| I don't disagree with that at all, but I do think that line of thinking about ones own issues can lead to a sort of self-blame - thinking things like: if I were stronger I wouldn't have been hurt by that neglect or mistreatment. No question, who you are has a huge impact on how something effects you, but nobody reacts well to e.g. neglect or mistreatment. I might end up with depression, while my sibling ends up with anxiety. That's our predisposition interacting with the objective reality, but neither outcome shifts the blame for the neglect or mistreatment to us. I know that's probably not what you were trying to say, but I do think that idea is one possible place downstream of what you are saying. |
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| ▲ | LoganDark 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > nobody reacts well to e.g. neglect or mistreatment Maybe, but some people react by becoming stronger and some react by breaking down and failing. Regardless of other effects like depression, anxiety, paranoia etc., being stronger tends to sound better, even if it has other trade-offs, you know? If you ended up weaker then sometimes nothing can convince you that's what was best. | | |
| ▲ | kennywinker an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > being stronger tends to sound better, even if it has other trade-offs, you know? That feels like a tautology. From context, you've defined stronger to mean better. So of course in that case stronger is better. But in reality stronger isn't always better. If you come to a chess match being able to bench more than your opponent, are you better at chess than them? If there are tradeoffs, and there are always tradeoffs, then you can't actually say stronger is better. The neglect of your parents might make you more independent and you might find that helps with your work life, while at the same time it makes your personal relationships harder. Which of those do you happen to value more? Which is not to say you can't personally find value in and appreciate even the negative the experiences that made you who you are. But you can't say something like: neglect is good because it makes people stronger. It could be true for your life and what you value, but it's not objectively true. | | |
| ▲ | LoganDark an hour ago | parent [-] | | > But you can't say something like: neglect is good because it makes people stronger. It could be true for your life and what you value, but it's not objectively true. Oh neglect is terrible; simultaneously the worst and the least recognized type of abuse. My point is that adaptations to abuse vary enough that some can be more "desirable" than others (in addition to being more fit for the environment / the world at large in some cases), and someone stuck in a "worse" one could end up longing for a "better" one. Though, sometimes I long for "worse" ones myself as someone who feels "better" than I should be, so maybe the grass is just always greener. |
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| ▲ | Kye 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't think "weak" and "strong" are useful in this discussion without defining them carefully. The way most people seem to get through these things is by becoming more thoughtful and emotionally mature. This is what is generally meant by "weak" in these conversations. "Strong" leads to pills and bottles and painful deaths trying to fight the feelings down. | | |
| ▲ | LoganDark an hour ago | parent [-] | | Consider two approaches: one is to spend hours ruminating on your experiences every day to form insights and approaches to tackle new problems and make new progress. The other is to panic at the slightest sign of anything, compartmentalize everything and get stuck in fruitless thought loops constantly, making very little progress to integrate information or have insights. Say both of those take the same immense amounts of energy, but maybe the former would have a better shot at fighting active abuse, you know? In my experience, calculated thought is far superior to fruitless panic. In this way one could be considered "stronger" than the other even though both are technically undesirable (because constant rumination over everything is actually terrible, for example). Real example based on real self-doubt across multiple friends I know. | | |
| ▲ | Kye an hour ago | parent [-] | | You seem to be talking past me. | | |
| ▲ | LoganDark an hour ago | parent [-] | | I'm trying to say that the reason it's not defined carefully is because people who worry about this don't usually have concrete objective definitions. "Stronger" sounds better to someone who hates that they're "weak", because the costs are less obvious. (Consider breaking down in front of everyone all the time, embarrassing yourself constantly, never knowing what to do, irritating everyone by being inconsolable, etc. vs always being composed, manipulating situations to avoid embarrassment, always being prepared with plans and never depending on others. Despite the fact that the latter is a constant never-ending source of work that mostly never gets used, on top of being incredibly lonely, the former feels worse because everybody sees it as worse.) Both examples can be incredibly emotionally mature, they just express it in different ways. | | |
| ▲ | Kye an hour ago | parent [-] | | This still sounds like you're trying to justify "weak" and "strong" as useful categories. >> "Consider breaking down in front of everyone all the time, embarrassing yourself constantly, never knowing what to do, irritating everyone by being inconsolable, etc. vs always being composed, manipulating situations to avoid embarrassment, always being prepared with plans and never depending on others. Despite the fact that the latter is a constant never-ending source of work that mostly never gets used, on top of being incredibly lonely, the former feels worse because everybody sees it as worse." These are not emotionally mature ways of handling things. These are called maladaptive coping strategies. | | |
| ▲ | LoganDark 30 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I would be very careful dismissing these examples as merely coping strategies. Maladaptive sure, especially once no longer needed, but a coping strategy is only for managing emotions. These are largely survival mechanisms, ways to avoid or reduce the intensity of abuse in the first place. They do tend to come with coping mechanisms, but that's not their whole thing. |
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