6 ms·

From my purely anecdotal experience with mentoring younger people, I've seen two main categories of venting: 1) Venting about frustrations by talking them thro

From my purely anecdotal experience with mentoring younger people, I've seen two main categories of venting: 1) Venting about frustrations by talking them through with someone who will listen. This forces people to put their frustrations into words and elucidate the narrative as they put it into words. This can not only help people identify their feelings and work through them, but it also forces people to decide what a mature response would be. Once you start venting to someone you know, especially someone you respect, you have an incentive to present a mature interpretation and approach to the situation. This can help immensely. 2) The other group tends to want to avoid the mature response part, and instead wants to seek sympathy and confirmation for their frustrations. They deliberately avoid discussing these issues with respected peers or mentors because they know their response is unhealthy and not a good look. They embrace online forums like Reddit and Twitter where they're free to give one-sided stories without fear of their peers calling them out for exaggerating or stretching the details. This type of venting doesn't solve anything because they don't really want solutions in the first place. There's something rewarding or perhaps freeing about hunkering down in the victim role and being showered with sympathy from random internet strangers. I haven't seen any reason to believe the first type of venting (discussing with respected peers, seeking feedback and solutions in the process) is anything but helpful. However, the latter type of venting (online venting to collect sympathy) does seem to be quite damaging from my limited experience. There's something dangerous about going online to bond with others and seek personal affirmation in a way that's fueled by venting frustrations and victimizations. Once inside of those circles, there's an incentive to continue bringing more frustrations and more victimizations to the table to keep the bonding and community contact flowing. The story in the article about going to a park to scream together raises my red flags as such a situation: It becomes an in-group thing where you need to adopt an outward appearance of being very frustrated to fit in with the other people in the group. Not a good incentive for improving the situation.

PaulHoule 5y ago
Is this http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/why-estranged-parents-forums.html http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/why-estrange... and example of type (2)?
- dvtrn 5y ago
  Sheesh I was not ready to read that, nor get as hooked in as I did. Some of those bullet-points are things I've witnessed first hand in an 'IRL' parenting group from some now ex-members.
  - krinchan 5y ago
    As an estranged child I was not ready to read that. Sent it to my other sibling (also recently estranged from the family) and we're both just...in shock.
    - effingwewt 5y ago
      I had the same reaction. Pretty mind-blowing that it's so common, and that they encourage each other in their... what I can only describe as 'Evil'. The abusers and their mental gymnastics not only hit home, it drove home the point that I was most definitely right to distance myself as much as possible rather than ever hope for some sort of reform.
krinchan 5y ago
So is 1 basically rubber ducky debugging but for social situations? Because I do this pretty often by myself. I feel it does require a certain level of self-honesty and I've often used good friends (the ones who I know will call me on my BS) as sounding boards to double check my conclusions.
- mike10921 5y ago
  Rubber ducking for non-technical issues. Love the concept
- XorNot 5y ago
  (2) is rubber duck debugging (written in a condescending way). The point of rubber duck debugging is the duck isn't talking back, or questioning why the code exists, or why the project exists, or suggesting different programming approaches - it just sits there while you work through explaining it and listening to you.
Enginerrrd 5y ago
Yeah, I know it's anecdotal... but when I've had issues with people that "stuck", and didn't go away on their own, I've had a lot of success writing those people a letter. It forces me to present all the information factually, how I feel about it, why I feel that way, etc. which helps elucidate the charitable and less-charitable interpretations of what happened. In writing, I have to reread and edit what I wrote a dozen times at least to make it nice and coherent. I also have a rule, that I can't send out such letters until the next day after writing the letter. Every time I've done that, I didn't need to send the letter after I wrote it. The anger was gone. Sometimes it persisted for weeks leading up to me writing the letter. I would absolutely describe that as "venting". I just wouldn't describe it as super aggressive or hostile, even though sometimes I think the letters were pretty harsh.
- _rs 5y ago
  Do the situations ever get resolved if you don’t send the letters, or do you use the letters as a basis for having a more mature conversation after? I sometimes do the same thing, and after I get my ideas out/vented, I end up rewriting the letter with gained empathy/understanding, and then use that as an outline for a conversation (if not reading the letter verbatim for especially difficult subjects) with the person. Otherwise, even if I feel a little better, nothing actually was resolved.
agumonkey 5y ago
I don't want to overstretch my already thin stance, but I think a lot of social groups are built on this. Finding peers that respond to your experience. I noticed something about web convos, they're often transient blips. You vent, get validated, come back a month later, vent again. It's very shallow. Lastly, I wonder how much of youth venting is due to having too much time on their hands. Imagining a society where people just have more things to do (but also integrated faster and smoother in the work force) ... I'd bet 10$ that people would vent less. It's not a cheap jab at young people, I had to learn that myself too.
Llamamoe 5y ago
I can't speak for everyone, but as a person with unmedicated ADHD and chronic fatigue, I feel pretty hostile to sentiments like this. In my experience, people who engage in #2 aren't - as you seem to be implying - people who are immature and lazy. A lot of the time they're people who struggle with the executive function necessary to actually change their life, who feel helpless and just want validation after having been made to feel insane by the #1 crowd - crowd who gives them obvious (non)solutions like "eat healthier", and "just exercise more!", and shits on them if they claim it doesn't work for them or can't do it. People love to rationalize why and how those people are motivated to not solve their issues instead of acknowledging that, just maybe, they really can't do better, really need help, and just gravitate towards the only crowd that won't treat them like moral failures for it. I have been disabled by overwhelmingly debilitating fatigue for a third of my life, and human tendency to treat every attempt to describe my struggles as excuses to debunk so I finally "stop feeling sorry for myself" has been dehumanizing. The victimization isn't made up. People who REALLY struggle are systematically gaslit and abused by the overwhelming majority of people. The moment people catch wind of your inability to take care of yourself, they treat you as less than human and make up one reason after another to blame you for your struggle and exclude you from deserving empathy. Rant over.
- bittercynic 5y ago
  I do not want to diminish the importance of your perspective in any way, only to add that some in the #1 camp are teetering on the brink of "able to take care of self" and not withholding help to be cruel, but because they think helping might pull them over the cliff, too. Wellness has big steps sometimes, and if you tumble down a step it may take a long time to get back up, and your ability to help yourself, and anyone else, will be diminished.
  - GauntletWizard 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - Llamamoe 5y ago
allmodelsRwrong 5y ago
I may not have read your post correctly but why do you think "seeking sympathy and confirmation" is mutually exclusive to a "mature response"? There is a tendency I have seen in people in the tech industry to try to problem solve everything. Like debugging a bug. In my experience this creates unhealthy relationships. Sometimes all we can do is listen and say, "yeah that sucks, I'm sorry".
wintermutestwin 5y ago
>It becomes an in-group thing where you need to adopt an outward appearance of being very frustrated to fit in with the other people in the group. Very important point. Similarly, many self-help groups trend towards a culture of "wound worship."
watwut 5y ago
People in group 1 are seeking your validation and adjusting expressed feelings to what you want to hear. I know, because I was definitely like that. I would tell things that sound mature, to sound mature, but they were not the truth nor the reality.

PaulHoule 5y ago

Is this http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/why-estranged-parents-forums.html http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/why-estrange... and example of type (2)?

dvtrn 5y ago
Sheesh I was not ready to read that, nor get as hooked in as I did. Some of those bullet-points are things I've witnessed first hand in an 'IRL' parenting group from some now ex-members.
- krinchan 5y ago
  As an estranged child I was not ready to read that. Sent it to my other sibling (also recently estranged from the family) and we're both just...in shock.
  - effingwewt 5y ago
    I had the same reaction. Pretty mind-blowing that it's so common, and that they encourage each other in their... what I can only describe as 'Evil'. The abusers and their mental gymnastics not only hit home, it drove home the point that I was most definitely right to distance myself as much as possible rather than ever hope for some sort of reform.

krinchan 5y ago

So is 1 basically rubber ducky debugging but for social situations? Because I do this pretty often by myself. I feel it does require a certain level of self-honesty and I've often used good friends (the ones who I know will call me on my BS) as sounding boards to double check my conclusions.

mike10921 5y ago
Rubber ducking for non-technical issues. Love the concept
XorNot 5y ago
(2) is rubber duck debugging (written in a condescending way). The point of rubber duck debugging is the duck isn't talking back, or questioning why the code exists, or why the project exists, or suggesting different programming approaches - it just sits there while you work through explaining it and listening to you.

Enginerrrd 5y ago

Yeah, I know it's anecdotal... but when I've had issues with people that "stuck", and didn't go away on their own, I've had a lot of success writing those people a letter. It forces me to present all the information factually, how I feel about it, why I feel that way, etc. which helps elucidate the charitable and less-charitable interpretations of what happened. In writing, I have to reread and edit what I wrote a dozen times at least to make it nice and coherent. I also have a rule, that I can't send out such letters until the next day after writing the letter. Every time I've done that, I didn't need to send the letter after I wrote it. The anger was gone. Sometimes it persisted for weeks leading up to me writing the letter. I would absolutely describe that as "venting". I just wouldn't describe it as super aggressive or hostile, even though sometimes I think the letters were pretty harsh.

_rs 5y ago
Do the situations ever get resolved if you don’t send the letters, or do you use the letters as a basis for having a more mature conversation after? I sometimes do the same thing, and after I get my ideas out/vented, I end up rewriting the letter with gained empathy/understanding, and then use that as an outline for a conversation (if not reading the letter verbatim for especially difficult subjects) with the person. Otherwise, even if I feel a little better, nothing actually was resolved.

agumonkey 5y ago

I don't want to overstretch my already thin stance, but I think a lot of social groups are built on this. Finding peers that respond to your experience. I noticed something about web convos, they're often transient blips. You vent, get validated, come back a month later, vent again. It's very shallow. Lastly, I wonder how much of youth venting is due to having too much time on their hands. Imagining a society where people just have more things to do (but also integrated faster and smoother in the work force) ... I'd bet 10$ that people would vent less. It's not a cheap jab at young people, I had to learn that myself too.

Llamamoe 5y ago

I can't speak for everyone, but as a person with unmedicated ADHD and chronic fatigue, I feel pretty hostile to sentiments like this. In my experience, people who engage in #2 aren't - as you seem to be implying - people who are immature and lazy. A lot of the time they're people who struggle with the executive function necessary to actually change their life, who feel helpless and just want validation after having been made to feel insane by the #1 crowd - crowd who gives them obvious (non)solutions like "eat healthier", and "just exercise more!", and shits on them if they claim it doesn't work for them or can't do it. People love to rationalize why and how those people are motivated to not solve their issues instead of acknowledging that, just maybe, they really can't do better, really need help, and just gravitate towards the only crowd that won't treat them like moral failures for it. I have been disabled by overwhelmingly debilitating fatigue for a third of my life, and human tendency to treat every attempt to describe my struggles as excuses to debunk so I finally "stop feeling sorry for myself" has been dehumanizing. The victimization isn't made up. People who REALLY struggle are systematically gaslit and abused by the overwhelming majority of people. The moment people catch wind of your inability to take care of yourself, they treat you as less than human and make up one reason after another to blame you for your struggle and exclude you from deserving empathy. Rant over.

bittercynic 5y ago
I do not want to diminish the importance of your perspective in any way, only to add that some in the #1 camp are teetering on the brink of "able to take care of self" and not withholding help to be cruel, but because they think helping might pull them over the cliff, too. Wellness has big steps sometimes, and if you tumble down a step it may take a long time to get back up, and your ability to help yourself, and anyone else, will be diminished.
- GauntletWizard 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - Llamamoe 5y ago

allmodelsRwrong 5y ago

I may not have read your post correctly but why do you think "seeking sympathy and confirmation" is mutually exclusive to a "mature response"? There is a tendency I have seen in people in the tech industry to try to problem solve everything. Like debugging a bug. In my experience this creates unhealthy relationships. Sometimes all we can do is listen and say, "yeah that sucks, I'm sorry".

wintermutestwin 5y ago

>It becomes an in-group thing where you need to adopt an outward appearance of being very frustrated to fit in with the other people in the group. Very important point. Similarly, many self-help groups trend towards a culture of "wound worship."

watwut 5y ago

People in group 1 are seeking your validation and adjusting expressed feelings to what you want to hear. I know, because I was definitely like that. I would tell things that sound mature, to sound mature, but they were not the truth nor the reality.