People want their friends to be happy. Just listening to someone’s woes doesn’t make the woer happy. Nor does bullying them into being more cheerful, but that stems from frustration. I’ve had friends that I just KNOW will succeed with therapy. Of course, telling them that does zero good.
But that’s the motivation to strong-arm. If I have a friend, and that friend is engaging in activity that has kept them miserable for 20-30 years, and will continue to be miserable, it’s very hard not to intervene in order to make them happier.
Put another way, it’s hard to respect them for living their life their way, and having appropriate boundaries.
Usually this is motivated by shame. A stupid, idiotic emotion that never leads to happiness.
Obviously, the response is incorrect and neutral or accepting listening is better. But learning not to over-empathize is a skill. A hard skill for a social species.
I’ve learned how to better express empathy in therapy. I may not feel empathy or sympathy for another person’s turmoil, but I have learned how to make it seem like I do. Something as simple as, “Man, that must really SUCK!” can go a long way. At least, it can go a lot further than, “Man, stop feeling sorry for yourself! Do you know how pathetic you sound right now!”
By listening more closely to others, I’ve picked up on a pattern: People often feel guilty talking about personal sadness, disappointment, and certain forms of frustration. Like, a couple of weeks ago my father was sharing with me how frustrated he gets with my mother and her obsessions. It would be one thing if her behavior only involved herself, but she’s always sucking him (and his wallet) in. He kept saying as he spoke, “I know I shouldn’t be saying this” or “I know I’m an incredibly blessed man and I shouldn’t be complaining”. I don’t often feel sorry for my father, but I did this time. Not just because I know how much my mother can drive someone crazy, but because my father was so reluctant to express his unhappiness when he’s perfectly entitled to. He keeps his feelings a secret until he explodes, and then he feels awful for exploding. Which makes him feel worse.
I tried my hand at empathetic listening by validating his feelings. I told him he has every right to feel pissed off and that anyone with half a brain would feel the same way. For once, I didn’t stick up for my mother. I didn’t remind him that I’ve inherited her obsessive nature so as to make him feel guilty for even bringing it up. I also didn’t give him any advice. He isn’t the one with the problem (for a change!) No, for once I sided with him and told him to let it all out and that Jesus and anyone else who is eavesdropping understands that he just needs to vent. I could tell he felt just a tiny bit better. Hopefully he will call me before he explodes again.
Whenever people complain about stuff at work, I try to say “yeah, that sucks” before I say “have you tried X, Y, and Z?” I often offer both, but at least by validating someone’s feelings first, I let them know they aren’t nuts for feeling the way they do. I think often people assume this about themselves, and that’s why they work so hard to keep up a facade.
I wanted to touch on this aspect of it. When you’re dealing with something big, sometimes you don’t want to go to people you know because you don’t want the people you meet to see you as “the grieving person” or “the person who is divorcing” or “the person who has cancer.” You want to remain Jill or Frank or Jose.
It’s natural if you only see someone every once in a while that you’ll focus on something big, but for the person experiencing it, maybe the something big is not what they want to be talking about all the time. Maybe they just want to hang out, or just be. They might want to grab some normalcy.
So, sometimes that means not telling everyone everything, or not dwelling on it, or putting brave face on. It’s not that they are ashamed or anything like that, it’s that they don’t want to be defined by their problems.
Validating someone’s feelings is hard. The universe knows that I’ve seen doctors, lawyers, and other service professionals that can’t do it. And if people in the service industry can’t do it, how much can we expect it from other civilians?
It’s difficult enough that the one time a doctor took a moment to listen what I was going through that I felt like building a statue for the guy in front of his office. The plaque would read “in this office works a doctor who cares,” to inform all who pass by where they can find such rare person.
I don’t think it is common knowledge that validating feelings is the best way to help someone. Validation doesn’t have any immediate results. It looks like you’re just agreeing with the miserable person and nothing is changing. However, if you disagree, or even shame someone, it can lead to short term progress. That’s because shaming someone in real life can lead to them to agreeing with you in the short term to stop the shaming. Long term, it’s unlikely they’ll do anything to change.
Even if you know that validating feelings is helpful, it’s still hard to do. It’s not often apparent what feelings need to be validated. It’s rare that a person venting will tell you what they are actually feeling. Usually you hear “traffic fucking sucks” and not “traffic sucks and I am mad because that makes me feel impotent.”
If I’m talking to someone I can ask questions to try and guess what they are feeling (e.g. “So being stuck in traffic made you feel angry?”) But online this is even more difficult and time consuming, and there is a chance your inquiries might get ignored.
I guess I’ve become a professional liar, because I think I’d probably just make something up on the fly. I’ve never experienced road rage or anything close to it, but I’d probably say something like, “Yeah, I felt like that yesterday when someone cut me off on I-95. I was totally pissed off the whole day over it. I had tears of rage, man. Hey, I’m heading down to the vending machine to get a Coke. Do you want one too? My treat!”
That said, every time I’ve validated someone’s emotions, it was after they had had time to cool off. I’d probably be at a loss for words if I was dealing with raw emotion. I really don’t do well with people who are actively crying or fuming.
I’ve noticed the internet has a tendency to create this ‘hugbox’ mentality. You are connected with a wide enough variety of people that you are going to find somebody that is sympathetic to what you are going through. This is fine in theory, but I noticed that people on the internet tend to whine quite a lot. And since you have no way to verify what they are going through, there is a natural tendency to exaggerate.
Look at how many people here got fooled by that poster that claimed to be some young woman in a wheelchair. The only way to avoid looking like a sucker is to have a natural skepticism toward what someone is complaining about. This means people online might not be the most sympathetic.
I remember a time in my life when I was going to be with a group of people for a while and things weren’t going well for me. There was no one I felt I could confide in and nothing I’d tried could make me feel more comfortable.
It was the first time I told myself to “suck it up.” And I got plenty of practice during that time. It wasn’t such a horrid thing to learn and comes in handy now and then. Every time I’ve ever received that message from someone else it doesn’t sit well even when it’s good advice.
A comment about not knowing what it is the other person wants: We can always ask, “Do you want sympathy or advice?” and avoid some degree of misunderstanding.
At home here I try to preface my rants with an explanation that I don’t need fixing first or DH will twist himself in knots when it’s not appreciated.
I think you misunderstood me, mostly because I was thinking about specific people and specific situations. I don’t think there’s much point in trying to explain myself further.
There is a time and a place for giving advice and there is a time and a place for not giving advice. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s not so obvious. It depends on the person, the situation, etc.
I bottle a lot up. I stuff my problems and emotions like a champ. The face I present to my world is “not a care in the world.” I don’t vent to a lot of people. I don’t want that to be what they think of me. Every time they see me. “How are you doing, dear?” So I just don’t.
Anonymous venting is a much preferred pressure valve for me.
As a matter of fact, somebody says “Don’t give me any damn advice”. To-wit, me. I learned that approximately 100% of all advice, whether from professionals or so-called friends or other amateurs, is BSDL. That’s Bull Shit, Doubletalk and Lies. For a good many years now, I’ve told people that I didn’t want to hear any of their life-altering pearls of wisdom
As for the “I just want you to listen” part, it took me just a little longer to learn that nobody wants to do that (very much, anyway) so I finally learned to just STFU.
ETA: It doesn’t matter what kind of problem it is either: Whether it’s how to cure a belly ache, or how to find a job, or how to find a girlfriend, or how to get laid, or how to find a good doctor, dentist, plumber or electrician. Approximately 100% of all advice is BSDL.
Sometimes people don’t need or deserve to have their feelings validated. Feelings aren’t facts, no matter how real they seem to the person at the time. I myself have been in situations where I went off the rails because my feelings were based on a faulty perspective, and once I got my head on straight and either thought the situation through realistically, or I bounced it off of another person (thank Og for Al-Anon sponsors and friends!), I got the fuck over it and went on with my life. In all of these incidents, no one once validated my feelings; they simply helped me move forward.
The biggest thing that irks me in this board along these lines is that whenever anyone comes in with a relationship problem – big or small – it is inevitable that there will be a chorus of “it’s your fault because you haven’t dumped the bitch/bastard.” It’s like people haven’t had to negotiate real relationships, which almost always have some kind of problem to work through.
On the other hand, why should people care so much about avoiding looking like a sucker on the internet where nobody knows you? The stakes are very low; why not give the benefit of the doubt?
I think there is a difference between having your feeling validated and having them indulged. For instance, if someone is very angry at someone because they have what I consider unrealistic and unfair expectations of them (“I can’t believe my roommate didn’t wake me up for class! Didn’t that bitch hear my alarm go off and see me sleeping through it! I can’t believe she just left me there and made me fail that test!”), I am not going to say “you aren’t angry”, because it is a fact that they are angry, and saying they are not is not helpful. On the other hand, I am not going to indulge their rage, and validate that they should feel that way, or that the roommate IS a bitch. That’s not helpful, either, because anyone that thinks the world works that way is pretty much setting themselves up for a lifetime of anger and frustration.
On the other hand, I do think it’s sometimes the role of a friend to help people talk through their feelings, and sometimes people do discover that their emotions are not what they thought at first: a person can think they are angry, when really they are embarrassed, for example, and it’s good and proper to help them arrive at increased self-awareness. I think one is over-simplifying human nature to say “People know what they feel, they can’t be wrong about that”. I am often wrong about what I am feeling.
It’s not about what others think of you or how you look–it’s about getting emotionally engaged and invested in something, only to discover it’s not real.
This has been me as well. Which only goes to show that there is no black and white formula we should follow when responding to another person’s venting. Knowledge of the individual is important, because people process things so differently. What works for one person, does not work for others. So it’s kind of understandable why so many people find it difficult to validate others’ feelings in precisely the right way. People often treat others as they themselves would like to be treated.
For instance, I rarely seek advice for emotionally weighty problems. Sympathy is not something I’m in the habit of seeking either. And that’s mainly because the advice that people give me usually is trite or impractical, and sympathy (when it can be found) doesn’t really improve my state of mind (often it reenforces in my mind the idea I’m in a horrible situation…which is the last thing I need to feel). When I do need my feelings validated, I don’t cast my net far and wide. I only go to people who have shown a dependable track record for providing the empathetic support that I need. And when those people are not available, I cope on my own.
So when a random person unloads on me, I find it difficult to know what to say to them. This doesn’t mean I’m cold hearted; the sight of another person in pain actually causes me stress because I want to help them so much. But because I don’t relate to their need to share their utmost feelings with a minor acquaintance, it’s hard to find something other than platitudes to say in return. Assuming that they need their feelings validated seems just as wrong to me as just as wrong as assuming they need my advice.
Gotcha. And just so you know, I meant the general “you.” I wasn’t calling your advice “lame ass” (although it might be, I don’t know) and was just saying going on about my thoughts on the matter.
My take on this is that part of the reason is that they person in need blocks the help that is available to them. The needy person insists on getting the need met in they way they specify, the giver of the care can’t operate that way, so no lasting help can be offered. The needy person looks further for the help as they want it, turning away from those close by to further sources such as the internet, hoping for someone who ‘understands them’ and who will try to give as the needy person insists. This leads to no long term solution, but it is the needy person’s struggle to get their way.
This is also why sometimes you need to step back and let someone hit rock bottom before you can step in to help them. You would be unable to help them with their insistence on how to help. The needy person has to hit that state of desperation that they are willing to let go of their ways and try anything else that is offered.
I have found some people tend to vent when they have a very legitimate beef about something. I feel like they are bouncing it off of me to see how it sounds when verbally expressed. I don’t mind that at all and tend to give some feed back. On the other side I have little patience for those who vent about the same things everytime I see them yet do nothing about it. Learning when, how and where to vent as well as who to vent to can be a big part of growing up in life. Strangers are always a best bet when we are just frustrated and want to let off steam.
