Being the daughter of an autistic-spectrum engineer and a work-consumed doctor, you can imagine how easy I find this kind of listening. "Problems must have solutions or why talk about them?" might be our family motto (if it wasn't "crow not, croak not"). And people have tended to value me for that problem-solving nature, in my life. That and the fact that a secret is a secret, with me, and the only person who gets to know about a secret I'm told other than me is my other half (which I make sure is understood before anyone tells me a secret). I have maybe three friends who've stuck with me through my human inability to offer a solution for everything -- the rest have peeled off. And the three is counting a fairly recent friend, so who knows if she'll stick with me, but I think I trust her.
So... for me, it's not just hard work or radical not to offer advice. It goes against every survival instinct I have, it's written on my goddamn bones. It's "sun, don't shine" and "water, don't be wet". It actively triggers me into a panic attack when I don't know what to say, because it means I'm not of use and I'll be discarded. And probably laughed at for bothering to date because didn't I know I was being used?
(Or, if it's my parents demanding solutions, I won't be abandoned or laughed at -- I'll be hit and told I'm a useless fucking waste of space.)
So I loved reading your post and I am making a mental note to read True Love. And... I respectfully request that when I offer unsolicited advice, as I'm sure I do and will and probably won't even know I'm doing because my brain will try to couch it in ways that won't sound like advice, please tell me I am doing it. Not necessarily right away, when I've upset you, obviously. Not necessarily in detail. Just "Unsolicited advice, back off" as a reply to whatever comment works. I don't want to hurt you.
And if you can, do it with love, because my god am I screwed up. *wry smile*
(This is not just directed at you, of course; methinks I should make a post about this while the topic's floating around and it's on my mind.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Triggers: bullying, abuse!
Date: 2013-07-19 10:56 pm (UTC)So... for me, it's not just hard work or radical not to offer advice. It goes against every survival instinct I have, it's written on my goddamn bones. It's "sun, don't shine" and "water, don't be wet". It actively triggers me into a panic attack when I don't know what to say, because it means I'm not of use and I'll be discarded. And probably laughed at for bothering to date because didn't I know I was being used?
(Or, if it's my parents demanding solutions, I won't be abandoned or laughed at -- I'll be hit and told I'm a useless fucking waste of space.)
So I loved reading your post and I am making a mental note to read True Love. And... I respectfully request that when I offer unsolicited advice, as I'm sure I do and will and probably won't even know I'm doing because my brain will try to couch it in ways that won't sound like advice, please tell me I am doing it. Not necessarily right away, when I've upset you, obviously. Not necessarily in detail. Just "Unsolicited advice, back off" as a reply to whatever comment works. I don't want to hurt you.
And if you can, do it with love, because my god am I screwed up. *wry smile*
(This is not just directed at you, of course; methinks I should make a post about this while the topic's floating around and it's on my mind.)