Aka, identity-affirming obsessive-compulsive personality disorder with compulsive mastery as defense mechanism. Welcome to the club, we have cookies (and they're Michelin-rated but it takes us three weeks to make them).
I'm addicted to being useful
231–240 of 322 posts
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#232Ever since Lowtax killed himself and I felt a lot of undeserved guilt over it [1] [2] I have developed a sort of "savior complex".
I always liked being helpful, but at this point I've sort of become "aggressively helpful", which ironically probably isn't helping. I feel a constant need to take care of people and help people, and I think it's in no small part because a tiny part of me is afraid they're going to do something horrible to themselves, or they're going to make some decision that I think is "wrong".
It's more than a little frustrating, because at some level I'm aware I'm doing it, and of course I have to ask myself "who made me the 'correct' decision-maker?", but I also can't really stop myself from doing it either, and at a certain level I'm considerably more willing to help other people than myself because I'm ultimately a coward and I'm really afraid of guilt. Many people have told me that it's not my job to assume responsibility for everyone, and they're objectively correct about this, but human psychology is stupid. Or at least mine is.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29185822
[2] https://blog.tombert.com/Posts/Personal/July-2023/Guilt-and-...
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Emotions and feelings are always "valid", in the sense that they are a natural consequence of events and prior conditioning. If “validating” someone’s emotions comes down to simply saying that, yes, I agree you felt that way, then I suppose that’s true. But when people talk about validating other people’s emotions it implies that they’re saying the emotional response was valid for the circumstances. I have someone…
You’re making a reasonable point, but I think you’re arguing against a somewhat strawmanned version of emotional validation. You’re treating “validation” as synonymous with “agreeing the emotional response was proportionate and correct.” But that’s not really what validation means in a therapeutic or even colloquial sense. Validating someone’s emotions typically means acknowledging that the emotion is real and unders…
I disagree. I think the overly academic isolation of "validating emotions" into something that happens without endorsing the response isn't how real people communicate.
Any time you're "validating emotions" in the real world, there is going to be some degree of implicit endorsement that the reaction was valid.
The idea of "validating emotions" being synonymous with saying "I agree that you feel that way" is rather infantile. Nobody needs someone to agree that the emotion they experienced is the emotion they experienced.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand the academic concept, but the word "necessarily" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that definition. In real human conversation, when someone is expressing an emotion they aren't looking for other people to confirm that they are indeed experiencing that emotion. That's not even a question up for debate. They're looking for people to share in that anger, sadness, or frustration and confirm that it's a val…
> confirm that they are indeed experiencing that emotion This is not emotional validation; nobody wants to be told something they can decide for themselves. Instead, they want to hear that it is okay to feel said emotion. When venting to someone, one doesn't want to hear "I understand that you feel that way", they want to hear "I understand why you feel that way". The former is a dismissal (taking the guise of a vali…
> Instead, they want to hear that it is okay to feel said emotion.
That's not the definition the others are using, but this seems to be a game of whack-a-mole with everyone's different ideas about what it means.
That said, I think your definition highlights the problem: By telling someone it's okay to feel the emotion, you've implicitly endorsed the response.
The situations I'm speaking about involve people developing inappropriate emotional reactions that lead to self-harm. When they surround themselves with people who do this "validate emotions" game, they're implicitly gathering consensus that it's okay to react that way. The cycle continues.
It's clear that a lot of people have picked up this idea of "validating emotions" being virtuous and good, but some times what people need is for people around them to explain that their reaction is not actually appropriate or okay.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I hear that your family member had her actions validated - what she decided to do. A lot of people in this comment thread are trying to rewrite this situation. That's not what happened. The problem was that she would have a strong emotional reaction to something and her partner would go along with it: Validate her emotions, offer comfort, not question the validity of responding that way. This is the problem with th…
> Validate her emotions, offer comfort, not question the validity of responding that way. IDK if anything here counts as a good container for emotion. 'validate' is very ambiguous. 'comfort' is very different from presence. It can actually be a way of invalidating funnily enough. 'not question' has a lot going on. I definitely hear a lot of enablement in your example. It sounds like she is better off without that. >…
I've clearly struck a nerve with how many people arrived in this comment thread to project different scenarios on to the situation, as well as all the different and conflicting definitions of "validate emotions"
To be honest, I'm growing even more distaste for the "validating emotions" academic concept after reading some of the mental gymnastics people are doing in this thread.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another pitfall with this approach is when someone has constant emotional but irrational reactions to everything. Being the person who validates their emotions becomes harmful if they’re over-reacting or developing harmful emotional reactions and you’re always there to validate them.
> someone has constant emotional but irrational reactions to everything What are "emotions" if not "irrational chemical reactions in our brains"? Seems really strange to decide what it or isn't "irrational emotions" for someone else to have. I, just like you I presume, see myself as a rational and logical person (maybe you're also a programmer), but I also realize that humans are humans, and having irrational emotion…
Everything in your body is a "chemical reaction". Pulling the trigger of a gun is a lot of chemical reactions. That doesn't mean the person isn't guilty.
In fact, it's problematic when people start thinking of their emotions as a chemical process that happens to them, outside of their control. A large part of getting people back on track in therapy is getting them to accept that they do have some control over how they react to situations in the world.
A lot of TikTok or Reddit style therapyspeak does the opposite: It goes to extreme lengths to try to separate the emotions or negative responses from the person, as if they're an outside force victimizing them. It's comforting to think that, because things that happen to us outside of our control seem like they can't be changed. Getting people to acknowledge that they can and should exert some emotional control over themselves is part of breaking that cycle.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#237Nothing wrong on the surface with this, and the author explicitly acknowledges this risk, but it bears repeating: Corporate environments are almost always toxic places to fulfill your emotional needs. It is true that finding a job that "resonates" with your personality is key to living a fulfilling life, and that software engineering is the kind of profession that is really going to fit certain personality types extr…
> Corporate environments are almost always toxic places to fulfill your emotional needs Luckily the only emotional need my work fulfills is getting money.
Seems like a torturous way to spend 8 hours a day if you only enjoy it for the money. Do you at least _like_ you job?
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Emotions and feelings are always "valid", in the sense that they are a natural consequence of events and prior conditioning. If “validating” someone’s emotions comes down to simply saying that, yes, I agree you felt that way, then I suppose that’s true. But when people talk about validating other people’s emotions it implies that they’re saying the emotional response was valid for the circumstances. I have someone…
> It took someone more level headed to start telling her when her reactions were not valid to certain situations to begin stabilizing the behavior. I guess at the risk of splitting hairs, I think it's more likely they stopped misappropriating more than they started invalidating. I see a difference between "you shouldn't feel that way" and "I disagree with that conclusion" such that one can logically say both (well, t…
So many people are trying to project onto this anecdote or substitute their own reality.
The reality is simpler: It was basically "Yeah it sucks that happened at work, but sulking about it for 3 days is not a good way to handle that"
Whereas the "validating emotions" guy would just jump in and be a sounding board for 3 days straight
Feeling a little upset over minor annoyances is valid. Having your emotional state crumble at the slightest breeze is not. Having someone around who basically validates the latter is not good.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In the end, you can validate someone's feelings without validating what they're feeling those about, by just saying "that sucks". If you say "that sucks" the other person is going to assume you're agreeing with them that the thing they're angry about sucks. They're not going to think you're saying "that sucks" that they have an emotion, as an isolated feeling that happened for no reason. This is where the overly ac…
> Nobody actually says "I agree that you are feeling that emotion but I neither endorse it nor disagree with it" (in less formal wording). If you're going along with someone else's emotions, you're implicitly endorsing their reaction as justified. Yes, actually, lots of people have healthy partnerships where they disagree with how their partner got into the situation, but can still recognize that the partner's feelin…
> since it's an emotion their feeling, it doesn't have to be rational or logical and it's certainly not up to you to decide if it is/was neither.
I think some of you have never had to deal with a person who had harmful emotional over reactions to even small inconveniences. It's an extremely self-harmful spiral.
Having someone who validates any emotions as if they exist in a vacuum is like adding fuel to the fire. It's implicit encouragement.
Emotional reactions aren't de facto good. Working with young children is another good way to observe that not every emotional reaction is acceptable. It's also a good way to see how people can learn how to manage their emotions, but it's hard to get to that point if they've surrounded themselves with people who will rush to validate their emotions and ignore the obvious harm it's causing.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It took decades for my wife to finally get through and explain not every problem she voices is something that needs a solution. This can become toxic in itself, though. Some times venting and being angry is what someone wants to do, but in a workplace environment that’s not a good thing to implicitly condone and support. I’ve had some team members who just wanted to vent but not discuss solutions and (again, in a w…
His advice was specific to the husband - wife relationship. You’ll understand if you happen to get married or enter a long term relationship.
> You’ll understand if you happen to get married or enter a long term relationship.
What a remarkably condescending comment. I've been happily married for a long time.