To hate "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"?

[AndHarry]

Really? The really painful experiences I've had have just made me feel tired, anxious and worn down. The last thing I want to hear is that I'm crap at suffering because I'm missing the learning experience that will make me stronger.

Or is it just me?

The guy who wrote this, Friedrich Nietzsche, had a mental breakdown in 1889 and died eighteen months later from a stroke after contracting pneumonia. Nice work, Friedrich.

On a serious note, very sad to hear about your daughter expat. I hope you won't be offended if I ask her name? For personal reasons, I am just sat here filling up a bit.

So, it's safe to guess that the pneumonia and stroke didn't make him stronger, DaddyBeer ? (Love your name, by the way)

I have been thinking about this thread all night. I have run out of fingers and toes to count the empty platitudes I have heard over the years, but at the opposite end of the scale, sometimes silence can be welcoming, when it is coming from someone sitting and just letting you talk.

No opinions, no advice, no judgement. Just an ear, and an attempt at understanding.

That receptive silence means more than a million words.

'This too shall pass' is apt when an NT child is going through a phase of infuriating behaviour, or a you've got a stinking cold.

Whatever kills you... Is phenomenal bollocks.

"This too shall pass"

Yeah. Like a kidney stone. It's going to hurt like hell while it happens, and leave damage after it's gone.

Its a crap saying

personally I always think what doesnt kill you makes you weirder

and trust me terrible higs have happened in my life that have fucked me up

I remember when my best friend had to tell people that she had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. She was only 35 with 3 boys under the age of 9. She had ignorant arses saying things like "you're strong, you'll get through this" and "God would never take you away from your boys". All utter shit.

All I could think of to say was "I wish I could say something to make you feel better, but I know I can't". She said she appreciated it more than any empty platitude.

Needless to say, she died. I still miss her every day.

Thanks Call. DaddyBear was taken, and I'm known to drink the odd beer..

I think old Friedrich probably wished he'd come up with "hindsight is a wonderful thing", looking back.

It really is an insidious saying, because it contains a tiny grain of truth, that like all the best lies is easy to believe at difficult times. But it is very black and white and doesn't account for any of the grey that much of life involves.

My GM used to say "God never gives us more than we can bear"
What a load of bollocks.
If that were true, surely there would be no suicides, no drug addicts and no alcoholics?
This has been the worst 12 months of my life and it showed no sign of getting better anytime soon.
And - without meaning to sound overly dramatic - I am not sure how much more I can bear.
Silly thing is, it will probably be something really innocuous that pushes me over the edge :(

That phrase Badvoc2 is for christians, not non christians.
Sorry for whatever it is that you are going through.

All that stuff about how suffering makes you stronger and refines your character. All rubbish.

Callme I am sorry you didn't get any support from friends/acquaintances/relatives, but you are definitely right about what you said. I mean it because there was a time (many times) when I needed support and I did not have it.

I try and find the things I've learnt from the awful things that have happened in my life, hard as it might be. I've usually learnt something, no matter how small, that I can take with me (even if it is that X person is a better friend than I gave them credit for, or that money isn't everything, etc, or that somewhere I do have the capacity to ask for help). I think that's how I make sense of 'everything happens for a reason' although it is a clumsy line.

I tend to say to people when listening to their awfulness, that I am sorry that it happened. That I hear them. And that I hear them that it's shit. Because in my experience people generally don't expect you to be able to make things 'all better' they just want acknowledgement and not to feel so much on their own.

Love to all who need it.

Unfortuneately I've learnt many things I wish I didn't know, and none of them make me a better person, they make me alienated, heartbroken, ugly and isolated.

When very occasionally someone says just 'yes, what's happening, it's shit, and I'm sorry' - that helps. Cos it's true and it's about me, not a platitude which helps them sleep better. I hope I never did that to someone else...

CallMe yes, that wonderful moment when a geneticist, happy to have discovered another oddity to add to his collection, enthusiasm not successfully veiled, and although kind, its very surreal and awful. I don't think we have the same from what you've said, just another horrible thing - there are so many and all fucking unfair xxx

I was first provisionally diagnosed by an orthopedic surgeon, who when taking my family history remembered a paper he'd read & thought it was a no brainer.

He laughed (not at me, because he couldn't believe he'd stumbled over me which such an obvious case of a rare condition), and said it was text book - but couldn't tell me anything else about it, other than I should find a specialist, but couldn't tell me who, or what was my prognosis, or my baby's, just that there was no treatment or cure, and I should never have had a child had I known.

It was awful, telling them about my awful, brutal, tragic family history, and him knowing what i was going to say next as it was all so clear to him, and everything breaking into pieces and rearranging the past into something completely different. Having to detail my sisters pitiful and short existence, dying undiagnosed and well, erm, abandoned by the medical establishment, watching her slowly fall apart, frightened and untreated, so fucking scared. hopes gradually dying as she got progressively worse, until she died, alone. Fuck I've made myself cry. And Ds is beside me. Sorry. Indulgent crap.

Anyway, it rewrote my whole life and family, knowing what really happened, and how many chances were missed to help her, or me too, or my son. And then after it was all confirmed. as my symptoms progressed, it was like some kind of horrible dejavu, as I saw it happen to my sister but then we didn't know why, and now, when my body fails in some new way, I can hear her, stuff she said comes back to ring in my ears. Tbh, it's like living in hell, reliving her pain, as well as my own, and watching for the beginnings in Ds, which of course, is starting, though I'm still hoping he doesn't have it so badly. Not clear for him yet thank god.

I think the only thing that could be worse is watching two children go through this. My heart goes out to you. Tearful and very genuine hug your way x

Sorry, don't ever say this stuff in rl, so I get kind of long splurge when I do write stuff on here.

I hate 'everything happens for a reason' and 'what's for you won't pass you'. I actually find it very hurtful and offensive as if people are saying that the bad things that's have happened to me and my family were deserved somehow.

I think if you've gone through something and come out the other side changed but ok, it holds true. But some people don't come out the other side.

Some things can never be got over. Maybe with time people can sometimes find a way to live with whatever has affected them so badly. It isn't the same as being ok. Not by a long shot.

My heartfelt compassion to all of you have suffered and lost.

I'm so sorry for all on here that have and continue to suffer. I kno that no words can ease what you are going through.

If I hear another "god is good, I really believe that, bla bla" I'll fucking scream.

Or "miracles happen you know" no they fucking don't. Stop talking shit.

Or my personal favourite " at least you'll always have the memory of having had your soul mate" gee thanks for that. Bitch!

It's all the religious platitudes that really get on my goat, especially when they know we're not religious.

I use "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" when my kids are whining about some minor inconvenience (like my son having to take the bus because I don't feel like driving him).

Clara you see - that works. A little cold, wind or damp, a little hard work, a little adversity - that is where the statent actually belongs.

Sadly, though, it seems to have grown wings.

Miscellaneous you are right - it doesn't seem we are facing the same condition. However, I know the glint in the eye of the one who thinks he has figured it out, or the "now what" on the face of the doc who has been dismissive when the test results that can't be questioned cross their desks.

The only specialist within 1200 km of my home in my country in this disease is heavily funded by drug companies, and while we have seen him (he did both my DD's biopsy and my own) he is not interested in us, as we do not fall within his area of specialist study.

See a specialist... Yeah, let me get right on that.

With regard to the OP, I heard a great one today.

"You are so lucky you were chosen for this task. If it had been me, I would have lost it already"

I picked up my phone, pretended to take a call, and walked away.

Callme That's awful. But unfortunately doesn't surprise me. A friend had cancer and as she was about to undergo surgery to hopefully get rid of it, someone called her and asked her if the cancer had gone. She said: no, that's why she had to have surgery. This 'someone' then proceeded to tell her she had been praying for the cancer to go and thought it would be gone before the day of the surgery.

I don't know why some people feel the need to say crap like that. One thing is to say: I will pray/hope the surgery goes well or something like that, but not shit like that.

YANBU! Someone recently said this about my older brother. Yeah, what didn't kill him gave him PTSD which led to depression and anxiety, substance abuse issues which were directly from what happened which in turn probably triggered his schizophrenia. What didn't kill him made him wish it did...

Simply put... when the thing(s) that didn't kill you left you alive, alone and in the dark wishing that you had been taken, you don't feel stronger at all.

Yes, you may have "survived", but at what cost?

Tomorrow, at 8 am on a Sunday, what in hell was I thinking I get to stand up at the opening ceremonies of a fundraising sports competition and act all brave, when that is hardly what I am feeling.

Perhaps, the saying might before accurate as "what doesn't kill you teaches you how to wear masks that make you look stronger".

Now that might be a bit more accurate.

I feel it is very true in my case BUT it is not a helpful thing to say and I would have found it upsetting had anyone trotted it out- luckily they didn't.