nainachick's shout trail with theresape - Help.com

The other thing that really GOT me was his complaining about how complicated it is to get on disability. He SHOULD be on disability, if he is genuinely disabled, but it should NOT be easy, otherwise no one would choose to go to work. I got the feeling he thought SS Disability should be like a big ATM where instead of inserting a card you should just be able to whisper, “veteran,” and dollar billed should start cascading out. I, for one, am glad that there are gatekeepers making sure that those funds are controlled appropriately so that they will be there for people who need them.

Actually, I read BOTH those points. But to me it was as if he had said, “Oh, poor me, I just broke my toe kicking my wife, and now my toe hurts. What can I do to relieve the pain in my toe?”

And I’m think, DAMN, what can you do to relieve the pain in your wife??

I just read your shout. It’s funny how 2 people can readthe same thing and read something completely different. I read “lousey $895 as in, it’s only this much, but I still cannot afford it. And you read ,”it’s $895 and my stinkin landlord won’t get off my back”.
That is a great lesson for me to remember I read things and they are colored by my experience.

I thought of another motive of mine. I’m not sure if you share it, but I know I’ve done this.
Sometimes my anger here is misplaced. I’ll read a post and it is similar to someone in my life, or some situation I still carry some anger about. So in reality, this poor soul is getting the blast I wanted to give to someone else!

Exactly!! I KNEW we were the same at heart! Sometimes, though, I still feel this glimmer of hope that something will get through, and maybe I really WILL help someone make a healthy decision. Once in a while, it actually happens . ; - )

Truth is, I probably couldn’t resist answering Rodney’s message because I have several rental properties, and I KNOW how much landlords RELY on getting their contractual rental payments to meet their expenses. So when he made light of the “lousy $895″ he hadn’t paid, I saw my whole life flash in front of my face. Arrrgh!

lol… I want you to know that you’re not the only one who gets angry at people’s whining. I had a nasty little argument with this cutter last week. She drove me nuts. I knew even when I was typing, that I was shutting her down. It didn’t matter that what I was saying was ‘right’. As soon as I came across as hostile, she stopped being able to receive it. I knew I was angry and was only going to make her angry as well. I wanted to shove her truth, as I saw it, down her throat.
I’ve decided since then, that if I feel annoyed by someone, I will not post. There is no point to it, aside from satisfying some nasty little urge to shake some sense into someone.
I have been extremely pig headed in my lifetime, but honestly, never had an epiphany whilst someone was yelling at me. The understanding I needed to overcome my problems always came in the quieter moments.

P.S. By the way–it doesn’t NECESSARILY follow that I did more harm than good. Rodney is rankled at me, sure, but MAYBE he’ll get off his butt and get some job training. We can hope!

P.S. By the way–it doesn’t necessarily follow that I did more harm than good. Rodney is rankled at me, sure, but MAYBE he’ll get off his butt and get some job training. We can hope!

T.

Wow, you’re TOUGH! But I get the message!

And you’re right: I DO have very little sympathy for people who play victim. My brand of compassion takes the form of wanting to teach them to stop whining and start taking responsibility. But I guess that’s unrealistic. They just WANT to wallow.

It used to happen with my sister Patty all the time. She’d go on whimpering about this problem and that problem and the other problem, most of them of the financial sort, and I would give her a list of ten solutions, with the numbers all worked out. She would always get mad at ME for making her insurmountable problems seem so surmountable, and I would always be frustrated with HER for being so obtuse. Then one day my therapist pointed out that Patty didn’t WANT solutions–she just wanted to be heard. So now I just don’t even try to help her, I just listen, and she likes me a lot better. Go figure.

‘Xcuse me, now I’ve got to go apply some antiseptic to the wounds from where you nailed me to the cross! ; - )

You’re one of hose great people who keeps us all honest, N!

In my own way, I was trying to say that when you try to ‘help’ when you feel an utter lack of compassion for a person’s plight,(even if you feel they are full of sh1t and deserve no sympathy)you end up doing more harm than good.

Hmm, Nainachick, your comment (about my “this may seem callous”) is quite amusing, and very astute linguistically. But my remarks only risk seeming callous because this guy is playing the veteran’s card, trying to evoke sympathy, as if he were a helpless victim. I think he is perfectly within his rights getting food stamps and disability payment (even though the diability is not service-related). I also suggest that he use veterans’ benefiits for education, training, and medicine. But he lost sympathy from me when he bellyached about how hard the poor dear had to work to get his disability paperwork filed, and when he made light of his poor landlord’s plight. How would you feel, Nainachick, if you had a tenant who stopped paying his rent when you had a monthly mortgage to meet? You and I are almost always on the same sides of issues–I have lauded your advice several times today, which you may have seen–but on this one I’m coming down on the side of being personally responsible, at least to the best of one’s ability. If that’s callous, get out the Dr. Scholl’s.