Jesus is a mod here now? Some banning…
Sorry, I didn’t see an appology-all I saw was, “Well, I shouldn’t have said it-but I was still right and I think you’re all a bunch of crybabies.”
That and this isn’t the first time Diogenes has acted like a total prick.
Hey, moron. I never said anything about how anybody was supposed to feel or how much they should be able to grieve. My objection was to the amount of sympathy they should feel entitled to get from others. Understand the difference, dipshit? If you feel really bad because you thought you were pregnant but you weren’t (and that’s all that really happened), it’s not my place to tell you not to feel bad but you shouldn’t expect that everybody ELSE is going to feel exactly as sorry for you as if you actually lost a baby.
Every single post you’ve made in this thread is completely full of shit because you keep hammering a self-righteous point about a thought I never expressed.
eleanor, never mind. I’m at a loss for explaining myself any better than I did. It was truly no big deal in the scheme of things, just a mere suggestion (I thought) for preventing these sorts of problems in the future. At least, for the participants here that had been around the block a time or forty. 
Anyway, you can toss out what I said with the bath water 'cause it wasn’t important. I appreciate the assist from Ruby, who did much better with my muddling than I do. Thank you ma’am.
All that said, I was aiming for something simple. Perhaps if anyone else can decipher what I meant, please throw it out there. If not, I’ll continue being the enigma that I am. 
God, the ads are for abortion clinics and something called, “Oprah has spoken”
too funny–the Oprah bit…this is more like Jerry Springer!
Have you ever seen a pile on you didn’t run to jump on?
I think I completely misconstrued your first post-certainly your next to last one. Sorry.
There is no real appropriate forum for deep grief and loss here. And it is correct that whomever posts stuff like that takes their chances here. We are better than most bb’s I think, in our handling of such stuff, but we are still people. Posts are easily misread and it remains difficult to convey tone and sometimes, intent. Good night, all.
Yeah, that’s part of it, in my opinion. A lot of what Diogenes’ supporters seem to be defending him by arguing that his statements are true, or his opinion, and thus it’s somehow obligatory for him to express them. I’ve never particularly bought into our modern-day cultural ideal of “expressing” oneself at all costs; there are times when it’s appropriate for you to expound upon your theories as to what sorts of tragedies are worse than others, but in this case, it was completely inappropriate. What Diogenes said was asinine and obnoxious; it’s certainly not the job of him or anyone else on this message board to give grieving parents “perspective” (to use Loopydude’s euphemism), and there’s nothing that’s going to change Diogenes’ comment from being hurtful and uncalled-for.
But I think he would have spared himself some of this if he’d showed even the barest hint of class and apologized unreservedly - or if he’d apologized at all. This is his second and last comment in that thread: “I was going to answer but I don’t want to sidetrack this thread anymore. If anyone wants to take me to task they can Pit me. As you were.” And his remarks in this thread have been the same - largely focused on defending himself and he never really apologized. How about just saying, “I’m sorry, what I said wasn’t appropriate. This is obviously not the time or place” and then dropping it? That’s pretty much the conventional thing to do when you realize you’ve said something so moronically inappropriate. Instead Diogenes continued to argue his original point and avoid offering actual apologies. He’s not the first person in history to say something stupid and inappropriate, but he should take a cue from the others and try not to compound it.
And yeah, I see this as pretty typical for Diogenes. Unwilling to acknowledge other people’s points of view or feelings, unwilling to admit he’s wrong, focused on winning some childish contest of measuring intellectual dicks. Perhaps he’s only quite this emotionally childish on the SDMB. Perhaps he’s utterly different in real life. But it doesn’t endear him to me.
And where, precisely, did he apologize? Because, see, I missed that part. I missed it in the original thread, where he could have been certain it would have reached the intended recipient. And in this thread, I seem to recall a bunch of argument and claims that he was “injecting truthfulness and perspective” into a thread where someone was “trolling for sympathy”. That’s like telling your kid to apologize for hitting another kid, and your kid responds, “Hey, that’s what he gets for taking my toy truck!” It’s not an apology.
I don’t think a few people being angry at him for a couple hours is going to tear him apart, and I don’t think it’s any particularly cruel punishment. If you act like an asshole, there’s natural consequences. I think that’s a good thing, since it discourages people from acting like assholes.
No. I’ve over and over again that it was a MISTAKE to express them. Why don’t you try responding to shit that’s actually been said rather making up whatever makes you feel most indignant?
Oh, no problem. I do realize it’s hard sometimes to get the intent of what someone is saying, for the very reasons you listed. We certainly don’t get the benefit of body language, after all, so we’re sort of on our own to hunt and peck and figure it out if it’s unclear (like I apparently have a propensity to be). Anyhow, maybe we’re on the same page after all. Regardless, I apologize as well for rattling. Ya see, in my head I sounded perfectly reasonable. It’s outside of there that I seem to have problems.
Why can’t you all share the ESP, huh?? 
The ads I see are for grief counseling, which wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Bit harsh. I don’t see what he said to deserve the pile-up. He’s been pretty polite.
The personal information bit is true. When I read the thread I was going to post a link to one of the many miscarriage forums. No one truly knows what a person is going through unless they’ve gone through it and the people at those forums have. As a ‘guest’ speaking about another ‘guest’, I’m not sure I would have made that post here. Not saying there was anything wrong with that. But I’ve gotten the impression that the members here, probably rightly so tend to be a bit suspicious about guest members. Maybe that had something to do with Diogenes remark? I’m not taking any sides here, I’m not that dumb, but if it came from a long time member maybe it wouldn’t have gotten the reaction it did.
Even at forums with long time members, I’ve seen some of the worst forum fights over miscarriages for some reason. One time a woman posted about her miscarriage and another member went crazy because she said at least the woman had another child and she shouldn’t complain. That went well. Another time a young girl offered sympathy and brought up her pet rabbit. Another fun time.
If SadDad is still reading, I’d suggest posting at a forum that deals with grief and the situation he and his wife are experiencing. Not that people here haven’t been supportive but you might get some good advice.
Between our first and second child, my wife had a miscarriage. She was just shy of five months pregnant.
It happened in bed, and there was pain and blood and it was sudden. I took the bloody sheets along with what there was of my child to the hospital so the parts could be identified to make sure the miscarriage was complete.
The hospital and staff treated us with the compassion commensurate with losing a child. My wife and I told each other that it wasn’t really yet a child. Four years later that still feels like a rationalization.
I don’t know that it would hurt more to lose an older child who had been with us for a while, though I suspect that it is so. I hope I never know.
It felt like it hurt me more than I could bear. It still hurts. It still hurts my wife.
Diogenes:
What you did was disgusting and insensitive.
You don’t tell somebody enduring a tragedy to “man up” because you imagine there’s a worse tragedy.
There’s always a worse tragedy.
Uh-huh. And that’s why you apologized and dropped the subject, right?
:rolleyes: Poor, put-upon Diogenes. All this for trying to “inject some truth and perspective” into the discussion, eh?
Oh, that makes it all better. “You have a right to feel the way you do. However, I just wanted to stop by to say that I don’t feel much sympathy, and I think you need to man up about this.”
I didn’t realize how quickly people form judgements here and then post them without thinking of the consequences.
wait…
I have to admit that did have something to with it. I was about 50/50 on whether I thought Saddad was even a real person. If it had been an established poster I don’t think I would have felt the same irritation about it.
This, in my opinion, is Diogenes Syndrome. It is the taking of a factual statement or opinion worthy of consideration, and expressing it in such a ridiculous, inappropriate, or supercilious manner that the fact or opinion is devalued as a result.
The thread in question was not the correct venue to make a case for the relative sadness appropriate for a miscarriage as compared to the death of a child.
Diogenes is probably socially low-functioning, but he isn’t stupid. He’d be capable of learning something about the basics of socially acceptable behavior. If he hasn’t, that is his own choice, and he is a creature to be loathed, not pitied.
It’s like you see into the dark places of my soul and express the things I’m thinking but haven’t said.
I’ve had a miscarriage, and I’ve got to tell you I can’t see myself making up a new username and opening an account and posting about it here, not knowing anyone at all. He said he’s a long time lurker as I am and lets face it, this place isn’t hearts and flowers.
I’m just saying that ‘could’ have had something to do with it.
No, that’s why I got the hell out of that thread and asked people to take it over here so I could at least stop the inevitable pile-on from distracting THAT thread anymore.
There you go making up shit I haven’t said again. I haven’t asked for an ounce of pity in this thread and don’t feel the least bit put upon.
Well for doing it in the wrong context anyway.
[sigh]
The “man up” part was in reference to how he said he’d treated his wife.
As to the rest, it’s sort of correct but don’t forget that I was called into the thread because of a dishonest thread title. Don’t try to get my sympathy by saying “my baby died” (and that would definitely get my sympathies. I clicked on the thread with the specific INTENTION of giving them) and then tell me what you really meant was that you had a false pregnancy. That felt like a bait and switch to me, especially since it was a first time poster. Since I felt kind of jerked around I made an irritated but ill-advised post stating that I didn’t consider what he had gone through to be quite as tragic as he had advertised. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have just fucked off out of the thread. Once it was there, though, I knew the pitchforks were going to come out and I thought the most decent thing I could do would be to leave the thread and ask the villagers to scourge me in the Pit instead of derailing the sympathy thread. The turkey-shoot was going to happen regardless and I just wanted to move the target as quickly as a I could. So go ahead. Have at it. Vent your spleen. Tell me how evil I am. I can take it. You’re not going to hurt my feelings. (Actually the cheap shot about my family was kind of mean-spirited and stupid but other than that…) I mostly don’t care what you think but i got kind of tired of the misreprentation that I tried to tell anyone what they were entitled to grieve about.