To think personal responsibility no longer exists

[Wondermule]

I know this is going to be a controversial post, so I’ve got my hard hat on 🪖

It has really dawned on me how little personal responsibility people take now. Every other thread seems to be someone posting to offload their problems (financially dependant relationship, COVID worries due to high BMI, hellish mother in law among the most common) yet there is always an excuse about why they can’t the advice given, usually drip feeding something about anxiety or mental health. Please don’t see this as me making light of mental health issues (sufferer here myself), but it doesn’t change the fact only you can make changes to your life.

Also many posts citing ‘lack of support’ - this one inspired by the chocolate button debacle! - a mum feeding her 3 month old chocolate buttons just didn’t have the ‘support’ or ‘education’ to make healthy choices apparently. Never mind the healthy start vouchers for fruit and veg, maternity grant, free weaning courses at children’s centres, all the help available online... it’s all the state’s fault. I feel ‘lack of support’ will be cited until the government send someone to prepare all her meals and police her shopping trolley.

I feel in being too sympathetic, it is just providing excuses for people not to take responsibility for their own choices. Or am I wrong??

Obesity is a complex issue. Involving addiction, easy access to foods that make our brains happy, dodgy behaviour by food manufacturers, changing norms.

Going back, being well padded used to mean you were rich. Because you could afford to eat well. Paintings of curvier women- that was the desirable shape.

Remember the 'fat cat' stereotype of a wealthy city chap. Fine food and wine and lots of it...

I really dislike how overweight people are viewed by some people. And how the conversation is so simplistic.

These days the wealthy city chaps have fitness as a badge of honour.. The culture has shifted. Always doing expensive sports and going on expensive diets. One of my colleagues said he only ate grains, avocado and steak or something. Expensive.

As in the past you wanted to be fat as thin meant you did physical work and had less to eat. Now it's the other way around.

Yes obesity is a massive health problem. Saying to people you're lazy and thick and etc isn't going to help though.

So what's your solution or future course if action?

Besides "drawing attention " and raising awareness to this pandemic of snowflakes?

There always have been people like that. There are people like that even in countries with no real welfare system and/or awful poverty.

I'm dealing with one at the moment, and while not particularly happy about it, I don't judge everyone the same age/background/whatever the same.

No matter how far you look in history you'll find people like that under various names (the failures, the drug addicts,the alcoholics, the institutionalised, the marginalised, the black sheep, the ostracised,the abusers, the married right out of school, feckless , loose morals etc )

Yes some people are dumb. Yes some are entitled. Yes some are lazy. Yes some are arseholes. Unless you think anyone that is not corresponding to your moral values shouldn't get any help whatsoever and be left to swim or sink(or die) then what's the alternative?

The thing is, the vast majority of healthy,happy, well adjusted people do want more from life and themselves. If they don't, there's a cause. A long trail of poor or wrong choices do not negate that.

Saying to people you're lazy and thick and etc isn't going to help though.

Nobody has suggested that.

@LadyCatStark

I do think this is true and is getting even worse in the younger generations. DH manages several ‘gen Z’ well qualified, high earning for their age people and there’s always as reason why they can’t do literally any task asked of them that they don’t wish to do. And it’s always DH’s fault no matter how many hours and hours he’s put in to supporting them and talking them through things or providing a mentor or training.

Like you I don’t mean to belittle mental health issues, but they always cite anxiety, which usually boils down to bog standard nervousness.

But how can you tell they don't actually have anxiety, just from a MN thread? I mean, if you're not their doctor, or you don't know them really well...many of us with severe mental health issues mask really well and these issues aren't necessarily going to present the same every day anyway. It fluctuates.

And with an obese person you have no way of knowing they don't have a binge eating disorder or a mental or physical health issu e or if they just lazy or hate exercise etc. or both? You just don't know.

YANBU at all, and I think most people agree with you no matter what they say here.

@OverweightPidgeon

I agree Op , so many people these days just don’t seem to be able to help themselves, they want someone else to sort it out for them , very little stoicism, resilience or accountability.

I do think children should be taught that life , in fact , isn’t always fair and if it doesn’t go their way to either accept it or find their own way around it.

I agree, many people refuse to accept that they are accountable for their own actions, and abdicate all responsibility.

The blame always seems to be laid elsewhere.

It's not just young people, it is everybody now. Mental health, anxiety, it's good to talk - all these initiatives are well meaning but it is like it is normalising it, like the mildest anxiety is a serious mental issue. I feel sorry for people who have genuine mental health issues. They are getting lumped in with people who are almost jumping on a bandwagon.

My DH has been signed off work with anxiety, he has not been sleeping. He does nothing to help himself, he drinks lots of coffee, uses screens and plays games online before bed (word games and puzzles not shoot em dead ones). He doesn't have anxiety, he is bored. He is used to offsetting his dull job by travelling, or planning travelling, or eating out, theatre, spontaneity. This has been taken away in the last year. He is now clinging onto that word anxiety, not relishing it exactly, but using it as an excuse for swerving work and being very dramatic. He is solvent and healthy. I feel like saying, do buck up dear, like Mrs Durrell would do to one of her errant sons in The Durrells. I have lost respect for him in the last few weeks. He doesn't realise, I am very supportive to him to his face.

I have just recently been sleeping well for the first time in years. I was bullied at work, had the menopause and a back injury which meant I was sleeping about 4 hours a night. I am through all three now but before that I just carried on, and got absolutely no sympathy from him.

I think we have gone from stiff upper lip to being made out of jelly. There needs to be a middle ground. It is like calling wolf all the time.

The last thing I want to mention is resilience.

This word has been used a lot during covid. And hand wringing that people now don't have any. Often in conjunction with talking about the second world war.

In those days it was stuff upper lip. Mental health issues were not so well recognised. Of course people will have struggled. Ben depressed, anxious. Of course the propoganda at the time would have said chin up keep at it. And of course the picture painted of how well everyone coped would be presented after the event.

Of course the situation for people in those times was grim and scary and there was death all over the place. The idea then is that resilience comes through living through really bad times.

There was a big thread about resilience a while back and there were about 4 posters who said I am very resilient. I was one.

The 4 people agreed that going through pain and hurt and fear and hopelessness etc does something to you. It makes you rely on yourself. It makes you more immune to smaller issues.

But we all agreed that. How is it desirable that people have a terrible time, often as children, in order to obtain resilience?

What of the ones who don't make it through?

And what sort of awful things should we be exposing children/ young people to in order to instill this sense of. It's down to me, just keep going, don't complain because no one can help...

People who are resilient are often people who are damaged. That's not a good thing.

Of course you don't know Phylis. You also don't know if none of those things apply and the person is just fat because they overeat and can't be arsed getting up.

Of course you can't tell if someone genuinely has anxiety when they say they haven't, which is why a lot of posts are given the benefit of the doubt. You generally can tell in real life I've found.

This is nothing new and certainly not something that just belongs to the younger generation.

Alcoholics Anonymous cite the refusal to accept responsability for one's mistakes as extremely characteristic of alcoholics but I find it to be much more generalised than that.

@NiceGerbil - I get what you're saying, but it's not a given that resilience is only gained by bad experiences. Resilience is also gained by having parents that allow you to make mistakes and teach you healthy coping mechanisms. I don't recall the thread you mention, but I would have definitely said I am resilient and I couldn't pinpoint any one thing that caused that.

I would say that the resilience gained through damaging circumstances gives a much more brittle sort of strength, distinguishable from healthily gained resilience.

No one is ever 100% responsible for their own successes, or 100% to blame for their own failures.

We are all constantly impacted and influenced by social, economic, genetic, historical, chemical and physical factors, over which we have no control. Many of these factors predate our births and even our parents’ and grandparents’ births.

I find people who go on about ‘personal responsibility’ have usually led fairly charmed lives. I prefer to live my life by the old saying, ‘There but for the grace of god go I.’

@MustardMitt

Of course you don't know Phylis. You also don't know if none of those things apply and the person is just fat because they overeat and can't be arsed getting up.

Of course you can't tell if someone genuinely has anxiety when they say they haven't, which is why a lot of posts are given the benefit of the doubt. You generally can tell in real life I've found.

Overeating can be a medical issue though. Disordered eating. I consider myself to have an eating disorder so I been doing Overeaters Anon and as long as I attend meetings and remind myself I can't lose weight without help this keeps me working on my eating... And I have lost weight. I think it is easier to be in denial, I used to tell myself I could handle my weight and scoffed at the idea of it being a disorder. In treating it as a disorder I have found help.

@MustardMitt

Of course you don't know Phylis. You also don't know if none of those things apply and the person is just fat because they overeat and can't be arsed getting up.

Of course you can't tell if someone genuinely has anxiety when they say they haven't, which is why a lot of posts are given the benefit of the doubt. You generally can tell in real life I've found.

Well, maybe if you know them very well e.g. Close friend, family member or if you a doctor. But I have been accused of faking panic attacks before by people who hardly knew me!

@SmokedDuck

The weight thing is an interesting example. I think there is no doubt that something on a society wide scale has been at work, and it would be a really good thing to address that.

But it's also true that someone who is overweight and wants to be thinner and/or healthier (which are not the same) can really only archive that by taking some kind of action on their own. Which may or may not work, but it's probably going to suck in a lot of ways even if it does work.

Many things are like that, even some pretty serious ones. I have some pretty serious addiction problems in my extended family. Whatever the underlying situations that cause it, no one overcomes it unless they decide to. THat's the pattern, and there are certain things that lead to that, an important one being a feeling that what you do can make a difference, and that you have a responsibility to others if not to yourself.

This gets into this thing about right vs left wing values that NiceGerbil mentions. I think the fact is that separating those things is completely useless. Any solution that neglects social structures won't work, and any attempt to change social structures without changing our interior landscape won't work. They need to support each other and have a kind of synchronicity.

Well written and thoughtful response

On mental health.

Things are very different now. With 24 hour news and the internet there is a constant reminder that awful things are going on all over the place all the time.

Humans are meant to live in smallish groups. Hearing all this stuff all the time makes us feel powerless.

My DD curriculum at secondary is incredibly depressing. Drama was a play about knife crime. Talks on internet danger and mugging. Sexual predators. Global warming. She tells me and we laugh at how it's just so constantly grim! I mean what will that do to them?

Also in the past around the world people have always done stuff to numb things. In the UK it was booze, going back God only knows how long. In the past tinctures containing opium were available. Gin palaces. In the 60s/ 70s, 'mothers little helper'- valium. Smoking.

People self medicated. They took the edge off. Now booze and fags are out of fashion, and MH problems are well known, and treatments are available, is it any surprise that numbers of people diagnosed has gone through the roof.

At least 4 out of 10 women get post natal depression. Peri natal depression is being recognised more.

Men are being encouraged to seek help. Their suicide rates are the highest out of all groups.

Modern life in many ways just does not suit humans.

Phyllis I agree with all of that.

100% agree that the only person who can stop addictive behaviour is the addict. They need to genuinely want it though. And many don't. So that's a bit of a conundrum.

@NiceGerbil

The last thing I want to mention is resilience.

This word has been used a lot during covid. And hand wringing that people now don't have any. Often in conjunction with talking about the second world war.

In those days it was stuff upper lip. Mental health issues were not so well recognised. Of course people will have struggled. Ben depressed, anxious. Of course the propoganda at the time would have said chin up keep at it. And of course the picture painted of how well everyone coped would be presented after the event.

Of course the situation for people in those times was grim and scary and there was death all over the place. The idea then is that resilience comes through living through really bad times.

There was a big thread about resilience a while back and there were about 4 posters who said I am very resilient. I was one.

The 4 people agreed that going through pain and hurt and fear and hopelessness etc does something to you. It makes you rely on yourself. It makes you more immune to smaller issues.

But we all agreed that. How is it desirable that people have a terrible time, often as children, in order to obtain resilience?

What of the ones who don't make it through?

And what sort of awful things should we be exposing children/ young people to in order to instill this sense of. It's down to me, just keep going, don't complain because no one can help...

People who are resilient are often people who are damaged. That's not a good thing.

We have all been through tough times I think. Some more than others. Just look at bullying statistics in young people? And #Me Too highlighted how sexual abuse of some form of another is really common.

am not surprised so many young people have anxiety, it could be linked to trauma..social media hasn't helped.

I think every generation has had it hard in different ways. What people had in the past was a sense of community and belonging. That has been lost. Family breakdown is the norm for many children. Children are taught to be wary of others. Parents used to expect their kids to do well at school, rightly so , but nowadays I hear of young people having a pressure to meet targets, they get upset if they get a B instead of an A. Many parents are very hard on their children in this way.

Lydia good post totally agree.

I think it's fair to say that those who have been up against real adversity in life seem to be more empathic/ compassionate IME.

Sorry my last post was to smoked duck.

Lydia quoted it and I picked her name up!

Mustard mitt can you explain what you mean by brittle resilience please?

'I would say that the resilience gained through damaging circumstances gives a much more brittle sort of strength, distinguishable from healthily gained resilience.'

Overall the suicide rates since the 80's have been going down, even if there are spikes in certain years. I can cope with extra snowflakes, if it means less people dying from lack of support,help,acknowledgment etc.

@lydia7986

No one is ever 100% responsible for their own successes, or 100% to blame for their own failures.

We are all constantly impacted and influenced by social, economic, genetic, historical, chemical and physical factors, over which we have no control. Many of these factors predate our births and even our parents’ and grandparents’ births.

I find people who go on about ‘personal responsibility’ have usually led fairly charmed lives. I prefer to live my life by the old saying, ‘There but for the grace of god go I.’

Er, no. I’m of the opinion adversity maketh man (hope that’s spelt right! )

My childhood was awful, alcoholic dad, mum that did vanishing acts all the time, moved house every year sometimes less, eventual split, mum got into an abusive relationship, court case, subsequent evil stepmother, fell in with a bad crowd, I developed a serious chronic illness, I could go on.

Left home at 18, never went back. I spent years wallowing with a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms, leading a pretty chaotic lifestyle. But then I thought fuck this, I can either make excuses for the rest of my life that won’t help me one iota, or I can get through this and build a life for myself. Which I did. I never dreamed I would have the life I do, but I made it happen. I feel very proud of myself actually.

I’m not saying because I can do it everyone can - but everyone should know it is only them that can make changes to their life. Maybe it’s simply that I believe in the strength of human spirit more than most?

Less likely to be elastic and more likely to catastrophically break at some point. Like a person that builds a hard shell around themselves too keep out stuff they do not want to deal with.

I'm not talking from any particular knowledge other than people I have known. I'm not a psychologist. I do also think that you can have differing levels of resilience depending on circumstance.