To think that the sadder you are the less people want to help you

[Whereisalltherumgone]

Just an observation really.

Person 1: A “strong” person. Always happy (or seems to be) coping, wprking hard, surviver.
If person 1 looks a bit tired or emotional, multiple people ask if they are okay and if they need a hand.

Person 2: Somebody who has lower coping capacity,?frequently feels overwhelmed, asks for help on a semi-regular basis, quite easily moved to tears. If person 2 is looking stressed or emotional, it is not commented upon, no support offered.

This is what I see at my workplace. It’s common isn’t it? I suppose it’s the ‘boy who cried wolf’ problem, except person 2 really genuinely struggles, it’s just once people realise their offer of support may actually be taken up, or needed again, they don’t want to know.

Does this pattern sound familiar to others? AIBU?

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Pearson B can get frustrating after a while if it feels they totally lack any resilience or coping strategies.

It's one thing to ask for help occasionally, quite another to be completely unable to handle a normal level of life's troubles.

It may be a "normal" level for you, but something quite minor can trip some people over the edge of coping if they are already constantly on edge. That does not, of course, make it anyone else problem to sort out.

Person 2 sounds like they need formal, occupational health support; more that just a one off. It's not generally colleagues' jobs to have to support a staff member who cannot cope, and actually probably just masks their issues. They need proper support.

Sympathies, @Whereisalltherumgone. I am a reformed person B and I had to make big, challenging life changes to get out of that pattern, but I did it in the end and I do think that, for many, it is hard but ultimately doable. I would agree with other posters that the Bs of this world often get a LOT of attention and support while "copers" are left to cope, but I think it depends on the kind of group you've landed in. Sometimes, people really are repulsed by anyone they see as needy; sometimes, unfortunately, that repulsion has a solid reason behind it.

However, I'd add that receiving support is a double-edged sword for a B. You often end up attracting friends and "supporters" who actually enjoy a bit of drama and quite like keeping you in the victim role, or who are completely well-meaning and rush to reassure you at every turn (which doesn't help anyway if you're the anxious-ruminating type), burning themselves out in the process. Either way that's not sustainable and, if it soothes you in the short term, keeps you trapped in the B pattern in the long.

My situation isn't like yours, because what I had to do was get out of my current networks altogether and move away. The trauma that made me person B was very old and deep-rooted and needed a radical solution. Part of that was realising that I personally suit freelancing much better than any kind of institutional environment, so I don't have to navigate a workplace any more. But I think PPs have made an important point that you need to build up your support network elsewhere and take the pressure off the work environment. I found an online therapist who, fortunately, happens to be a great fit with me and specialises in trauma, and that hugely helps. I know it's both a faff and a cost, but if you can manage it I'd really encourage you to have a look again.

But letting go is the first and biggest step, or was for me: not thinking "I'll have to perform super-resilience for three years to regain these people's respect" but "OK, I'm going to look after myself, do my job, and expect nothing from my colleagues". It's harsh and it feels alien, but it does work. If you've been person A before, I'm certain you can get back there again.

@Whereisalltherumgone

Just an observation really.

Person 1: A “strong” person. Always happy (or seems to be) coping, wprking hard, surviver.
If person 1 looks a bit tired or emotional, multiple people ask if they are okay and if they need a hand.

Person 2: Somebody who has lower coping capacity,?frequently feels overwhelmed, asks for help on a semi-regular basis, quite easily moved to tears. If person 2 is looking stressed or emotional, it is not commented upon, no support offered.

This is what I see at my workplace. It’s common isn’t it? I suppose it’s the ‘boy who cried wolf’ problem, except person 2 really genuinely struggles, it’s just once people realise their offer of support may actually be taken up, or needed again, they don’t want to know.

Does this pattern sound familiar to others? AIBU?

Absolute utter rubbish insofar as my workplace is concerned. The people who cry for no reason....everyone walks on eggshells around them and panders to them. The strong people like me who never moan and just get on with it are ignored whenever they have a personal crisis/bereavement/illness.

Are you person B? Because for most people it’s emotional common sense to know that if someone does something over and over again people are going to start ignoring them. Because it’s ‘business as usual’ for them to be struggling.

Also while it’s nice to have people ask after you - it’s nobody’s job to help other people. One of the main reasons that ‘talking to someone’, ‘mental health awareness’ etc is pushed so much is because the government refuses to fund proper mental health provision. People on the level of person 2 should be sent straight to a professional (no questions asked). Or find a less stressful job. Other colleagues are not paid to handle their emotional issues or do their work for them.

Also sorry just read full thread.
It sounds like you have bigger issues…

No matter what colleagues do for Person 2 it doesn't help in the long term. So they may try once or twice but then pull back. Whereas if they help Person 1 it will be a one-off and have a noticable effect.

Your OP says 'needed again' (and it was that paragraph that made me think you were person 2 in this) and that's the issue really, it is that constant need which is unsustainable for both Person 2 and the colleagues. It's not the right kind of support for Person 2 and it's not what colleagues are there for, so there are no winners.

I'm a type 1. I don't need support often, but if I do, I REALLY need it.

I find type 2s quite draining, and when they leave the workplace there's a big boost in mood overall. Even when they're happy, they seem to need everyone involved (or one exclusive "best friend" involved).

In my experience people sometimes freak out when type 1 suddenly "breaks". Especially when it's type 2 they reach out to quickly because, well they were supporting 2 for years so somewhere inside they hope 2 will get it. Instead 2 freaks and "breaks" and makes it about them... Anc in the top game scenario makes it about them by telling others how 1 stressed them out so much.
Not bitter here at all... I know.

Not saying that's you Op, btw. But so far it has been two 2s who've done that to me (there will not be ghird one).

@thecatsthecats

I'm a type 1. I don't need support often, but if I do, I REALLY need it.

I find type 2s quite draining, and when they leave the workplace there's a big boost in mood overall. Even when they're happy, they seem to need everyone involved (or one exclusive "best friend" involved).

This!!

We have a type 2. Always sad, always crying and dramatising over something or other, and always trying to get everyone else involved. This person really drags the atmosphere down. They refuse to help themselves though and tbh people are rapidly becoming fed up of the dramatics.

As a 'coper' I think it is often the other way around. Had a really difficult time so far this year with death of mother who was being nursed at home and we had issues with getting help for all through the pandemic. Having been told over and over how strong I am, I was amazed at how little support people offered over all. But think there was a lot of compassion fatigue, because her final illness lasted 14 months which were unrelentingly awful. I didnt talk about it all the time, because I did not want to be a downer. But there was some shocking stuff - a friend called me one day when I was crying and basically told me to get over it. On the other side, I know a few people I know who get upset if the wind blows in the wrong direction and seem to get endless support and time from others. I guess when the problem is ongoing and hard to solve, people dont know what to do, and often withdraw from embarrassment or discomfort.

I try to avoid person 2. They will take and take until they've emotionally sucked you dry.

I don't mind helping person 1.

I think if people see you as a 'coper' it really throws them if you show weakness.

OP - your original post made me feel for you. But maybe you need to look at it from another angle. The first time round (when you were person A as you describe it) was surely a very different situation than being in a pandemic.

You say you have been very emotional and not coping too well - you live on your own and you don't really have any contact with colleagues or ability to decompress with them at the end of the day. A lot of people on here seem to assume that's immediately going to mean dumping problems on colleagues. But actually I think a lot of people have been struggling not seeing colleagues face to face - not having that camaraderie, interaction, support and ability to decompress sometimes yes. It's very different also - I think - living on your own during the lockdown and pandemic than with others. Both have their stresses and strains and some families have been going through hell and some have had relationships put under terrible strain. But I think many answering on here maybe aren't thinking about it from the point of view of being in lockdown working at home whilst living alone. That isnt really that natural for most of us and I don't think it's at all strange if someone feels more fragile under those circumstances. There has also been huge amounts of anxiety everywhere and little opportunity to distract from it, socialise or let off steam. It's just a very unnatural situation for lots of people.

I don't know you or your circumstances but I can't help feeling that maybe you are being harsh on yourself and by extension to others. You sound like you have good self-awareness and compassion. I think you have a lot to offer and maybe you should not feel so worried and self-conscious about the past, about being anxious with your manager or about how others might perceive things but think about positive actions you can take in the future. If you're kinder to yourself it can extend to how you interpret other things too and you might see the actions of others in a different light.

It seems like the texts to the "strong person" who was struggling you talk of have made you feel bad. But why see that in relation to yourself? Could it be a self-consciousness and worry on your part about having been a bit tearful with your manager is making you view the kind actions from your colleagues as meaning they dont' care about you? Because I'm really struggling to see that interpretation.

I think that is something that does sometimes make people step back from very sad and negative people can be that they can start to see things (negatively) in terms of themselves and their own situation all the time rather than seeing things in terms of the wider or other people 's situations. (ie people sending nice messages to a colleague means that person don't care about me.) I get the impression from your answers here that you are clever and self-aware and not seeing things only in terms of your sitution. You are very impressive and engaging in terms of your thoughtfulness and in the way you have reacted without any defensiveness to some of the answers on here. That really impresses me. You don't come across as not strong at all - quite the opposite.

I question therefore why you have allowed the texts to draw you into negative thinking about yourself or colleagues?

Sometimes people are just awkward and don't know how to phrase things. Sometimes when people are struggling but people don't know a concrete reason why or it's ongoing, they might not know how to help or what words to use even. They might be worried about embarrassing the person. That doesn't mean they aren't nice people.

It sounds a little to me like you've fallen to brooding a bit too much on how your colleagues view you and also (negatively) about the difficulty of offsetting the past somehow (having to be superstrong into eternity to make up for a few wobbles). I think that's quite a chain of negative assumptions and leaps you're made. You don't need to think this way.

Maybe try and draw a line - put the past in the past and don't assume negative things about what anyone else might think because they probably aren't thinking that at all! Assume the best of your colleagues and be kinder to yourself. This all sounds quite anxious-thinking to me. You say you're not depressed but you do sound like you might have been anxious. A lot of people are. There are things that can help if you are anxious - strategies etc. And perhaps it might be worth thinking about exploring that to feel more confident. But in the meantime - you sound like a thoughtful, clever and aware person, OP. Having these sorts of difficulties can make you a more understanding and compassionate person towards others too. You don't have to see it all in a negative light with your description of strong people v not so strong etc. In my experience different people are strong in different ways and in different situations. People can be very surprising and no one person is one thing or the other.

I hope this long and rambling post is a bit helpful. Good luck OP! As I said before you sound like you have so much to offer.

Some might be significant mental health problems which should be addressed through occupational health and their GP

This is very true. Not everyone realises when they have a mental health problem, though. They don't necessarily know that the way they feel, and the need for so much reassurance, or other negative thoughts or behaviours, may be a mental health difficulty which is treatable.

In your scenario, it seems to me that for person A being upset or tired is an unusual thing and so concerning, while for person B being upset or tired is normal, or perceived to be so. If being worried /upset/tired/prone to crying is seen as person B's personality, other people are just going to let them get on with it.
Also if person A usually bounces back they probably only need a little bit extra support which their coworkers are capable of providing, while if this is normal for person B they probably need ongoing and sustained support which their coworkers don't have the capacity or training to provide

Unfortunately at least for me, there's also a healthy dose of weariness of what person B might expect or ask for.
It's never just one text, it's opening a door when you've no idea what's on the other side.

After I'd covered a couple of a coworkers shit shifts because she was struggling when her childminder fell ill (to give her time to find alt childcare), she emailed scheduling to say I'd agreed to do twice as many shit shifts per schedule for her, so just put them on my rota - as soon as I said I'd not agreed to any such thing, she flipped - made things difficult for me whenever we had the same shift and continued to badmouth me until she left.
I paid for a new hire's lunch because he'd forgotten his wallet and didn't think much about it, but he started texting me telling me about every minor inconvenience and before the week was out he was asking to stay on my sofa for a few weeks as he was struggling with his MH and didn't want to live alone.
Then recently a friend of a friend started a new business after losing her job due to the pandemic, and friend asked if I could help as they were having problems with the website. A phone call which was supposed to be website issues somehow blew up to her talking about overwhelming suicidal thoughts - which became friend and I both driving over to spend most of the night with her, trying to convince her that, yes she needed to get help and no, they wouldn't take her kids away the minute that she did.

I'm constantly praised at work for being capable, organised, and calm in a crisis, but the truth is I have my own health and MH concerns, and my own family and friends to worry about. I don't have the time, energy (mental and physical) or training to provide sustained support - outside of work responsibilities- to someone who would probably be better seeing professional support.

It's not your original question, but you are probably being unreasonable to expect this level of support from colleagues.
Please speak to someone with appropriate training about feeling like this most of the time: your GP, works MHFA, use your EAP if you have one or OH, ring the Samaritans, text Shout, find a therapist or counselling service
It's not unreasonable to need help, but you need to be looking for it in the right place

There's a mixture of things.

If someone is always upset easily you can be afraid of saying the wrong thing and ending up either being blamed or just not being able to cope with it yourself.

On the same front, because it's ongoing, then sometimes you have to pull back for your own mental health. I've had to do that, because I was at a point I didn't have the spare mental health to cope with someone else's crisis. I hated doing it, but I really couldn't cope with what I was facing myself without trying to support someone else. I couldn't tell them what I was facing because I knew they didn't have the mental health to support me.

There's also the time aspect. If asking if someone's okay can turn into an hour of counselling, then you may not want to open the box by checking they're okay if you don't have that spare hour, especially if that may mean they expect you to do it again the next day.

Also if someone is often getting upset, then it's less likely you can help by asking if they're okay. Because it's almost certainly far deeper seated than just needing a quick comfort. If they're "frequently feeling overwhelmed, asks for help on a semi-regular basis, quite easily moved to tears" then probably nothing you can do is going to help. They need more professional help than I am able to give.
Someone who is upset as a one off, may well just need a shoulder to cry on that day, or something that can be helped by practical advice.

I know that for me, I tend to keep calm and carry on. I once put something about last straw on FB and woke the next morning to 37 messages from people checking I was okay. I have less than 150 friends... They all said it was so unusual for me to sound upset.

But how do you know that person 1 isn't struggling just as much as person 2? You've said that person 2 "genuinely struggles", maybe person 1 also genuinely struggles but hides it. It comes across as "Person 1 suffers much more than person 2", which you can't know.

I know if dd2 comes to me and says her stomach is really hurting, my response is "I'll see how you are in the morning, best thing is a night's sleep". Because she's not infrequently in "agony", which can often be solved by offering chocolate or similar.
Ds I took straight to A&E (where he had appendicitis) in the same situation because it's unusual for him to complain. (where the surgical team nearly sent him home again because he said it was 2/10 on the pain threshold. Dd2 in similar situations said 8 or 9-his appendix was ready to burst when they got it out.)

The other interesting dynamic is when people gravitate towards Person 2 types because they feel useful if they can help to "fix" their problems. They see Person 1 as being totally self-sufficient and not needing any help.

I had a relative who saw themselves as a rescuer when I was going through a bereavement, and when they realised I was quite capable of working my way through my problem without their interventions they couldn't cope with just being there as a cheerful person in the sidelines, they had to be front and centre doing stuff and being 100% involved. Sometimes butting out of other people's life problems unless they actually ask for help is a virtue.

Add into that the work scenario, people getting to know all the ins and outs of a person's life, isn't a healthy mix. It can be quite undignified and disempowering.

I think the truth is that far more people are Person A than we assume, coping on the outside and inside really struggling. the thing with Person B types is that they seem to assume because they let everything hang out emotionally, they are the only ones with problems. I used to be person B. I matured into Person A and am much happier keeping a kid on my troubles. I could go for walks with friends and fret about my mother's dementia, my father's illness, DH's long term unemployment and seeming lack of interest in doing anything about it, my SEN son's horrific issues with social anxiety and eating problems, my menopause issues of anxiety and exhaustion. Or I can go on a walk with a friend and say, 'Aren't the elderflowers lovely this week. Have you ever made cordial from them?' etc and just take a break from all that fretting. Offloading problems doesn't actually decrease them, I find.

@Cowbells

I think the truth is that far more people are Person A than we assume, coping on the outside and inside really struggling. the thing with Person B types is that they seem to assume because they let everything hang out emotionally, they are the only ones with problems. I used to be person B. I matured into Person A and am much happier keeping a kid on my troubles. I could go for walks with friends and fret about my mother's dementia, my father's illness, DH's long term unemployment and seeming lack of interest in doing anything about it, my SEN son's horrific issues with social anxiety and eating problems, my menopause issues of anxiety and exhaustion. Or I can go on a walk with a friend and say, 'Aren't the elderflowers lovely this week. Have you ever made cordial from them?' etc and just take a break from all that fretting. Offloading problems doesn't actually decrease them, I find.

This is very true. The person B that I know is completely emotionally incontinent( for want of a better word) In a small office, the constant refrain of I this,I that , tears, running out is so disruptive and its got worse with the " tell someone thing" He actually told someone that they HAD ( shouted) to listen to him, its really overbearing and selfish., now people come in and put headphones straight in. The different between the two is internal/ external validation. Person A may have the same fears and worries but they dont need the constant external validation .

You may not have had the time to build the closer bonds with your new colleagues before working from home. The other person may have been there for years and everyone knows them well.

In my workplace the longer you’ve been there the more support you get from the other long timers when something happens. With newer people it’s more of a ‘hope you’re ok’ than fully offered support. Simply because people still don’t know them and what is normal for them. As time goes on they start getting that extra support because people have closer bonds with them.

You are more able to notice the change in someone who is usually emotionally resilient when they have a problem or upset because it is out of character. Someone who is always a bit emotional you tend to not think it’s such a big deal as something small could have triggered it rather than a bigger problem.

People have their own limits to help others too. Someone who is just managing to keep on top of their own issues won’t have the capacity to help someone else who is struggling.

I think it’s worth also pointing out type 2 people usually already have alliances built in - lower workload, less demands made when things get difficult. These aren’t without cost to others, so you could argue they’re already getting a higher level of care and support than type 1s, but in more practical ways.

Allowances not alliances!

I find this post sad.

I guess I am who you would call person two. I happen to have severe anxiety / mental health issues and am unable to work because of it. I have few friends ( I trust vvvv few) and struggle daily.

There are a few people whom I reach out to who have been my saviours. I speak to them regularly and they have been, and are, phenomenal.

Am I becoming ' wearing ' ?

Jeez . I wish I had never read this thread.