Yea I see that too in both real life and on line support and therapeutic groups. In one depression management group I was in there were 5 people counting me and the therapist facilitator. and it never failed every group time the facilitator let this one person go on and on about the same problem week after week. We would all brainstorm ideas on how to help him but yet the next week he was back and complaining about the same exact thing. No one else could get anywhere because we were all babysitting him and his problems that he did not seem to want to take care of. If he did he would have at least tried our ideas and told us if they worked or not and where they didn't work.

I started skipping appointments and finally my therapist took me to the depression management group she was in because she knew if she left me alone that night I would be dead by morning because I had just lost the one thing that was holding me on this earth - the home where I had memorys of my child before he was put into foster care. I watched a few sessions of this faciolitator (not my therapist but another one with the same therapy agency) run her group. there were about 15 of us and one had a tendancy to fall into the poor me I don't know what to do same situation every week.

And I was amazed how she brought this person back on track of the group work and its focus was on helping ourselves to solve problems and then asked the person to do the next question using that situation and asked her how can you solve your problem by using the tools being taught in tonights chapter?" I was so amazed with this therapist at weeding out the whining to getting work done that my therapist and I asked her to be my back up if my therapist was not available in an emergency.

After a couple times of this in group the woman realized this was not a group for her for she could not distract any of us to participate in her whining about the same problem. That healing was up to her and in that group she was expected to work on herself and others work on themselves. She dropped out of the group. I completed that group.

I later joined the depression management group again, this time with my therapist as facilitator and was amazed again how she was able to turn the whining fix me I don't want to do it routines that came her way into "Ok you have this problem how can you solve it by using what we are learning today. I completed that class also.

I was a member of a local sexual abuse support group but I dropped out in part because its a whine session and no real work getting done.

What also irritates me about whining is that when we have children we say to them when they are whining "Don't whine at me if you have something you need help with tell me but don't whine." "I can't understand you when you whine." and "I don't know what you want or what you need when you whine."

And sometimes when I have witnessed people saying these things to their children those people are sometimes the ones that in groups in real life and on line who are doing just what they are telling their children what not to do - whine instead of problem solving.

I understand people sometimes need a "Bwitch session" sometimes but dang the same thing day in and day out?

Whining makes no sense to me. when I am in a gorup and someone needs help I look for -

Heres the problem
heres what I have done....
this was the result......
this is what I need...

If I don't see or hear those things I offer what I can and watch to see if they can use or tried to use what I offered and if not I consider it a whine and pull myself out of the situation bercause I don't need to be pulled down into that other persons problems and go through needless stress about someone elses problems when I have my own to solve.

I have saved myself alot of being stuck and manipulated by others fix me, I really don't want to fix this problem because it is working for me in getting me attention.

Sometimes sitting in a group with a friend I would get the urge to just shake this person and say "hey have you ever thought about how people get more attention by doing what they need to do to take care of the situation? Have you ever thought that you're friends would want to be around you more if they saw you actually trying instead of playing the whine routine?"

It may not be the "feel sorry for me" attention but it is the "hey you're a cool person someone I want to be like, you went through this will you help me" type attention. and it feels so much better and lasts a whole lot longer then the "whine" routine. Eventually the whining pushes people away, because they see that they can't help someone who does not want to help themselves.