To despair at how helpless some people are

[ThankYouVeryMuch]

You see it on here all the time, poster says they’re in a difficult situation and lots of people respond with sensible advice and details of organisations they can call for help and there’s always a reason why they can’t ask for help.

I saw a job at a local hair salon advertised on Facebook, 1 person posted “interested” underneath so the salon owner responds with their contact details (that were in the ad) and asks for a cv and the person responds “I don’t have a cv, nevermind” or someone else put on my local Facebook group saying she was new to the area and asking if there were any new mums in the local area, so I responded that there was a lovely, free mum and baby group in her village the next day and I knew the organiser so if she wanted to go along I’d make sure she got a warm welcome, and the response was “I can’t go to a baby group, what if none of the other mums speak to me”

Some people just seem as if the world owes them something and they should get what they want without putting in any effort.

Someone once said to me that reasonable adjustments should be helping someone to find the correctly fitting shoes so they can walk around the same as everyone else. Not covering the rest of the world with leather..

There was a case reported in the papers a while back. It went to tribunal, which is why it was in the papers. I've remembered it because I don't know what the solution is.

Person A was employed as a supervisor in a branch of a well known chain of coffee shops. Part of her job, as supervisor, was to check and record the fridge temperature, to ensure food was being stored properly.

Mistakes were found in her record keeping. She said she was dyslexic, and therefore it wasn't her fault. Tribunal agreed, and suggested a reasonable adjustment might be for another staff member to check the supervisor's record keeping.

All well and good for the supervisor, but where does it leave the other staff member, who is now being asked to take on part of a supervisor's role without, presumably, the job title and pay?

If the supervisor can't be held responsible for her mistakes because of her dyslexia, who is responsible for any mistakes? Grossly unfair to put it on the junior staff member. Fundamentally, it is the job of the supervisor/manager/boss to be in charge and take responsibility.

The answering an email thing is the only one I can see a bit of a reason for dependant on the company

I never used to do this, if there was something I didn't know I'd find out until a senior manager asked me why I wasn't "contributing"...i pretty much explained it was common sense and had nothing obvious to ask or say

She told me off because I needed to be "seen" and should ask questions on the email thread even if I knew the answer to show I was paying attention

Wow, I can’t believe that parents actually apply for jobs on their adult children’s behalf??

I have a better one. One Mum wrote in complaining that her daughter didn't get a place on our graduate scheme.

I was so tempted to write back "The fact it is you that have written this letter and not your daughter herself who has requested feedback, is the reason she didn't get to the next recruitment stage."

This thread has been really timely for me actually as I feel I'm spiralling a bit in the anxiety/depression stakes (diagnosed, not armchair diagnosis) and it's really affecting my self belief.

When I was in year 11 I did some work experience and had to telephone a load of parents (working in my old school). I HATED talking on the phone to people I don't know, I still hate making phonecalls but that immersion therapy was good for me and I remember my teacher saying I had to do it because it would be good for me. Similarly my parents making me perform in concerts despite my stage fright, or my DP being insistent I can do things I am worried about getting wrong.

It's all about a huge fear of looking incompetent or stupid or not up to standard.

I start a new freelance job tomorrow and wasn't looking forward to it but I do feel much more positive, this has been a reminder I've done much harder things before. Also I've been trying to think of things I can do to use my skills in a more profitable yet socially beneficial way and I've got an idea but too scared to follow it through... so I might read 'feel the fear and do it anyway' and see if I can make it work.

I have no problem with public speaking or any of the practical stuff but add in other people who are relying on me and I run in the other direction.

I have tried to help people in the past and found it just stress inducing so I prefer to work on my own.

My mum is 77. She has lived her whole like in the same village with the same friends. She moved straight from her parents house to marrying my Dad (who she was at school with). She also gave up work then and did stuff like dinner lady jobs after that. She now lives back in the house where she was born.

She has never lived alone or with friends. She has probably hardly travelled outside the village alone. She was always with her mum, or my dad or (now he has passed on), my sister. She doesn't drive. I live 200 miles away from her and she won't get the train to see me, because she'd have to change. About once every two years she gets a coach to see me. She won't change to come to our town so I have to drive 25 miles into a big city and pick her up.

She's lived a nice life, but a very very sheltered one. I don't think she could manage alone.

sunsunsunsun - It was said to me by someone who isn't normally that profound so it took me back a bit but I always think of it now when I consider what is reasonable or not.

Spread it far and wide! 😁

This thread is full of I'm alright Jacks who have never faced a anxiety. You're all ridiculously over confident and can walk into a room full of strangers and steal the show. Whoopee doo for you. Just be mindful thst not everyone is as lucky as you.
You dont think people enjoy have social anxiety, do you.

Actually the majority of people feel anxious from time to time and we all have things we don’t want to do but we take a deep breath and do it anyway. I hate walking into a room full of strangers, I usually google questions to ask to make small talk before I go and practice saying what I want to say in the mirror beforehand. The difference is that I don’t give up at the first hurdle.

I got from the OP that we're talking about that irritating deliberate helplessness assumed by those who don't want to do for themselves rather than those who genuinely can't do for themselves - are the posts saying "well I/my child/relation has x disability/issue so it's not that simple" really necessary? It's one of those really annoying things about mumsnet, people quick to take offense or offer excuses for the minority of those with special needs who are not being talked about in a given thread.

My mother is the living embodiment of active and aggressive resistance to resolving her problems. She doesn't want to resolve her problems, she revels in her perceived victimhood, her grievances are her security blanket and she wants sympathy and someone to sort it out for her not practical advice as to how to do it herself. She's also the Queen of forward thinking of potential problems and builds shit up that hasn't happened and highly probably won't happen into major reasons to rant incessantly.

Example, my dad was recently in hospital for leg injury that impaired his mobility so social services had a walker and a wheeled commode delivered to the house prepatory for his discharge from hospital. As it turned out he recovered use of the leg and mobility with just the aid of a stick rather quicker than expected so didn't need them. My mother went on and on about the space the equipment was taking up and raged to anyone unlucky enough to visit that if they didn't come and take them away she'd dump them in the street - on and on and bloody on. So I asked had she called them to ask them to take them away? No. Who was she supposed to call? And even if she did she'd be on one of those endless loop calls, and they still probably wouldn't come and then she'd be stuck with them.

There was a returns number quite clearly printed on the paperwork still attached to the wrappings. I called the number (because she didn't see why she should have to call anyone because the hospital should do it because endless fucking reasons and on and on and bloody on) and they said they'd put it on the driver's delivery/pick up schedule but it might be a couple of days before he was in the area and he'd call when he was on his way.

Well, that wasn't acceptable was it? What if he called when she was out? What if he didn't ever call? What if this? what if that? She was going to do this and that and call her MP and possibly the Queen and report all of them and have them all fired. He called two days later to say he'd be there in half an hour, she ranted at the poor man on the phone about the inconvenience of having to wait in and what if she'd had plans and she had a good mind not to be in and that'd show 'em.

Of course she did stay in, too good an opportunity to miss to rave at and blame some poor delivery driver just doing his job for all the failings and shortcomings of the NHS and social services and for how much she'd been put out for having to house this unnecessary equipment. Aargh.

Elemental that sounds like a conversation with my Mil !
Yesterday DBIl was there cutting her grass and she rang my DH to whinge that she needed milk (DBIL was going shopping for her after cutting grass whilst DH bagged it all up etc/took it to tip)
My DH was doing our garden and said DBIl can get you some can't he?...to which she replied she was gagging for a drink not had one since morning etc. ... Just feck off !! Wouldn't mind but she's perfectly mobile and there's a corner shop literally 30yds away.

Oh wow, your mother sounds unbearable Elementalhalflife!

My youngest brother (35 this year) has learned helplessness. He was the favourite in the family by miles and spoiled rotten by his doting parents. I think because she felt sentimental about it being her last child his mother (my step mother) did things for him like cut up his food when he was too old to be babied like that. This progressed on into her making GP and dentist appointments for him when he was an adult, sorting out travel, giving him lifts everywhere, even writing job application letters for him and so on. The sad thing is he now suffers from severe anxiety and depression and I am absolutely convinced that part of this is because he finds it hard to cope without constantly being hand held and validated and told how marvellous he is. If everyone around him isn't actively adoring him or making him the centre of attention he convinces himself, in a wholly illogical way, that he's worthless. It makes me grrrrr.

My FIL phoned the recruitment office for the Met, yes Metropolitan Police Force, to tell them that they will employ his son. Shockingly BIL never did get the job.

FIL also screwed up DH’s career. DH is a born salesman. He never wanted to be a Life underwriter. He didn’t understand why he was stuck in the office after being accepted as a broker. He found out when he left. Yep, FIL strikes again. He’d called the CEO and told him no son of his would be a salesman.

I have no confidence really bad anxiety and depression. I want to go out and do stuff but it never happens. Crying in the middle of the street is never a good look

The thing is, all the posters who think that the rest of us are all mega confident should realise that we ALL have a level of anxiety/fear about some situations, even if we appear confident on the outside! The difference is that some of us force ourselves to deal with these situations and become stronger as a result.
To the PP who asked if everyone else could run 10k or save a life, the answer is yes, everyone could! Maybe not tomorrow, but with training and learning. EVERYONE is capable of ANYTHING! When people say "it would be impossible for me to...." It really wouldnt. It might take work, it might be hard, you might need to seek out resources or even professional help, but it is not impossible . It's hard, not impossible.

Absolutely. I am living the 'fake it til I make it'.

I've not been out the house without makeup in thirty years. I'm that anxious about my skin and how I look. My anxiety tips over into being a bit forthright as I struggle with the notion that anyone might like me, and my first reaction to my own anger is tears. Never a good look.

I'm not stopping doing anything though. I refuse to live half a life, beholden to my fears.

Tbf, it would be impossible for some people to run, or even walk, 10k due to physical limitations.

Wrote a long reply and technology ate it. The gist was, I think there is a class element in knowing where to start finding things out - not just googling, but knowing you might be able to ask a school governor or a local councillor or some sort of ombudsman, or professional, depending on the problem. You might not know exactly who, but being middle class, you are more likely to know people who know, or who even do that sort of thing and that already puts you ahead of people who just don't have those sorts of connections.

That doesn't excuse people who can get online to use Facebook but not Google to find things out, mind you. (And no, dear colleagues, I do not have any more psychic powers then you do, so I can't tell you about decisions which have not yet been made and will be communicated to me at the exact same time they are communicated to you.)

Haven't RTFT so apologies if I'm repeating anyone.

I read an article twenty-odd years ago that opined mobile phones were used to "tether" young people to their parents for far longer than used to happen.

Parents (from a pre-mobile era) would have gone into town in their teens. They would have needed to get there and back and deal with any problems without referring to parents.

The same parents would insist their own children went into town with a phone and use it for any issue. They aren't encouraged to figure it out for themselves but to get a solution fed to them.

I was recently on a rural bus that broke down. The driver phoned the garage for a new bus and we waited. The youngsters on the bus all made voice calls asking what to do. I'm guessing there were all told "er.. wait for the next bus...". If they merely wanted to say they were running late they probably would have texted?

A lot of people seem to say that they have Anxiety with a capital A, when really they are just anxious. Which is what everyone is from time to time, and isn’t to be used as an excuse. Of course there are (a very small percentage) of people with real Anxiety, that’s completely different.

Prole

Totally agree with this

It stunts independence my friend has told her daughter to hide her phone when she attends Pgl

I suggested to her that if at 11 she is unable to find a teacher and say she is unhappy is she not ready to leave home she has been away before this supposition that a child would not cope with out 24/7 interventions for mum is just

It also stops high school students from
Iearning the art of problem solving

I think it’s france who have now banned Mobile phone from schools with in the whole country and good on them I say

Oh my god op I have a friend who I will seriously break up with she drains the living life out of me. Need to get some money back first before. Tolerating her shit till then

I think there is a class element in knowing where to start finding things out - not just googling, but knowing you might be able to ask a school governor or a local councillor or some sort of ombudsman, or professional, depending on the problem. You might not know exactly who, but being middle class, you are more likely to know people who know, or who even do that sort of thing and that already puts you ahead of people who just don't have those sorts of connections.

I suppose my background would be lower middle class. But we didn't have connections. If we wanted to know something, pre Google, and couldn't find the information ourselves, we went and asked in the library.

I'm not sure I agree with class thing

My DP is very much working class and I'm pretty self sufficient but will sometimes use money to resolve the situation...eg everything from getting a taxi if stranded rather than finding a bud stop , to forgetting the the reusable bags at the shop and paying for more

I always resolve the situation but my DP didn't grow up with money to fix a problem so he has far more iniativve

Plus he and his brothers could rarely ask for help from their mum as she was working all the hours God sends too keep a roof over their heads...so they becameelf sufficient and had to get on with it because they didn't have a choice

"EVERYONE is capable of ANYTHING!"

No they are not. Yes some people could do things they claim they couldn't but that statement is ridiculous.
Do you actually think people can lose a disability if they try hard enough?