In this thread, I asked for advice regarding a friend who’s slowly killing herself over some guy. I got advice, alright. Possibly the WORST advice someone could receive.
What the bloody blue fuck is the matter with you?
You want me to take a girl who’s not rational, has had her psyche and self-image crushed by this guy…and exacerbate it? You want me to make her feel EVEN WORSE about herself by essentially telling her that everything he ever said was right?
I’ll grant that she’s had self-image problems before. I’ll concede that. But to tell me to degrade her to the point of saying that the guy who said that he doesn’t date women who weighs more than he does (even though she doesn’t) did the right thing is beyond ANY reasonable person’s assessment of the situation.
I can only hope that you hadn’t taken your medication this morning. I hope, for their sakes, that you have no friends or family. You strike me as the sort of person that, if your mother were laying in the middle of the street, on fire, you wouldn’t piss on her to put her out.
How can any sane person stand by this statement you made? I’m offering you the chance to either retract your statement, or justify it.
I tried something like what JohnBCKWLD suggested once. I knew a girl who was jokingly saying she was fat. She wasn’t. I started saying, “Oh my God, yes. You are huge and fat.”
She ended up crying.
Women tend to not take statements like that at face value like men do. If she’s as fucked up in the head as she seems to be, that could be the finger pulling on the trigger.
JohnBCKWLD, I can only hope you were kidding. If not, please feel free to go vigourously fuck yourself with a spiked bat.
Geez. I get home from last minute Xmas shopping, check my e-mail and get a message from a doper alerting me to the fact I’m pitted. I don’t usually post here on weekends, but figure I better take a few minute to answer – and hopefully avoid a pile-on.
In my humble opinion, you could’ve asked for a clarification in your original, sensationalized MPSIMS thread; “My friend is killing herself over some guy.” You solicited advice on a public message board, not a private, professional forum on the American Psychological Association’s website. To borrow a line from Hannah Smith:
Advice I’m following. But, you asked, so I’ll reply.
I don’t see anything I said as being, vile, disgusting or for that matter, cruel. Even though I didn’t preview or proofread my post, I prefaced my comments with numerous disclaimers:[ol][li]I’m the only one who thinks this way…[]Seeing that the common sense approaches offered haven’t had much impact…[]As an outsider…[]It doesn’t mean she’s necessarily manipulative…[]possibility…[]provided she’s not clinically suicidal…[/ol]It’s advice, take it or leave it – What’s there to rant about?[/li]
Would parroting other people’s posts:
[ul][li]“Oh, the poor girl”[/li][li]“Her ex is such a pig”[/li][li]“Be there for her”[/li][li]“Get her into counseling”*[/ul][/li]Been more helpful?
Short of chewing up a few bytes of space on some server’s disk drive, I don’t think it would have.
I could have kept my opinion or advice to myself. But you were missing a very important point:
Your friend Rebecca needs to be figuratively slapped (back) into reality. She[ol][li]Loves a guy she had a 3 month, casual, unofficial sexual liaison & thought he could be the one? (Even after he told her he doesn’t even like her & he’s not attracted to her)[]Claims to have eating disorders (bulimia & anorexia) but doesn’t “believe in counseling, therapy, psychiatry, psychology, or anything like that.”[]Has had self-image problems before[/ol]It’s very possible she has a depressive disorder. [/li]
It’s either that or she’s acting like a spoiled child, and is playing the role of drama-mama & attention hound to a tee. In the latter case, exaggerating her concerns, instead of playing up to her manipulative behavior could be the kick-in-the ass she needs. Saying absurd things like:
[ul][li]“Jonathan was great husband-material – he was such a kind and loving soul” or [/li][li]“You know what Rebecca, you’re so fat it’s amazing I even associate with you” or[/li][li]“Let’s run down to the supermarket together, they’re having a big sale on laxatives”[/ul] [/li]Could help snap her out of her self-pity. It has nothing to do with being cruel to be kind – it’s just another way of showing her she’s wrong through irrational exaggeration. You yourself admitted any common-sense advice you’ve thus far offered has gone nowhere. You don’t think my advice would work for Rebecca? Fine. You know her, I don’t. Maybe you should take TVeblen’s:
There’s no way you can ask me or anyone else who posted in your original thread to “justify” their advice. Even if every poster there were a certified mental-health professional, without knowing Rebecca intimately - there is no way anyone could provide justification for their opinion. In hindsight, I won’t be the least bit surprised if the administrators and moderators delete the thread. I’ve seen an “Ask the Tax Accountant” and other advice solicitations get squashed on the grounds of possible liability. What if even the most harmless advice offered to you had dire consequences? Let’s say for arguments sake you insisted she seek professional mental therapy. Is it possible that well-intentioned, thoughtful advice could reinforce the negative opinion she has of herself? It could. What if she got so down she attempted suicide? Would you blame her, yourself, the person who advised you or the administration here?
My assumption was you wanted unfiltered advice from people in MPSIMS. That’s what you got. What works for one person won’t work for the next. You could’ve left this out of the pit – but maybe you wanted pit advice instead:[ul][li]Go to the gym with her – You could probably both stand to lose a few pounds.[]Buy her a vibrator for Christmas - Tell her she’s not allowed to fall in love with it for at least 4 months.[]Slip a hit of mesc into her chocolate Ex-Lax – That’ll get her feeling better.[]If you can get her over her fixation on scrawny guys - Date her yourself.[]Take her out clubbing and get her laid.[/ul][/li]Onto you personal insults:
Please remove your head from your ass: I can assure you, even in my most limber days, my head wouldn’t reach. Perhaps on a few of those lonely, rainy nights, a few inches shy of the designated target wouldn’t be such a bad thing though.
I can only hope that you hadn’t taken your medication this morning: I remembered my Mega-Man vitamins, and only skip the Ogoplex Tuesdays through Thursdays.
** I hope, for their sakes, that you have no friends or family**: Hope as you may, but don’t fret. Children & immediate family aside (cuz that’s none of your business), the relationships I have with friends are healthy. They’re based on wants - notneeds.
If your mother were laying in the middle of the street, on fire, you wouldn’t piss on her to put her out: I guess that depends on how full my bladder was and whether the fire was a accidental. If it was voluntary – like those Buddhist monks in Southeast Asia – I guess I wouldn’t.
You’ve gone and made a few assumptions. I guess I can do the same:
Your thread’s title: My friend is killing herself over some guy was alarmist, at best.
Seeing that you had to start two threads on the same subject is further evidence you could very well be an insecure drama-mama & attention hound yourself. Kind of like: “Hey, look at me, I’m Superdude - The rock! Without me there’d be less” (eyerolling - in my case). If that’s the case, you’ve gone and proven the old adage:
Birds of a feather DO flock together.
As I’ve said here a few times: it was advice. Take it as you wish. No hard feelings. Have a delightful holiday and a happy new year.
I’m gonna have to go with JohnBckWLD with this. Not necessarily with the advice, but with your reaction to it. It’s not like he actually sought out your friend and did what he suggests. If one opens an OP soliciting advice, it seems to me that one should expect and be grateful for the occasional unconventional suggestion, even if you subsequently conclude that the suggestion is a poor one in the specific instance.
Clearly it’s not the case here, but it’s not unreasonable to think that someone reading that post might have decided on a course of action something like, if not exactly like, the one he suggested.
Even though I kind of disagree with John’s advice in this case, I think his opinion is valid, and he did preface it with all sorts of disclaimers. Especially in this sentence:
What more do you want from him? I think this is a perfectly valid course of action, but only if you know somebody well enough to determine whether somebody is just loathing in self-pity or somebody is really clinically suicidal. I wouldn’t go to the extents John suggested but I have been known to say “Fine. You want to be an idiot? You want to be miserable for the rest of your life? Then do it on your own time, because there’s nothing more I can do for you. You bitch and complain about your ex, I listen, I offer support and advice, and yet, the same old shit keeps happening again. Either see a therapist or find someone else to bitch to.”
Then I usually say some positive things to let the person understand I’m not being a total asshole, but I see know way in his/her situation changing if these conversations are repeated ad infinitum.
Perhaps I’ve been lucky. I’ve used this approach twice (it is a bit of a last resort), both to good effect. My closest friends have also been tough with me if I found myself dropping into a cycle of self-pity, and I expect my best friends to tell me when I’m overindulging.
But, of course, your mileage may vary. I completely understand John’s advice, and only think it’s a bit harsher than it should be, but, for certain individuals and situations, is good advice.
One more thing, though. Given the OP in the other thread, I would guess this girl has more serious problems and probably would not embark on a “tough love” approach to the situation. Seeing a therapist is her best bet, if you could only get her to one.
There’s a nugget of good sense buried in the thick silt of John’s contribution there. It’s a nugget that’s oft-underspoken in such “tell me what I want to hear” advice-seekings, and the best statement of it is a quote which I’ll cheerfully steal: you are not required to be the ladder for the vine of your friends’ self-esteem.
Granted, he takes that nugget of good advice and sort of capers naked and gibbering with it down main street, making it rather difficult to get a good look-see at (due to all the hairy waving bits and so forth)–but this is the internet, after all. It’s all about information filtering.