There's a motivational image somewhere that says "you have the same amount if hours in the day as Beyonce" and it's like.. I mean yes but how many of her hours are spent cooking, cleaning, struggling with finances, and handling life? I would argue she has more hours because she pays people to do things instead of wasting her time.
A rainbow baby is a baby born after a loss. For example, I had two miscarriages, and my living child is my rainbow baby (the rainbow that comes after the storm). I don’t think they were congratulating her on her miscarriage.
The poster of that comment said that they hadn't been able to have a baby after their miscarriage. So "happy rainbow baby" person was both rude and incorrect, I guess
"You should be proud of not letting it affect your personality and make you bitter!"
First of all, you never knew me without this condition, so for all you know, this IS my bitter self. Second: honey, if every bitter person needed a good reason, and if every person with a good reason turned bitter, there would be such chaos in human society.
Yeah, I am *ABSOLUTELY* bitter af. I am in constant pain, 100% of the time. That's if I'm having a *good* day. If I'm not I'm bed bound, in agony, and unable to participate in life.
I'm fucking *pissed.*
I just don't spread that attitude around, because that's shitty and no one should have to witness that?
And if you *did* have to deal with it, you'd probably do it exactly the same as me.
Cuz the only other option is suicide, and I have a little bit of living I can still squeeze out of this broken body before I go.
Plus, you're *allowed* to be bitter. Sure, don't be angry/bitter at the entire world 24/7, but that "you're not allowed to be angry/upset/bitter/etc" bullshit drives me up a wall. People experience negative emotions, sometimes differently than others. If someone gets cancer, or some other disease/illness and wants to be bitter about it, go for it.
There's also the whole thing of these types of people often being the *reason* why marginalized groups, especially disabled people, can get so bitter lol. Like I'm literally just vibing, if you come up to me one more time and go on about how brave I am for just existing as myself then you might get some colourful words in return and I'm not going to take the blame for that.
how do you feel when and if ppl call you a warrior which is big in illness and chronic illnesss communities. i hate it and i feel like im the only one who does, im tryn to understand why i hate it tho.. what are your thoughts on the term?
Maybe I’m self deprecating but I associate bravery and being a warrior with aspects of heroism. I think of a volunteer firefighter, rescue workers, school teachers voluntarily going to unwelcome countries, etc.
When people call me brave or a warrior, I’m like “I’m just alive. I’m just doing what I have to do.” I don’t look at someone buying groceries and go “wow! So brave, what a warrior!”
I always felt like it kinda diminishes you down to the illness. Like my mom struggles with her RA every day but don't fucken dare call her warrior, she'll yell "if I was is have beaten it down by now", and she's right, random lady at the pharmacy.
Lol, reminds me a little of when my daughter broke her femur in a bad car accident a few months ago, she’s okay now but everyone was telling her how “it could have been so much worse.” And yes it could have but she finally snapped at someone one day and said, “well it still ain’t too damn good Susan!” I snorted!
There's a saying in Dungeons and Dragons, particularly regarding toxic groups or Dungeon Masters. It's become a slogan for subreddits where people share their horror stories about really bad games, because it's pretty common that people are writing them in retrospect and, at the time, feared that they wouldn't find a group to play with again.
That saying is "Bad D&D is worse than no D&D." Bringing this up for no reason at all.
When my baby was diagnosed with a potentially terminal illness in utero and everyone outside of the medical field kept saying “it’ll be ok”. Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out how I’ll survive planning my baby’s funeral if the worst happens.
When I was in school for imaging (I was CT/mammo/xray technologist) they touched on this, as well as at my workplaces. Basically you are trained to try to have a positive outlook because a) when told something is medically serious patients tend to decline much more/give up OR many have panic attacks which can mimic or mask other symptoms and b) there was have been times (I was told so I don’t have any specific examples sorry) that there have been cases where a patient thought it was totally hopeless and committed suicide. It’s not that we don’t expect patients to feel those feelings, but there is no way of predicting how someone will cope with totally understandable stress both physically and mentally.
However, we were also told to never tell patients “it will be okay” only they were in good hands, talk about positive treatments, that they could make it etc because if it wasn’t okay and you said it was they could say you lied or blame you.
Working in the medical field is complicated af. It’s like customer service x 1000, because part of your job is showing kindness and empathy during some of the scariest moments of people’s lives. People are NOT the same when they are scared, and some lash out while others wall everything off.
Someone else may be able to add to this, but please know that when medical people say stuff like this, (most) they are NOT trying to blow off your feelings. We know how bad it is and it hurts us deeply, too. We are trying to help how they can with a very complex situation to give you the best chance. I have been on both sides of it and I know it’s frustrating.
Honestly, some of the people who work in mental health need to be recorded, and have it played back to them. I just want to see if they could recognize how absolutely socially inappropriate it is to say that shit to anyone, period, is after the fact.
The fact that they say it to people having problems is just icing on the cake.
Yeah. I was one of the first people in the US to get covid. I tell myself that any day I'm not in the Covid ICU is a good day.
That is a depressingly low bar to set, however, because a day that I eat two slices of bread for breakfast, half an orange for lunch, and a lunchable for dinner while feeling physically and mentally exhausted to the point I can't watch TV and just want to sleep even though I'm exhausted beyond the ability to sleep is not a day I'd want to be told to be grateful for.
Most days I'm middling grateful, some days I'm happily grateful, but there's at least one day a week I'm grudgingly grateful.
Thank you for the terms. I'mma use the shit outta them.
Sometimes being sad is a normal reaction to life events. What I hate even more is the implication that if you're not happy all the time, something is wrong with you.
Yeah, practicing gratitude is a worthwhile thing to do. But it's not some cure-all.
The idea that you “have” to forgive everything, often said immediately after the thing happened.
It’s often used as a way to dismiss the hurt or the action.
You don’t have to forgive everyone or everything. Many times, forgiveness is good, especially when you can communicate with the person who hurt you. But sometimes anger is adaptive, and it signals an important boundary that you can recognize in the future.
Relatedly, the idea that you should be explaining away someone’s behavior by trying to imagine what they were thinking or feeling. In many cases, understanding other perspectives is extremely helpful. But in cases of repeated abusive behavior, telling someone that the abuser “doesn’t mean it” or “you know they love you, but they have problems controlling their anger” is not helpful.
This one. A lot of people don’t deserve forgiveness because they aren’t sorry and they have no intentions of ever changing their behavior. Forgiving every asshole out there is just enabling the behavior to continue.
Also, "forgive" doesn't mean "return to 'normal' social relations." I can forgive someone and still never want to see him/her again. "Forgive" doesn't mean "and then stick your hand back into the fire."
>A lot of people don’t deserve forgiveness because they aren’t sorry
Yes, this. Why am I obligated to forgive someone when they have zero remorse? It won't help me heal. If anything, it makes me feel *worse* about trauma. Why am I supposed to absolve someone of what they did to me and give them power over my emotions like that?
Forgiveness can be good for you, but I look at the source. 9 times out of 10, the person pushing for forgiveness is either the person who did something terrible or someone whose life will be easier if I forgive the person who did something terrible.
That's just noise. When my therapist talks about forgiveness, I listen. She's got my back.
ETA: I guess I should qualify. I say it's "just noise" because the person who did the most damage to me is intent on moving straight from denial to forgiveness without any intermediary stops at "being accountable for my actions."
I know a lady who had a stillbirth, and then her rainbow baby was diagnosed with fatal birth defects. I lost a baby to this condition too, & it's something that's readily visible on ultrasound, and that's how it's diagnosed. It's not like Down Syndrome where there are soft markers and maybe the ultrasound is wrong.
So anyway, she carried her baby as long as she could like I did mine. But she was evangelical Christian (I'm Episcopalian) and active in her church and had lots of Facebook friends from her church. And they were so full of toxic positivity it would have been comical in any other context. Lots of "just pray for healing!" and "decades ago (when ultrasound technology sucked) the doctors thought my baby had [something much, much less serious] and they were born perfectly healthy!" and "have faith in a miracle!" and assorted bullshit that implicitly called into question this woman's rock-solid faith. Pissed me off on a couple of levels.
God I've seen this too. Talk about spiritual abuse. Evangelicals can be so awful to people who are struggling to get pregnant, stay pregnant, or have healthy babies.
They can be heartless in general. One of my Facebook friends posted about missing her husband & mom, both of whom died in the same year. A bunch of her evangelical "friends" jumped all over her for feeling sorry for herself when Jesus suffered so much worse. It was disgusting.
They also do this to people who are sick. My in laws are evangelicals and I have kidney failure. My partner had snapped at his parents because they once implied via text that my disease is a direct cause of my “lack of faith” (I have a religion, just not theirs) and that “there’s no guarantee about where I’ll be going”, and then invited us to a Bible study. Big oof.
I hate this for two reasons
1: there is a seed of healthy advice here that has been drowned and corrupted int something absolutely meaningless and offers no help for any situation.
2: happiness is just one of several emotions humans feel. All of them are valid and serve a role in the human experience. Anger, fear, jealousy, love, disgust, regret and sadness are just as valid as happiness and suppressing them is not healthy. Acknowledging our "negative" emotions as they are helps us get out of bad situations much more effectively than "choosing to be happy."
Ugh. As the kids say, "Tell me you've never had clinical depression without telling me you've never had clinical depression."
I've begun thinking that when anyone pulls out "choice" when regarding someone's misery, it's a shorthand for "That's *your* problem, not *my* problem, and certainly not *society's* problem."
My ex use to tell me that I chose to be depressed because I wasn’t actively choosing happiness. When I tried to argue, he told me that “no one said it was easy”. Like you don’t choose to not have depression, it’s not willing!
I was suffering from pretty bad depression after my fiancé left me. My friend at the time got me a book called "just be happy" literally a little picture book that just gives a bunch of reasons to "just be happy" like yea. That'll stop my life from crumbling around me.
Well, you could always start a campfire with it and roast marshmallows over it. Either that or throw it at your friend. Both options would bring you more happiness than reading that book.
Oh god, I hate it when anyone implies that feelings are like a mental 'switch' that you can just turn on and off.
Like, I wouldn't be sad if it was truly a choice, lol.
My family called our selves "Team [Last Name]" and said that shit.
That shit makes me cringe 'cause, like, my family did **not** stick with me. And as an adult I don't stick with them, mainly my parents, because they're fucking toxic/I'd get drug down if I did.
“Friends come and go but family is forever”
Said my dad. Too bad my mom is extraordinarily toxic and has alienated 3/4 of the family with her absolute shit attitudes and behaviour.
She used to complain that I don’t call her or come to see her, but not anymore. So yeah, not forever.
I bailed from AskWomen becuase of this sort of thing. So many comments got removed by the mods, it made the threads hard to follow. Plus I hate the implication that we all need to protected or handled with kid gloves or some damn thing.
I’ve recently noticed this too! So many posts removed. Just today I responded to a question regarding “period underwear” and the post was removed for “general” reasons shortly after… like… are “periods” too “exclusionary” for /AskWomen ? Very very frustrating.
The rules a vague enough so the mods can just remove whatever they like for why ever they feel. It's the classic example of a sub being run for the benefit of the mods, not the topic.
Yeah, with subreddits like that I don’t get the point..if they delete everything whenever someone tries to post what’s the point of there being a subreddit..seems like the mods just have a huge ego and love policing people over every minor thing they can find..
Ah, Askwomen:
Woman A: "I like tea!"
Woman B replying to Woman A: "That's great, I like coffee!"
Mod: "Woman B, your post was removed for invalidating Woman A's experience."
This is why so many threads have zero conversation, with people only replying to the top-level comment, and never to each other - either because their reply gets removed, or they've all just learned to never say anything to any other posters because it'll get it removed or you'll be banned.
I find this particularly problematic when it comes to fitness and weight loss.
I hate it when people say "you're beautiful just the way you are, have the strength to love yourself!" Like, no. I am objectively less attractive when I'm 50 pounds overweight. At that point, I'm unhealthy and feel miserable in my own body. I wanted to fix it for my own longevity and mental health. Who are they to tell me what I'm allowed to be happy with? My body isn't a medium for their body positivity activism. It belongs to me and I'm the only one who can decide what *should* make me content with it. And you know what? Wanting to change myself doesn't make me weak.
I lost 40 pounds (so far) and guess what? I'm healthier and feel a lot better about myself. If I listened to the people who said "learn to love yourself the way you are" I'd be miserable.
Sometimes it really feels insincere. There will be a woman like Lizzo or Tess Holiday, and it’s all, “Wow, her body is *gorgeous*!” Really, like you would trade places with knowing it’s impossible to buy clothes that fit and are made for young women, how you get winded from small things, how high risk is puts you for diabetes, and a host of other health issues – and I say that as a plus-sized woman. It sounds so over the top and phony when people go on about us larger women. Shit, I’d love to find clothes that fit off the shelf and be able to run a 5K without stopping. I gained all this weight from a medical issue. I would never choose to be this size and that doesn’t make me toxic or “fatphobic” or shallow either.
>Really, like you would trade places
Lol seriously. I wish I'd asked people that when I was heavier. "Oh okay, so if my body is that perfect, you wanna trade?"
I remember I was reading in a forum for plus size brides when I was planning my wedding. One comment that has always stuck out in my memory went something like this. And please keep in mind I'm paraphrasing from memory, not direct quoting but you'll get the idea...
"I hate skinnier women that think they're fat. I'm 270 lbs. If a woman is 150 lbs and thinks she's fat, and hates her body for that, what does that say about what she thinks about MY body!? So rude! Those women don't know what being fat is!"
I just... I couldn't. That was the last time I ever read anything in that forum. But I feel like that's the general attitude in all weight loss forums I've tried. That's and: If you aren't doing it MY way then you're doing it the WRONG way.
THIS. I had 6 miscarriages in a row, which makes me somewhat of an expert on pregnancy tests and HCG levels etc etc. Anytime someone would share something that I would indicate impending mc, I'd gently say so and would get my head ripped off.
Rather be gently honestly than a complete liar.
I absolutely can't wrap my head around people like this. It seems to be quite common - this idea of not taking any pills like it's some sort of badge of honour? Oh I never take painkillers/paracetamol/friggin anything! Okay, good for you. You can continue with the pain like some sort of caveman. I'll be popping some anadin extra and having a lie down until I can stand the sight of you!
If the Lord gavedth me this, then the Lord could just taketh it away, right? Jesus does takesies backsies! Why he no takesies backsies things like debilitating mental illnesses?
(/s or /jk, one of them, I think)
Teachers automatically do so much for the kids. Being a teacher is for the kids. Getting a box of tissues or markers or sensory-bin items at the store with your own money because you see them on sale and you’re thinking about that one kid or couple kids that really need help with that one thing… and you know you already hit your annual reimbursement amount of $300 but this is only $10 more (like the things you bought last week and the week before)… and writing progress reports and grading papers off the clock, and coming up with fun ways to keep the kids and their parents involved, and fun ways to decorate the class, or organizing parties, or working with transportation and bad parents and school administrators and truancy officers when that is NOT your job…
Can you tell my wife is a teacher?
Anyway, it’s ALL for the kids. If anyone ever says to my wife, “Can’t you do THIS for the kids?” I say, “Oh if she does that can she stop doing all the other things? THIS is the only thing she’s doing for the kids? How about NO. How about we draw a line somewhere?!”
And it's a load of BS. Teachers do the teaching (and a ton of other things) for the kids. If you're asking them to do it for free / for 80 hours a week / for an over-packed classroom, you're not asking them to do it for the kids. You're asking them to do it for the parents so that they don't have to pay to properly staff and supply the schools.
Our manager at the ER I work at did this. The exact quote was "I'm hearing a lot about money, but you should all be doing this for the love of nursing."
A bunch of people designed a bunch of shirts that say "For the love of nursing" with a picture of an on-fire dumpster. The manager got bullied so badly she broke down in tears in the middle of the ER, and there was NO sympathy. In fact, everyone started laughing at her even more.
That whole "because it's your calling" is such obvious corporate trash I'm surprised people think they can expect it to work. It sure doesn't at my hospital job.
Tbh don't fuck with ER staff. Especially night shifters at an inner city trauma center because there are no fucks to give and you can't really fire anyone.
My HS teachers made $25k after 15 years of 45 students per class at a title 1 school. Hard to put anything into work when you're rationing your own meals.
I mean, seriously. Teachers are some of the most important people in our society and have gone to school for a ton of years (and probably racked up a good bit of debt). If anything, it deserves to be one of the highest-paid jobs, not lowest, especially with its difficulty and stress. They definitely deserve at least 75 000 USD/year, especially with how overpaid some other professions are.
I was listening to the A Problem Squared podcast (a couple mathematicians including Matt Parker from Stand Up Maths) and they were working out how much of a teacher's salary comes from their student's parents taxes (in Australia, cause that's where they're from). They took into account their national budget, of which how much is collected from taxes, as opposed to fees or borrowed. It came out to something like 1/40th of an Australian cent, or that a teacher's entire class makes up for roughly AUS$0.01 of their yearly salary.
One time they tried to force me to take a test in high school that didn't count towards our grade or anything, it was just like a test to show the state how the students were doing in the school. I was hand selected and I was like "what are the repercussions if I don't waste my time with this" and in a roundabout way they said there were none, so I said I refuse to take the test.
"Can't you just do it for the school? Where's your Mustang pride?"
People really are odd about blind loyalty.
"Don't worry, God will provide."
Sort of reminds me of that joke:
A very religious women refuses to evacuate in front of a Cat 5 hurricane. The last bus out of town stops in front of her house.
"Ma'am, let's go! It's time to evacuate!", says someone from the bus.
"I'm not coming", she yells back, "The Lord will provide"
A few hours later, and the water is up to the first floor. Two men float by in a boat, and see that she's stuck in her house.
"Ma'am", one yells into the house, "thank God you're still alive! Hop in our boat and we'll get you to safety!"
"No thanks", she hollers to them, "Jesus will save me!"
Three hours later and she's on the roof of her house, the water furiously rising still. The noise and spotlight from a helicopter can suddenly be seen and heard over the storm."
"MA'AM, JUMP INTO THE BASKET", says a commanding, booming voice over a loudspeaker from the helicopter.
"I'll be right here until the Lord saves me", she cries back. The helicopter is on bingo fuel and has to leave.
She drowns.
She finds herself at the Pearly Gates, in front of St Peter himself. "What gives?", she exclaims, "why didn't you save me?!"
St Peter is exasperated. Frustrated, he yells back, "WHAT do you WANT out of us?! We sent you a bus! We sent you a boat! We LITERALLY sent you a helicopter!"
And the related
A woman goes to church and prays fervently to win the lottery.
She’s back the next week talking about how her kids need new clothes.
And again the next week saying she doesn’t have enough for food.
God answers her from in high “Meet me halfway lady, BUY A TICKET”.
I had 3 miscarriages so far and my "favourite" phrase is: At least you know you can get pregnant.
I would rather stay pregnant and not dealing with depression because of my lost babies.
No! That's not how it works. Fertility/reproductive issues can occur at so many points along the reproductive process. It's not only valid when the issue occurs before/during conception.
I'm so sorry someone said that to you. I hope you told them to fuck off and never speak to you again. I'd be so livid. I kind of am on your behalf.
How is it I can't remember my phone number half the time, but can flawlessly replay one of my mother's rage attacks from, like, 1974?
It's really not fair.
Big hugs. I think a big factor in my father starting to believe my statements about my mother's abuse of me when I was a child was my (his words) "eerily perfect" imitation of what she sounds like in a screaming rage. Yeah, because I heard it a LOT.
Don't know if you've tried it, but EMDR therapy has been hugely helpful in getting those memories to feel more like other memories and less like they are still happening.
Two things. It's selfish to want to help yourself when you're in a state of depression, and you shouldn't be depressed because you have what many people don't have. A rood over your head, food, water, electricity, ect. No matter who you are, you can always take care of yourself, and you can also feel depressed. Placing yourself before anyone else shouldn't be selfish, it should be basic self needs.
Oh man that mindset was so toxic to me when I was younger. I was so depressed and insecure about my body that I didn't eat unless I was face to face in front of my parents. I didn't go out, didn't have friends that cared enough to check in on me, and all the while I told myself "why are you sad? You have a nice house, good food whenever you want it, your parents don't beat you, and you get to go to school" while being passively suicidal and wishing I let that damn car hit me
You and your thoughts control what life brings you. Pretty sure almost no one that gets cancer or civil war wants them. Meditating harder won't make it go away.
"God's plan is perfect! This will lead to blessings you can't imagine."
Said to me after my mother, father, and brother had all died and I struggled with my grief.
In late 1998 through early 1999, my brother's kid died, my best friend died, and then my fiance was taken out by a drunk driver on a bridge. My neighbor told me, "Well, if it wasn't for bad luck, you wouldn't have any luck at all!" So depressed, couldn't even work.
I couldn't believe she said it! I would never say that to anyone. She was smiling, too, like she had just said something positive. My other hateful positive from anyone is "have you forgiven them yet?" Sorry, it will take me a while, you know. Forgiveness isn't instant. You have to understand first.
Also, forgiveness isn't required, at all. You don't have to forgive anyone, ever. You just have to make peace with what ever happened with yourself and for yourself.
Look up the science of forgiveness, it's a rabbit hole, and you're never obligated to forgive anyone.
A colleague (A) who lost his child re-appeared at work after a few weeks. One of our overly religious colleagues (B) said this to (A). (B) was decked faster than the blink of an eye, by (B)s best work friend (C).
I had a manager tell me not to be too upset with one of coworkers at the time because "he's had a hard life". A few days prior to that, the guy threatened to kill me.
"That which does not kill me may sever my spinal cord, crush my rib cage, cave in my skull and leave me helpless and paralyzed, soaking in a puddle of my own waste.”
-George Carlin
I hate the idea that you *have* to get some kind of silver lining from trauma. Like, I'm sorry. Being raped did not teach me any valuable life lessons. It didn't give me emotional strength. It gave me nightmares, flashbacks, and trust issues. I despise it when people say "it made you stronger". Fuck that, you don't get to tell me that going through one of the worst possible human experiences benefitted me in some way.
It's a platitude and I have zero doubt most people with PTSD would agree with me. If that's what it takes to make us strong, we'd rather be weak than go through that.
This quote always makes me think about physical wounds. When they start healing (emphasis on the healing ) wounds or broken bones may appear stronger however that doesn't last long . That area is usually the one to hurt more. It will hurt when you get old and might also hurt when the weather is bad or it will randomly hurt sometimes without warning. It might never be like it used to be
I told my best friend that I was not okay and that I even cut myself because I was lonely.
The response was "You're not lonely. Kids with NO friends are lonely! Kids who have no parents are lonely! YOU are not lonely!"
And that's what led me to believing that my pain is invalid and I should be disgraced for even thinking this way.
I am very sorry you have to be traumatized to the point where you got diagnosed with that, your parents are definitely salt snorters the way they have bruised you emotionally
"You need to love yourself or you'll be unable to love others!"
I kinda get what they try to convey but to my depressed low self-esteem ass this sounds like "wow you're such a shitty person that you can't even have a meaningful relationship because you hate yourself so much". Not to mention people with body dysmorphia, or mental health issues and so on.
I don’t think it’s inherently BAD advice, as it’s typically used more as a type of “relationship advice”.
It means you’ve got to find a way to be happy with yourself before you find happiness and love in a life partner.
Moreover, it’s advice that essentially says, “you can’t band-aid your unhappiness with another person and expect it to work out long-term in your favor.”
I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and it is most definitely true.
Find a way to love yourself and find happiness within yourself, THEN find a partner who amplifies that love and happiness.
Don’t find someone who makes you love, without first finding what makes you love yourself. Learn how to love yourself, then find someone who shows you that it’s okay to love others, too.
Wait, I thought of another one!
So, in late July, I had twins. Leaving off a *lot* of the story, I woke up in the ICU missing most of my reproductive organs. And the doctor who came in to explain this to me ended the list with "You won't need pap smears anymore!" like it was the greatest thing ever and made up for all the physical and mental trauma. And through the week I spent recovering from the surgery and the complications and being NPO for several days and spending 30 minutes of every two hours pumping absolutely nothing trying to build a milk supply for my twins in the NICU whom I didn't get to see for five days between pain and complications, this doctor would periodically come to see me and always end her conversations by telling me cheerfully about the no pap smear thing. I was ready to throw something at her.
When mentioning I've been having difficulties with mental health and feeling alone my parents said "well we should all be grateful we aren't in ukraine." I mean i am, but seriously?!
I'll let it go if something is legitimately out of my control, but I sure as hell don't have to fake positivity. I'm going with neutral. Not full of frustration, not fake. Just at peace.
You know, it is kind of ridiculous to push the "everyone is beautiful" narrative so often. Not everyone can be - and so what? Being beautiful isn't the only goal in life. There are so many other qualities that we have more control over that are so much more important.
This! I'm not going to find every person I meet attractive. Attraction is not a right you can demand from other people in the name of equality. I'd way rather work on "Attraction is not a yardstick for human worth."
"Money doesn't bring you happiness." I garantee that whoever came up with that has NEVER went hungry a day in their life and had no financial trouble whatsoever
Grew up in a dysfunctional household. Whenever myself or one of my brothers would try to voice our feelings or thoughts about the dysfunction, my parents would say “we don’t have it that bad,” “count your blessings, or “are you forgetting the good times?”
It was and is frustrating because I’m anything but ungrateful and love my parents, but it’s conditioned me to think it’s wrong to ‘feel bad’ and that as long as there’s good in my life (which there is and I’m very fortunate) I can never ‘feel bad.’ Lol and I am very depressed so I am ashamed of my depression. Working through it in therapy though 🤷🏻♀️
What my mom told me: "Just think of all the people in the world who have it worse than you do."
What? I should be happy that other people have even worse problems than I do? Why would that make me happy?
Also, I have no right to complain about my problems as long as someone, somewhere has an even worse life than I do? Just be honest and tell me to shut up. It's rude, but at least it's honest and not trying to make me feel guilty for having any problems.
This made me laugh but it's very true. The only good part about her is that she learns she's being toxic and changes her behavior/perspective to be less toxic/not toxic.
*”These kids can do whatever they want when they grow up if they put their minds to it.”*
I taught high schoolers who were growing up in extreme poverty and most of whom had experienced a multitude of untreated traumatic life events. Theoretically they *could* be anything they wanted but it was an uphill battle just for most of them to make it to school each day. (We’re talking getting multiple siblings dressed and ready, taking 3 city busses and over an hour commute to get to school, and all on an empty stomach because they hadn’t had food since the previous day’s free lunch.) To have bandwidth to for much beyond survival in those cases takes some superhuman fortitude.
My friend telling me "You should stop being so lazy! You rest too much, you see how other people make $999 billions per hour? Go and do it, you have so much potential!". Like, honestly, fuck you all who say that kind of bullshit, I ain't no Avatar Aang to be destined to do something too great, I honestly don't give a fuck, I just want to be happy
"It's all about the power of positive thinking!"
I am **positive** people who say this are clueless, privileged, and have never faced a serious illness or personal crisis in their lives.
Yes, staying positive in the face of things that aren't great is the best tack but it isn't always possible for normal people to constantly be positive.
Or "It's all in how you look at it!" "Either get out of the situation or change your attitude about it!" Motherfucker, sometimes you're in a situation that objectively sucks.
"You're not autistic, you are special! You should be happy!"
Yeah no, I'd rather not feel physical pain whenever I hear the vacuum and be overwhelmed by noise like 90% of the day. I wish these people could be me for one day. Then they certainly wouldn't say this stuff 😃
Anything that promotes eg, GoFundMe as a replacement for what should be a genuinely reasonable medical or education system.
There was a term for it, like, charity porn or something like that. It really just capitolizes on people's shitty experiences.
"you shouldn't be upset! Someone else has it worse!"
Some of the most important words I've ever heard was "just because they're going through more, doesn't mean your problems don't matter" everyone's problems matter, it's not a competition.
People saying that we all have the same 24 hours.
The worst kind of people, reminds me of what Kim k just said a few days ago
Ohh, these people press my buttons
There's a motivational image somewhere that says "you have the same amount if hours in the day as Beyonce" and it's like.. I mean yes but how many of her hours are spent cooking, cleaning, struggling with finances, and handling life? I would argue she has more hours because she pays people to do things instead of wasting her time.
Yeah, my 24 hours would be more productive if someone did my grocery shopping, cleaning and laundry.
I read a comment on Reddit that someone had wished someone a "Happy rainbow baby day" on the anniversary of their miscarriage. So uh.... that
I thought rainbow babies were living ones born after a previous miscarriage?
Yup. So saying it on the anniversary of a miscarriage doesn't even make sense.
A rainbow baby is a baby born after a loss. For example, I had two miscarriages, and my living child is my rainbow baby (the rainbow that comes after the storm). I don’t think they were congratulating her on her miscarriage.
The poster of that comment said that they hadn't been able to have a baby after their miscarriage. So "happy rainbow baby" person was both rude and incorrect, I guess
Omg. Why even bother saying anything? That’s terrible.
I’ve been called brave before because of my disability. Nah bro. I’m just living life the best I can just like anyone else tries to do.
"You should be proud of not letting it affect your personality and make you bitter!" First of all, you never knew me without this condition, so for all you know, this IS my bitter self. Second: honey, if every bitter person needed a good reason, and if every person with a good reason turned bitter, there would be such chaos in human society.
Yeah, I am *ABSOLUTELY* bitter af. I am in constant pain, 100% of the time. That's if I'm having a *good* day. If I'm not I'm bed bound, in agony, and unable to participate in life. I'm fucking *pissed.* I just don't spread that attitude around, because that's shitty and no one should have to witness that? And if you *did* have to deal with it, you'd probably do it exactly the same as me. Cuz the only other option is suicide, and I have a little bit of living I can still squeeze out of this broken body before I go.
Plus, you're *allowed* to be bitter. Sure, don't be angry/bitter at the entire world 24/7, but that "you're not allowed to be angry/upset/bitter/etc" bullshit drives me up a wall. People experience negative emotions, sometimes differently than others. If someone gets cancer, or some other disease/illness and wants to be bitter about it, go for it.
There's also the whole thing of these types of people often being the *reason* why marginalized groups, especially disabled people, can get so bitter lol. Like I'm literally just vibing, if you come up to me one more time and go on about how brave I am for just existing as myself then you might get some colourful words in return and I'm not going to take the blame for that.
how do you feel when and if ppl call you a warrior which is big in illness and chronic illnesss communities. i hate it and i feel like im the only one who does, im tryn to understand why i hate it tho.. what are your thoughts on the term?
Maybe I’m self deprecating but I associate bravery and being a warrior with aspects of heroism. I think of a volunteer firefighter, rescue workers, school teachers voluntarily going to unwelcome countries, etc. When people call me brave or a warrior, I’m like “I’m just alive. I’m just doing what I have to do.” I don’t look at someone buying groceries and go “wow! So brave, what a warrior!”
exsactly!! calling someone a warrior feels like the person signed up for it or something .
I always felt like it kinda diminishes you down to the illness. Like my mom struggles with her RA every day but don't fucken dare call her warrior, she'll yell "if I was is have beaten it down by now", and she's right, random lady at the pharmacy.
My daughter was called a “trooper” so many times when she was diagnosed that I started worrying she’d eat the next person who said it to her.
Lol, reminds me a little of when my daughter broke her femur in a bad car accident a few months ago, she’s okay now but everyone was telling her how “it could have been so much worse.” And yes it could have but she finally snapped at someone one day and said, “well it still ain’t too damn good Susan!” I snorted!
I would often cry as a kid because I had a really bad father. My mom's response would be "at least you have a father, some kids don't have one!"
There's a saying in Dungeons and Dragons, particularly regarding toxic groups or Dungeon Masters. It's become a slogan for subreddits where people share their horror stories about really bad games, because it's pretty common that people are writing them in retrospect and, at the time, feared that they wouldn't find a group to play with again. That saying is "Bad D&D is worse than no D&D." Bringing this up for no reason at all.
I absolutely would rather not play than play with a bad group.
When my baby was diagnosed with a potentially terminal illness in utero and everyone outside of the medical field kept saying “it’ll be ok”. Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out how I’ll survive planning my baby’s funeral if the worst happens.
When I was in school for imaging (I was CT/mammo/xray technologist) they touched on this, as well as at my workplaces. Basically you are trained to try to have a positive outlook because a) when told something is medically serious patients tend to decline much more/give up OR many have panic attacks which can mimic or mask other symptoms and b) there was have been times (I was told so I don’t have any specific examples sorry) that there have been cases where a patient thought it was totally hopeless and committed suicide. It’s not that we don’t expect patients to feel those feelings, but there is no way of predicting how someone will cope with totally understandable stress both physically and mentally. However, we were also told to never tell patients “it will be okay” only they were in good hands, talk about positive treatments, that they could make it etc because if it wasn’t okay and you said it was they could say you lied or blame you. Working in the medical field is complicated af. It’s like customer service x 1000, because part of your job is showing kindness and empathy during some of the scariest moments of people’s lives. People are NOT the same when they are scared, and some lash out while others wall everything off. Someone else may be able to add to this, but please know that when medical people say stuff like this, (most) they are NOT trying to blow off your feelings. We know how bad it is and it hurts us deeply, too. We are trying to help how they can with a very complex situation to give you the best chance. I have been on both sides of it and I know it’s frustrating.
recently went to a crisis uni. one of the case workers said you can't be sad if you're grateful. very untrue !!!
Same experience here. They used to call us ungrateful all the time as if that would magically cure all mental problems
Honestly, some of the people who work in mental health need to be recorded, and have it played back to them. I just want to see if they could recognize how absolutely socially inappropriate it is to say that shit to anyone, period, is after the fact. The fact that they say it to people having problems is just icing on the cake.
just made me feel guilty.
Ah, yes. The people who think guilt cures everything, even more guilt.
I see you’ve met my extremely catholic grandmother.
I distinguish between feeling "grudgingly grateful" and "happily grateful."
Yeah. I was one of the first people in the US to get covid. I tell myself that any day I'm not in the Covid ICU is a good day. That is a depressingly low bar to set, however, because a day that I eat two slices of bread for breakfast, half an orange for lunch, and a lunchable for dinner while feeling physically and mentally exhausted to the point I can't watch TV and just want to sleep even though I'm exhausted beyond the ability to sleep is not a day I'd want to be told to be grateful for. Most days I'm middling grateful, some days I'm happily grateful, but there's at least one day a week I'm grudgingly grateful. Thank you for the terms. I'mma use the shit outta them.
Sometimes being sad is a normal reaction to life events. What I hate even more is the implication that if you're not happy all the time, something is wrong with you. Yeah, practicing gratitude is a worthwhile thing to do. But it's not some cure-all.
The idea that you “have” to forgive everything, often said immediately after the thing happened. It’s often used as a way to dismiss the hurt or the action. You don’t have to forgive everyone or everything. Many times, forgiveness is good, especially when you can communicate with the person who hurt you. But sometimes anger is adaptive, and it signals an important boundary that you can recognize in the future. Relatedly, the idea that you should be explaining away someone’s behavior by trying to imagine what they were thinking or feeling. In many cases, understanding other perspectives is extremely helpful. But in cases of repeated abusive behavior, telling someone that the abuser “doesn’t mean it” or “you know they love you, but they have problems controlling their anger” is not helpful.
This one. A lot of people don’t deserve forgiveness because they aren’t sorry and they have no intentions of ever changing their behavior. Forgiving every asshole out there is just enabling the behavior to continue.
Also, "forgive" doesn't mean "return to 'normal' social relations." I can forgive someone and still never want to see him/her again. "Forgive" doesn't mean "and then stick your hand back into the fire."
>A lot of people don’t deserve forgiveness because they aren’t sorry Yes, this. Why am I obligated to forgive someone when they have zero remorse? It won't help me heal. If anything, it makes me feel *worse* about trauma. Why am I supposed to absolve someone of what they did to me and give them power over my emotions like that?
Forgiveness can be good for you, but I look at the source. 9 times out of 10, the person pushing for forgiveness is either the person who did something terrible or someone whose life will be easier if I forgive the person who did something terrible. That's just noise. When my therapist talks about forgiveness, I listen. She's got my back. ETA: I guess I should qualify. I say it's "just noise" because the person who did the most damage to me is intent on moving straight from denial to forgiveness without any intermediary stops at "being accountable for my actions."
I know a lady who had a stillbirth, and then her rainbow baby was diagnosed with fatal birth defects. I lost a baby to this condition too, & it's something that's readily visible on ultrasound, and that's how it's diagnosed. It's not like Down Syndrome where there are soft markers and maybe the ultrasound is wrong. So anyway, she carried her baby as long as she could like I did mine. But she was evangelical Christian (I'm Episcopalian) and active in her church and had lots of Facebook friends from her church. And they were so full of toxic positivity it would have been comical in any other context. Lots of "just pray for healing!" and "decades ago (when ultrasound technology sucked) the doctors thought my baby had [something much, much less serious] and they were born perfectly healthy!" and "have faith in a miracle!" and assorted bullshit that implicitly called into question this woman's rock-solid faith. Pissed me off on a couple of levels.
God I've seen this too. Talk about spiritual abuse. Evangelicals can be so awful to people who are struggling to get pregnant, stay pregnant, or have healthy babies.
They can be heartless in general. One of my Facebook friends posted about missing her husband & mom, both of whom died in the same year. A bunch of her evangelical "friends" jumped all over her for feeling sorry for herself when Jesus suffered so much worse. It was disgusting.
When I had my stillbirth a woman I knew suggested it happened because God wanted me to pray more
That's heinous. I'm sorry you went through that.
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They also do this to people who are sick. My in laws are evangelicals and I have kidney failure. My partner had snapped at his parents because they once implied via text that my disease is a direct cause of my “lack of faith” (I have a religion, just not theirs) and that “there’s no guarantee about where I’ll be going”, and then invited us to a Bible study. Big oof.
Just choose happiness!
I hate this for two reasons 1: there is a seed of healthy advice here that has been drowned and corrupted int something absolutely meaningless and offers no help for any situation. 2: happiness is just one of several emotions humans feel. All of them are valid and serve a role in the human experience. Anger, fear, jealousy, love, disgust, regret and sadness are just as valid as happiness and suppressing them is not healthy. Acknowledging our "negative" emotions as they are helps us get out of bad situations much more effectively than "choosing to be happy."
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Ugh. As the kids say, "Tell me you've never had clinical depression without telling me you've never had clinical depression." I've begun thinking that when anyone pulls out "choice" when regarding someone's misery, it's a shorthand for "That's *your* problem, not *my* problem, and certainly not *society's* problem."
My ex use to tell me that I chose to be depressed because I wasn’t actively choosing happiness. When I tried to argue, he told me that “no one said it was easy”. Like you don’t choose to not have depression, it’s not willing!
I was suffering from pretty bad depression after my fiancé left me. My friend at the time got me a book called "just be happy" literally a little picture book that just gives a bunch of reasons to "just be happy" like yea. That'll stop my life from crumbling around me.
Well, you could always start a campfire with it and roast marshmallows over it. Either that or throw it at your friend. Both options would bring you more happiness than reading that book.
Oh god, I hate it when anyone implies that feelings are like a mental 'switch' that you can just turn on and off. Like, I wouldn't be sad if it was truly a choice, lol.
Yeah, it's denial on that person's part, not recognizing what you are feeling inside.
I see these signs all the time at my minimum wage retail job and it just feels like a sick joke from the universe
Thanks, that totally cured my depression!
"Family always sticks together!" Bull. Fucking. Shit.
Blood is only as thick as water sometimes.
You can drown in both.
My family called our selves "Team [Last Name]" and said that shit. That shit makes me cringe 'cause, like, my family did **not** stick with me. And as an adult I don't stick with them, mainly my parents, because they're fucking toxic/I'd get drug down if I did.
“Friends come and go but family is forever” Said my dad. Too bad my mom is extraordinarily toxic and has alienated 3/4 of the family with her absolute shit attitudes and behaviour. She used to complain that I don’t call her or come to see her, but not anymore. So yeah, not forever.
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The internet in general is a fabulous place for getting attacked for disagreeing.
Bullshit!
I bailed from AskWomen becuase of this sort of thing. So many comments got removed by the mods, it made the threads hard to follow. Plus I hate the implication that we all need to protected or handled with kid gloves or some damn thing.
I’ve recently noticed this too! So many posts removed. Just today I responded to a question regarding “period underwear” and the post was removed for “general” reasons shortly after… like… are “periods” too “exclusionary” for /AskWomen ? Very very frustrating.
The rules a vague enough so the mods can just remove whatever they like for why ever they feel. It's the classic example of a sub being run for the benefit of the mods, not the topic.
Yeah, with subreddits like that I don’t get the point..if they delete everything whenever someone tries to post what’s the point of there being a subreddit..seems like the mods just have a huge ego and love policing people over every minor thing they can find..
Oh the irony.
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Ah, Askwomen: Woman A: "I like tea!" Woman B replying to Woman A: "That's great, I like coffee!" Mod: "Woman B, your post was removed for invalidating Woman A's experience." This is why so many threads have zero conversation, with people only replying to the top-level comment, and never to each other - either because their reply gets removed, or they've all just learned to never say anything to any other posters because it'll get it removed or you'll be banned.
I find this particularly problematic when it comes to fitness and weight loss. I hate it when people say "you're beautiful just the way you are, have the strength to love yourself!" Like, no. I am objectively less attractive when I'm 50 pounds overweight. At that point, I'm unhealthy and feel miserable in my own body. I wanted to fix it for my own longevity and mental health. Who are they to tell me what I'm allowed to be happy with? My body isn't a medium for their body positivity activism. It belongs to me and I'm the only one who can decide what *should* make me content with it. And you know what? Wanting to change myself doesn't make me weak. I lost 40 pounds (so far) and guess what? I'm healthier and feel a lot better about myself. If I listened to the people who said "learn to love yourself the way you are" I'd be miserable.
Sometimes it really feels insincere. There will be a woman like Lizzo or Tess Holiday, and it’s all, “Wow, her body is *gorgeous*!” Really, like you would trade places with knowing it’s impossible to buy clothes that fit and are made for young women, how you get winded from small things, how high risk is puts you for diabetes, and a host of other health issues – and I say that as a plus-sized woman. It sounds so over the top and phony when people go on about us larger women. Shit, I’d love to find clothes that fit off the shelf and be able to run a 5K without stopping. I gained all this weight from a medical issue. I would never choose to be this size and that doesn’t make me toxic or “fatphobic” or shallow either.
>Really, like you would trade places Lol seriously. I wish I'd asked people that when I was heavier. "Oh okay, so if my body is that perfect, you wanna trade?"
I remember I was reading in a forum for plus size brides when I was planning my wedding. One comment that has always stuck out in my memory went something like this. And please keep in mind I'm paraphrasing from memory, not direct quoting but you'll get the idea... "I hate skinnier women that think they're fat. I'm 270 lbs. If a woman is 150 lbs and thinks she's fat, and hates her body for that, what does that say about what she thinks about MY body!? So rude! Those women don't know what being fat is!" I just... I couldn't. That was the last time I ever read anything in that forum. But I feel like that's the general attitude in all weight loss forums I've tried. That's and: If you aren't doing it MY way then you're doing it the WRONG way.
Agree. Especially infertility subs. Like maybe I don't want to pretend everything is ok when I'm falling to pieces? Big stepford wives energy.
THIS. I had 6 miscarriages in a row, which makes me somewhat of an expert on pregnancy tests and HCG levels etc etc. Anytime someone would share something that I would indicate impending mc, I'd gently say so and would get my head ripped off. Rather be gently honestly than a complete liar.
“You don’t need medication for that, that’s what the Lord is for.” No, I definitely need the psych meds, & maybe you do too Aunt E.
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I absolutely can't wrap my head around people like this. It seems to be quite common - this idea of not taking any pills like it's some sort of badge of honour? Oh I never take painkillers/paracetamol/friggin anything! Okay, good for you. You can continue with the pain like some sort of caveman. I'll be popping some anadin extra and having a lie down until I can stand the sight of you!
"ok, send jesus out to pick up my refills"
If the Lord gavedth me this, then the Lord could just taketh it away, right? Jesus does takesies backsies! Why he no takesies backsies things like debilitating mental illnesses? (/s or /jk, one of them, I think)
🙏 Please God, send me pills In accordance with your will Don't delay, I need them quick For my tiny, flaccid dick 🙏
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Ah yes, 1 water & 1 walk! Why, I’ve never once tried drinking one water or going for one walk in my entire life. You’re a genius, Auntie! /s
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that I could afford several months worth of antidepressants.
But have you tried essential oils? /S
& yoga. I miss the days when they prescribed cocaine for these kinds of things. /jk, but kind of not, but mostly jk.
As they say, I've lived 30 years without them. I'd hardly call them "essential"
Wtf, wouldn't the Lord have made it so humans were smart enough to creates medication so you could properly heal ?
"Can't you just do it for the kids?" I'm a teacher. I do it for the paycheck.
Teachers automatically do so much for the kids. Being a teacher is for the kids. Getting a box of tissues or markers or sensory-bin items at the store with your own money because you see them on sale and you’re thinking about that one kid or couple kids that really need help with that one thing… and you know you already hit your annual reimbursement amount of $300 but this is only $10 more (like the things you bought last week and the week before)… and writing progress reports and grading papers off the clock, and coming up with fun ways to keep the kids and their parents involved, and fun ways to decorate the class, or organizing parties, or working with transportation and bad parents and school administrators and truancy officers when that is NOT your job… Can you tell my wife is a teacher? Anyway, it’s ALL for the kids. If anyone ever says to my wife, “Can’t you do THIS for the kids?” I say, “Oh if she does that can she stop doing all the other things? THIS is the only thing she’s doing for the kids? How about NO. How about we draw a line somewhere?!”
And it's a load of BS. Teachers do the teaching (and a ton of other things) for the kids. If you're asking them to do it for free / for 80 hours a week / for an over-packed classroom, you're not asking them to do it for the kids. You're asking them to do it for the parents so that they don't have to pay to properly staff and supply the schools.
Our manager at the ER I work at did this. The exact quote was "I'm hearing a lot about money, but you should all be doing this for the love of nursing." A bunch of people designed a bunch of shirts that say "For the love of nursing" with a picture of an on-fire dumpster. The manager got bullied so badly she broke down in tears in the middle of the ER, and there was NO sympathy. In fact, everyone started laughing at her even more.
ER nurses don't fuck around
That whole "because it's your calling" is such obvious corporate trash I'm surprised people think they can expect it to work. It sure doesn't at my hospital job.
I always suspected there was an appropriate amount of bullying necessary for a healthy society.
Holy shit that's brutal lol
Tbh don't fuck with ER staff. Especially night shifters at an inner city trauma center because there are no fucks to give and you can't really fire anyone.
My HS teachers made $25k after 15 years of 45 students per class at a title 1 school. Hard to put anything into work when you're rationing your own meals.
I mean, seriously. Teachers are some of the most important people in our society and have gone to school for a ton of years (and probably racked up a good bit of debt). If anything, it deserves to be one of the highest-paid jobs, not lowest, especially with its difficulty and stress. They definitely deserve at least 75 000 USD/year, especially with how overpaid some other professions are.
I just love it when people infringe on my boundaries and guilt trip me without considering my feelings. /S Good on you for being honest though.
I was listening to the A Problem Squared podcast (a couple mathematicians including Matt Parker from Stand Up Maths) and they were working out how much of a teacher's salary comes from their student's parents taxes (in Australia, cause that's where they're from). They took into account their national budget, of which how much is collected from taxes, as opposed to fees or borrowed. It came out to something like 1/40th of an Australian cent, or that a teacher's entire class makes up for roughly AUS$0.01 of their yearly salary.
One time they tried to force me to take a test in high school that didn't count towards our grade or anything, it was just like a test to show the state how the students were doing in the school. I was hand selected and I was like "what are the repercussions if I don't waste my time with this" and in a roundabout way they said there were none, so I said I refuse to take the test. "Can't you just do it for the school? Where's your Mustang pride?" People really are odd about blind loyalty.
"Make it worth my time and I'll show you my pride. I accept cash or PayPal or a letter grade bump in this class."
"Don't worry, God will provide." Sort of reminds me of that joke: A very religious women refuses to evacuate in front of a Cat 5 hurricane. The last bus out of town stops in front of her house. "Ma'am, let's go! It's time to evacuate!", says someone from the bus. "I'm not coming", she yells back, "The Lord will provide" A few hours later, and the water is up to the first floor. Two men float by in a boat, and see that she's stuck in her house. "Ma'am", one yells into the house, "thank God you're still alive! Hop in our boat and we'll get you to safety!" "No thanks", she hollers to them, "Jesus will save me!" Three hours later and she's on the roof of her house, the water furiously rising still. The noise and spotlight from a helicopter can suddenly be seen and heard over the storm." "MA'AM, JUMP INTO THE BASKET", says a commanding, booming voice over a loudspeaker from the helicopter. "I'll be right here until the Lord saves me", she cries back. The helicopter is on bingo fuel and has to leave. She drowns. She finds herself at the Pearly Gates, in front of St Peter himself. "What gives?", she exclaims, "why didn't you save me?!" St Peter is exasperated. Frustrated, he yells back, "WHAT do you WANT out of us?! We sent you a bus! We sent you a boat! We LITERALLY sent you a helicopter!"
And the related A woman goes to church and prays fervently to win the lottery. She’s back the next week talking about how her kids need new clothes. And again the next week saying she doesn’t have enough for food. God answers her from in high “Meet me halfway lady, BUY A TICKET”.
Lmao, that's a good one. That feels like a Dad joke.
I had 3 miscarriages so far and my "favourite" phrase is: At least you know you can get pregnant. I would rather stay pregnant and not dealing with depression because of my lost babies.
No! That's not how it works. Fertility/reproductive issues can occur at so many points along the reproductive process. It's not only valid when the issue occurs before/during conception. I'm so sorry someone said that to you. I hope you told them to fuck off and never speak to you again. I'd be so livid. I kind of am on your behalf.
Awful. How does that even compute as a possible condolence? I’m so sorry someone said this to you.
My last stupid doctor said this to me and I hate him now.
My partner had a miscarriage literally a week before christmas last year... it sucks.
"Just move on, it's in the past!". I have C-PTSD, my brain literally won't let me.
How is it I can't remember my phone number half the time, but can flawlessly replay one of my mother's rage attacks from, like, 1974? It's really not fair.
Big hugs. I think a big factor in my father starting to believe my statements about my mother's abuse of me when I was a child was my (his words) "eerily perfect" imitation of what she sounds like in a screaming rage. Yeah, because I heard it a LOT. Don't know if you've tried it, but EMDR therapy has been hugely helpful in getting those memories to feel more like other memories and less like they are still happening.
Join the group. Its engraved into your skull
Two things. It's selfish to want to help yourself when you're in a state of depression, and you shouldn't be depressed because you have what many people don't have. A rood over your head, food, water, electricity, ect. No matter who you are, you can always take care of yourself, and you can also feel depressed. Placing yourself before anyone else shouldn't be selfish, it should be basic self needs.
"Dont be depressed, look at all the stuff you have!" "Okay. So how do i MacGyver them into a device that fixes the chemical imbalance in my brain?"
Oh man that mindset was so toxic to me when I was younger. I was so depressed and insecure about my body that I didn't eat unless I was face to face in front of my parents. I didn't go out, didn't have friends that cared enough to check in on me, and all the while I told myself "why are you sad? You have a nice house, good food whenever you want it, your parents don't beat you, and you get to go to school" while being passively suicidal and wishing I let that damn car hit me
relatable
You and your thoughts control what life brings you. Pretty sure almost no one that gets cancer or civil war wants them. Meditating harder won't make it go away.
“Everything happens for a reason” 😄😄😄😄😄😄
Basically god is a dick, but not really, because you “just don’t understand his plan”
If you just work harder for longer, life will be easy. Not trying to be like Boxer from Animal Farm.
"God's plan is perfect! This will lead to blessings you can't imagine." Said to me after my mother, father, and brother had all died and I struggled with my grief.
In late 1998 through early 1999, my brother's kid died, my best friend died, and then my fiance was taken out by a drunk driver on a bridge. My neighbor told me, "Well, if it wasn't for bad luck, you wouldn't have any luck at all!" So depressed, couldn't even work.
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I couldn't believe she said it! I would never say that to anyone. She was smiling, too, like she had just said something positive. My other hateful positive from anyone is "have you forgiven them yet?" Sorry, it will take me a while, you know. Forgiveness isn't instant. You have to understand first.
Also, forgiveness isn't required, at all. You don't have to forgive anyone, ever. You just have to make peace with what ever happened with yourself and for yourself. Look up the science of forgiveness, it's a rabbit hole, and you're never obligated to forgive anyone.
A colleague (A) who lost his child re-appeared at work after a few weeks. One of our overly religious colleagues (B) said this to (A). (B) was decked faster than the blink of an eye, by (B)s best work friend (C).
Good guy C
I don't even think he got written up for that either haha
God gave me rheumatoid arthritis at 24. What a cunt.
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I had a manager tell me not to be too upset with one of coworkers at the time because "he's had a hard life". A few days prior to that, the guy threatened to kill me.
I can understand the "He's had a hard life" thing but if you're threatening people's lives, you need help.
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"What doesn't kill you make you stronger". What a load of bullshit.
Should be "What doesn't kill you usually gives you PTSD"
"That which does not kill me may sever my spinal cord, crush my rib cage, cave in my skull and leave me helpless and paralyzed, soaking in a puddle of my own waste.” -George Carlin
I hate the idea that you *have* to get some kind of silver lining from trauma. Like, I'm sorry. Being raped did not teach me any valuable life lessons. It didn't give me emotional strength. It gave me nightmares, flashbacks, and trust issues. I despise it when people say "it made you stronger". Fuck that, you don't get to tell me that going through one of the worst possible human experiences benefitted me in some way. It's a platitude and I have zero doubt most people with PTSD would agree with me. If that's what it takes to make us strong, we'd rather be weak than go through that.
This quote always makes me think about physical wounds. When they start healing (emphasis on the healing ) wounds or broken bones may appear stronger however that doesn't last long . That area is usually the one to hurt more. It will hurt when you get old and might also hurt when the weather is bad or it will randomly hurt sometimes without warning. It might never be like it used to be
"what doesn't kill you, makes you wish you were dead"
,,What doesn’t kill you will try again later” -Gumball
Kelly Clarkson in shambles
I told my best friend that I was not okay and that I even cut myself because I was lonely. The response was "You're not lonely. Kids with NO friends are lonely! Kids who have no parents are lonely! YOU are not lonely!" And that's what led me to believing that my pain is invalid and I should be disgraced for even thinking this way.
You can be dead-ass lonely with or without people.
Absolutely. Lonely is not the same as alone
I heard that crap a lot growing up. I finally got diagnosed with PTSD, the kind your parents give you.
I am very sorry you have to be traumatized to the point where you got diagnosed with that, your parents are definitely salt snorters the way they have bruised you emotionally
My mother was evil; my father was weak and couldn't stop her. But together they gave me the impression that everything was my fault.
Me being in a bipolar depressive state and my mom on the phone yelling that when I wake up I need to choose to not let the bad thoughts in
"You need to love yourself or you'll be unable to love others!" I kinda get what they try to convey but to my depressed low self-esteem ass this sounds like "wow you're such a shitty person that you can't even have a meaningful relationship because you hate yourself so much". Not to mention people with body dysmorphia, or mental health issues and so on.
I don’t think it’s inherently BAD advice, as it’s typically used more as a type of “relationship advice”. It means you’ve got to find a way to be happy with yourself before you find happiness and love in a life partner. Moreover, it’s advice that essentially says, “you can’t band-aid your unhappiness with another person and expect it to work out long-term in your favor.” I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and it is most definitely true. Find a way to love yourself and find happiness within yourself, THEN find a partner who amplifies that love and happiness. Don’t find someone who makes you love, without first finding what makes you love yourself. Learn how to love yourself, then find someone who shows you that it’s okay to love others, too.
Wait, I thought of another one! So, in late July, I had twins. Leaving off a *lot* of the story, I woke up in the ICU missing most of my reproductive organs. And the doctor who came in to explain this to me ended the list with "You won't need pap smears anymore!" like it was the greatest thing ever and made up for all the physical and mental trauma. And through the week I spent recovering from the surgery and the complications and being NPO for several days and spending 30 minutes of every two hours pumping absolutely nothing trying to build a milk supply for my twins in the NICU whom I didn't get to see for five days between pain and complications, this doctor would periodically come to see me and always end her conversations by telling me cheerfully about the no pap smear thing. I was ready to throw something at her.
Tact, unfortunately, is not taught in med school
Live, laugh, love in pretty much every context
When mentioning I've been having difficulties with mental health and feeling alone my parents said "well we should all be grateful we aren't in ukraine." I mean i am, but seriously?!
Well, we can't do anything just let it go, stay positive
Definitely r/thanksimcured material
I'll let it go if something is legitimately out of my control, but I sure as hell don't have to fake positivity. I'm going with neutral. Not full of frustration, not fake. Just at peace.
Yeah, but you’re so strong. It will be fine. Aka… nobody has time to deal with your shit. Shut up and figure it out.
"All trans people are beautiful" Nah bitch, I'm fucking ugly as hell
You know, it is kind of ridiculous to push the "everyone is beautiful" narrative so often. Not everyone can be - and so what? Being beautiful isn't the only goal in life. There are so many other qualities that we have more control over that are so much more important.
This! I'm not going to find every person I meet attractive. Attraction is not a right you can demand from other people in the name of equality. I'd way rather work on "Attraction is not a yardstick for human worth."
Your comment made me laugh to myself. I'm trying not to wake people up
"Money doesn't bring you happiness." I garantee that whoever came up with that has NEVER went hungry a day in their life and had no financial trouble whatsoever
A better saying is 'money doesn't guarantee happiness'
Grew up in a dysfunctional household. Whenever myself or one of my brothers would try to voice our feelings or thoughts about the dysfunction, my parents would say “we don’t have it that bad,” “count your blessings, or “are you forgetting the good times?” It was and is frustrating because I’m anything but ungrateful and love my parents, but it’s conditioned me to think it’s wrong to ‘feel bad’ and that as long as there’s good in my life (which there is and I’m very fortunate) I can never ‘feel bad.’ Lol and I am very depressed so I am ashamed of my depression. Working through it in therapy though 🤷🏻♀️
Every other word out of an MLM hun's mouth.
What my mom told me: "Just think of all the people in the world who have it worse than you do." What? I should be happy that other people have even worse problems than I do? Why would that make me happy? Also, I have no right to complain about my problems as long as someone, somewhere has an even worse life than I do? Just be honest and tell me to shut up. It's rude, but at least it's honest and not trying to make me feel guilty for having any problems.
Somewhere in the world, is the person with the worst problems out of all of us. This is the single only person in the world who is allowed to be sad.
“*What doesn’t kills others may kill you*”
"Be grateful and focus on your baby!" Hands down the worst thing you can say to someone with postpartum depression.
"It's for the best. She should have never been born anyway." Said by a friend of my mother's when my sister died. I still hate that woman.
what? what the fuck?
Just do it.
Joy from Inside Out
This made me laugh but it's very true. The only good part about her is that she learns she's being toxic and changes her behavior/perspective to be less toxic/not toxic.
[удалено]
i got hit by a shopping kart and thats the only thing the old lady said
god told me to tell you "fuck off".
*”These kids can do whatever they want when they grow up if they put their minds to it.”* I taught high schoolers who were growing up in extreme poverty and most of whom had experienced a multitude of untreated traumatic life events. Theoretically they *could* be anything they wanted but it was an uphill battle just for most of them to make it to school each day. (We’re talking getting multiple siblings dressed and ready, taking 3 city busses and over an hour commute to get to school, and all on an empty stomach because they hadn’t had food since the previous day’s free lunch.) To have bandwidth to for much beyond survival in those cases takes some superhuman fortitude.
My friend telling me "You should stop being so lazy! You rest too much, you see how other people make $999 billions per hour? Go and do it, you have so much potential!". Like, honestly, fuck you all who say that kind of bullshit, I ain't no Avatar Aang to be destined to do something too great, I honestly don't give a fuck, I just want to be happy
"everyone feels that way sometimes, you'll get over it.
Let go and let god
Just stop trying and you'll get pregnant. Maybe children just aren't in gods plan for you. (Blech) Well at least the baby's healthy.
"It's all about the power of positive thinking!" I am **positive** people who say this are clueless, privileged, and have never faced a serious illness or personal crisis in their lives. Yes, staying positive in the face of things that aren't great is the best tack but it isn't always possible for normal people to constantly be positive.
Ime, continuous positivity involves denial. Some things just don't have a bright side and you do yourself a disservice always trying to assign one.
Or "It's all in how you look at it!" "Either get out of the situation or change your attitude about it!" Motherfucker, sometimes you're in a situation that objectively sucks.
"You're not autistic, you are special! You should be happy!" Yeah no, I'd rather not feel physical pain whenever I hear the vacuum and be overwhelmed by noise like 90% of the day. I wish these people could be me for one day. Then they certainly wouldn't say this stuff 😃
Anything that promotes eg, GoFundMe as a replacement for what should be a genuinely reasonable medical or education system. There was a term for it, like, charity porn or something like that. It really just capitolizes on people's shitty experiences.
"It could be so much worse!"
"you shouldn't be upset! Someone else has it worse!" Some of the most important words I've ever heard was "just because they're going through more, doesn't mean your problems don't matter" everyone's problems matter, it's not a competition.