Delicate folks and less robust people

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

It's Saturday night and I've had a few beers so I guess I'm feeling a bit fighty, but only because this is something that's been bothering me for a while and it has been sparked by the 'Books you wished you'd never read' thread, a number of posters said they had thrown books away rather than subject people to the content.

And films people wished they'd never watched because they were traumatised.

But, and this is the big but, where I'm probably going to get a thrashing, there are often threads about abortion, where posters say you 'Will never get over it'.

And threads about miscarriage where people say, 'You will never get over it'.

And I completely respect their stance and experience, BUT, as someone who has had both miscarriages and abortions I found them both very easy to get over and put behind me, and I think the telling women that they Won't, can make things much harder for people.

If they do, they may feel guilt, or it may make women feel they can't have an abortion because they will always feel conflict.

I guess my point is, everyone responds to things differently, you can't go round chucking books away because you found them distasteful, you can't council a woman who has had a miscarriage she will never get over it and you can't advise against an abortion because it 'will affect you forever'.

And yes, it is a goady title but I'm a little bit irritated about absolutism when it comes down to women, choice, and mental health.

It's ok to be ok.

And what book was it?

Lurkedforever I'm not sure it's a good to compare experiences like that - how far do you take it? There's always someone worse off than yourself. Why treat anyone with depression or anxiety when bipolar and schizophrenia are so much 'worse'?

And why think everything is as it appears regarding supportive partners etc? Also depression can make you feel guilty about the support they're getting as they feel there not worthy of it.

SleightofMind could your mum have actually been traumatised by giving birth? I found the birth of my DS incredibly traumatic, kept reliving the whole thing regularly for over a year afterwards. Still relive it in parts now after over four years. Not having anymore children because of it. Not that I'll ever tell DS any of that, but we do all react differently.

What we actually need is more help out there. Someone with birth trauma should be able to access help. Someone with PND should be able to get help that. We should fight for better mental health services rather than belittling the experiences of anyone we judge to have it easier than ourselves.

mirime I've never had pnd, it's my friend. And I do actually see why for her it is understandable. She came very close to losing her child. If someone is insensitive enough to then expect her to put her feelings to one side to better meet theirs, just because she appears strong then I think she has the right to resent it. I'm not saying she'd randomly go about telling anyone with it to get a grip. I can understand that having support might increase the guilt, but I can also see why in her shoes that guilt looks like a luxury she would have cut her arm off for.

My problems were/ are different, and I'm not saying that in general terms it's healthy or constructive to play hard times top trumps. But I do think that some people need to consider their audience more.

Either here or in rl I really wouldn't have anything but sympathy for someone that had unpleasant childhood experiences, even if on the whole it was still better than mine. I wouldn't be comparing them as lucky. But if someone in rl then just assumes they can overly lean on me as a result of that because I'm outwardly tough, and jump to the conclusion I must have no experience of hardship because I'm not in a heap, let alone if they jump to the conclusion that toughness is natural, rather than a survival skill, then I do tend to get arsey.

It's a bit like walking. Just because someone is striding along it doesn't mean they haven't ever fell over, or dragged themselves along, or that they aren't constantly striving to keep walking. If someone who has slightly tired legs jumps on for an uninvited piggy back it won't be taken well.

I will say though, that when a whole bunch of people in real life keep sort of implying you will get over it given time or another child etc etc, it feels like online and my DP are the only ones who acknowledge that I haven't yet, and I may never get over it.

But everyone reacts to grief differently and it's important to acknowledge that giving your child a name or even calling a stillborn foetus a child may not be universally helpful. BUT speaking to women from a previous generation where it was all so hush hush it at least feels liberating to be able to acknowledge the loss if we want to.

Anyway! YANBU to suggest that people all handle things differently. A lot of online anger seems to stem from being unable to understand that someone else can feel completely different to us and yet have valid feelings.

I don't think so. I really wouldn't have used it as an example if I thought she was genuinely affected.
It's more along the lines of, whatever has happened to someone else, it couldn't possibly be worse than her experience.
If you tell her someone's wife died she'll interrupt to tell you about the time she lost an expensive ring! ('It was like a death for me, never wear your favourite things, the loss will haunt you')

I do feel sorry for her being born into her generation rather than my own. She'd never have chosen to have children if she'd had the freedoms open to women now. As an adult I can see how ill suited she is to the mother (and now) grandmother role and how she must have resented it.

CB trauma is trivialised far too much already and I'm aware that even a 'straightforward' birth can be deeply upsetting. Attitudes to pregnant women in the medical profession give me the rage.
I'm honestly not raising an eyebrow at anyone's struggle while patting myself on the back for being resilient.
I'm arguing for us to break out of prescribed ways of dealing with things.
No one should feel they must be scarred by an experience just because someone else was.

This thread has gone too far. The woman dissing her cousin for being traumatised by a sexual assault when she herself was merely pissed off. This is where all this "I'm a coper" stuff leads - women putting up with abuse for fear of being seen as whiny or inadequate or ..... Crime of the century for women ....... Being too sensitive.

No, that's where being a coper who thinks everyone should deal with things the same way you do leads.
The gripe isn't about being a 'coper' or 'whiner', it's being unable to accept other people's' different ways of processing upset.
So, the copers would demand you get a grip, snap out of it, stop milking it, and the whiners would insist you must be traumatised, should open up and stop being repressed, or are unfeeling.
Both as bad as each other.

for me, it comes down to being someone who always sees the negative, or the postive.

Its not about whether something deeply affects you, I had a termination when i was a teenager and it did deeply, deeply affect me, and did change who I was in a lot of ways. But at the same time, i'm not someone who likes to dwell and let things fester so I accept that I was damaged by the experience, but I move on.

I know people who are negative and dwell on stuff and thats what I can't cope with.

I also know people who are positive, And thats not to say they haven't been, and continue to be affected by REALLY shit things, loss of children, loss of partners very young, severe ill health, but they still manage to try and see the postive in live despite those things.

I'm with you OP!

(Including having had both a miscarriage and a termination, neither of which have traumatised me in the slightest.)

Resilience is circumstantial. If you are a secure person from an emotionally and psychologically secure background who has some degree of control over your circumstances, you will cope with things better than others. That doesn't make you superior, that makes you fortunate.

I absolutely agree. I find a lot of responses on this thread so sad for the lack of empathy. Saying you're "strong" while others are "weak" is a complete fallacy. Everyone has their limit; lucky for them the self-proclaimed "strong" ones haven't reached it yet.

I've thrown away books because they were so poorly written I wouldn't inflict them on anyone else. And I am fairly resiliant, but that is a matter of luck, really. I'm part of a city full of traumatised people at the moment and it is not always the ones who had the worst experience who are the most traumatised.

Resilience is circumstantial. If you are a secure person from an emotionally and psychologically secure background who has some degree of control over your circumstances, you will cope with things better than others. That doesn't make you superior, that makes you fortunate.

I don't think I agree with this. I'm very emotionally robust even though I suffered from abuse as a child and have bipolar disorder. I have friends with no serious MH issues or childhood issues (and we're very close so I absolutely know they don't) who are not at all emotionally resilient. I believe you can develop resilience...

In fact thinking about it isn't the statement above the kind of absolutism the OP was talking about?

@HeddaGarbled, that is totally unfair. I DID NOT DISS MY COUSIN.
I said I didn't relate.
There's nothing wrong with her reaction.
THERE'S NOTHING WRONG with mine.

I had a fucked up low-esteem childhood & was actively suicidal from age 7-14 yrs. So come to think of it, I am in the "resilience can be learned" camp, since someone asked about that.

I know people who are negative and dwell on stuff and thats what I can't cope with.

Do you really think it's a choice whether to be a 'negative' or a 'positive' person? I'm not so sure. I have periodic but severe depression; when I'm well I don't dwell on things much but when I'm ill I obsess and can't move past negative thought spirals. If I could change how I react when I'm ill I would; it's not much fun to live through.

Ahh, I buggered of the other night and didn't come back, glad it's sparked an interesting discussion though.

I would also say, I was raped as a 19 year-old, and it was shit, it made me feel quite Fucking wobbly about the world for a while and I did have a year of panic attacks. But I got over it quite quickly, the only lasting effect was feminism and a care for women.

It didn't make me hate men, I didn't blame myself and I didn't keep it quiet.

And I don't judge anyone for feeling any different to me.

And thank you to everyone that has shared their experiences.

That was my point, despite the goady title, we're all different, and there are intrinsic reasons for that, and we shouldn't really judge or forecast.

Because it doesn't help us.

I think a lot of people either didn't bother to read or misunderstood the original point. It's not goady at all. It's not saying that other people need to be more robust, its about saying they shouldn't judge everyone else and advise them as they will all be the same as them.

I once had a woman tell me about her m/c at 8 weeks, years earlier. I felt empathy for her, but mentioned (appropriately as to how the conversation was going) that not all women are devastated to the same extent and that there is no one size fits all to how to deal with it. She went mental at me about how I couldn't possibly understand and how anyone who had suffered like she had would know that it's something you never get over and will be crying about until you die.
I'd had 4 m/c at that stage, later ones.

I wasn't the insensitive one in that scenario, she was. No comprehension that other people may feel differently to her at all.

Resilience is circumstantial. If you are a secure person from an emotionally and psychologically secure background who has some degree of control over your circumstances, you will cope with things better than others. That doesn't make you superior, that makes you fortunate

This is part of the problem. You are assuming a lot, some of us are resilient without having those circumstances. You can come from an emotionally and psychologically background and still cope with things better than others.
That makes one neither more superior OR more fortunate, but you are terribly rude to assume and judge that way,

I agree with you existential. It can be a dangerous idea that those who have suffered in childhood are likely to be less resilient. It can lead to prejudice and a dogmatic approach to safeguarding.

Resilience is circumstantial. If you are a secure person from an emotionally and psychologically secure background who has some degree of control over your circumstances, you will cope with things better than others.

I dont agree. A safe childhood can leave people unprepared for when bad things happen, or how evil people can be.

Theres a book called 'strong at the broken places' that can explain it better than I can, but basically therapists dont meet people who had a tough childhood and manage just fine. So they dont make any statistics.

I miscarried the year before we married and it was grim at the time, but I have 100% got over it and very rarely think of it. My father died just after my 25th birthday and I grieved for him, but I completely got over it and now just think of him occasionally with fondness.

But I don't have the sort of personality that dwells or broods on things. Typically I am upbeat and forward looking.

In contrast my mum constantly mulls over events that happened more than 50 years ago and seems to focus on the negatives in most things. More than 20 years after he died (peacefully in his sleep and over 90) she still grieves for her father and feels very hard done by that he died. It can be draining and depressing to be around her when she's in that frame of mind.

There are all sorts of factors that effect how a person deals with problems. I'm quite... OK with deaths (of people I know) these days as there have just been so many over the past few years. I'm sad for a bit but move on. (BTW I am old, not hugely unlucky - the oldr you get the more of your friends go). Other things bother me more.
I don't have a problem with people needing additional support, but I do have a bit of a problem with people who think they can demand unending, unconditional support from everyone around them, and have no conception of the idea that another person might also be sad, or be worrying about something. If your distress is longterm and acute, seek professional help rather than dumping it all on friends and family and giving nothing back.

What, though, if the support that is needed is for a condition that is incurable and greatly affects the person’s self esteeem, yet it is also so rare that the people in the support network wouldn’t ever come across anyone else with it, let alone understand it? Are these people/sufferers of these conditions not allowed any sympathy or compassion? While I agree that taking unconditional support from others can be draining and very unfair on the family and friends etc, these may be the only support network that these people have.

I have had a lot of trauma over the past couple of years - some self-inflicted, most of it not - and have dealt with it in what I consider a pretty resilient way. Whether I can deal with more setbacks is another thing altogether, and I hope I can be as strong as possible to get me through anything else life throws at me. Whether someone else would have dealt with what I have been through with any more (or less) resilience is another question altogether, but it doesn’t make anyone’s reactions better than others.

I know that there are some conditions that are rare, and people struggle with them for a long time before finally getting treatment/a solution (all those things like fibro and CFS that were dismissed as self-obsessed whining for decades). But there are also (as shown upthread) people who are attention-seekers, people who use their 'problem' as justification for being vile to others, and who won't seek or engage with treatment. I don't blame people for simply running out of fucks to give.