Quote from: NicoleNo one is trying to put Kate down, feeling victimized is not healthy. Whatever it takes to jolt people out of their victim syndrome, is justified IMO. Remember, it is not all about Kate, or Kristi, or Nicole (me) It is about the community of people reading this forum. And I will continue to speak out against the victim mentality that pervades many of these threads.
Quote from: Maebh... I think and know from experience that pampering to the victim syndrome does not help at all but only confirm and reinforce the despair. ... Sometime the victim is so much locked and, in some perverse sense, comfortable into that role that anything said or done to help will be misinterpreted and seen as an other attack in order to confirm and strenghten that feeling of victimisation. So yes it is very important to be clear not only about what one says but also how one says it. ...
Quote from: ReginaA big issue in suicide prevention is that other people's sympathy and empathy are can be manipulated by SOME people who use their suicidal intentions as a way to get attention and to have people take them seriously. It's a way of gaining power when they feel otherwise powerless. ...
People who are caregivers getting too wrapped up in a suicidal person's issues will not stop them from making an attempt but they will make those caregivers very quickly get burnt out and often angry. ...
... an endless stream of generalized offered support creates support junkies and people who can only feel special when others fawn over them and acknowledge their victimization. If anything, it can paralyze those people into being unable to take action in their lives unless the lifeline of support is going into their veins and framing oneself as a victim is placing oneself in a passive role. To throw in another cliché, it becomes a classic enabler situation which happens so often on Internet forums that are supposed to be helping people. Giving support isn't quite as simple as 'nice people give support' and 'mean people don't give support.' (I'm NOT saying anyone directly said that here, but it's a statement you see on practically every Internet support forum). Moreover, without both parties actively listening to each other, support just isn't going to happen.
Some excellent points. Especially the one I bolded.
Tough love, in my experience, is a couple of things. 1) A frustration on the part of the giver that the receiver is not to the point that the giver has reached. I have seen that most often in AA/NA support groups where confrontation, another designation for
building resistance, is often the order of the day. 2) Trying to smash my way to victory over the irrational and frustrating.
Think about it this way: if someone attempts to push you out of their way in a crowd, do you resist their push and even push back? Second Law of Thermodynamics: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
To overcome resistance I have found with many years of practice that the so-called confrontational approach seldom works, and that when it does, it works for a brief period and is generally followed by a relapse of the person so confronted. Most of us do not have life-changing epiphanies that last when we are being yelled at. Generally, we will do what is necessary to stop the yelling and go about our business as usual when the shouters have departed.
Listening means a couple of things. 1) Shutting my thought flow and attempting to hear what the other is saying. Rather than, say, maintaining a constant stream of my own thought with markers made for points to go back and undermine. Or, repeating within myself a constant mantra of conversation about how this is the way and that isn't.
In other words, listening means hearing what and how a person talks or writes without prejudicing my ability with my own slant on what they are talking/writing about. (Which is why I have read this and then left it alone for about two hours now. I needed time to jettison my initial responses.)
2) Listening also involves reflection. By that, one attempts when she does speak, to attempt to get the other to see whatever conflicts the other may have shown in what she did say. A good listener is a mirror to the other, not a tv screen that sends things to the other.
Change does not, in my experience, come through winning over someone rationally. How many anorexics have I worked with who rationally are severely underweight, but can only see themselves as bloated and obese? Rationally for them simply means that they need to lose more weight in order to look good. Anorexia, addiction, and a plethora of other ills we see are not amenable to rational argument. If they were the sufferer would probably not suffer with the ailment.
Change does come when the dissonance of one's behavior with what they conceive of as a goal becomes too great to tolerate for the sufferer. Not for me, but for the sufferer.
I am not certain that everyone on this thread is MTF, but think back to where you were, if you can, to just before you made a decision to change the way yourself and others viewed your gender. Turmoil, doubt, frustration? Some may have been in despair.
If I am in despair the absolute last place I am able to go directly is to well-adjusted and peaceful. Instead, as Kate pointed out so very well, a much smaller step is necessary to get me on the road to well-adjusted and peaceful. Perhaps, from despair I could go to resentment. Then I might get angry. Then I might question. Then I might get frustrated. Then I might want revenge. In that progression I might be able to effect some change as I move up the scale and away from despair. I may eventually get to well-adjusted and peaceful.
Change is always incremental. I credit Kate for being able to see some movement with Jessica. But, Jessica and all of the rest of us still exhibit signs of resistance whenever we have a life-event that presses on us. Two years may not be wasted.
I may wish I had two extra years of full-time, or two extra years of post-op, but the fact remains I am not the one who is contemplating the merits of suicide.
Internet forums are good for some types of support. They are not good for suicidal ideation prevention and suicide prevention. Often what the person at that edge requires is a safe place to be able to take one step in the scale of well-being. None of us are able to employ a crisis unit to go see that person on the edge and evaluate her or him. We are not caregivers on internet. At best we can be caring and try to evoke a state that might allow that person to move slightly away from the edge while still having the abyss in sight and well within her reach.
Yes, caregivers sometimes do identify too closely with their patients. Yes, those that do very often burn out. But, self-identifying can also be displayed by anger and frustration with a person that I cannot win over to peace and well-being through the agency of my own written experience. Through the
tough love approach.
I hope Jessica talks some more with us. I would like to hear what she feels about the viability of the questions she has posed us. I hope she is able to listen to and talk with herself.
In areas of the soul (psyche) all of the work is done within the person herself. The rest of us needn't be overly concerned with what a difference to Jessica we are going to make. She WILL make the difference.
Radical responsibility needn't be angry and aggressive. Most often I find it to be quiet and unassuming, having a recognition of the difference between possibility and impossibility. Jessica has not found that yet. She is viewing possibility as much more limited than it is; and, imo, is allowing her fears and her view of what she thinks her circumstances are to cloud her ability to reach toward her next possibility.
It's a long road, Jess. It's a long road for us all.
Nichole
