To me looking for sympathy doesn't exist. When tramatized as children many can relate to our parents or perpertrators not having sympathy for us. So why look for something we know little of? I think, we like to tell our stories to get it off our chests and feel good for the moment. Many of us have nobody to talk to or don't feel comfortable telling them our deep dark secrets. On a forum we can say these things without feeling awkward or looking someone in the eyes. We don't have to lie or make our stories more than they are. Some may have been through alot less than the next person but to them they have gone through the worst experience anyone can imagine and there are others who have gone through much worse than ourselves that don't see it as bad. We are all individuals who perceive our pain in our own minds, no 2 are alike.

I seem to stay in the child mold more than accepting things as an adult. However, due to my overcaring nature of people, I hurt for them more than I do for myself. I do not like seeing people in pain but ignore my own many times. I enjoy helping others but usually get hurt for caring to much. Maybe, this is my way of forgetting my own problems for the time being. My mom use to always say, I was over-emotional. Yet, no help was given me when I went through my abuses or understanding due to my going through abuse and her kind of knowing about it but turned her head. Alcohol was too important for her more so than her 7 children. We have all survived in different ways but all very much dysfuntional. We are the ones paying the price not the perpetrators. Thank you Anthony for this forum!
sunnydaze

I think sympathy makes one into a victim and I can not and will not tolerate being a victim. I still can't understand how I used to see myself as a victim, but moving on....

I'm a survivor and all I want here is understanding, seasoned with a little advice from time to time.

Tammy

I agree hope, this thread will garnish many outcomes IMO.... being the exact idea. A greater understanding for all.

Should we not offer sympathetic words to new people to make them feel welcome, though? When a new person posts about an experience and people just reply with their own personal experiences, it sometimes appears that they aren't listening to the OP at all.

Maybe I just don't understand. What's an example of sympathy that is problematic?

NotDepressed,

I think if a person says, "yes, I think i understand what you are going through as I've experienced X and here's how I dealt with that", it might be helpful. How the responder dealt with their similar problem may or may not work for the original poster, but it gives them another way of looking at their situation. Knowing that there are different ways of looking at a situation is helpful in thinking outside the boxes we all find ourselves in from time to time so we can learn to cope better. Just a thought.

Cowgirl

Sharing one's experience that is relative to what another is saying is absolutely the optimal way in which to show your listening.... it is a response to what is called reflective listening.... though slightly different. Reflective listening is you respond to what a person says in a brief way of what they said, so they understand you are listening. To share your experience which is similar / same as what you read, is a way of responding that you listened because your response reflects what they are saying of their experience. To learn is to share experience, ways and methods that work for another may help someone else. They may not, but they just may work for another. Experience is the greatest thing you could ever share with another here....

Hmmmmm!

Some honesty from me!

When I saw this thread it looked and seemed bolder and brighter than any of the other threads on the whole of that page. It stood so far out that it was almost waving a flag at me. And here is the honesty, it felt like a red flag to a bull, and I wanted to dig my hooves in and charge at that reg flag as defiantly as I could. I wanted to charge it down and deny it's (the threads), intentions!

However, I mentally and emotinally stood back and waited to assimilate my feelings ( I feel first think much later), now I am self aware concerning this I try to be adult and stand back first!

I pondered! Why did that thread wave a red flag at me?......And my honest answer is because it was a trigger. It triggered the negative internal chatter I have about myself. You know, I am pathetic, stupid, on the pity pot, all the feelings associated with self-pity and my own self-hatred. So that thread was tapping into my negative thought patterns, and it was as if it was only addressed to me, rather than the whole forum. As if Anthony was only addressing me - I am sure others' have felt the same, it's part of our negative thinking right?

Today, I can see what Anthony is suggesting. However, I guess the complexities that we all have in every day life concerning communicating our thoughts and ideas are that although many of us use the same words we can speak a different language. I mean, words are emotive aren't they? Some words we identify with, and others' we don't some are like a red flag to a bull! And I guess that recognising this is Okay!

At the end of the day if we are all brutally honest of course we want sympathy, it is part of feeling validated; feeling like the pain that you have suffered is real and is as terrible as it feels at times. We may also shun sympathy because it again taps into our negative thought patterns concerning ourselves. Receiving sympathy can reinforce the negative chatter we hold concerning who we are and how we are dealing with our pain (like we don't deserve it or it makes us feel more pathetic?)

So if we accept that by merely being here on the forum we are all highlighting that we have sympathy for ourselves and each other.
The key part of this, I feel, is that we have to be constructive with our sympathy. We have to use each other as a sounding board to bounce ideas off concerning how we can combat how we are feeling rather than just validating each others' pain. Don't we validate the pain of each person we respond to by answering their posts and trying to give them a different perspective anyway?

The forum is made up of many ingerdients, empathy, insight, compassion, understanding, support, knowledge and all of these come with a pinch of sympathy, I guess a little to much of this ingredient and the whole thing will be spoiled.

Spirit x

OK granted, but can I keep giving sympathy when it is completely unrelated to PTSD? For example, giving sympathy to a carer for a situation that doesn't even involve the PTSD sufferer they are caring for?

Upstream, I beleive you should act as you wish. I also believe that Anthony is referring to sympathy on here as a resource that should not be used in isolation. Rather it should be used in conjunction with other human resources that enable each individual to be proactive in their recovery etc.

Sympathy is a valuable and human quality, but with everything in this life there is always a need for balance. Be as you are and feel!

Sympathy on here was addressed in order for us to evaluate how effective we are for each other, IMHO. It is just one person's opinion. I always try to take a little of what speaks to me and then challenge myself with the rest.

Spirit x

Thanks Spirit!