Agreed heartily.
I think I just developed my first man crush.
davenportavenger, I don’t know if you’re appologizing to me or George, but if it’s me, that’s cool.
I am very, very sorry for your friend, Dorkness.
I know what it’s like NOT to be able to hold a retail job-I was in a position much like the OP, and in my case, I wasn’t able to grit my teeth and bear it, because I was probably going to be fired since my work ethic was completely shot and it was definitely affecting the way I did my job. davenportavenger, is your job really worth a nervous breakdown? In my case, it wasn’t. Your mileage may vary, but just the same, I’ve been there.
Oh, and in case anyone asks-I’m NOT sponging off the government. I’M sponging off my parents, thank you very much! 
*
[sub]not really[/sub]
Well, then that makes you the Bizarro Me.
I hope you do eventually get a job and achieve a normal life. I will say that what you said about sending merchandise to the floor almost exactly mirrors something that happened to me at Walmart, when I was putting boxes away and couldn’t get them to stack right and wound up destroying half a case of food because I kept shoving them in the freezer even when they wouldn’t go, and started screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs (amazingly, I didn’t get in trouble for that, I don’t think anyone even saw, it was the late shift). And I cried a lot at work, too, and acted weird. But I still went, and got harassed by managers and other workers. I was raised by parents for whom admitting mental illness–or any failing at all–was a sign of weakness. I was not allowed to fall back, not on them, not on shrinks, not on the government, not on anyone. So maybe you can see what kind of place I’m coming from with my critique. Maybe I do play the martyr a bit, but it’s because I see so many other people giving up so quickly, so many other people asking for and receiving help and pity and consolation, and when you’ve had it ground into your head that such people are pathetic whiners who should be shot on sight it’s easy to see why I get het up over people even admitting their mental illness, let alone using it to achieve some percieved tactical advantage. I don’t believe I will ever break out of this mindset, of thinking people who ask for help are weak, and that mental illness is one of the biggest weaknesses of all. I mean, that’s what brainwashing–I mean child rearing–is. I still think I’m spot on about my entire generation’s lapse into prolonged adolescence, though.
I was thinking that earlier too. 
Oh, so do I…so do I.
I do, and I can understand why it might make you angry or upset based on growing up in that type of enviorment. I truely sorry you had to grow up like that, actually, with such high standards being set for you. I don’t think that’s easy on anyone who would have to be forced to live that way. Everyone needs help sometimes.
And yeah, I do hear of and even see many people who abuse the system and just resort to living that kind of lifestyle, well, for life. And I’ve even been accused of doing that before; this isn’t the first time…nor will it be the last, no doubt. I think it’s just something you have to live and deal with when you’re in the position of having to be on disablity, and yeah, I think there are some actual “lazy fucks” who just are that. Lazy.
Me, I’m always trying for improvement and moving toward more independance. My father was the same way…he always needed the best, always needed me to succeed and not show any signs of not being strong or stable. Until the day he died he refused to believe that any sort of mental illness exisited; hell, he didn’t even ever go to the doctor for physical things, like when he was sick.
So I can certainly understand how that sort of life makes one feel…almost like you want to beat the odds yourself. Maybe, in a way, that makes you set higher standards for others sometimes.
But hey, I’m no Freud. Far from it, in fact…
As for the whole voting thing…I think that’s just something we totally disgree on, but have to learn to agree to disagree.
But you know, reading this thread, but more so the other one,…it’s made me think a bit. I mean, it hasn’t all been for naught and completely wasted on me. I now, for one, can see a lot better where my friend is coming from. And I think that maybe the next time someone askes me to regester to vote, that I will…
…just in case.
Um, you probably don’t realize it, but it seems you’ve just made davenportavenger’s point for her.
Most people consider being held to high standards a good thing. Why would you feel sorry for someone who is?
I think this gets to the root of her frustration with a lot of her contemporaries–25+, living in Mom’s basement, not working, not voting, not caring. From her posts, she has dealt with a lot of the same problems you’ve faced, but she chose a different path, and is better off for it. Why? Likely because of those “high standards” that she obviously holds herself to.
Truth be told, I feel sorry for you, and your low standards.
Oh. Well, if she took it or saw it as a good thing, then I guess I’m not sorry. I just seemed to read into it that it was hard for and on her.
And no, personally, I would not want to live a life where I was being held to high standards all the time, but that’s just me.
I don’t really think either kind of life is right or wrong, I just think it’s doable for whatever someone likes or wants.
I don’t live in my mom’s basement, by the way. I have my own apartment. If you were not making reference to me, though, then I apoligize.
And yes, that is true, I see your and her point then. It just seemed from how I read her post that it was a “bad” thing. I guess that, plus a combo of my personal opinion of not wanting to live with that struck me as so.
It strikes me that this is something you could have probably gauged from the relatively few political threads that are started here and the lukewarm responses they generally attract.
Probably…if I read them. But I don’t. : p
If I see a thread that, from the title, tells me it’s about politics, I don’t usually read it.
Sadly, it’s not just you.
Seriously, Davenport, if you are at the point of mental collapse, you should seek help. If you are not, then your bullying of someone with a mental disability is inexcusable.
Stop expecting people with mental illness to make sense all the time and be consistent. Stop comparing everyone’s situation to your father’s. I am sorry that your father has suffered so much. I know that caregivers also live with the disease daily. You sound like you really need relief.
If you are a professional, you already know that you are not in a position to diagnose a mental state over the internet. If you are like me – not a professional physician – you are not in a position to determine what mental illnesses deserve quotation marks and what do not.
Some people talk about mental illnesses as if they are the latest fad. The reality is that now we are encouraged not to hide them or be ashamed of them. There is some expectation that reasonable minds will be able to grasp what mental illnesses are and what they are not.
I have been disabled by dysthymic depression for sixteen years. I receive a state pension and Social Security because of it. At one time I also received disability insurance until it ran out. A credit card account that was covered by disability insurance was paid out in full. All of these things would not have happened if I were involved in any fraudulent activity.
The Social Security Administration doesn’t just take the word of your physician or psychiatrist. They have their own people to examine you. There are tough guidelines at the state level also.
What may surprise some people is that dysthymic depression is a low grade depression. But it is persistent as hell. I have to take a lot of medications that have their own side effects.
Compared to a lot of depressives – compared to a lot of people --I have a good life. I am not unhappy; I just can’t work or concentrate or remember.
I’m posting just to inform and promote understanding.
Pax
I don’t have too much to say about this thread, other than it seems sort of mean spirited.
However, I’m really uncomfortable with people suggesting that Idle Thought’s Dr. is useless, and that they, having never actually met IT, are somehow better equiped to diagnose and treat his medical problems, because they met someone once with BPD.
FWIW, I know someone with BPD that also cycles on and off her medication because of side effects. I don’t know why her physician does this, but it seems to work for her. Were I in her, or IT’s position, I think I would be more inclined to believe my physician, rahter than a bunch of snots on a message board that had never even met me.
Idle Thoughts, I’ll admit that the notion of someone sitting around wallowing in self pity isn’t very appealing - however, based on my totally limited assessment, you don’t seem to be doing that, so I’m not even sure why it was brought up. Regarding voting - you might want to try it. It’s FUN! (Well, actually it’s sort of boring, and it takes time, and depending it can be real pain in the ass, but you should probably try it anyway, just as a project for the next year. Then, once you have, if you decide it’s not for you, at least you’ll be able to say you gave it a shot.)
I see her as an overworked powerless corporate cog reenacting the cycle of abuse. Not knowing how to fight back or free herself from her plight but furiously kicking at anything she perceives to be a slacker. And a slacker is someone who will not suffer like she did. The classic American Reactionary - exploited, exhausted and intolerant. I’ve been there too. And I point to Wal-mart as having a lot to do with why we’re becoming a nation of abusive pricks.
Andros and Updike - I don’t think this argument is about high standards. This sounds like it’s more about pain to Davenport, and who will and who won’t “suck it up”. I know that **Idle ** initially brought up the phrase “high standards [she was] held to”, but look at what he was (I think gently) replying to:
High standards is about doing excellent work. Not this.
Davenport, I really have been where you are. Not all my life, but at times. When you’ve tortured yourself and taken abuse and been so valiant. It can be enraging to see other people not only shirking their burden, but blithely indifferent to the whole idea of personal responsibility and hard work. I hear you. Sometimes we see everyone as slackers, even when they’re not. But my experience is, rewards don’t go to people who allow themselves to be whipped into the ground. Those people usually get ignored and forgotten. Rewards go to people who find ways to protect themselves, accept help, and live a balanced existence. You need to learn to do this or you will implode with rage at the unfairness of it all.
Except for one thing. George appears not to be American. Saying what is – or isn’t! – wrong with America while speaking of “offence” with a c, “slagging,” and “45p errors,” simply isn’t the done thing over across the briny, old top.
True, we currently embrace a political philosophy that puts a great deal of stock in stigmatizing people who don’t live a life of hard work and traditional values. But try to see it our way. We’re afraid that if we didn’t, we’d wind up like some other formerly glorious nations I could name – any ideas, George? Hmm? – a third-rate power, our glory days behind us, pissing away our birthright on national this and subsidized that for individuals. This country was not built on just any individuals. Only the rugged need apply.
You may think, “Doesn’t poor old Idle have enough on his plate without having to answer to an unfeeling citizenry?” Well, maybe he does have a lot on his plate. But we’ve learned not to care so much about that. Because caring costs money, and money is the one thing that defines us as a nation, a people, a way of life. Do you have it? Good. Do you want it? Good, then show us you are worth it.
The right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” was all well and good for an agrarian nation of white male Protestants who could shoot a gun, but have you noticed how expensive things are these days? Unless there’s something in it for the rest of us, you as an individual have no right to anything.
And don’t try to snow us with talk of mental illnesses or cognitive disabilities that white male agrarian Protestants in 1776 wouldn’t have understood, either. We’ve been fooled before, and we’ve paid dearly. Where it really hurts – at tax time.
So we’ve realized that there really are some people who are worthless and weak. Quite a few of us, actually. We try to help them along with a little fear of God now and then, an occasional glance of contempt, or when we’re at our most generous, an outright challenge to get up and do something they “know they can’t.” Anything else would be a violation of moral values and a waste of money — the only things that separate our cherished Republic from the slime of the earth we soar so triumphantly above.
God Bless America!
The preceding was intended as heavy-handed, obnoxious satire.
My actual position on the issues under discussion is much closer to George’s and uglybeech’s.
There are a lot of people out there who believe that “as I’ve suffered, so must all.” Some days I’d like nothing more than to push one downstairs, backwards.
I haven’t read the linked threads. This said, two things.
First, those of you here who are so angry at the fact that there are people who don’t vote, why? Don’t get me wrong, I personally am really interested in politics, I follow current affairs as much as I can, and I always vote. (On the other hand, I usually vote for candidates who have no chance of winning – that’s almost worse than not voting!) But there are many reasons not to vote, some of them political in nature, like the idea that elective politics is after all just a big joke, and some less, like not caring. But why would it be wrong not to care about politics? I know, we try to make citizens be aware that living in a democracy, they have a responsibility to help choose our policies, but some people just don’t want this responsibility, and I think that they might as well just not vote. Yes, I heard davenportavenger’s argument that not caring about politics, yet being proud of our country seems closer to mindless jingoism than actual pride, but I don’t think it’s valid. There are reasons to be proud of one’s country that don’t depend on who is in power right now. Personally, I’m not very nationalistic, I don’t really buy into the whole pride of one’s country thing, but I do realize that some people do and it’s okay.
Second, I see that davenportavenger and several other people are jumping on Idle Thoughts for seemingly not having much ambition and not wanting to “be held to high standards” all the time. Well, frankly, while I try my best to improve myself, try new things, work hard, and this is where I get my pride in myself, I also wouldn’t want to be held to high standards all the time. There are times when I just want to have mindless fun and not work very hard, and I think that it is entirely within my rights. Maybe you think that fun is sinful, and we have to spend our entire days working hard except a few hours to eat and sleep. That’s your choice. I see that davenportavenger’s parents raised her to be “strong” all the time, not admit that she may have problems or weaknesses, and that because of this, even if her job is making her physically and mentally sick, she sucks it up and goes anyway. I have no doubt she thinks this is the noble thing to do. Well, maybe Idle Thoughts just doesn’t want to live such a life. Maybe he wants his life to be more than constant anxiety attacks until his death, all in the name of “nobility”. So he’s doing something he likes, that might not pay a lot, that might not be perfect but at least gives him some quality of life. Personally, I also hope to find a career that I will like, and I am working towards that goal.
Yes, I know that it’s very tempting to believe that people who work all the time at jobs they hate and who suffer a lot are more “noble” than people who work less and have more fulfilling lives. It’s also something I tend to believe; I have this voice in my head (not literally) telling me how lazy I am for not working as long or as hard as I could (even though I could always work longer or harder :rolleyes: ). But in our world, people decide for themselves what works for them. If it offends you, too bad; if it really offends you, well, I can only suggest that you try to take that liberty from them, but I don’t expect this will work.
There is a significant difference between “being held to high standards” and “admitting mental illness–or any failing at all–was a sign of weakness.” When standards are set unreasonably (or even impossibly) high, many people end up miserable for never being able to live up to them.
Is she?
For further evidence, simply compare her vitriolic, blustering, shoot-from-the-hip, posts in this thread that unfailingly assume the worst, to IT’s calm, polite, and concession-filled responses.
Say what? You acknowledge that he barely has enough money get by and you consider that a win?
The thing that disturbs me the most here, is that people are encouraging this parasite to vote. 90% of people are too ignorant to vote including most of you, why dilute it more than that?
Erek
You obviously don’t get how much some people loathe anything resembling “excuses.” These people don’t believe there’s such a thing as “unreasonably high standards,” because anyone who can’t meet them has only themselves to blame.
I’d have to agree. One person’s apathy is not going to bring down the system. I see it as more HIS loss than a danger to freedom and democracy. He’s not useless, but I truly believe his life would be richer if he could somehow get more involved.
Now…if EVERYONE felt the same way, we’d probably all be eating kidney pie or something. As they say…it’s a free country, and you’re entitled to not exercise your right to self-government.
(I hope this made sense…my vicodin is kicking in…)
I suffer from depression and I am currently unemployed. It is difficult trying to find a job. If I go for a job I like and end up not getting it I only end up more depressed. If I go for a job I don’t like and get it I will only end up more depressed by doing it.
I recently tried to get on an MSc course and was accepted but I couldn’t raise the funding to finance myself on the course. I ended up feeling suicidal. Should I continually put myself through that? Whether I do or not is my decision. If you think I am lazy or not trying that is your problem, you deal with it.
I have heard people talk about “living up to high standards.” I call bullshit on this. Whose standards should I live up to? Yours? I have no wish to live up to your standards whatever they are.
While it may be “noble” to work at a job you hate, not doing it because you hate it is just as “noble.”
Just because someone choses not to put themselves through the stress of a soul-destroying job and you do for someone else’s “high standards” does not make you superior to them. I have my own “high standards” and part of them is to be in a fit and healthy state so that I can enjoy the time I spend with my family. Not stressed and depressed all the time. It may mean that I cannot afford a lot of material things for them, but that is the choice I have made.