Comment on How to stop thinking about an interaction from my past?
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months agoI would want to shit down the throat of anyone who said that to me immediately after I shared an upsetting memory that had bothered me for years.
RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 7 months ago
You sound like a great person.
It just means that resolving that issue starts with yourself. Grow up.
idiomaddict@feddit.de 7 months ago
I’m not the other person, but it does have real “maybe it was god’s plan for your kid to die” energy. It can be helpful for people, but it can also shut people down. That’s not a bad thing, people benefit from having strong reactions to feeling insulted, as the OP shows. Sometimes it’s smarter to shield yourself from more insults than to accept feedback from any source.
RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 7 months ago
“Maybe it was god’s plan for your kid to die”.
How does that have anything to do with your estimate of something. I watched both my parents die, and I definitely don’t blame god. I didn’t change the estimate of those situations by pretending I was happy my parents were dead. I did it by thinking they lived a full life and they aren’t sad they are dead.
It says you have the power to change your estimate of the situation, it doesn’t say how, how fast or how difficult it should be.
idiomaddict@feddit.de 7 months ago
I’m not trying to shit down your throat, but trying to use kinder words than the other person (I might have failed) to explain why it’s not an ideal comment to leave there.
I’m not saying it’s bad advice, but people generally have emotional responses to what others say. That’s why delicacy is important- if you say the right thing the wrong way it can make the other person less receptive to the idea as a whole.
Of course this is within their control and you’re not responsible for their emotional reactions, but it’s also a pretty consistent, predictable reaction, so being aware of it and accommodating it is a good idea if you want your words to sink in.
There is also the critique that stoicism makes you more easily exploited, if you come to it without assertiveness already well established. In the OP’s case, telling someone who has wrongfully beaten themselves up for years about an interaction where the other person was cruel to them for no reason, that they’re actually the one at fault, is unlikely to provoke a thorough consideration of stoicism. It’ll either lead to them dismissing you and your ideas, or it will lead to them continuing to beat themselves up.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
Maybe that perspective is unnecessary, unempathetic, and unrealistic. 🤷♂️
RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Not my fault you don’t understand what those words mean. If only there was an emoji for them.