmares. It's unclear who specifically this comment is meant to be targeting.

 

Actually, it reads as "I'm sorry that you didn't believe I was doing the thing based on all my other actions and words", and that is why people call "bad faith".

 

Honestly yeah, I'm getting pretty drained and my thought processes are starting to get non-linear and I've had to make more edits to my posts as a result. Gonna duck out of here, would request no quotes or pings in this thread for about 12 hours or so from the time of people reading this post. Don't worry im not worried if Quotes From The Past (But Not Very) happen c:

 

I'll do my best to make sure I don't ping you or anything for that amount of time definitely, Kathy.

 

Thanks! Take care of yourself too, yeah? It is okay to disengage at any time.

 

Well that took a while, whew, but i am now done with my homework.

First of all I would like to apologize for how I phrased things there. I was trying to be snippy and overshot the mark somewhat. Sorry.
What I meant to emphasize with that post wasn't that you should stop socializing until you have the money for a teacher! I can absolutely follow your reading though, because I definitely dropped the ball on phrasing there.

I meant to emphasize that we don't like owe you all these explanations, and that people will get fed up and go away if you are demanding about things while not acknowledging people's effort and attempts to help. And I know you know how to do this, you occassionally post things that are really good on the front of being polite and acknowledging people's feelings and thanking them for their help!

And I also wanted to bring up the whole idea that there are absolutely people out there with like qualifications and experience helping other people with communication, who do this kind of stuff as a dayjob and that it might be a better idea to try and find someone like that rather than rely on the good will and patience of relative strangers while you proverbially sit in their front yard. It's like I wouldn't necessarily try to chat someone up in the supermarket to teach me french, if I wanted to learn french I'd try to find ressources or hire a teacher who does that for a living. Similarly there are actually specialists who work with people who have trouble communicating. And it genuinely is an option to reach out and try to get help with that, in the appropriate venue, which a casual hangout forum isn't necessarily.

So yeah, again, sorry for being a douche about that, and I hope my meaning is clearer this time around?

 

Athol, I think you have the same issue I do. When things get fighty you feel like you have to keep defending yourself, no matter what, and the more you defend yourself, and the angrier you get and the less and less sense you make because you are desperately trying to find the combination of words that makes everybody understand you, and you feel like you cannot disengage or take time off because then everyone will know you are a loser and wrong about everything. But you have to disengage, sometimes.

Try to figure out the things you say that get people upset, and don’t use them here- don’t view it is a question of morality or “rightness”, but convinience. Statements like x produce undesirable outcome y. If someone gets mad at you disengage as soon as you start feeling overwhelmed, perhaps coming back later to make a note about what they seem to be upset about, or what they want you to work on. Here’s a (noncomprehensive) list of things people have said you should work on, in case you want to refer back to it- people can correct me if I’m wrong.

1. Getting sober, with medical help

2. Comprehending what other people are trying to say. You tend to latch on to one aspect of a post, or what you think one aspect means, and focus on it to the inclusion of all others

3. Listening

4. Understanding the difference between people saying “this thig you said hurts me” and “this thing you said makes you a terrible person.” You tend to take any kind of disagreement as an attack, and I know what that feels like, but going on the defensive just makes things worse

5. Listening to criticism. Again, you tend to take any negative feedback on your words and actions as saying you are irredeemable. Most people are simply saying that you have picked up toxic ideas about communication and toxic beliefs about the world from your environment

6. Apologizing in good faith. Here is a post about the difference between self deprecation and apologies, and why people do not respond well to statements like “Obviously I’m a terrible human being.”


If I may make a suggestion, have you looked in community colleges in your area? Many community colleges will let you go for cheap (~$10 dollars a semester in my area) if you fill out the right forms, which you can get help with from the Financial Aid department. You don't have to try for amazing grades or even for a degree (they'll want you to say you are but you can always ghost), but you could take classes about women's studies and issues w race and inequality, which would be able to give you a thorough and academic understanding. It would also help you connect with other people and find resources that can help you with other issues you are having. It would also give you something to do to feel productive. Just a suggestion!

 

I have been put through the emotional wringer nonstop for several weeks. I'm not interested in this thread blowing up again, but it was just constant trying to drag me down and calling me self-flagellating when I tried to express how much I was hurting.

 

I recognize your pain but refute that conclusion. As has been previously explained, there is a difference between expressing your pain and leveraging your pain as a manipulative tactic to get results or control the conversation. I believe you understand that threatening to record yourself self-harming while yelling at Spock counts as the latter.

You are allowed to express your pain, you're allowed to say that you are hurting. I understand that you, independent of this discussion, have issues with feeling subhuman.

Examples, both positive and negative I just quickly made up for you:

Positive

"This hurts me, and it makes me feel like I don't deserve help and compassion." = fine. Expression of your feelings, not self-flagellation.

"I feel subhuman right now, and I'm uncomfortable and in pain for [reasons]" = on the edge but fine imo so long as you are not putting the onus on thread participants to fix your feelings.

Negative (bundled)

"I'm inhuman garbage and clearly I'm never going to achieve anything in life and should just lay down and die"

"Fine, I'll just give up then and never talk to anyone because I'm too broken to bother and embrace my shitty beliefs as they are."

= self-flagellation, not fine. creates a social tension for conversational participants, wherein if we do not respond to reassure you that you are not inhuman and can achieve things and don't need to lay down and die, or that you should do something different, there is a potential breach of social contract. This can create anxiety and requires emotional labour to either engage with or dismiss. It is manipulating the conversation, whether you mean it too or not, so that attention gets drawn away from the problem and placed onto soothing your emotional state even if you are actively in the process of hurting people.

 

Okay, let's try this then. Keeping track of pronouns is too difficult for me, could people accept that and not yell at me so much?

I get frustrated when things get wiggled for things and they tell me something that I'm not doing.

I just cannot handle the barrage in Spock's TCHGB thread, can someone pick out one thing that she thinks I am lying about? Please don't reply if you(anyone) are going to be nasty about it.

 

I recognize that you have trouble keeping track of pronouns. Do you think you can try defaulting to they/them if you are unsure?

And yes, I can do that. Here's, as far as I can follow, the first thing:

In this initial interaction, you were misrepresenting what was happening in a venue we couldn't see. Spock corrected you.

 

I kinda hate they/them too. But I'll try to put up with it for lack of anything better.

Ah, so it was a tone and connotation thing. I'm really fail at connotation, but maybe there's a list or a website that can make up for it.

 

I do want to hit on this for you, because theres a few problems with why you're reading the explanations as accusing you of things you didn't do/intend.

As some of the mods have pointed out, sometimes what you mean doesn't always come through in the words you are actually typing and posting. And this can be confusing for you, because you're looking at your words and seeing something completely different than what the mods, and most likely a lot of people on this forum, are seeing.

I won't use anything you've said such as dogwhistles, since I feel that'd complicate this, but for example, say I posted the following:

"Men are terrible and shouldn't exist"

What I really mean is that some men are terrible, and I want said terrible men to stay away from me. This is obvious to me, because those are my feelings, but to an onlooker, who doesn't know my feelings, it looks like I'm saying all men are terrible, and I want said terrible men to die. This isn't what I intended by any stretch, and in fact I'd be offended by the notion that that's what I was saying, but their interpretation, based on the words I spoke, is valid, and that should be respected, and so, in the end, if that post gets wiggled because of what it looks like to others, that's fine, it means I have to work on saying what I actually mean and not leaving any wiggle room, or, if there is wiggle room, then making sure it doesn't hurt others.