fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3364 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3364 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[The Glass Scientists]

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03.

[Ghostbusters remake]

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04.

[All for One Webseries]

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05.

[Castle]

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06.

[DC Comics]

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07.

[Reign of Fire]

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08.

[Steven Universe]

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09.

[K. Tempest Bradford]

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10.

[Against the Wall]

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11.

[Queer Literature, "In the Company of Shadows"]

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12.

(Star Wars Rebels)

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13.

[Jeeves and Wooster, P.G. Wodehouse]

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14.

[Giles Coren]

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15.

[James Marsters/Rick Grimes of The Walking Dead]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 086 secrets from Secret Submission Post #481.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How? I mean, "I refuse to be upset about it" is like saying "I can fly by refusing gravity" it just doesn't work.

dunno, it seems like the best attitude in this thread.

just because life is meaningless, or doesn't meet the standard of what society deems successful, doesn't mean it has to be empty or upsetting.

No; gravity is an ineluctable force in the universe; being upset is optional and usually something one can talk oneself out of.

that is not how emotions work anon

mimi-sardinia explained it far better than I could, so I'll refer you to her post, below. As she says, emotions are directly influenced by how we think--and how we think is at least partly within our control.

Telling oneself that feelings are like unalterable forces of nature that are beyond your control does give people the sense that they're not responsible for them or for the way they behave in consequence, so I can see why that idea is appealing. But it's not helping the anon who asked this question.

There is middle ground between "unalterable forces of nature" and being able to exercise complete control over one's emotions, anon. I would say they are "somewhat alterable forces of nature".

that they're not responsible for them or for the way they behave in consequence

There are two different things on different sides of that "or", and they are VERY different things.

But it's not helping the anon who asked this question.

Would it be more helpful to berate or guilt them for the way they're feeling? Because believe it or not, people actually can't help the way they feel. They can try to ignore it, focus their energy elsewhere, and they can certainly choose how to respond, but you can't just magic your emotions away.

No one is suggesting you can "magic" your emotions away, but yes, you can help the way you feel--or at least, you can do something about whether you continue to feel that way. Isn't it more helpful to think that yes, you can do something to feel better, than to think that your feelings are beyond your control and you are stuck feeling that way until some other event comes along to make you feel differently?

Yes, it's definitely more helpful to believe you have some control over how you feel! The way to get there is to work on it, get some different perspectives and try doing things differently. Many people on this thread have offered really good advice on starting out. The way to get there is not to have someone tell you "but don't you know you can control it!" especially when it's presented in such an extreme way as "If you choose not to feel bad, you won't feel bad!" That just makes people feel worse and it's really remarkably unhelpful; it contains zero in the way of practical advice.

That's bullshit. Gravity is an outside force we barely even understand. Emotions are internal and are directly influenced by how we think.

Maybe my lack of depression about my life is a side effect of my overall laid-back attitude, but it is a simple fact that I refuse to put the energy into being depressed about my life.

If you can't do that, then maybe your eomtions are just as uncontrollable as gravity, for you, but don't presume to know exactly how mine work.

What a naive and insulting way to talk about depression. :( I guess all those years ago I should have just adopted a "laid-back attitude" and all my problems would have gone away!

If you can't do that, then maybe your eomtions are just as uncontrollable as gravity, for you, but don't presume to know exactly how mine work.

Were you not responding to OP and trying to suggest to them how to feel better?

And honestly, even if they're not actually depressed, just feeling chronically shitty (which is sort of the definition of depressed anyway but we'd have to have more info I guess) many people can't just pep talk themselves into not feeling shitty. It's great that it works for you, but while redirection is a useful tool for basically everyone it's not a magic fix.

No, being "laid-back" won't work for everyone, because not everyone has the personality for it. I am "laid-back" to the point of apathy, and simply never put out a lot of emotion and not dwelling on the bad things in life. Would this work for everyone? No Because as I said, not everyone has a phlegmatic personality.

I know how my emotions work, I get upset about other things, but I don't think of myself as a miserable failure, and someone telling me that I'm wrong about my emotions comes off as insulting.

So it is occurring to me that we may have read OP's post differently.

I read it as "give me advice, please", and it was in that context that I found your comment so bothersome. It sounded like you were telling OP that if they just tried doing exactly what you did they'd be fine, and the particular thing you are doing has been trotted out in front of depressed people for ages as the Obvious Solution and caused a ton of stress.

You may have read it as "share your own POV" which didn't honestly occur to me at first. I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your comment that way.

(I'm not sure where I told you you were "wrong" about your own emotions, though.)

Edited 2016-03-22 19:00 (UTC)

Yeah, I responded with my own POV, and no, it wasn't you who seemed like they were telling me I was wrong, that was the response to my original comment - the one that said emotion were immutable as gravity.

Ah. That's fair. :)

[ SECRET POST #3364 ]

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