@Ganymede said:
@VulgarKitten said:
Thank you for your brilliant observation and critique about how to fix my mental issues, and for your dismissive, superior attitude.
The converse: if you don't believe that my advice will help fix your issues, then please avoid telling me as I'm conditioned to suggest solutions when people bring problems.
Not accusing you of foisting your problems on others, but I work in a field where people do this. And then, they don't listen to me or others when we're really trying to help them.
I imagine you don't use a dismissive, superior attitude when you do it, in the form of 'oh just do X, as it will solve all your problems?' If you do, then the peeve still stands. People who use the 'oh hey, have you tried X?' or 'what do you think about trying X?' approach don't raise the same hackles. (p.s. X doesn't work. Bad stuff. Probably what caused my anxiety in the first place... damn younger, wilder years)
@Ganymede said:
@VulgarKitten said:
Thank you for your brilliant observation and critique about how to fix my mental issues, and for your dismissive, superior attitude.
The converse: if you don't believe that my advice will help fix your issues, then please avoid telling me as I'm conditioned to suggest solutions when people bring problems.
+1
@VulgarKitten There are a great many people for whom the logical response to being presented with a problem is to attempt to think of a solution. As one of them, I personally think there's something very wrong with anyone who doesn't try to fix problems. Anxiety and panic attacks share a problem with chronic pain and other mundane-seeming conditions that aren't scary like schizophrenia or amnesia, in that they seem mundane. Everybody experiences some form of these things, even if there's no pathology present. To the layperson who doesn't have a chronic condition, "anxiety" is what they feel before having to speak to a group of people, or when they think they left their keys in the restaurant. It's a defect of how we talk about these conditions, and yes, you do need to clarify for people who don't know the state of your mental health when a condition isn't as fleeting as what they're used to. They will try to empathize with you, and that means thinking back to the last time they felt anxious. If they don't have chronic anxiety, they probably got over it by putting on some MJ and rocking out without caring about people staring. They're going to try to be helpful and suggest ways for you to alleviate your suffering, and you need to be clear in communicating that there isn't anything they can do for you. They aren't being dismissive or superior (most of the time). They're trying to be empathic and they're failing because what you're experiencing is something they do not understand.
@Sammi You're assuming that these are people who don't know the state of my mental health condition.
@VulgarKitten I try to assume the best of people. The other option is to assume the worst, and you never hear about happy misanthropes.
@Sammi said:
@VulgarKitten I try to assume the best of people. The other option is to assume the worst, and you never hear about happy misanthropes.
It's because we're quite happy hating you without giving you the satisfaction of knowing why.
Many people with things like anxiety or chronic pain keep it to themselves. Partially because it's embarrassing. Partially because of the helpful advice. And partially because it makes people I care about feel like shit. If I ask nicely for something because I need it to be happy and you don't provide, why am I going to explain that changing a pattern upsets me in an extreme fashion because I have some stupid disorder? If we talk daily and then don't for days, I think I did something wrong. Every time. if that's annoying, it's always going to be annoying, known anxiety or not.
@VulgarKitten doesn't often talk about her anxiety and when she does it's mostly to people who know what's up. I know exactly what she means. It is aggrivating. But I also know what it's like to want to solve problems. I try to state when I'm bitching just to bitch because I get the problem solver side too.
Peeve: Insomnia. God you're a bitch. I haven't slept alright for over a week at least. I'm kinda losing count. I have to be up in 3 hours to drive across town and back to take my kid to her dads because he's too lazy to come get her for his weekend and I have a dentist appointment. At 8 am. My best friend was going to watch her but her house got flooded and has no floors and only half of the walls and my mom is in the hospital. I tend to everyone and there's just so little left for me.
Fun? What is this fun thou speakest of?
@Luna said:
I have to be up in 3 hours to drive across town and back to take my kid to her dads because he's too lazy to come get her for his weekend and I have a dentist appointment. At 8 am.
Around here, if you're the custodial parent, the non-custodial has to get the children. Your only duty is to make sure they are available and ready to go.
Did I ever mention that I fucking hate domestic relations law? Frankly, I'd be happy if every marriage or custody issue ended in a duel to the death. With paper.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@Ganymede said:
@VulgarKitten said:
Thank you for your brilliant observation and critique about how to fix my mental issues, and for your dismissive, superior attitude.
The converse: if you don't believe that my advice will help fix your issues, then please avoid telling me as I'm conditioned to suggest solutions when people bring problems.
The other converse: sometimes people are working on plenty of solutions on their own or are receiving advice elsewhere and are just venting a bit for the emotional relief it provides. I mean, if I were friends with you, I'd literally mark you mentally as "never vent to this friend because they can't not problem-solve." There's also a problem with not being able to listen to someone's venting without trying to solve it.
@Roz said:
There's also a problem with not being able to listen to someone's venting without trying to solve it.
I don't solve other people's problems unless I'm paid to do it. What I do is think of solutions to problems. What I'm being asked to do is to sit there, listen, and not be myself, which is a problem-solver.
The other thing I do when people vent at me is to laugh at them. Laughter is my mechanism of coping with an uncomfortable situation. What I'm uncomfortable with is knowing that, no matter what I say or how plausible or feasible my solutions may or may not be, you are unlikely to take that advice.
When it comes to relationships, my usual response is: "the common denominator of your shitty relationships is you." And then I laugh. And if the other person doesn't laugh, chances are we're not friends and never were.
@Ganymede This whole thing was always a bit contentious. I didn't want a divorce even though I hated him (and at one point threw him out at gunpoint) because I didn't want to share my baby. I just didn't trust him. Luckily I had a good lawyer and he had a step up plan where he had to meet all these visitation requirements on this whole ladder plan. He was in Iraq her first year, we didn't make it to court until she was over 2 and he didn't meet overnight requirements until she was over 3. I'm not required to take her to him ever. I do now and then because I need to do something and he's too lazy to get up or several times his car was unsafe and I sent him home and would take her. His various rotating door of live in girlfriends have caused problems, he never lives on his own, he bounces from girls apartments to his parents house.
In short, it sucks but it could be worse. He thinks we're friends because I'm nice to him for the baby's sake. (I know, she's 6, but she's always my baby)
Fun? What is this fun thou speakest of?
@Luna The law is one thing, and reality is another. I get this. I've been there with the ex and the kidlet. I'm sorry you have to be in this situation. You don't deserve it.
@VulgarKitten said:
The law is one thing, and reality is another. I get this. I've been there with the ex and the kidlet. I'm sorry you have to be in this situation. You don't deserve it.
That's actually why I dislike this area of the law. Because it's divorced from reality, and not in an ironic way.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@Ganymede I feel like there is too much reliance on the court system for what has become a more complex issue, what with the number of children born outside of marriage these days, not to mention their increasing care by third parties. I imagine that these blurred boundaries make it much harder for lawyers to do their job.
@Ganymede said:
@VulgarKitten said:
The law is one thing, and reality is another. I get this. I've been there with the ex and the kidlet. I'm sorry you have to be in this situation. You don't deserve it.
That's actually why I dislike this area of the law. Because it's divorced from reality, and not in an ironic way.
Yeah, I know you're a lawyer, and also my lawyer bestie is like I HATE FAMILY LAW SO SO SO MUCH.
Peeve: Friend gets married. Friend buys house with no support from spouse. Spouse is same seniority in same field with same pay. They divorce. House is underwater. Spouse wants to sell house to be given money.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
People in airports acting like they are amazing world travelers, for one. But, when something is announced that is essentially a delay, they inform their friends out loud that they shouldn't traveled with him, for he "attracts this sort of thing". "All the time." "Like, last year when I traveled...."
STFU.
First, you are no fucking special snowflake, asstard. Many more of us travel for a living, and you sir, and your one airplane ride a year, do not qualify as a fucking traveler. So stop acting all cool to your friends, you clown.
@Misadventure said:
Peeve: Friend gets married. Friend buys house with no support from spouse. Spouse is same seniority in same field with same pay. They divorce. House is underwater. Spouse wants to sell house to be given money.
Marriages are like partnerships. If you invest everything, be prepared for your partner to abscond with at least half on a whim.
Oh /I/know this. The reasons and fairness of Alimony has long been a topic of interest to me.
In this case one person doesn't get that they OWE $30,000 on the house, so their half is -$15,000 if they want to get off the deed.
Being fair on a couple split is hard. It annoys me that in this case one party completely paid for everything, but the other party has claim to half of it all. That's what i get for being in California.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
@Misadventure Texas is the same. Community property. I don't understand why any one person puts everything in when the other doesn't. But I'm jaded as fuck. I'll own my own house thanks. You can have yours. We can live in one and rent out the other if I was to ever dare to get married again.
The reason community property is important is not for the cases like those being brought up, though. Yeah in those situations it's unfair/etc/etc. But if someone has been supported by their spouse since they got married and has only ever been a stay at home mom and then dad cheats on her and runs off with an 18 year old and leaving her with 3 young children, her life is now destroyed. She has nowhere to go. She has nothing to fall back on. I've seen it happen a number of times -- a LOT of the people on public assistance are there because of this precise sort of circumstance. At this point, you can get help to get on your feet and schooling and stuff, but it's really, really awful.
It's really easy to judge people, too.
@Ganymede I feel like there is too much reliance on the court system for what has become a more complex issue, what with the number of children born outside of marriage these days, not to mention their increasing care by third parties. I imagine that these blurred boundaries make it much harder for lawyers to do their job.
