Sorry to read you’ve experienced emotional abuse. Especially from your mother. I think many of us on the forum share your views on tough love, or at least how some people deliver tough love (I.e. use it as an excuse to be cruel).
Everyone is welcome to their opinions, of course that goes both ways. Fwiw I don’t think anyone is criticising you for being judgemental or suggesting you are judging anyone here negatively. We all make judgements all the time! It’s not necessarily a good or bad thing. Just a human thing.
If you choose to read the thread and decide whether you think this thread represents your idea of tough love, or another version, that is also totally up to you
Something I often remind myself here, as both a member and a moderator, is to assume others are posting with good intent. It is so easy for wires to become crossed in online communications.
Fortunately this is a really big forum and we can all find our place
I never comment on this thread but I always read it when it pops up with new posts. I think of it as a journal (and a journey) which you (Derek) opened and others join you along the way, sharing their experiences too.
I understand the idea of ‘Tough Love’ but think its become a generalized cliche a lot like the phrase ‘Passive Aggressive’. People do indeed act out in abusive or apathetic ways under the guise of ‘Tough Love’…
It is interesting to have a discussion about what tough love is. If someone is incapable of reading the title of the thread or its posts without posting a negative rant that is more a reflection of their own emotional toxicity than anything else…
Lotta people commenting who clearly haven’t read these posts. If you would have you’d see that my posts are based on my experience and generally directed at myself.
Back to your glass houses everyone. Nothing to see here!
Toxic as in the post was dissmissive of the whole idea when it has clearly worked well for @Englishd as well as many others who have contributed to the thread in a positive manner. That is the same behavior as a Christian going to the Athiest thread and calling the whole concept wrong or someone who isn’t in AA posting that AA doesn’t work on an AA thread.
There is a difference between discussing someone’s personal experience with an idea versus claiming the whole concept is abusive and negative. That is toxic.
Time to kibosh this current line. I’m not feeling having this thread get closed as it’s beneficial for me to use it as a reminder of where I was, what I did and what it’s like now
I gave a talk in church to my congregation yesterday. Here’s one of the stories I shared:
I am reminded of a story about a couple who had been married for 60 years. They had rarely argued during that time, and their days together passed in happiness and contentment. They shared everything and had no secrets between them—except one. The wife had a box that she kept at the top of a sideboard, and she told her husband when they were married that he should never look inside.
As the decades passed, the moment came that her husband took the box down and asked if he could finally know what it contained. The wife consented, and he opened it to discover two doilies and $25,000. When he asked his wife what this meant, she responded, “When we were married, my mother told me that whenever I was angry with you or whenever you said or did something I didn’t like, I should knit a small doily and then talk things through with you.”
The husband was moved to tears by this sweet story. He marveled that during 60 years of marriage he had only disturbed his wife enough for her to knit two doilies. Feeling extremely good about himself, he took his wife’s hand and said, “That explains the doilies, but what about the $25,000?”
His wife smiled sweetly and said, “That’s the money I got from selling all the doilies I’ve knitted over the years."
Here’s my Point: We often see things the way we want to see them. Not as they really are.
You are certainly correct about the emotional let down from expecting others to apologize to us. A lot of people aren’t self aware they wronged us or don’t care that they did. So why would we expect all these apologies that are not coming anyway. Its an emotional black hole…
Despite all the societal changes about it being legalizied or used as ‘medicine’ or more accepted the one thing that didn’t change is the drug itself. Nothing good comes from being a pothead.
You should repost this on the recent thread on whether it’s weakness or whatever to give up weed. I always quote the psychosis risk cos it’s a medical fact. Never get any reaction. Ppl don’t want to hear about this at all. but as someone affected by mental illness that’s the scariest to me.
It is factual that the potency of marijuana has increased as more of it is tinkered with in laboratories. As far as how that impacts its effects on people I have not really read what the latest studies and research have said.
The general perception that people who I have run into in life or here on TS who tell me, ‘Its medicine and not a drug.’ is a dangerous threat to anyone’s sobriety.
The idea that quitting marijuana or seeking outside support for quitting it is not relevant or weak arises from the lie that its not a drug to begin with.
The whole question of strength or weakness is itself kind of an avoidance (classic addict behaviour). It’s a question that generates a lot of talk that goes in circles: ‘it’s strength because ____, no it’s weakness because ____, repeat, etc etc ad infinitum’. In all that hubbub, we avoid the actual question - and the effort it requires.
Strength and weakness are about vulnerability. Recovery is about (healthy) vulnerability.
So the question isn’t “am I weak because of ____”. The question is: “What am I doing to embrace healthy vulnerability, instead of unhelpful vulnerability (the type of vulnerability that makes me feel weak)”
Healthy vulnerability = something like training for a 5K, or committing to X number of recovery meetings while maintaining an open mind. These types of activities certainly involve vulnerability - there’s always a risk involved in any healthy challenge - but it’s not a vulnerability that makes you feel weak.
Unhelpful vulnerability = making a choice I have to rationalize and which, at some level, I know I will regret. Yes there is vulnerability but the difference is I know, both before and after making that choice, that part of me will regret it.
It’s not about strength or weakness. It’s about vulnerability and regret.
