Why are people on these forums so mean?

opuntia

Sounds like your problem is with Churches and God. Just saying it in love.

Nope - I love my church and I love God. I was giving church as an example as I thought it might be something you could relate to, from your username. I could have equally used a secular group and the point would have been the same.

Sadly, you appear to have completely missed the point of what i was saying about mental illness. And you don't seem to have read my previous post either. The only word you seem to have read was 'church'. If I'd said a group of liberals rather than a church group, maybe you'd have read with a more open mind. Try substituting that, if you're genuinely interested.

My point is not to attack anyone, nor do I have a 'problem' - I thought maybe you were genuinely interested in helping people in love, and I was illustrating that the way you do this will have to differ according to the person's mental status.

It sounds like you don't have a lot of understanding of mental illness, but you are still very confident that you knew how to treat it. That can actually be dangerous, no matter how loving your intentions. Just as dangerous as a layperson claiming to know how to treat someone's cancer.

TonyaBtrfly

This is a fitness site. Aimed at losing weight and becoming healthier. Everyone is different. Why judge people so harshly? It seems that most people are in their own bubbles. If something is said that is outside someone's bubble. BAM! Hate comments. I don't understand. We are here to support each other! Has anyone noticed this? Am I the only one that feels really sad when someone is completely disrespected in the forums, even if I don't agree with what they are saying? Please try to be more understanding.
All this talk about eating under BMR, eating back exercise calories, eating less than 1200. It's fine to argue over it, but most people jump to drastic conclusions and peoples' feelings are really hurt. Everyone is different, so everyone has their own weight loss journey. It doesn't make them a stupid or bad person. And, stop hating on people with EDs. They don't have one on purpose! Whether that have Anorexia, Binge Eating Disorder, or ED-NOS, it's not your place to tell them things that they already tell themselves everyday and that they already hear from other people!
Sorry for the rant. I'm not sure if many people will read this. Please tell me I'm not alone in thinking that some people should have more respect towards others. Thanks!

"Those who have the privilege to know have a duty to act" ~ Albert Einstein

mirandamayhem

:laugh:

Sometimes, you have a choice between the right answer and the "nice" answer.

Any man who has ever been asked "Does my bum look big in this?" or varients of that, will know that the 'right' answer, and the 'nice' answer, are always the same

ARDuBaie

Another person posting about how mean others are. The fact that this is the third or forth post this week tells me that there are either people who are mean on this site or I am not as sensitive as other people.

I have one thing to say to people (idiots mostly***) who keep posting these threads about people being mean:

Grow up!

Yes, I am being mean because you don't seem to realize that posting these threads is not going to change the behavior of other people. If you can't figure out why people are mean, your are dense!!! Yes, dense!!! Even a ten year old can figure that out. People are people. Some are nice. Some are not so nice. The only thing that you can control is --- wait for it --- YOURSELF!

So get over it, move on, and grow up!

***I call people who keep posting these threads idiots because somewhere in the thread someone is going to ridicule you for posting such a stupid topic once again and you will throw a hissy fit, play the martyr, and say that the person is so mean. I have found in life that people are mean when others set themselves up for mean people to take advantage of them.

jennifir

I have to say I haven't noticed too much meanness here. The one weightloss forum I noticed it was on Weight Watchers. It kind of surprised me so I was pleasantly surprised when I did not see the same behavior here. I feel there is a kind bluntness here. We are all in the same boat and I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want any sugar coating. I want the truth. I love reading all the different ideas and approaches people take. I learn from them. If it seems right for me I may even try it. Weight loss for me is partly a journey of learning how to read my own body and actually listen to it.

mirandamayhem

What I want to know is why are pea pods so lean?

ARDuBaie

what happened to if you can't say something NICE then keep your mouth shut.

People on here ask questions, other people answer answer them.

Sometimes, you have a choice between the right answer and the "nice" answer. If you "keep your mouth shut" when faced with an answer that is not "nice" then members might get a pile of replies that are dangerous to their health.

It's not always easy to give the right answer, instead of the fluffy one that someone wants to hear, but as a caring person I am proud of always giving the right answer, whether in real life or on the internet.

Don't like it? Go ask a sycophant!

I this.

losingw8now

I don't really think people on these forums are mean at all, especially compared to most other internet forums.

I've been lurking for a while and I mostly see nothing but support, especially in the Success Stories section.

If you can't handle the occasional meanie, it's best to stay off of online communities altogether.

That being said, don't pay any mind to some of the total fitness fanatics running around, telling you their way is the BEST AND ONLY way to do things. Do what works for you.

Do whatever gives you the best body and mind you can have.

I don't think someone has to be told to stay off of online communities altogether. You can just read others' posts, post when you feel it appropriate, build a network of friends who you know will be supportive of you. Also this is still a part of overall living, and maybe you can practice here how to deal with the mean ones or the ones who say negative things to help you deal with it when you see these types of people in person, which is even harder. I have learned, over my years, that sometimes people are tough on other people because they fear those similar traits in themselves, or they are saying to you what they need to hear themselves. The other thing that is difficult about online stuff is that the printed word can be interpreted how ever you want to take it - sometimes as it is written it doesn't sound as harsh in the person's head as it does on paper, or if you heard them say it with their tone of voice and seeing their facial expression - the lack of these make it open to all sorts of interpretations! Hang in there and just take the positive and leave the negative from this site.

LorinaLynn

People tend to think others are being mean when they disagree with them.

Personally, I've found that people disagreeing with me is one hell of an amazing way to learn.

People hate having their beliefs questioned. Whether it's politics, religion, relationships, or fitness & health.

I'm glad my beliefs were questioned. It's how I learned. Here's my success story post I made yesterday, on my 600th day in a row of logging into MFP, which pretty much shows that everything I thought I knew about fitness and weight loss was WRONG!

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/709987-how-wrong-i-was-600-days-of-mfp-lotsa-pics

I'm so happy I was wrong. Because what I believed to be true didn't work for me.

kimlewis4025

Second that

macpatti

To be fair, people who glamorise a harmful mental illness that they have usually have another sort of mental illness as well. They're not mentally well at all. They need help, not judgement - and it's part of their illness that they won't accept help.

I'm not condoning people being cruel. But people are going to be honest here. Someone who posts something pro-ana, then gets upset because people aren't being supportive in all responses, they need to find a better site.

To give a different sort of example, I have Asperger Syndrome (now does saying that mean I'm 'advertising' it? [/quote]
Of course not. You may not have seen all the posts and threads that some of us have. I have a son who has autism, so I understand your point, but it's not really what we're seeing here.

kimlewis4025

That's great! Never having my favorite foods isn't going to work for me. I just manage my intake and balance it out with exercise. Your weight loss is awesome!

kimlewis4025

If told someone since April, I had Fast food 94 times so far and lost 89 pounds they'd have a brain aneurysm.

That's great! Never having my favorite foods isn't going to work for me. I just manage my intake and balance it out with exercise. Your weight loss is awesome!

opuntia

I'm not condoning people being cruel. But people are going to be honest here. Someone who posts something pro-ana, then gets upset because people aren't being supportive in all responses, they need to find a better site.

True. And people here aren't able to give professional help to someone who needs it - only point them in that direction. To me it just seems unhelpful and ignorant when people make comments about how people are choosing to be anorexic, and choosing to harm themselves, as if it's a lifestyle choice rather than an illness. And then expecting them to stop just because they tell them to, as if simply telling the person to stop will fix it. Better surely for them to simply acknowledge that they aren't able to provide the kind of help the person needs, and wish them well.

You may not have seen all the posts and threads that some of us have.

No, I haven't, you're right. I've only been using the forums for a few weeks, and I really haven't seen any of that sort of thing, so I've not seen the whole picture. I've only seen a lot of posts about how people with ED are deliberately killing themselves, and how annoying they are when they say they're fat, and how they are trying to get others to kill themselves too, and that generally people want nothing to do with them.

I guess it took me aback, as I've worked in mental health and I also have close friends and a family member with ED, and I've simply never come across such a lack of understanding and knowledge and empathy about ED before.

I've been on a lot of forums and seen all different kinds of bullying and drama and clashes - but I've never come across people targetting people with ED. I can't understand targetting someone who's seriously ill and blaming them for their illness. But then I've never been on a fitness site before (well, other than spark people, and the forum threads there are never very interactional). Maybe this is a common thing on fitness sites. And I'm sure I'll see the other side of the story in time.

ZugTheMegasaurus

@opuntia: I think you make a valid point about mental illness and ED. I often find that people who haven't dealt with mental illness themselves often have a very difficult time understanding it. However, I think that harshness and judgment are not entirely separate from helping the ill person; there is a lot of blending of the two.

I have suffered mental illness for years. I've had OCD since childhood, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, and most profoundly, severe depression for the better part of the last nine years. For the last several years, I had serious alcoholism in relation to these issues. I drank constantly, blacking out by early afternoon every day, lying about it to the people who loved me, hurting those closest to me with my own attempts at self-destruction.

The mentally ill part, the part people didn't understand, was why. And I didn't know. I hated myself. I knew I was a horrible person and deserved suffering, though I couldn't articulate why this was so. The mental internal pain was unbearable; I was suicidal all the time, for years on end. But in my mind, that was reasonable. That was good. No matter how many tears I saw on the faces of those around me, I knew they'd stop being sad once they were finally just rid of me.

This year, after a horrible incident (one I don't remember but saw all the evidence of the aftermath), my boyfriend, the last person who was putting up with me and caring for me day in and day out (I'd long since stopped taking my parents' calls and pleas for communication out of shame) gave me an ultimatum. He said, "It's this or it's me. If you're so set on killing yourself, I'm not going to watch it happen. If you want to keep going, I am getting on a plane back home tomorrow and you can do whatever you want here. If you want me, this stops now and it will never happen again."

And that cut through the thick fog of the mental illness. Not in the sense that I suddenly loved life or felt any less self-hatred, but in the sense that I was suddenly very afraid. I knew that if he left, I'd die and no one would know. No one would find me. My family 2000 miles away was used to me not responding. I have no friends. No one would find me for weeks, maybe months. As screwed up as it was, that wasn't okay with me.

So I stopped drinking then. I cried all the time. Then, weeks later, something changed. I suddenly burst out of depression without warning. Everything was clear. I realized I didn't have to hate myself. I realized what had caused it. I realized I didn't deserve any of this. Since then, I've changed my entire life, dropped 50 pounds, and started working on building my confidence and self-worth up from less than nothing. It's extremely slow going, but I can now recognize that it's worth it when that was utterly impossible before.

My point is that sometimes harshness is the only thing that can bring a mentally ill person into reality, even if only in a small way. Sometimes shoving the consequences of their actions in their face is necessary. Sometimes telling them that they are toxic is the jolt that will allow them to change.

Help and compassion will only work once people want them. It's true that mental illness gets in the way of this happening; that's part of what makes them so horrifically destructive. But unless you have a good reason to ask for help, unless something shakes up the protective bubble you've built around your own self-destructive habits, the mental illness will seem attractive. It's comfortable; it's the default.

People who seem mean to those with ED are not being mean. They may be uninformed or have difficulty relating, but they are concerned. They want those people to understand that ED behavior is not okay. They don't want it spreading to others who are susceptible and putting them in danger. Sometimes that's step one. And that's the biggest, scariest step.

lilpoindexter

Block their *kitten*, don't think about it, problem solved.

LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo

:yawn: ok here we go again with the same kind of rant

Can't we just simply ignore those that we think are negative & move on? Get a life.

losingw8now

People tend to think others are being mean when they disagree with them.

Personally, I've found that people disagreeing with me is one hell of an amazing way to learn.

People hate having their beliefs questioned. Whether it's politics, religion, relationships, or fitness & health.

I'm glad my beliefs were questioned. It's how I learned. Here's my success story post I made yesterday, on my 600th day in a row of logging into MFP, which pretty much shows that everything I thought I knew about fitness and weight loss was WRONG!

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/709987-how-wrong-i-was-600-days-of-mfp-lotsa-pics

I'm so happy I was wrong. Because what I believed to be true didn't work for me.

I so agree with you - I like to be challenged! it opens me up to new ideas and new ways of thinking. The saying goes: if you always do, what you always did, then you'll always get what you always got! I want my life to be different - right now in the weight loss and health arena - and I need to do something different than I have been. So I have come on here and shared my food diary, making myself more accountable, and asking for feedback/suggestions, and reading other people's posts and looking at their food diaries to gain new ways of doing it! its great! (and I have mostly seen positive posts, except for the little arguments that occur between respondents that has already been mentioned - but even they aren't that mean - just arguing different perspecitves - and I love a good debate - again, it opens my mind!)

lucy5599

You are so not alone in your thinking! Amen to all you said!

healthynotthin

people get cranky when theyre hungry

LAWL. This.

But you're right. I try to do nothing but encourage, but it's not easy when there's just so much self hate out there! High fives all around, and best of luck to everyone in all their endeavors.