What do you do when someone who is truly sick is a self-pitying whiner?

[freekalette]

@Annie-Xmas

You can suggest anything to anybody. She didn’t make it mandatory to keep our jobs and she didn’t ask anyone if they did it. So yes, it was legal.

Ah, understood. I assumed (stupid, I know) from what you wrote that it wasn’t really a choice. Thanks for the clarification.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Fear Itself

I think this is an important point that puts the lie to the oft-given advice that you should “Just be yourself”. “Being yourself” is fine if you are by nature a cheerful, positive person. But if you are a negative, whiney, woe-is-me person, you better put a sock in it, because nobody wants to hear that. You must adopt the mask that people want to see, or risk being ostracized. Better to suffer in silence than burden anyone else with your pain.

I’m not coming from a place of not being allowed to be your real self so much as I am coming from a “you’ll see what you expect to see” place (like what Harmonious Discord was talking about). I believe that negativity and positivity are habits that we can develop, not something intrinsic to us that we can never change. And yeah, people don’t want to hear nothing but endless negativity - we all have our problems. Every single one of us. If yours are too much to deal with that you feel the need to complain about them endlessly, you need to see a therapist who gets paid to listen and help, not just complain to everyone you know.

I stand by my statement about complaining not helping anyone, too. Going to your boss and working on a problem helps; hanging around the water cooler and bitching with your co-workers does not.

[Fear_Itself]

@featherlou

I believe that negativity and positivity are habits that we can develop, not something intrinsic to us that we can never change.

Then you just haven’t met enough people.

And the attitude that the clinically depressed could change if they only tried hard enough is not very helpful either.

[phouka]

My personal rule is that I may curse the darkness all I like IF I am busy lighting a candle while I do it.

I also learned to make sure that I wasn’t whining, but, if anything, turning my venting and/or complaints into the closest thing resembling a stand-up comedy act. If I can make my problems sound at all humorous, people are a lot more willing to listen to me.

I’ve found that I earn enormous brownie points if, after someone gives me advice, I tell them a day or two later the results of trying it or that I was unable to do so, but would keep it in my thoughts.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Fear Itself

Then you just haven’t met enough people.

And the attitude that the clinically depressed could change if they only tried hard enough is not very helpful either.

Actually, positive thinking is very good for clinically depressed people. Positive thoughts stimulate the same areas of the brain as SSRI’s (anti-depressants). If you are having a massive clinical depression episode, yeah, positive thinking isn’t going to be all you need, but positive thinking really does help people feel better. I’m not sure why you’re fighting me so hard on this point; I’m not saying people should just Pollyanna their way through life, with never a care in the world, but trying to make the best of the life you’ve got is not a bad thing, and I won’t say it is.