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A lot of people have been posting the "Yes it was aweful, now please shut up" essay as seen on Oprah's website a few days ago.
I saw it when it first went up. And I read it, though I don't usually bend in Oprah's direction. And I can see where it has a certain attraction.
Now, I admit to having gotten through some pretty difficult times lately. I find it difficult to talk to people, and I finally had to resort to finding my own professional ear after the Therapist From Hell scrambled what little wiring was holding me together.
Essays like that, which are meant to target the over-complainers are very good at something else -
Making the people who might have a beef, but keep their own council feel like their concerns are worth that much less.
As a rule, I try not to burden other people with my problems. But if I've learned NOTHING else in the past 6 months (other than love given is rarely returned in kind,) it's that sometimes, some of us really, really need to talk. To bitch and vent it out, otherwise be resigned to let it lie silently in our souls and fester. Because sometimes the ONLY thing you have control over is what's coming out of your mouth.
When I read this, it makes me feel 10x more guilty about the times I have opened up and bitched about something to someone. That I shouldn't have, that it wasn't worth their time, that really, it wasn't that important, that really, I should just suck it up and deal. That I've lived to much in the ever so near and painful past, and not enough in the happy sunshine and roses present. (You can read a sarcastic snort into the end of that sentence.)
This essay to me was not helpful. It was cutting. Maybe that means I'm the very person it was targeting. But her words (WORDS) are very easy to write. And those of us trying to execute the idea behind the words every day, who go home to constant reminders of our inadequacy and loss, really didn't need to hear it form some self-rightious chick with a crusader complex.
I should have just stopped reading.
Maybe take a moment to think about how these words affect not only the over the top "Daddy-never-Loved-Me's" (who won't care and will continue to bemoan themselves to you anyway,) and think about how hearing that really, ya'll don't want to hear it, effects those who have a hard time talking in the first place.
- K.
**edit - I wasn't fishing for sympathy, I was just trying to point out how those words, read from a different perspective, echo very differently. That they can have the unintended consequence of clamming up people who are already (overly) sensitive to how people perceive them.
I've been working hard not to regress into a n "Every thing's coming up roses! Yes I'm Fine!" hermit, and while not 100% successful, I'm being honest in that No, everything's not fine, but you are graced with my presence anyway.
Essays like that, in my kind of messed up little world, only serve to promote the June Cleaver Mask of false smiles and Every Thing's Wonderfulls, Darling.
I realize that I wasn't exactly the targeted audience, and for that I cut it a little slack. But still distressing for those of us who already feel uncomfortable in being percieved as "needy" by bending the ears of friends.
- K.
I saw it when it first went up. And I read it, though I don't usually bend in Oprah's direction. And I can see where it has a certain attraction.
Now, I admit to having gotten through some pretty difficult times lately. I find it difficult to talk to people, and I finally had to resort to finding my own professional ear after the Therapist From Hell scrambled what little wiring was holding me together.
Essays like that, which are meant to target the over-complainers are very good at something else -
Making the people who might have a beef, but keep their own council feel like their concerns are worth that much less.
As a rule, I try not to burden other people with my problems. But if I've learned NOTHING else in the past 6 months (other than love given is rarely returned in kind,) it's that sometimes, some of us really, really need to talk. To bitch and vent it out, otherwise be resigned to let it lie silently in our souls and fester. Because sometimes the ONLY thing you have control over is what's coming out of your mouth.
When I read this, it makes me feel 10x more guilty about the times I have opened up and bitched about something to someone. That I shouldn't have, that it wasn't worth their time, that really, it wasn't that important, that really, I should just suck it up and deal. That I've lived to much in the ever so near and painful past, and not enough in the happy sunshine and roses present. (You can read a sarcastic snort into the end of that sentence.)
This essay to me was not helpful. It was cutting. Maybe that means I'm the very person it was targeting. But her words (WORDS) are very easy to write. And those of us trying to execute the idea behind the words every day, who go home to constant reminders of our inadequacy and loss, really didn't need to hear it form some self-rightious chick with a crusader complex.
I should have just stopped reading.
Maybe take a moment to think about how these words affect not only the over the top "Daddy-never-Loved-Me's" (who won't care and will continue to bemoan themselves to you anyway,) and think about how hearing that really, ya'll don't want to hear it, effects those who have a hard time talking in the first place.
- K.
**edit - I wasn't fishing for sympathy, I was just trying to point out how those words, read from a different perspective, echo very differently. That they can have the unintended consequence of clamming up people who are already (overly) sensitive to how people perceive them.
I've been working hard not to regress into a n "Every thing's coming up roses! Yes I'm Fine!" hermit, and while not 100% successful, I'm being honest in that No, everything's not fine, but you are graced with my presence anyway.
Essays like that, in my kind of messed up little world, only serve to promote the June Cleaver Mask of false smiles and Every Thing's Wonderfulls, Darling.
I realize that I wasn't exactly the targeted audience, and for that I cut it a little slack. But still distressing for those of us who already feel uncomfortable in being percieved as "needy" by bending the ears of friends.
- K.
