Illegitimi Non Carborundum

[Guest]

As for my namesake... I'm having a hard time following this advice right now.  A woman texted me recently that made me aware that I may have been responsible for destroying her faith.  For the record, I don't think I did.  She's quite a number.  But she really laid into me.

I was actually fainting from the tongue lashing I received.  I was sweating profusely and I started blacking out.  For a split second I was completely blind.  But mostly, everything was just really dark.  I was wondering if I'd had a mini stroke.  I even looked up the symptoms.  Apparently not.  I was just fainting from "an extreme emotional reaction."

As I analyzed her words I realized that she was really telling me something completely different.  Her real complaint had nothing to do with what she brought up in the first place.  She even told me to forget everything she said because she realized that my actions that set her off had nothing to do with what she was upset about.  it just happened to be the trigger that gave her the gumption to get something off her chest that she'd been wanting to say to me for a long time. 

And that complaint was indeed something that I did do wrong.  I didn't intend to.  It's just that it's the only way I know how to do it.  I've noticed something was wrong with many people I had been interacting with.  I just didn't realize what was causing it. It wasn't ruinging people's faith.  But it was negative nonetheless. 

Now I realize that she's right.  My behavior was causing some negative effects I had not anticipated.  How on earth do you recover from this?

Edited June 5, 2018 by Guest

[Vort]

Sorry to hear it, Carb. I wish I had good advice. I've been the unintentional offender more times than I care to think about, and doubtless more times than I even realize. Not to blow it off, but I do think that's a part of our mortal situation.

[Jane_Doe]

For starters: the only person who can destroy a person's faith is that person when they stop bonding with Christ.  You simply don't have that power over someone else.

Now, if you are doing some behavior which isn't a good behavior, then the way of addressing it is three fold: 1) bond with Christ and ask Him for help, 2) change the behavior to indeed be good, and 3) check results: did things improve?    

[NeuroTypical]

Oh wow - sorry.

What do you do?  First, sounds like you separate this lady's stuff into two piles - yours and hers.  Your actions and behaviors are your pile.  Everything that this lady says came from it, is hers.

Next, you focus on your pile, and you spend whatever energy it takes to come to an understanding of the truth that her pile is NOT your pile.  

Story: My wife and I used to live in a not-so-good part of town.  One Christmas eve we were leaving in our car to go somewhere, when a lady ran screaming into the street a few houses down.  We stopped to see if we could help, and she came running at us begging for help, saying she had just been beaten by her boyfriend, and he was going to kill her.  We offered to call the police, she said no, no, that would just make it worse.  We asked how we could help - she said we could give her a ride back past the house, so he would see she's in a car (or something - what she hoped to gain was not too clear).  We declined and again said we would call the police, and they could help her be safe.  She interrupted us and began to swear at us, blaming us for her problems and finally screamed "Merry ***** Christmas!  Thank you very much for nothing!!", and then we drove off.

I was worked up for a good half hour.  I felt shame, like I had done something wrong.  With a bit of hindsight, I hadn't done anything wrong other than decline to give her what she wanted. 

So, give yourself some time.  Sort things into their correct piles.  Maybe have some guilt over what you've actually done, and use that guilt to change whatever you need to change.  But don't get steamrollered by inappropriate shame, that makes you get faint and go blind and stuff.  

Bless you man!

[lostinwater]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

What do you do?  First, sounds like you separate this lady's stuff into two piles - yours and hers.  Your actions and behaviors are your pile.  Everything that this lady says came from it, is hers.

 Next, you focus on your pile, and you spend whatever energy it takes to come to an understanding of the truth that her pile is NOT your pile.  

+1 - much wisdom, this.

And that behavior you talk about - it's probably blessed way more people than it's hurt.  We're not omniscient robots.  Even if we knew the full context of someone else's life, we still couldn't just instantly change to do the perfect thing for them at that time.  We're all just parts of the solution.  That's why we have lots of interactions with lots of people.  i think God and Jesus are more than capable of doing any cleanup required after our honest efforts.

And for that matter, you're both still here on the earth - so even if you are slightly culpable in this situation (which i question), i imagine the whole situation could clean up to be even better than it was in the first place.  i don't think faith that hasn't had to be rebuilt from the ashes many times is really faith, anyways.

Please go easy on yourself.

[Lost Boy]

I had heard that you had been wearing a speedo to church. Yes, that would have a negative impact on those around you... 

But really, I think most people have had a negative impact on others at some point in time. 

If you know what you are doing, then you can certainly fix what you are doing. Some past actions you just can't undo. And that is where the atonement comes in. You do what you can but ultimately rely on the lord for forgiveness. 

Life moves on. Move forward with a positive attitude that you can and will do better. 

[zil]

Sorry for the painful experience, Carb.

9 hours ago, Carborendum said:

How on earth do you recover from this? 

When you have recovered sufficiently from the emotional impact, be grateful you now know what you can change.  (Some of us still have no clue what it is we're doing wrong.)

[Overwatch]

9 hours ago, Carborendum said:

As for my namesake... I'm having a hard time following this advice right now.  A woman texted me recently that made me aware that I may have been responsible for destroying her faith.  For the record, I don't think I did.  She's quite a number.  But she really laid into me.

I was actually fainting from the tongue lashing I received.  I was sweating profusely and I started blacking out.  For a split second I was completely blind.  But mostly, everything was just really dark.  I was wondering if I'd had a mini stroke.  I even looked up the symptoms.  Apparently not.  I was just fainting from "an extreme emotional reaction."

As I analyzed her words I realized that she was really telling me something completely different.  Her real complaint had nothing to do with what she brought up in the first place.  She even told me to forget everything she said because she realized that my actions that set her off had nothing to do with what she was upset about.  it just happened to be the trigger that gave her the gumption to get something off her chest that she'd been wanting to say to me for a long time. 

And that complaint was indeed something that I did do wrong.  I didn't intend to.  It's just that it's the only way I know how to do it.  I've noticed something was wrong with many people I had been interacting with.  I just didn't realize what was causing it. It wasn't ruinging people's faith.  But it was negative nonetheless. 

Now I realize that she's right.  My behavior was causing some negative effects I had not anticipated.  How on earth do you recover from this?

Sup,

I wouldn't worry if you weren't completely heartless. I would just fix where you need to fix yourself and drive on. Water off a duck's back. I try to avoid the emotionally unstable in my personal life. If I am at work then of course I deal with it politely. Especially emotional predators, they are the worst. They feed off of your goodwill until you can't help anymore, then they usually cuss you out or become hostile for the one time you couldn't aid them. 

Then there is always this scripture:

2 And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/16?lang=eng

Oldie but goodie  C :

 

[NeuroTypical]

Carb?  How 'ya doing friend?  Has 10 hours helped?

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Carb?  How 'ya doing friend?  Has 10 hours helped?

Somewhat.  I had actually come up with a similar conclusion that you had.  She's got her problems AND she had a problem with what I was doing.  My problem was sitting on the back burner in her mind.  But when what I was doing happened to share a fence line with her problems, that's when she blew up at me.

What came out of her mouth was all about her problems and how I was destroying her.  After she got it all out, she began realizing that I had done nothing to her.  She never actually apologized for stabbing  me through the heart. She simply withdrew the knife and told me to walk it off.

Since nothing she said seemed coherent, I had to untangle the stream of non sequiturs and looked at her individual statements.  That's when I realized the full story.

***************************************

I'm not going to detail what is actually going on.  But I'll give analogy.

Imagine if I'm supposed to take a pile of garden soil from one side of the Home Depot to the other side where the loading station is.  I go find a cart and load it up.  I drag it all the way over to the other side in the most efficient route possible.  In the process, parts of the loose soil are falling off all over the store.

I don't see another path around the store or parking lot that won't be hugely inefficient.  Someone from the custodial department yells sat me that I was so stupid to not use the company truck that is sitting at the garden gate.  I go to the gate only to realize that the truck is a stick.  I can only drive automatic.  And no one is willing to teach me.  They just tell me to go hire a driving instructor that I don't have money for.

I'm basically making life miserable for those who have to keep the aisles clean.  And the customers are being turned off by it.  But I'm still responsible for getting the soil across the store.

Edited June 5, 2018 by Guest

[anatess2]

Oh my goodness, @Carborendum!  That feeling you describe rings in my heart!  That's what I feel when I get into my "incidents" (with my IED issues) except instead of seeing dark, I see red.  But that blacking-out feeling and thinking I'm having a stroke is exactly how it is with me!  It is a terrible feeling and I can't help but feel empathy for somebody else going through the same thing.  It's a terrible feeling and I hope you don't ever need to go through that again!

I think what you're feeling - in the aftermath - is guilt.  Guilt can only be assuaged through the help of the Holy Ghost.  Regardless of whether you did wrong or not, the feeling of being responsible is going to stay with you until you have given it all up to the Lord and did the necessary steps to forgive yourself.  

Whatever it is... know that you are a good disciple of Christ and that you are doing your best by your fellowman.  

[pwrfrk]

Carborendum, bro, you need a beer.  Seriously.  You do. 

Get a beer and kick back.  Just relax.  Because someone doesn't like something about you they decide to hold you accountable for who knows what, blame you, hell they just may blame your hair cut for all we know, but they don't want the responsibility of managing their own crap.  So much easier to blame you.

So go have a beer and get over it.  It's not your fault.  You don't run their lives nor telling them how to.  You ain't her daddy.

[Guest]

On 6/13/2018 at 1:10 AM, pwrfrk said:

Carborendum, bro, you need a beer.  Seriously.  You do. 

Get a beer and kick back.  Just relax.  Because someone doesn't like something about you they decide to hold you accountable for who knows what, blame you, hell they just may blame your hair cut for all we know, but they don't want the responsibility of managing their own crap.  So much easier to blame you.

So go have a beer and get over it.  It's not your fault.  You don't run their lives nor telling them how to.  You ain't her daddy.

Well, it isn't what this person thinks of me that is bothering me.  Consider the metaphor I stated above about Home Depot.

See, she was blaming me for knocking down the end cap display because I'm the one who is dragging this big-ol'-cart through the store.  So, obviously, I'm the one who did it.  After I got done explaining that I never even touched the display, she finally backed off. 

But the problem was that, in the process, she pointed out that I was dropping dirt all over the store.  And that is something I was in reality responsible for.  The fact she pointed it out was what finally linked in my mind with her.  So, now I'm stuck trying to figure out how to do my job without dropping the dirt all over the place.  And honestly, I don't see how.

[Sunday21]

@Carborendum Sorry that you have been going through this!

[pwrfrk]

On 6/21/2018 at 7:55 AM, Carborendum said:

Well, it isn't what this person thinks of me that is bothering me.  Consider the metaphor I stated above about Home Depot.

See, she was blaming me for knocking down the end cap display because I'm the one who is dragging this big-ol'-cart through the store.  So, obviously, I'm the one who did it.  After I got done explaining that I never even touched the display, she finally backed off. 

But the problem was that, in the process, she pointed out that I was dropping dirt all over the store.  And that is something I was in reality responsible for.  The fact she pointed it out was what finally linked in my mind with her.  So, now I'm stuck trying to figure out how to do my job without dropping the dirt all over the place.  And honestly, I don't see how.

And so she is now losing faith in...what...over what?!?!?!?!   Man!  Dude, I can not even begin to express the confusion I have here, those kind of acronyms are prohibited!