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Habits of Highly Miserable People

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Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#201

Post by esolyt »

geowwy wrote: post #185
elipsey wrote: post #134

PULIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: author trolls the mentally ill in standard way, says they're doing it for attention. If you have serious psych diagnosis like BP etc., please avoid this content; your loved ones know you're trying and only a handfull of contrarians strike this pose. Get some exercise and a good night's sleep, and stay on your meds. I'm rooting for you. P.S. This trash should not be on HN. It has nothing to…

> author trolls the mentally ill in standard way, says they're doing it for attention. Where does she say that?

Basically during the entire post.

"misery is an art form, and the satisfaction people seem to find in it reflects the creative effort required to cultivate it."

"making yourself miserable is a craft all its own, requiring imagination, vision, and ingenuity."

"There’s power in making other people feel guilty."

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#202

Post by mirimir »

RIMR wrote: post #111
DoreenMichele wrote: post #104

Give yourself a negative identity I was sexually abused as a child. I spent a total of about 3.5 years in therapy, a year in my teens and 2.5 years in my twenties. Therapy was valuable, but I quit in large part for the above reason: I was at a point where spending an hour or more every week digging around in the dirt of my past was just keeping alive an identity as a victim. It was keeping me stuck. It was keeping me…

I know this is a bit of a controversial opinion, but I always felt that society's reaction to sexual assault give victims a reason to feel even worse about their situation. Not to say that it isn't a severely traumatic thing to experience - it absolutely is. But, we regularly treat virginity as some sort of virtuous status - and then speak of rape victims who lost their virginity to their attacker as if they were str…

As far as I remember, I've never been raped. Maybe as a young child, but that's just unknowable. But I have had a few sexual partners who were rape survivors. What's difficult, I gather, is how it messes with the ability to be sexually intimate. So much about enjoyable sex depends on letting go of conscious control, and that's often difficult for rape survivors.

I mean, it was just luck that kept a large dog from killing me, many years ago. And ever since, I am never comfortable around dogs.

Edit: Damn, I forgot the point. Which is that being uncomfortable with dogs is far less problematic than being uncomfortable with sex.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#203

Post by mirimir »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #196
rectang wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving on is crucial. However, what I find troubling about that formulation that it appears to deny the victim's experience. Can't we pause, acknowledge the negative, and then move on?

The issue is that if you get hit by a car, the entire world doesn't spend the rest of your life pitying you and hanging their car-related baggage on you and refusing to acknowledge they are doing so. If you get raped, every bit of sexual baggage of everyone you know will be dumped in your lap in the name of "sympathy" while people actively refuse to allow you to move on. I'm a let me brag and show off by showing you…

Hey, you are "one helluva badass" :)

> Each of us is the sum of our scars.

Caine, in Stover's Blade of Tyshalle.

Also, the horse witch in his Act of Atonement books.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#204

Post by Karunamon »

The rest of the list notwithstanding, this one got me thinking:

>Well-meaning friends and relatives will try to sabotage your efforts to be thankless. For example, while you’re in the middle of complaining about the project you procrastinated on at work to your spouse during an unhealthy dinner, he or she might try to remind you of how grateful you should be to have a job or food at all.

Am I the only person who finds these sorts of pithy attempts to be colossally irritating?

Feeling sad/depressed? Cheer up!

Feeling overwhelmed? It's not so bad!

Job annoying you? At least you have a job!

Yes, thank you for the comment and completely shutting down my attempts at commiserating. Now am I not only still bothered by what I was originally bothered by, I'm annoyed at the interlocutor.

Perhaps I'm only 1/14th miserable? :)

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#205

Post by DoreenMichele »

mirimir wrote: post #203
DoreenMichele wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that if you get hit by a car, the entire world doesn't spend the rest of your life pitying you and hanging their car-related baggage on you and refusing to acknowledge they are doing so. If you get raped, every bit of sexual baggage of everyone you know will be dumped in your lap in the name of "sympathy" while people actively refuse to allow you to move on. I'm a let me brag and show off by showing you…

Hey, you are "one helluva badass" :) > Each of us is the sum of our scars. Caine, in Stover's Blade of Tyshalle . Also, the horse witch in his Act of Atonement books.

I'm totally tweeting this.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#206

Post by mirimir »

esolyt wrote: post #201
geowwy wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> author trolls the mentally ill in standard way, says they're doing it for attention. Where does she say that?

Basically during the entire post. "misery is an art form, and the satisfaction people seem to find in it reflects the creative effort required to cultivate it." "making yourself miserable is a craft all its own, requiring imagination, vision, and ingenuity." "There’s power in making other people feel guilty."

Yeah, I guess that's fundamentally what annoyed me about the article. I hate smugness.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#207

Post by geowwy »

esolyt wrote: post #201
geowwy wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> author trolls the mentally ill in standard way, says they're doing it for attention. Where does she say that?

Basically during the entire post. "misery is an art form, and the satisfaction people seem to find in it reflects the creative effort required to cultivate it." "making yourself miserable is a craft all its own, requiring imagination, vision, and ingenuity." "There’s power in making other people feel guilty."

How is that about mental illness? I genuinely don't get it. People can be unhappy without being mentally ill.

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#208

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

minor3rd wrote: post #159
dwcnnnghm wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great. Another wonderful piece of advice I had read somewhere for similar situations is: "remember that an argument between you and your partner is you two against the issue rather than against one another " I think it is a great way to refocus the conversation and work toward a solution.

My personal solution to defuse an argument with the wife is to stick out my tongue and say something stupid. Gets a laugh unless I'm REALLY in trouble, and then it's on to plan B.

> then it's on to plan B.

Run for the hills?

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#209

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

kgwxd wrote: post #30
maerF0x0 wrote: post #6

>Exercise: Sit in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and, for 15 minutes, meditate on all the things you could lose: your job, your house, your savings, and so forth. Then brood about living in a homeless shelter. really roughly this is what stoics do, yet somehow they come to the conclusion "actually, what was i fearing? Proceed with adventure"...

Those things never really scared me. Do they also meditate on being sick, in constant crippling pain and come to the same conclusion? I get a stomachache and recognize a bad personality change in myself. I dont imagine id be able to draw on the same mental skills while in that state for prolonged periods.

I think this is a better exercise. I stole it from Seneca.

Look at the back of your wrists: see those fragile greenish-blue veins?

What if tomorrow - while thinking about some problem with money or love - you trip and fall, and a particularly sharp rock on the ground or a shard of glass on the street cuts one of those thin exposed blue-green veins open?

Re: Habits of Highly Miserable People

#210

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

ModernMech wrote: post #47
kristianc wrote: post #27

I’m no expert on abject misery but reading 12pt serif text with a ridiculous line length on an iPhone screen has got to come pretty close.

"14. Be critical. Make sure to have an endless list of dislikes and voice them often, whether or not your opinion is solicited. For example, don’t hesitate to say, “That’s what you chose to wear this morning?” or “Why is your voice so shrill?” If someone is eating eggs, tell them you don’t like eggs. Your negativity can be applied to almost anything."

You can, for instance, object to perfectly valid criticisms. How dare this person question legibility!
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