The Psychology of those who look to depress others

[Outseyeder]

This situation has created a unique opportunity for a particular group of people. Those who gain enjoyment and self-esteem from controlling others emotions, specifically people who are looking for reassurance about when the existing restrictions might be eased.
The pattern is now quite clear. First there is an OP saying words to the effect of "when do you think we will have a normal life again". Sometimes there are specific variants like "Am I being optimistic booking a holiday for x date".
You can almost smell the glee in the Controllers' when they see post like this (or are they planting them there themselves??). They pounce with a formulation along the lines of "if you think this is going to be over by y you're going to be sorely disappointed. I think it will be at least z...." with some added justifications and virtue signalling. The Controllers seem to have engineered a sort of reverse takeover of MN, especially this section, and lurk and lurk waiting to pounce.
It is hard not to conclude that these people are absolutely REVELLING in the lost quality of life of others around them, and their great ally is uncertainty. This allows them to make prediction after prediction, once they have assessed the expectations of the other side which they want to undermine. They will never ever admit to being what they are, but they are all over this website at the moment and it is time they were called out.

I totally agree and have seen it time and time again on here.
BUT...
from a different perspective -
I know one of these people in real life. She would always state the negative. For instance if the weather looked nice and the sky blue, I might say ‘oh it looks like a nice morning’ and she would say ‘it’s going to rain later I’m afraid’
There were just loads of instances where she was unduly pessimistic. She was a really kind person though and my friend.
What I leaned was that she was actually a bit insecure and protecting herself against disappointment. By thinking the worst everytime she never got disappointed and was often nicely surprised.
I wonder if some people on here think and type the worst because if you get used to the worst then everything else is a bonus?

Alright, but there was definitely a "literally shaking" post about having to stand near someone who might cough.

And all manner of unpleasant haranguing posts to people who just wanted a bit of time outside the same four walls they had been looking at for weeks.

This was in the spring when infections were nosediving.

Just a bit of perspective, that's all. No one is denying that the situation we are in at the moment is dire - or at least if they are then they are living on another planet. However being told this will last for a very long time, I'm afraid, and that life will probably never be the same, we will probably never be able to see loved ones, go to concerts, meet in restaurants, and hug friends when every thing which has happened in history has come to an end sooner or later is just crazy. Or just bloody mean, if the person they addressing is clearly in a really dark place.

There have been a few posters I have been concerned about in the last few months and I know I am not the only one.

Um... yes they did- thats exactly what they suggested lol

Nellodee found the post, screenshotted and posted it, and it doesn't even mention coffee, never mind an instruction to put cheese in it.

That post was obviously saying that cheese is an alternative to milk as a nutritional source (calcium etc) and that so are potatoes, instead of bread (carbohydrates etc). It doesn't mention the word coffee at all, and it was a hypothetical conversation anyway, not an instruction.

Sorry, HesterShaw, but that's another one that didn't happen.

Yes, I am a bit sad, but I do find it genuinely intriguing how people misremember things to fit their own preconceptions.

These are the only two possibilities for literally and shaking occurring in the same post. One of them is about Covid symptoms. The other one is obviously the one you are referring to. However, it turns out that your prime example of a dementor, the "literally shaking" woman, was actually bang on the money.

Keep 'em coming. I feel like I'm working for FactCheck, or Myth Busters, here.

I think the literally shaking woman's was the poster who went to a garden centre and, while queuing for a coffee, a malicious toddler coughed in her general direction.

Woman

It's still a miserable sort of post. Kind of an I had black tea and potatoes so why does anyone else deserve milk and bread. My response to that kind of talk is always that I'm not going to go without milk and bread just because you did. I don't owe anyone my misery out of solidarity.

I think there was a ‘sobbing and shaking’ post - I remember who posted it - but on a thread that got deleted for turning into a huge row, if I’m remembering right.

Also as I recall it was far enough into said row that it wasn’t at all clear the poster was serious - I remember it as a sort of “FINE THEN, I am literally sobbing and shaking at the idea of you going to the shops if that’s what you want to think of me, HAPPY NOW?” sort of thing.

I've no skin on the game but if you are fact checking mood tonight Nellodee, I think that's right.

I do find it genuinely intriguing how people misremember things to fit their own preconceptions

Yes, it is fascinating. As an intermittent lurker I have seen several mentions (most recently in this thread) of someone having advised a poster "to put cheese in her coffee or else she was "murdering" people" . I naively assumed that must in fact have happened - turns out it didn't! Myth-making in real time! Interesting.

I can't find much about garden centres. There's nothing about garden centres and toddlers at all. This post got discussed by the anti-dementors, so I think this might be it.

No, there was definitely a toddler/mnetter standoff - I can't guarantee it was the literally shaking woman but that's where I'd place my bet. I'll see if I can find it.

I agree OP. I don’t mind people sharing their opinion e.g. ‘I don’t think we’ll be back to normal until because of . It’s the ones that say ‘we’ll still be in lockdown then, I’m afraid’ that piss me off the most. They say it with such conviction that you question whether you’re crazy for thinking you’ll get your life back this decade!

Isn't there a quote about being unreliable curators of our own memory?

I think it's very natural for things to happen in full technicolour and then for us to remember a much cruder version of them. We take the memory picture as a bitmap and then store them as a GIF, kind of.

The cheese in tea response was very quick witted, though, and well worthy of being immortalised.

There was definitely a frothing thread about an incident in a garden centre and a small child coughing in someone’s face.

I’m pretty sure it was a 5/6 year old though, rather than a toddler.

I don’t think that was the shaking woman though. Could be wrong.

Aren't most threads where the OP is shaking made up?

I found the thread but not the literally shaking woman, it was the toddler coughing upwards at her in a queue at the garden centre.

I might have to agree that 'literally shaking' is hard to find

I can't actually find the original "sobbing and shaking". I think there is some dispute about whether it was serious or not in the first place. Interestingly, the most I could find about it was on a thread called "Did anyone actually put cheese in their coffee?"

@Nellodee

Sorry, HesterShaw, but that's another one that didn't happen.

Yes, I am a bit sad, but I do find it genuinely intriguing how people misremember things to fit their own preconceptions.

These are the only two possibilities for literally and shaking occurring in the same post. One of them is about Covid symptoms. The other one is obviously the one you are referring to. However, it turns out that your prime example of a dementor, the "literally shaking" woman, was actually bang on the money.

You think those were the main points I was making?

Yes brilliant, well done. It's very admirable you spent time looking for the specific posts which prove me wrong on that specific and small issue, and and it's really great you have done so to try and dismiss the serious points people are making. Good job.

What do you think about the actual points lots of posters here are making and the discussion in hand? You could maybe start with the people who are in a very dark place, such as the person on another thread this afternoon who has been reading the posts telling her that life will never be back to normal, has been holed up in her small house/flat with 2 young children with ASD and whose support network has entirely vanished, who said she wanted to go into a Covid ward, catch it and die because her life has become so awful. Rather than gleeful points scoring, what do you think about this?

Good lord.

I think you've been proven wrong and are now trying to make me feel guilty for crap that is totally unrelated to this thread in order to make yourself feel better, to be honest.

And no, I don't mean other people's suffering is crap.

You could maybe start with the people who are in a very dark place, such as the person on another thread this afternoon who has been reading the posts telling her that life will never be back to normal, has been holed up in her small house/flat with 2 young children with ASD and whose support network has entirely vanished, who said she wanted to go into a Covid ward, catch it and die because her life has become so awful. Rather than gleeful points scoring, what do you think about this?

Yes, this was the main thrust of the thread -
sorry I got sidetracked too - it is the sheer ill will of using other people's desperation as a toe hook to further legitimise some posters own pessimistic narrative of things never getting any better that is particularly vicious.