Why is everyone such a wet lettuce?

Mn has a disproportionate number of wet lettuces, just as it has a disproportionate number of misanthropes.

I actually don’t know if I can carry on contributing to this forum anymore. It’s full of drama queens, people with ‘trauma’ (or basically normal life stuff that lots of people deal with) and people who need constant reassurance before they make decisions.

Woman putting children at risk because they won’t leave their abusive, drunken partners… people staying with men when they cheat on them… people with a paper cut who ask if they need to go to A+E (or at least not far off)… the list goes on.

All compounded by remote working / wfh

I agree @YelramBob
Whenever I eat out in a group we each pay for ourselves. It isn't difficult.

Many mumsnetters seem to think it is shameful to not be able to say they can't afford something - meals out, hen dos, weddings etc.. I just don't get it.

See also: Meeting our friends tonight for dinner. Friends earn £100k a day and will order lobster and Moet, DH and I are poor and will share a salad and glass of tap water. Friends will want to split the bill, my anxiety is through the roof and I'm dreading the meal - what shall I do?

JUST PAY THE TEN FUCKING POUNDS FOR YOUR SHARE OF THE FOOD FFS

I was exactly the same. I started work three weeks after my 16th birthday in 1975 and was shy and quiet. Having to actually phone people, and deal with the public in person, really helped me and I became so much more confident. In those days we didn't have the option of opting out "because ..........", we just did it.

Avoidance is the worst strategy for him as it allows those fears and insecurities to fester and grow.

You are spot on @BogRollBOGOF

DS is autistic so naturally more anxious than average. But some of it is over normal things, just more intense. We work at breaking it down into more managable baby-steps and building up his experiences and confidence at coping.
Avoidance is the worst strategy for him as it allows those fears and insecurities to fester and grow.

I agree that there is definitely a narrative of “feel sorry for me please because of x, y or z on-line” which is rarely challenged and which would be cured within two weeks of experience in rl working in a supermarket for example when you would learn that the whole world has problems and carries on anyway, and more importantly, if you go around asking for people to feel sorry for you, it quickly has the opposite effect!

Great post @VoltaireMittyDream
Re your last paragraph - it almost feels like anxiety has become an epidemic.

Too many people confuse being nervous or apprehensive with anxiety. This then diminshes the problem for those who genuinely suffer from it.

I agree - I think avoiding real life interaction allows you to nurture an idealising or paranoid fantasy about what other people are actually like.

I hated going into shops on my own, making phone calls, that sort of thing when I was a self-conscious teenager. Fairly normal teenage stuff. But the more I had to do it, the more opportunities I had to notice that everyone else is just doing their own thing, making mistakes, being embarrassing and odd at times, saying stupid things now and then, sometimes being an arse, and that nobody goes through life already knowing how to do things and how to behave in every circumstance.

The earlier you realise this about the world, the better - it frees you up to do so much more, and to let yourself learn and explore.

I notice even with my Gen Alpha kid that so much of the content he gravitates to is by creators going on and on about their experiences of anxiety, or being misunderstood, or embarrassing things that have happened to them - but without any sort of redemptive conclusion where they overcome it. Instead, they monetise it - they stay indoors all the time making little stylised naive animations & really bedding down into their anxious identity, interacting virtually with sycophantic 8-year-olds rather than with friends their own age IRL. This sort of obsessive self-centred navel gazing and fear of other people’s judgement becomes almost aspirational - because look! This anxious kid made millions by staying in a darkened room, talking about how horrible people were to him at school. It’s a mess.

Just make sure you've got new cushions in to 'refresh' your sofa for the new season.

Oooh I'm definitely a potato. In body as well.

I love the idea of having a spirit vegetable.

While I’d love to identify as a chilli pepper, if I’m honest with myself I think I’m probably more of a parsnip.

I am a lovely shiny tomato. Smug as fuck.

(I'm only posting in case there are more links to Christmas fridge threads 😍)

DD was like me as well, and at school she genuinely had anxiety - medicated and under CAMHS. However, she eventually built up resilience and after graduating ended up in a role that involved dealing with the public, answering the phone and making phone calls to GP surgeries and patients.

I don't recognise the shrinking violet she was 10 years ago.

Totally agree with this. My son, who isn’t a shrinking violet by any means, needed to contact his 6 Form college whilst he was at Uni. He has sent an email (well more than one) and over a month later had no reply. I suggested ring and all he said was ‘I don’t like using the phone’.

My work have employed young people who will tie themselves in knots to not answer the phone/make a call despite it being part of their job. They either leave or bite the bullet and start using the phone. A few weeks later they’re fine.

I think this is another issue that young people and older people too seem to think perfectly normal worry is a medical condition called anxiety and the way of dealing with it is to avoid anything that causes ‘anxiety’. Consequently they develop no coping skills and avoid doing anything at all. It all becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and some probably do genuinely end up with diagnosed anxiety.

I posted this on another thread, then thought of this one, so I will post it again here:

I feel that the internet encourages people to avoid personal interaction. Back in the day we all had to interact with people in person or on the phone, and we built up resilience to do this because there was no other choice.

I realise that there will always be people who will find this impossible, but for someone like me who was frightened to say boo to a goose when I left school in 1977, learning to deal with the public on the phone and in person eventually gave me more confidence to speak to people and enjoy their company.

Nowadays people think "I don't have to anwer the phone/see people I'll just hide behind a screen instead". People don't know how to get out of their comfort zone because they have choices.

People who aren't you care about things you don't, and vice versa.

Saw a shopping list thread a while ago, the one with twin snakes on it, the vitriol the poster got for daring to even start the clearly lighthearted "pointless" thread was so weird.

Some are dispairing, and to think these people have had or will have children. The next generation is as wet as it gets.

Oh they’d rather spend it on “Making Memories” swiftly followed by AIBU all my children are crying and DH isn’t speaking to me in Marbella.

The need for the younger generation to have their ‘mental health adjustments and allowances’ does nothing but enforce the idea that the whole world will bend to accommodate them. We are turning into a nation of drips.
The rest of us just got on with it, cried in private, maybe saw a doctor…. but never once expected a workplace to change things for us.

Well, speaking from personal experience, after falling and breaking my hip in my entirely snow free kitchen, the end result is that every time I laugh now, the area tenses up involuntarily. It's like having bloody Braxton Hicks in my hip! So can people please stop bloody making me laugh!

This thread reminds me of the EBay advert, where the bloke goes round to tell his neighbour to turn down the music. He ends up going in, taking his shoes off and listens all about the speakers 🤣

As a manager I make so many adjustments and allowances for mental health issues but no one asks about me! No, I just get on with it.

Many many people would do far better if they stopped having an opinion on what someone else is doing or not with their lives. The art of minding your own business is dead on social media. Perhaps it’s their way of not looking at their own lives so pick at others. Also I can’t wait for winter, I’m sure that will offend a few 😬