Difficult Decisions: When a Truthful Response is Problematic

I'm sure we've all faced situations like this, even perhaps with some frequency. A PC member starts a thread with a question. You read it over, perhaps more than once. Ultimately you conclude that the only sincere response you can give will be a response that may be difficult for the poster to deal with. Not what he or she may want to hear. Not something soothing or mollifying. But on the basis of your own prior experience you're convinced it's what he/she needs to hear in order to deal with the problem he/she has presented. What do you do? Respond or not respond?

Let me make it clear: I'm by no means talking about nasty or harsh responses. Nothing hostile or unsympathetic. By no means anything that would worsen the poster's perhaps precarious mental situation. I'm speaking, rather, about answers that may require hard work, difficult self-examination and/or significant changes in outlook.

I've recently been faced with this problem. I found a zero response thread begun by a person who was sincerely confused by the responses he/she received when he/she engaged in what was for them normal behavior. And there were details. And from the question and the details, I had a strong feeling that I could tell him/her something he/she needed to hear, from someone. Not an answer that could only come from a T, a trained professional. An answer that any of us would be qualified to give just as another human being who's been around a while.

But the answer wouldn't have told him/her that he/she was right and the other people wrong, and it was obvious that it was such an answer that was desired. Keep on doing what you're doing, being who you've being, and ignore all those other nasty people. That's what this person wanted to hear. And I couldn't give that answer, but I could give an answer that would, I thought, help him/her along the way to resolving the described people conflicts.

So what do we do? We're here, as PC members, to help and support our fellow members. And such help and support obviously includes giving truthful reactions and advice that will be positively received by our fellow members, that they will read and hear with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of perfectly truthful and accurate responses we could give that might well make the person to whom they're addressed uncomfortable. Might force them to reexamine some previous convictions. Might show them that their prior position on a particular issue might have been not only inaccurate with regard to external reality but not at all in their own best interests.

So far as I'm concerned, tough stuff may or may not be part of the "help and support" we're here to give. If yes then within stringent limits. But I don't make the rules here. I think we need to discuss it and have DocJohn or the admins give us some more informative guidelines based on what they decide. I haven't seen any out-loud discussions of this particular issue and would like to provoke such discussion right here on this thread. Are uncomfortable things to be left for T's? What do the PC rules in this regard really mean? I'd like to know.

hi, ygrec23. yeah, i've seen posts like those you described. i wanted to post a candid reply but could not as the poster and i do not see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. it's not that i am not sympathetic or empathetic to their feelings, it's just that they were looking for others to condone their behavior which, frankly, at times has been offensive to me. in the end, i elected not to post anything. later, i saw that friends of the poster had posted supportive comments.

it's always hard to see orphan posts where no one has replied. if i can, i try to reply to them. if my reply cannot address their issues then i try to reply with emotional support.

if i can relate to the person's post on a feeling level i use the "I" word to respond. if i can i offer support even if i just acknowledge their post by saying that possibly other members can relate to their thread i do that. in other cases if i'm totally uncomfortable responding to their thread, then i don't respond not out of being judgemental but in truth i have no response.
in other cases like u referred to ygrec there are i believe ways we can gently ask them to consider another way to see that perhaps there is another solution to consider.
am i answering part of your question? idk.

This is really no different than in real life, no? But in RL we have a better chance of gauging whether someone is looking for an honest answer, or just support. Even then it can be hard to decide how to respond...at least for me.

Best case scenario: You give your honest opinion to someone (knowing that it's probably not what they want to hear), then sooner or later they come back and tell you that you opened their eyes and changed their life, and shower you with profuse thanks.

Worse case scenario: They cuss you out and never speak to you again.

I've known some people who positively delight in being critical of people, over and over again, under the guise of "I'm only telling you this for your own good." I think we've all known these people.

So I think it's just a decision we have to make over and over again. How strongly do we feel about our opinion? Is there any chance that this person will actually listen to what we have to say? Are we willing to risk hurting them or making them mad in order to express our opinion? I find it difficult to judge when people start threads asking for opinions whether they are actually looking for ideas, or just want their current behavior to be validated.

For me, if I don't feel really strongly, I don't post a reply - just like in RL I don't volunteer an opinion. Or just go all wishy-washy and say something trite. Good question, Ygrec.

Ok, when a person has an issue like what you are describing they may present a question that is asking for a solution.

And it can be challenging to know what to say sometimes and often a feeling of wondering if you can say what you see as a solution will be received and valued.

The reality is that when someone presents a question they are often looking for answers that will match their own answer that they themselves have come up with.
And if there is an active thread with many different answers the person posting will often look for the answer to come forward that supports their own answer, human nature. And depending on that persons issue or disorder that can make them less capable of accepting a different possible more productive honest answer and instead just gravitate to the answer they want to hear.

When I see a thread or a question being presented I look at different things. I try to see how that question is asked and what information is provided. And sometimes I have a immediate response and other times I have to think about what is really being asked and what that person really needs to hear. And sometimes the person asking the question leaves certain important facts out too and it makes it more challenging.

And then there is also a risk that the person who may give the correct answer can be made to lay in wait where that answer and effort they made can be used as a stick against them, very common behavior in human beings.

Personally, I try to get as much feel for that other person as I can because I really want to learn about their personal struggle and there is always perception issues with each person, including myself, we all have those issues due to how we grow up and our personal life experiences etc.

So what I try to do is I really try to give another person a possible answer and I also offer my own experience and how I have learned and found some resolve so I am joining that person saying, yes I understand I have experienced this too and here is what I have found that has helped me. Because I really want that person to not be put in a position where they feel that I am somehow above them looking down on them. And being human myself I don't always do it perfectly, but I do try, I really try to address another persons strengths that they might not see. That is what I would want from someone else, that is what I look for. And another thing I look for is a strength in an answer, a willingness to address me intellectually but also in a respective manner.

And I try not to just offer hugs, while that is nice and much needed I try to give more than just that and I also try to gently somehow say, I am sorry about that look at this, think about this, what about this and I try not to punish, but encourage.

But there are times that I will come out and make a statement when I see someone being hurt or causing hurt, sorry, but I honestly do not like that behavior. And I always make every effort to commend a person who has made a mistake and makes efforts to appologize and make amends.

Open Eyes

This is a very good question. This thread has evoked a lot of emotional response to me; to the point that I cannot verbalize myself in a coherent way. I do not think honesty and support are not mutually exclusive. I do think you can offer a differing opinion and still be supportive.

Hmm. Spent so much of my life making lemonade out of... never mind what and then thanking mummy for it, not really hard for me to find the single blade of grass in so much horse puckey and support THAT. As I expect others to do unto my puckey! As my T does to me. Accentuate the positive, ignore the negative, like a 3 year old yelling swears in church. "Oh, he's pronouncing his R's now! How nice!" Unconditional positive regard. Find the good. If you can't, don't worry, someone else can, we're a team. The point here, as in therapy, is not to tell someone the "right" thing to do.

All posters on this thread so far have been very, very insightful, pointing out a number of different ways in which we can approach other peoples' questions and calls for help that aren't the easy kind, the kind we can just hug. At the start, I had thought we were just dealing with one kind of troublesome post, the "question-post" to which we had an immediate, personal reaction - though in a sense a negative reaction. On the contrary, people here have pointed out that it's not that simple. That we really have to feel our way into these online strangers' minds and feelings and judge very carefully how much they can take before we hand them a perhaps difficult response they hadn't anticipated.

As you've pointed out, that's easier with old hands who've been around PC for quite a while, whom we've gotten to know over the years, whose reactions we can anticipate. But most here are strangers, and we have to read their posts and questions like tea leaves to try to determine how they may react to something other than the simple, positive affirmations they may be angling for. The sense I get, and you WILL tell me if I'm wrong, is that it's okay to gently nudge people in the right direction, to quietly shoo them the way we think they ought to go, but NOT to land on them in a way that causes such pain that they wouldn't even dream of thinking seriously about our suggestions.

I suppose that the whole point is contained in the word "help." I guess we cannot "help" another person if for whatever reason our intervention causes such negative emotion (pain, fear, anxiety, resentment, anger, what have you) that the "helping" suggestion we offer is overwhelmed and forgotten. Maybe this is something you learn in Therapy 101, which I never took. (Or it might be something everybody but us schizoids learns in kindergarten.) And, you know, offering "help" on the basis of a few written sentences authored by a complete stranger is a neat trick! A real skill! Something at which one must obviously work hard to develop capacity and expertise!

No, no! That's not to discourage anyone from doing what most of us do many times a day here on PC. It IS, however, to compliment those of us, the great majority of us, who try so seriously (and for hours at a time) to engage in what is really a very highly skilled activity. As the doctors have to pledge, primum non nocere, "first do no harm." I guess that's what we need to keep in mind as well, when it comes to offering difficult answers to others' questions, and almost all of us do in fact keep in mind. Take care!

Starting with "perhaps" might help, slightly gentler than "ur doin it wrong!!!" might be "perhaps you should try this" - always good as if they can't handle the advice, you've given them a fire escape!

:-| complex question. I would be a stranger i signed up in last july. But i read your guy's posts on here it has made me mixed now on what i may say to others. I try to relate to others posts if i can i'm not that old 25 but have tried to better i know some struggle with things but try to be supportive. Idk it's not answering the question though of when to suggest something your not sure some one can intake and use usefully instead of negatively. Idk. I'll admit i've taken a post or two wrong with my started threads but i always think on what the other said and apologize where needed for everyone is just trying to help out. I agree do not hurt but couldn't it be seen hurting for neglecting to point out a valid situation too? Maybe the suggestion could maybe subtlely be explained at first. Like a whiff of what maybe helpful but not all happy and cheery but still positive and trying to be helpful? Doctors are not to let some one come in and say "goin2 lake to shoot myself like one of my plans bye" and let a person walk a way with out them trying to notify authority or they themselves talk to a person. If i'm on my plan i don't want to hear how peachtacular life is. Maybe i need to hear that life is hard at times but we gotta keep trying. I know this again creates conflict- we all don't know each other or for the most part, and for me structure help can help. With others if misunderstanding occurs it maybe wouldn't. That's the beauty of humans we see things and interpret things different. Maybe you should flag this to the team leads here so more can be explained. I agree it's not our place to be a dr but we can share our experiences to try to help. Idk. I'm still mixed as i write and even debate with posting my reply. But on the chance of maybe getting better clarification i will. I know i question my giving hugs to ppl cuz like is that really what they want? But it's all i can give with some. Perhaps i should just ignore but that feels wrong too cuz i don't want one to feel alone. I'm sorry for rambling. Idk

Another thing that I have had happen is I may have been posting in a thread and someone poked at me or whatever I said. And I might have been hurt or challenged and others saw it too and came to check on me even in a PM. I really thought that was nice and very supportive too. And sometimes it was from someone I really didn't know well but liked my posts and wanted to check on me, how nice that was.

And that is another thing about this process that I appreciate because in PC the members are all struggling with something and it is very easy to get triggered and it is really nice that there is sympathy about that not like IRL. And it is also very helpful to understand others when they do get triggered by another member and why. And it makes this atmosphere even more valuable to learning about how other people can be sensitive in ways that might be different in from what I or anyone may be sensitive to.

Personally, when I post and become more aware of the different members here, each member becomes a separate composition. I am a very artistic person and I DO have a sense of textures in different people, an I have been told this even by therapists in different ways. And for a long time I just thought everyone could do that, but the truth is, not everyone can. And Ygrec, you have your own unique texture and senses of what you can do in regards to feeling the textures and compositions of others. And because I can go to your about me and I have had some conversations with you, I can see a person who can access certain mediums in relating with others, and also see mediums that you don't have in your pallet. And as I become aware of your personal composition I have to take into consideration where you may fall short somehow, and recognize that you just don't have that capacity in your pallet, but your trying.

I see you are trying to increase that pallet when you present your threads. And I find it interesting because you are trying to see if you can utlize more than you can now. And that is to be commendable because I do see you trying and I believe your genuinely trying because you think about the responses and often repeat each reply with your understanding of what that reply means. So in doing that your inviting a dialogue back from that other person that may reflect that you either understood what that person said, or you misunderstood their meaning. And some members may not understand your method and think of your interactions as criticism, so that is something else you, and others too, have to consider. And you did learn that in one of your threads and I pointed it out. And I will do that in brave hopes that those involved can think about how to resolve that. Not everyone can do that, and it might not happen, but if someone starts to think about that interaction and how certain things were pointed out, there can be something valuable learned and even something to add to that persons personal pallot.

Hey, I have to admit openly here, I am struggling outside PC so I am no master and all knowing person here, but I have had a lot of experiences with difficult issues so I can often relate. And I do appreciate when someone says to me hey Open Eyes that person was really saying that and you didn't get their meaning and that gives me an opportunity to see more and even applogize or whatever I can do to understand someone better. And I do like to see everyone try to get along, after all, we all are struggling in our own ways, and just trying.

There is a lot of opportunity in PC to look at more than just the me, me, I things.
Many opportunities to think about a variety of compositons and messages that can serve to increase anyones pallot. And I often post long posts because I think about not just my concern but the different pallots of others and how I can possibly add to their pallots, if they so choose. Perhaps it is just from years of teaching different children IDK. But I do often give more in depth thought to certain issues or questions.

It is definitely a learning process for all, no one is perfect, but there is a lot of opportunity to grow and learn here.

Open Eyes

I have always tried to use this approach, but didn't understand what I was doing until after going to my DBT group for most of this year. The way we handle the group is the way I have always tried to handle my replies here. We come in with situations that occurred during the week & hopefully we were able to figure out how to apply the DBT skills to the situation. First, what we did is validated based on where we were coming from, then we discuss how we could have possibly used them better, & discuss other skills that might have really been better to use.

I realize that I have always used a sort of mindfulness thinking in replying to these types of posts where either a question or a situation is presented. Replying with the "I" or with diplomatic words suggesting other ways of thinking about the situation is the most important part in replying to these difficult posts.

Yes, there are some people who feel attacked no matter how diplomatically one tries to be (I grew up with a mother who was like that)....but in most cases, when thoughts are offered diplomatically as alternate ways of looking at things, they are usually more easily accepted.

I always keep on the top of my mind is to NEVER ATTACK someone or MAKE THEM FEEL attacked for their thinking because there is always something from their past or their illness that has brought them to their thoughts. I think my worst fault in this is that my mind can keep going with more & more ideas & thoughts on the situation that sometimes I end up writing a novel & know that it's probably very difficult to follow. Have a hard time shutting of my mind at times but an trying to get better at that skill so that I don't bury people in thoughts that they can never get through.....which really isn't helpful either.

One other thought.....I think that those who post 's have just as important of a place in the replies because knowing that you have caring support along with other possible ways of looking at questions/situations provides a wonderful complete package of support that is what is really necessary in life

Eskielover i like your reply also your's open eyes. but eskielover you mention some things that i feel my mine can keep wondering which may not be helpful to others or myself on after thought. be well all.

((((beauflow))))),
You have only been here since July and you have posted many times, your trying, your learning how to reach out, and that is giving support and getting support too.
Sometimes it can only be a hug, your right, at least someone isn't left lonely.
I think your trying and learning and growing and doing fine.

Open Eyes

(((((beauflow))))),

That's what is wonderful about being a part of the PC Community. There is always someone who can relate or support. We don't have to be everything for everyone. We can reply to the post that we can relate to when we have thoughts that we think might help or we have had our own experiences & when we can we relate but can only provide the understanding 's.....then that's the support we can provide.

There are definitely some posts that I choose not to reply to at all even with 's when I don't relate at all to the post & then, with the massive number of posts that are posted here I miss more than I can even read.

When I was new here to PC (back in 2004), there weren't the massive number of posts so it was easier to read the posts & get to know better the people who were posting which made it easier to post more of a personal reply in most cases.

Actually, i wrote a response that wasnt what the person wanted to hear, i' m sure once, and i couldnt go back and delete it, but was afraid it could be hurtful and thankfully the mediator, must have prevented it from posting. So now im mire careful. I ask myself, is it truthful, is it helpful? Before i hit submit

Ygrec23 - the original response I tried to post got lost, but the summary of what I was writing is this:

This appears to be similar to other questions you have posted in the forums and is obviously of great concern to you. I respect that.

At this point, it seems you would most likely get the best answers from DocJohn and should direct your questions to him.

this post is in response to the original posters thread starting post - in it, it states -

"So what do we do? We're here, as PC members, to help and support our fellow members. And such help and support obviously includes giving truthful reactions and advice that will be positively received by our fellow members, that they will read and hear with pleasure."

I want to point out something if I may. the rules here on psych central say we must be supportive but it doesnt say what we post must be positively received by those reading or the poster asking for members help.

In fact I find it to be quite the opposite. psych central does take into consideration for members being supportive and not having our posts be positively recieved by anyone..

yes here I go promoting that nice feature the moderators helped me to find when I first joined psych central about 2 yrs ago.. the ignore button.

members of Psych central do not have to make sure their posts are positively received by other members because when each of us knows we get triggered by a certain posters response or a response or topic that is posted we can turn on that ignore button and not have to read those triggering posts.

with that in mind

when I post to someone I first read their post and look in their posts for what their questions and need of help are.

then I write my post giving that person the help or answer to their question they asked for.

I donbt try to read into the post - this person only wants posts that agree, kisses up, are sugar coated... what ever word / phrase fits..

I let the person who's post I am answering, decide on their own what within my post they can use or not.

we are all on different paths, different healing levels and different severities of mental illness / mental well being. So there is no way to really and accurately gage, guess, know how anyone is going to receive what ultimately gets posted. I have found for that one that tells me my posts are not helping them I have 2-what ever number of members telling me thanks what I posted really helped them. my point is we all have our own things of what works and what doesnt. every post that does get posted by any members is going to help some and not help others. just the way it goes I guess.

When I see new members floundering, appearing to be triggered by something within any post mine or otherwise I help them to locate the ignore button so that they can decide if they want to use it or not. There is no "trigger list" anywhere here on psych central that can tell any of us what words and topics trigger each and every member here so the only thing we can do is recommend that ignore button when we "see" a member in distress over someones post, and hope they decide to use it when they need to.

I do in my job, personal life and online word things a bit differently based on whether the person I'm helping / answering questions for is a child, teen or adult.

there are some things that can be said one way for adults and another for children. on line its a little harder to do this because theres no way to be sure of whether you are "talking" with a child, teen or adult. But even then I just say it the way it is using age appropriate words.

You're quite right, amandalouise. PC Rules do NOT specifically direct us to respond in a manner that will please the person to whom we're responding. But if you read a few thousand posts, you may agree with my conclusion that the large majority (almost the totality) of PC members really don't want to take the chance of being perceived as being hard on the original poster. You can find many OP's that (to my mind) call for a "tough love" response but do not receive it from anyone. And "tough love" is, I guess, what I'm really pondering in this thread.

You know, I hate using the "ignore" button. I've only done so once and quickly thereafter turned it off. It's so frequent that our first impressions are wrong, or that people change, or that they were just having a bad day. I've really found very few whom I'd seriously consider "ignoring" after I've come to know them.

That's fine for the majority of OP's that are posted. But then there are so terribly many people who convey the sense that they're literally at wit's end to know what to do, in a highly problematic situation, and desperate for real help and advice. I care very much about not making these folks' problems any worse than they already are. And so if I really think they ought to do something differently from what they've described, I do very much want to be as diplomatic as possible and not hurt them further.

Of course you're right. None of us can know for a fact the true mental and emotional state of an OP. The best we can do is guess based on the post, and some PC'ers here seem to be better at guessing and some worse than average when it comes to feeling out the true state of the poster. I judge that based on further posts by the same person.

The question for this entire thread is really what risks do we think are appropriate for a PC member to take when responding to a post? Shall we write a post that accurately conveys our personal conviction? Or shall we write a post that just says "there, there" and leaves the "tough love" to someone's T, if they have a T. Take care!

Hi, Leo,

Yes, you're right, DocJohn should be consulted. But I think an interesting first step in that direction is really sounding out PC members as to what they think about this issue and what they're comfortable doing and saying when they're responding to threads. Whatever DocJohn may prescribe, it can't go too far against the collective judgment of PC members without really being difficult to enforce. We're talking here about very delicate decisions. Who can take how much "tough love." I haven't really thought about "rulemaking," but if you yourself think over the issue for a short time, I believe you'll appreciate how difficult it will be to come up with a written rule on this issue. And maybe we don't need a new rule. That's something we COULD possibly find out as this thread moves along. Take care!

In many cases (not all) it's possible to word the "tough love" into a diplomatic way of offering another way of looking at the question/situation & offering possible skills that can be used. I have found that in most cases (not all) that when the wording isn't presented in a way that invalidates the person's feelings or thoughts or comes across in an attacking manor but adds more possible ways of thinking, it provides the person insight into other thoughts without feeling pressured to accept them as their own. Some minds are so programmed into their neuropathways that they can't even comprehend other thoughts....but sometimes the seed is planted & who knows when it might sprout.

A very insightful post, Open Eyes, with lots of flattery too! Thank you!

No question, Open Eyes, PC is a constant learning experience for all concerned. About all kinds of things but also just about understanding individual people and how they function and react. It's always interesting to go over and over the lesson that "other people may not be like you."

Whether you call it texture or a pallette, Open Eyes, or even something else entirely, I think that "feel" for people is something shared by many people on PC. But you're correct when you say that not everyone can do it and those that actually do it can be arranged along a spectrum from not-so-well to very-well-indeed.

You're quite right, Open Eyes, I do like to know when I've misunderstood someone. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone learns from their mistakes. If I'm off-base, I really do want to know that. As far as concerns some of my posts being taken as criticism, I think that with certain individuals we all have that problem. There are some people who are so insecure that any indication that they're wrong in any way triggers them, and we need to know that. There's just no positive outcome if we trigger people.

Yes, you've pointed out the essential nature of PC, and that's the fact that whoever we are here, with the possible exception of DocJohn, we're all struggling, we all have difficult situations to deal with, and that fact must always, even unconsciously, be taken into serious account when we're communicating with other PC members, new or old. But I'll tell you, from my own personal point of view, I think I've gained as much from participating on PC as from my T. Offline, I'm a very withdrawn, solitary, frightened person and always have been. PC is permitting me to start coming out of my shell. First time THAT's ever happened! Take care! And Thanks!

Couldn't agree more with every single thing you say, eskielover. Diplomacy is ALWAYS required. The LAST thing any of us wants to do is have a sufferer's misery reinforced by any feeling that they're under attack. Our intention must always be to simply offer alternatives to what they're doing or thinking at the moment as reflected in their post. Not to condemn what they've done or are doing or thinking.

But you are oh so right when you mention that "some minds are so programmed into their neuropathways that they can't even comprehend other thoughts." In actual fact, as we all know but may not have reflected on, different people have different capacities when it comes to conceiving of different ways of thinking. And I think you'll agree that PC members come in all shapes and sizes with regard to that particular skill. And that our interventions have to be tailor-made for each individual's abilities in that regard. Excellent insight! Take care.

I think that PC tends to be bit cliqueish and I actually experience being deem unsupportive and even being attacked by friends or random people... not the person whom I do the talking to... because they saw my point... or did not consider it that much of problem what I said...

VH is right...post something somebody disagrees with and get shut down and abused. There have always been people who simply cannot allow a dissenting opinion to be expressed with out attacking the person expressing it personally. I try to remember "methinks thou doth protest too much".

As far as truthfulness goes, it's a very fine line between suggesting a person needs to mend their ways and risking being thought of as condescending. I say be truthful, using the "I" word extensively, because as a peer support site perhaps we should only speak from our own experience.

I , personally, think there is great value in hearing anyone's contribution.I have the emotional strength to take the barbs and shrug them off. I have no problem winnowing out what I don't deem as helpful.

Putting my opinion out there...and as I said in another post quite defensively "I'm entitled to it".