Mumsnetters need to relax with the projection and straw clutching

[Crene]

I’ve noticed a pattern lately: a lot of commenters are wildly over analysing OPs in really exaggerated ways. It’s surprising how often people feel confident declaring things like “you have unrealistic expectations,” “you’re too immature for marriage,” or even “did you grow up on Disney movies?”…all based on a couple of short posts with barely any context.

There’s a huge amount of projection happening and people write entire essays as if their interpretation is the only correct one. It’s frustrating and honestly I find it derails a lot of discussions.
What makes it worse is that many posters don’t seem interested in asking clarifying questions or trying to understand the situation more fully. They jump straight to sweeping assumptions with almost no information to back them up.

A friend sent me a thread of hers on here and so could not believe the psycho babble that went on. She barely said anything but had long winded replies lambasting what a fool she was in her marriage. Really bizarre.

Anyone else noticed this too?

Have you sought counselling about your superiority complex at all OP? There may be some trauma in your childhood leading you to begrudge anyone sharing an opinion based on whatever information they're given.

Kindly, if you don't like what people have to say maybe the internet isn't the place for you.

Also your husand is cheating on you, probably. You haven't mentioned him but I can hear The Script on the wind.

🙃

It is possible to be too immature for marriage.

If you've been on mn for a while you've seen all this before. Some threads take a wierd turn, depending on the stance of the first few posters.

I find most MN'ers, and mums in RL, are at the other end of the anxiety spectrum to me. I find most angst ridden, neurotic , and ridden with anxiety.

Infact mn in its nature, will attract a lot of posters who have more anxiety. I'm forever trying to persuade people to chill, relax, go with it - what's the worst that can happen? But I've long ago accepted that this is wasted.

It's probably because I come from a very loving family, and my mum is amazing. She described me as content, and stoic (never complained about being a diabetic at aged 1). She instilled in me an attitude of this is not going to stop me doing anything and it never has. As I have inner contentment I've never been afraid, and a quite gung-ho about going on say stealth at Thorpe park, anything scary, any ride, ziplining, watching any film - nothing scares me. But I appreciate I'm more one end of the spectrum than the other on this.

Thus I will never be reconciled with how neurotic and anxiety ridden most mums are. I believe it's actually damaging to their children and makes raising them more controlled and not as free as it should be, because of the mums anxiety. This irritates me hugely. But I'm not quite sure why.

I've thought about it a lot, but haven't established exactly why I find it so irritating. It may be because my contentment makes me a tiny bit narcissistic and I have a tendency to be superior, look down on those weaker because their natural anxiety is a sign of lack of self respect which upsets me and saddens me.

I thus tend to like fighting for, helping those, who need help, eg don't know how to advocate for their dc against a school Senco, or fight HMRC when they are bullying people over a parents tax return mistakes.

I can't make people have less anxiety though. It's their default. Like mine is the opposite. Back to the Op though, no this is not new, the pearl clutching, and over anxiety of mums on mn I suspect will always be the case.

I’ve had my intelligence insulted and been told they feel very sorry for my daughter for having such an awful and immature mother by one lovely poster, just for saying that I’d had my dd1 young and in a way I thought it was nice we had grown up together. I just told she didn’t need to worry, she’s a very well adjusted young woman, who is doing very well at a Russell group and has a close relationship with her mother. Mumsnet is quite a judgmental place with a lot of seemingly quite angry women. I find it quite amusing tbh.

Meh, it's just part and parcel of posting a thread to thousands of anonymous strangers on the internet. You'll get comments and "advice" from people whose opinion you would never seek out IRL. You can't really have high expectations for the quality of the responses. Some people are bonkers, you have to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Do you have children @Oblomov25 ?

😆

I often do but about very boring things & I normally get great advice eg I posted one about how to attach a garland to the stairs recently.

I don’t think I’ve read the threads you’re referring to but I don’t think you’re entirely wrong. I’ve seen some posts that basically cross examine the OP like they’re up on murder charges in the Old Bailey.

I agree OP. Mumsnet can be so toxic, its tiring. I've started going on Reddit more and honestly finding it a breath of fresh air. Plus its easier to curate depending on interests.

Totally agree. My personal fav is people confidently diagnosing autism/ADHD/depression in OP or their DH/DD, etc

what annoys me lately is a rise in this thread title format:

”all posters on MN are idiots, aren’t they?”

Why bother asking if you’ve already decided?

OP your post took the words right out of my mouth. A lot of pyscho babble responses being quite accusatory to the OP on a lot of threads.
There's a lot of helpful responses but sometimes they are in the minority.
I'll be honest I'm not a long time user on MN but there seems to be a lot of bitter resentful responses and I do think there is a lot of winding up going on if I'm honest.
I'm also starting to wonder in a lot of cases who is sat at home behind the keyboard, I know it's an anonymous forum but maybe it's underestimated that basically any bloody weirdo is often answering on threads.
In a nutshell I come to the conclusion that the whole wind up responses are fun for people passing the time with maybe 100 different user names or plain resentment making other women feel bad....it reeks of that a lot of the time.
I wrote a response the other week just being supportive to the OP and someone kept banging on at me and then accused my husband of pulling the wool over my eyes !!! It was unbelievable in the sense that there was nothing at all to allude to that and also I've got a really great life with my husband WTAF 🤣🤣

People post asking for possible ways of seeing a situation and so they will get a wide range of possibilities given as answers. Some of these may seem obscure or random but they all add into the overall picture for the op to consider. If one of them resonates however random then it might be helpful, if not, just ignore it. Often there is a majority consensus and the outliers seem even more random. But i personally think that the wider range of possibilities offered, however whacky, is helpful and part of the beauty of asking hundreds of people. Sometimes someone who has been through something spots a relevant detail that is missed by others. So even if it's a projection of the poster's experience it can be helpful in building up a picture and considering things outside the op's understanding and experience.

I do know what you mean, OP. I find the same thing happens in real life. Some people hear one thing they identify with, then roll along with what they assume is the identical situation, never waiting to hear the rest of it or stopping to wonder if it actually is the same.

It's a damn sight worse in real life! You can't splutter, roll your eyes and scroll past them!

I think you have an unrealistic expectation of me not wanting to know what the original thread was 😉 - can you share it ??

Says the I find shoppers that handle bananas triggering OP!!

@Cornthin
Yes Cornthin, why? Ds1 is at Uni and Ds2 is doing A'level's.

Ds1 almost broke me, mn helped me a lot in parenting him when I struggled. ds2 is a an easier child.

Ahh!
Well that's because it was 5am! I was awake. I am ill, with a really nasty cold, I have been so unwell this week, rarely. And I feel guilty because I've given it to ds2 now , who has been in bed all day, and is now too ill to play football for his manager, and team, so this is rare and serious!

I only wrote such stuff because the thread doesn't include anything to do with my ds's.

It's about Mn threads. I too kind of agree with op, some threads do take a wierd turn. Like the poster says some grill the op like she's on murder charges at the old Bailey.

but on the other hand, all this 'oh mn is like this, or getting worse' , like other posters say, yawn, we've seen all these complaints before. Long term posters accept that mn is what it is.

so no, all I wrote was quite self indulgent. But I still don't think my ds's affect much that I need to write on the subject.

Still following that thread though aren’t you? 😉😂

Oh you should. You’ll be surprised at the amount of people who follow you around other threads afterwards implying things about your mental wellbeing 😉

I think there's far more cheerleading and support for people blindly believing the op than reaching most of the time.

A lot of threads where the op is so totally good and innocent, and the other person is just so wrong get reply after reply of people validating their experience and anyone who says, "hang on, wait a minute" is told to be kind/is reaching etc.
And sometimes I read them and wonder if the op is using mn to assuage a guilty conscience so they can justify what they're doing or sometimes try out the excuses they're planning on trying to get away with something.