I’m just venting to get something petty off my chest.
Not a long ago, in a discord chat I’m in, a guy posted a hypothetical: If someone had a knife to their own throat and was threatening suicide, would you attempt to physically intervene? This upset an irl friend of mine (who is also in the discord) who had a family member die by suicide. The OP apologized, explaining that he didn’t intend any harm, and took the post down. But after that, she kept on beating him over the head with it. She just would not let it go. I understand why she’d be upset, but imo, the guy made an honest mistake.
Anyway, I complimented him about his willingness to take the post down for someone else’s sake without someone having to ask him to do so, because its evidence of empathy. My friend then got upset at *me*.
And she hasn’t talked to me since. Silent treatment.
Am I in the wrong? I don’t think I am.
This same girl has problems all throughout her life. She lost her job and she’s getting kicked out of her rental house, both times over what people are saying is a “confrontational attitude” of hers. When she told me these things, I was sympathetic to her. But now, I’m starting to think that she really DOES have a bad attitude.
Then again, maybe she’s just upset bc she’s got a lot on her plate. Idk. It’s been giving me bad feelings though all around.
Any input is welcomed.
5 comments
If she’s been fired and also getting kicked out of her rental for her “confrontational attitude” then she must’ve done something major for them to boot her. she most definitely sound like she has a confrontational attitude.
Also, I don’t think the OP of the post did anything wrong. All he did was ask a hypothetical question. If she didn’t like the question, she should’ve just scrolled on by, and definitely let it go after OP willingly took the post down himself.
What exactly is wrong with asking a hypothetical question? And why should any post be taken down for a mere discussion on a topic? Just an FYI outside of the Western bubble- death is not a taboo topic in other countries around the world, and so death is less feared. I mean everyone fears death, but ppl in other countries talk about it, plan for it, discuss it with their family members so no one is surprised, things are more planned, etc. Isn’t that far better than to completely shut out all talk and pretend death/suicide doesn’t exist? Yeah suicide makes some ppl uncomfortable, but then again anything and everything makes ppl uncomfortable these days. If there is nothing incendiary or nasty or bigoted etc being said, why is having a mere DISCUSSION “wrong”?
Why should everyone else be banned from having a discussion just bc it makes ONE person uncomfortable? Just look at YT and other social media these days. We aren’t even allowed to type the word sui.cide or discuss it in any way lest we get banned or our posts get pulled. Pretending something ugly doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away. Sometimes the best thing IS to acknowledge it exists and openly discuss it.
And what if 50 ppl or 100 ppl actually do want to discuss it but that one person keeps posting and complaining? I’ve seen TONS of posts pulled on sites bc of that 1 or 2 ppl complaining and poof,* suddenly the whole post is gone.
This is one of the reasons why I like SP. There’s VERY few places online that’ll even allow the discussion of depression or suicide. Which, btw, makes depressed ppl even MORE depressed and suicidal, bc we can’t find places to even talk about it to others. So we become even more lonely and isolated and depressed. That’s the case for me. I’d definitely feel less lonely if I found more places where we can openly talk about these things to others. SP is great, but that can’t and shouldn’t be the ONLY place available.
I’m in a ton of depression/suicide groups online, and guess what? We’re not even allowed to talk about our suicidal thoughts on a depression/suicide group. Like WTF.
see, and I’m over here thinking about how I almost posted on here talking about something similar, a case involving what do you do when someone else threatens harm to self? In the particular real case I found the person tried to intervene, and it didn’t end well.
and so you’ve got to be careful who you help, and even then sometimes you’ve got to accept that someone may take it wrong. I called an ambulance on a real life friend once because they were threatening suicide, got heat for it, but they’re still alive, and I’m not sure they would be if I hadn’t.
people want to be prickly, that’s their thing. It’s rarely personal. We had this lady come into our office and yell at us for a good 30 minutes about something someone else said to her, and nothing we said made any difference. It’s like that to me. Afterward she left we closed ranks, which is what I like about my office, good folks, and we help a lot of people, that lady was the rare case of someone we can’t do a thing for.
You tried to nurture compassion and empathy in others. That’s what you’re supposed to do. If she wants to take that some kind of way, okay. Every group has a tendency to contain some nuts. Am I supposed to say that? maybe not. But it be true.