Destructive Advice

That said, I've got a question about thread flow. What do you do when someone gives just atrocious backward (almost "dangerous") advice? For example, I've posted a problem (with abusive parents) and some idiotic, obtuse, knuckle-headed poster said that you were indebted to go back to your parents and "respect them and even repay them" despite the emotional destruction and pain they caused.I know that advice perpetuates destructive beahavior; that advice is wrong. If I didn't realize how destructive that suggestion was (because it would exacerbate emotional confusion and turmoil), it could be incredibly "hurtful". The question: "What actions do you take and how do you respond to someone who not only provides "unhelpful advice", but advice that deliberately makes your situation worse? Because you can roll your eyes at just ridiculous, goofy, or irrelevant advice, but when someone holds a conviction that their advice is helpful, when it would seriously make matters so much worse, how do you deal with that? You almost feel like just saying "that's wrong" wouldn't be a bold enough move to exclude the destructive advice from the equation, but you don't want to waste your time "denouncing" someone who makes you situation worse because ignoring would be the most prudent maneuver in such an example.

I've been a victim of listening and obsequiously obeying people's "advice" only to discover it led into an even bigger bind than before! So the juggling act between "heeding" only the genuinely helpful advice and somehow effectively discarding the horrendous advice, all while simultaneously being appreciative of the advice-givers effort feels like an elusively tough act follow.

Hi, kooz,
When we throw out a problem we are wrestling with for all the world to see, we are going to get many diverse viewpoints. Some of the advice will be good stuff we can use, and some will be not helpful.
I wouldn't fret too much about bad advice. Its analogous to going into a shoe store and trying on shoes; not every pair is going to fit. People for the most part want to help each other. The advice they give is commiserate with their life experience and values. If you get advice that seems inappropriate for your personal circumstances, you are free to ignore it. It was most likely given in good will, so the polite thing to do is just let it slide.
This is the beauty of having free will.

Hi kooz,

I agree with puma. When people seek advice, what ever is offered is not with malice intent. Though none of us are exactly the same, neither will the advice be that is offered.

No one on the forum is a doctor, so it is just people helping people.
If the shoe does not fit, don't wear it.
This has been my experience. I have seen what I thought was awful advice, I offer my own if it has anything to do with something I can relate too. Only later to find out, something was miscommunitcated or misunderstood. Not that it was "bad".

When people have good intentions, I would never say hey stop trying to help people. Who knows? They may save someone's life or help with someones happiness, depression, or things that you or I can not relate too. see?

Cheers.
Red

puma wrote:Hi, kooz,
When we throw out a problem we are wrestling with for all the world to see, we are going to get many diverse viewpoints. Some of the advice will be good stuff we can use, and some will be not helpful.
I wouldn't fret too much about bad advice. Its analogous to going into a shoe store and trying on shoes; not every pair is going to fit. People for the most part want to help each other. The advice they give is commiserate with their life experience and values. If you get advice that seems inappropriate for your personal circumstances, you are free to ignore it. It was most likely given in good will, so the polite thing to do is just let it slide.
This is the beauty of having free will.

Good point, puma. I think some of these problems I just needed -- for the sake of my own emotional health -- NEEDED to just throw out there. However, in hindsight the response would have felt much better, more clear, personalized, redeeming, and from a source that "knows you", if I had shared it with a friend I know. I lucked out and found a few responses that actually helped, but it feels like about for every 1 good (helpful, clear, operating from good intentions, and delivering with wisdom) response, there exist about 7-8 lame (operating from ego-driven intentions, vacant, hollow, misguided) responses. I feel overwhelmed shunning, and protecting myself from utterly crappy advice that could do me more damage, while heralding and appraising and trying to connect with the good advice I hear.

I think it's just that I don't know how to "filter" bad advice. I can easily recognize it and I fear (perhaps erroneously) that if I don't call the person on it -- saying the advice they gave is poor -- I'll subconsciously "consider" that poor advice, eventually have it impact my activities. Possibly, I've just discovered the small perks (the rare good responses) and huge cons to -- like you said -- delivering your problem to the world. The most frustrating bit about the whole thing about recieving "bad, illigetimate, totally "whacky and wrong" bits of advice that would ultimately bring more pain, is that the people delivering it write with such conviction and seem to truly believe their advice will "save me":roll: So, the 3 things I fear about recieving bad advice are:
1. Fretting about the other persons' certainty and conviction that they feel their advice sounds "right", and not knowing how to share my strong disagreement with them.
2. Fearing that if I don't convey my dislike of the bad advice and reverence for the helpful advice, I'll "admit" those bits of bad advice into my life.
3. Feeling obligated to help the person who appears to suffer. You said it perfectly

People for the most part want to help each other. The advice they give is commiserate with their life experience and values.

. You learn SO much about a person's beliefs, values, and even problems based on the advice they give. If someone suggests you "get pissed drunk" to solve your problems, look at what that reveals about THEIR problems, their suffering. I have an awareness of that and feel most overwhelmed by the sudden realization that..."holy $#%^, in this exchange where person x is given me advice and person x truly believes his or her advice will be exceptionally helpful, based on the terrible qualty of person x's advice, I feel like someone (sometimes me) should INSTEAD be giving them the advice, because apparently they need it!

Do you see my dilemma? I think I suffer from guilt of seeing how sometimes an advice-giver -- based on the poor quality of advice they give --would, in reality, benefit from receiving advice rather than giving. I struggle with feeling like I should help that person, which almost always results in frustration.

I like your shoe example a lot. However, unlike with emotions and behavioral suggestions, shoes can't just 'pop up" onto your feet without you knowing it (I think I trust "shoes' more than emotions;)haha. In other words, if someone suggests that I go pee on my parents house every day (this would fall into the category of ridiculous, absurd, unhelpful, and possible emotionally destructive advice), I feel like I have to consciously, blatantly share how I feel that advice sounds atrotious, or else, that advice may creep into my mind and I may go back to my parents' house and pee on it, only resulting in destruction and chaos, etc. With shoes, after you leave the store, the size 10.5 Nikes can't "creep into your life" and lace themselves onto your soles. The same does not feel true with emotions and behaviors. I WISH emotions and behaviors acted like shoes -- the world would feel a whole lot simpler!;)

Thanks though. Exercising free will, seriously, resolves a TON of problems (makes problems logically and resolutely disappear, really !)[/quote][/b]

SmallTalkRed wrote:Hi kooz,

I agree with puma. When people seek advice, what ever is offered is not with malice intent. Though none of us are exactly the same, neither will the advice be that is offered.

No one on the forum is a doctor, so it is just people helping people.
If the shoe does not fit, don't wear it.
This has been my experience. I have seen what I thought was awful advice, I offer my own if it has anything to do with something I can relate too. Only later to find out, something was miscommunitcated or misunderstood. Not that it was "bad".

When people have good intentions, I would never say hey stop trying to help people. Who knows? They may save someone's life or help with someones happiness, depression, or things that you or I can not relate too. see?

Cheers.
Red

Hey smalltalk, Thanks -- like Puma -- for the wisdom. Because you infer suggestions that all advice has good intentions (something with which i mostly agree) and neglect how that advice (regardless of its intentions) actually MAKES ME FEEL, you and I don't see eye to eye. To clarify this, read my response to puma's: the list of those three things I fear when receiving bad advice:

1. Fretting about the other persons' certainty and conviction that they feel their advice sounds "right", and not knowing how to share my strong disagreement with them.
2. Fearing that if I don't convey my dislike of the bad advice and reverence for the helpful advice, I'll "admit" those bits of bad advice into my life.
3. Feeling obligated to help the person who appears to suffer. You said it perfectly

Fear of argument, fear of succumbing to bad advice, and guilt in not "helping" that person who gave that advice -- fear of argument, fear of succming, guilt of not helping -- are the problems I experience when I recieve poor advice. I'd "like" to just ignore it, but feel infuriatingly trapped to respond (when the advice sounds good, however, I, obviously, respond whole-heartedly with interest. Recieving good advice, however, has only VERY rare occurrences).


Listen to what you say, smalltalk, : advice is not offered with malice intent....people on the forum are not doctors...." it sounds lke you're apologizing for the poor advice. I don't have a problem with the poor advice; I have a problem with my reaction to it! (see the 3 above).

I like the shoe reference. That has a tangible quality to it. But as I described before, you can chuck shoes out the window if they don't fit -- plus, people don't come up to you on the street and in emails with "shoes to try on". I just feel bombarded with absolutely #######5 advice (and, fortunately, some rare emblems of "decent solid advice" -- on this board, Puma has provided tremendous insight, and maybe a few other posters) and feel suffocated by it. some of that crappy advice I've listened to and it brought me a world of pain. To plug in the beautiful andtangible shoe example, i feel like people send me shoes in the email, in person, over phone calls and those shoes have spikes and gnarls and barbs on them that cut and destroy my feet. Only a few "shoes" feel innocuous and even fewer actually have a solid comfortable fit (the rare gems of "good advice"). Do you see my dilemma? Because of the large amount of not "hours' but months, YEARS, I waste (and frusration I endure) -- I went to schools that weren't the best fit for me , for example, because of listening to bad advice -- have an interest in resolving this.

I don't think people understand the MASSIVE scope and IMPACT of poor and/or good advice and/or listening to and/or ignoring that advice. Listening to the wrong/right advice can truly make or break your life! Because of my frustration, obviously, in the past 4-5 years, I've listened to a LOT of #######5 advice and had some pretty stupid people peer into my life and offer destructive suggestions.

People put an enormous amount of time -- and books have been written -- into "Making friends" "Giving good advice" "Knowing the Right thing to say"...etc. But there exists very little material on hwo to perceive, process (discard or consider) all the ENORMOUS amount of messages you recieve from society. Come on, with advertising, if you "listened" to every commercial you saw on TV, you'd be 300lbs over weight, an alcoholic, and problem on 300 garments and have tons of useless equipment!


I'll be succinct here:

Henry David Thoreau – “Why should we be in such a desperate haste to succeed and in desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because her hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” (Listen for and dance to your own drumbeat; also filed as Intuition).

I will never -- and have fought for it -- let my own drumbeat become inaudible to me..

SmallTalkRed wrote:Hi kooz,

No one on the forum is a doctor, so it is just people helping people.

I think you have a delusion, there. While many of the fellow posters may not direclty hold an MD, PhD, doctorate degree, remember that "doctor" in latin simply means teacher. "There are no friends or enemies -- just teahers and students" (I've begun to believe that "enemies" actually do exist -- just Really ATROCIOUS teachers:) But many people on this board -- or anywhere - can offer the right snippet of advice, said with the correct phraseology, that can truly change and positively help lives.

If you've been following allong with my "three debilitating reactions to bad advice" (obligation to respond, guilt in not giving someone who appears to suffer advice, mainly)

I think a lot of that stems from an upbringing and a culture where I (like most of us) were taught that it's always polite to respond. For awhile I did that -- every single email, message, notificiaton, EVERYTHING I got I would instantly respond to! However, the quantity has reached to high! Politeness and etiquette caan kill. Where do you draw the line and morally justify "ignoring" bad advice. How do you effectivley have someone "miss me" (have them lose your number, not contact you)? This question derives not from functional (how do I delete them from a phonebook), but moral (how can I not experience guilt when I shut off communication with people that debilitate and harm me)? That, I guess is the gist of it!

kooz wrote:

SmallTalkRed wrote:Hi kooz,

I agree with puma. When people seek advice, what ever is offered is not with malice intent. Though none of us are exactly the same, neither will the advice be that is offered.

No one on the forum is a doctor, so it is just people helping people.
If the shoe does not fit, don't wear it.
This has been my experience. I have seen what I thought was awful advice, I offer my own if it has anything to do with something I can relate too. Only later to find out, something was miscommunitcated or misunderstood. Not that it was "bad".

When people have good intentions, I would never say hey stop trying to help people. Who knows? They may save someone's life or help with someones happiness, depression, or things that you or I can not relate too. see?

Cheers.
Red

Hey smalltalk, Thanks -- like Puma -- for the wisdom. Because you infer suggestions that all advice has good intentions (something with which i mostly agree) and neglect how that advice (regardless of its intentions) actually MAKES ME FEEL, you and I don't see eye to eye. To clarify this, read my response to puma's: the list of those three things I fear when receiving bad advice:

1. Fretting about the other persons' certainty and conviction that they feel their advice sounds "right", and not knowing how to share my strong disagreement with them.
2. Fearing that if I don't convey my dislike of the bad advice and reverence for the helpful advice, I'll "admit" those bits of bad advice into my life.
3. Feeling obligated to help the person who appears to suffer. You said it perfectly

Fear of argument, fear of succumbing to bad advice, and guilt in not "helping" that person who gave that advice -- fear of argument, fear of succming, guilt of not helping -- are the problems I experience when I recieve poor advice. I'd "like" to just ignore it, but feel infuriatingly trapped to respond (when the advice sounds good, however, I, obviously, respond whole-heartedly with interest. Recieving good advice, however, has only VERY rare occurrences).


Listen to what you say, smalltalk, : advice is not offered with malice intent....people on the forum are not doctors...." it sounds lke you're apologizing for the poor advice. I don't have a problem with the poor advice; I have a problem with my reaction to it! (see the 3 above).

I like the shoe reference. That has a tangible quality to it. But as I described before, you can chuck shoes out the window if they don't fit -- plus, people don't come up to you on the street and in emails with "shoes to try on". I just feel bombarded with absolutely #######5 advice (and, fortunately, some rare emblems of "decent solid advice" -- on this board, Puma has provided tremendous insight, and maybe a few other posters) and feel suffocated by it. some of that crappy advice I've listened to and it brought me a world of pain. To plug in the beautiful andtangible shoe example, i feel like people send me shoes in the email, in person, over phone calls and those shoes have spikes and gnarls and barbs on them that cut and destroy my feet. Only a few "shoes" feel innocuous and even fewer actually have a solid comfortable fit (the rare gems of "good advice"). Do you see my dilemma? Because of the large amount of not "hours' but months, YEARS, I waste (and frusration I endure) -- I went to schools that weren't the best fit for me , for example, because of listening to bad advice -- have an interest in resolving this.

I don't think people understand the MASSIVE scope and IMPACT of poor and/or good advice and/or listening to and/or ignoring that advice. Listening to the wrong/right advice can truly make or break your life! Because of my frustration, obviously, in the past 4-5 years, I've listened to a LOT of #######5 advice and had some pretty stupid people peer into my life and offer destructive suggestions.

People put an enormous amount of time -- and books have been written -- into "Making friends" "Giving good advice" "Knowing the Right thing to say"...etc. But there exists very little material on hwo to perceive, process (discard or consider) all the ENORMOUS amount of messages you recieve from society. Come on, with advertising, if you "listened" to every commercial you saw on TV, you'd be 300lbs over weight, an alcoholic, and problem on 300 garments and have tons of useless equipment!


I'll be succinct here:

Henry David Thoreau – “Why should we be in such a desperate haste to succeed and in desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because her hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” (Listen for and dance to your own drumbeat; also filed as Intuition).

I will never -- and have fought for it -- let my own drumbeat become inaudible to me..

kooz,
Puma is right. The forum is a public place, when posting a question or searching for an answer, If you are lucky, you will get 4-5 responses that you can identify with and those that dont fit you, go on why should it bother you that some of the offers were not helpful.
When this has happened to me, I take what applies and leave the rest. I dont make my lifes important choices, here on the forum. I dont depend on the forum to have the answers to my life.

I came to this forum looking for help myself. Some of it helped, some of it I was not ready yet. I "knew" what applied to me and my situation.

You saying "you and I dont see eye to eye" is a puzzle to me because......? why? I dont know. I have seen your name, I dont think we have had a conversation. Wait, I remember you!
In the cutters Self Harm forum. You did not think I gave a member good advice. Have you ever bloodlet? cut your arms to release pain? You are not a self harmer, which is fantastic, hopefully you will go through life with little trauma.

No worries about that, I dont have a problem with you not agreeing with me. In the SI forum it is different and direct.
The whole point is to not self harm.
It is their choice what they want to do with it. Luckly that person did not self harm.

I respect you that you have your right to your own opinion,
I am glad you use it. It shows your strong willed and that you should know what "rings" true with you, if you ever need any help.

Puma was(is) a great help to me. Like Chucky says, She is a SuperStar!!

peace to you kooz,
Red

To Red,
Aww, Thanks, Little Sister!
To Kooz,

So, the 3 things I fear about recieving bad advice are:
1. Fretting about the other persons' certainty and conviction that they feel their advice sounds "right", and not knowing how to share my strong disagreement with them.

Just say thanks but no thanks, if you feel compelled to respond.

2. Fearing that if I don't convey my dislike of the bad advice and reverence for the helpful advice, I'll "admit" those bits of bad advice into my life.

Hmmm. I detect a weak sense of self identity here. If you, after considering the advice, decide to reject it, it is not going to sneak back through your back door and infect you. You don't have to cast a curse upon it, like it is an evil spell one must fend off with strong words. Unless you truly are afraid of other people's thoughts! Like if you are reading Mein Kampf, and become afraid you will now become a Nazi.

3. Feeling obligated to help the person who appears to suffer. You said it perfectly Quote: Puma:

People for the most part want to help each other. The advice they give is commiserate with their life experience and values.

When people post advice to others, they quite often are also speaking to themselves. Letting them have their say, whether or not you agree with it, helps them. You aren't obligated to do any more than that, as a common courtesy.

SmallTalkRed wrote:kooz,
Puma is right. The forum is a public place, when posting a question or searching for an answer, If you are lucky, you will get 4-5 responses that you can identify with and those that dont fit you, go on why should it bother you that some of the offers were not helpful.
When this has happened to me, I take what applies and leave the rest. I dont make my lifes important choices, here on the forum. I dont depend on the forum to have the answers to my life.

Thanks for the response, smalltalk. However, I have a tendency for blatant, totally unrestrained candidness, so here goes:

I do not limit the venue, location, nor source of finding answers to life or making life decisions. If I find a life answer or make a life important choice on this great, awesome forum (which I problem have already -- in reference to a lot of puma's wisdom about my parent situation), great. I don't set up "boundaries" of where I will find or make important things happen. I sense you, because you said you do that, operate from a limiting self-belief. You can not "expect" to find important information in certain places, but expectations should be discarded becaue the most illuminating discoveries often happen in the most unique and odd places.



I came to this forum looking for help myself. Some of it helped, some of it I was not ready yet. I "knew" what applied to me and my situation.

You saying "you and I dont see eye to eye" is a puzzle to me because......? why? I dont know. I have seen your name, I dont think we have had a conversation. Wait, I remember you!
In the cutters Self Harm forum. You did not think I gave a member good advice. Have you ever bloodlet? cut your arms to release pain? You are not a self harmer, which is fantastic, hopefully you will go through life with little trauma.

That's right, I thought you gave plick poor advice. We disagree on how to effectively deal with anger. I believe you should harness the awesome grace of the human body's advanced physiology; you feel like anger should be shoved only in letters. Good memory. But did this thread just shift from "how can I effectively manage poor advice" to "do have the experience and/or credentials to give advice"? I think you're trying to take it in that direction, but I'm staying on point:idea:

Your argument -- simple, meek, but somewhat clever and obvious -- is that I don't have the capacity to give advice to a self-harmer because I've never cut my skin with a sharp implement to "release something"

News flash, smalltalk, experience does not limit the range and magnitude of your advice. Sorry, but your self-limiting, myopic, encapsulated worldview has obfuscated you again, apparently.

I, fortunately, do no resort to slicing open my epidermal layer with a sharp implement to "release something", inflicting self harm. But I have dealt with very extreme sensations of rage, hopelessness, pain, anguish, doubt, etc -- all those. And for me, I didn't resort to drugs, nor self-harm, but exercise. I responded to that threat because I very easily could have been a serious "self-harmer" but I found positie, nourishing, success, and Release in exercise. The problem with all your self-harmers telling each other what to do and not letting anyone else (non self-harmers) offer advice is your repeat, recycle your damaging habits and worse of all commiserate!:idea: I don't commiserate, but this is a digression from this thread. If you want to insult me, say I you know more about self-harm, say you have better advice and I don't know diddley and you have more "qualifications"...fine1!:P, just don't do it in this thread, and send me a pm, if you want to.

The content of this thread is important to me.

No worries about that, I dont have a problem with you not agreeing with me. In the SI forum it is different and direct.
The whole point is to not self harm.
It is their choice what they want to do with it. Luckly that person did not self harm.

She didn't self-harm that episode, but she had in the past, right?

Obviously it's their choice what they want to do with it -- it's always your choice.

I respect you that you have your right to your own opinion,
I am glad you use it. It shows your strong willed and that you should know what "rings" true with you, if you ever need any help.

Puma was(is) a great help to me. Like Chucky says, She is a SuperStar!!

peace to you kooz,
Red

Thanks. I do have a strong will and confidence. I try to value that more and more. Despite this specific response completely overlooked my 3 "fears" of bad advice (you didn't feel like responding, overlooked them, didn't want to, or couldn't procesed them) respect all of your challenges and attempts to give advice , too.

I honor our mutual attempt to help others and our different angle and methods of doing so.

Hegel said, "we must affirm absolutely that nothing great in this world has been accomplished without passion."

That goes for great inventions, huge accomplishments.....and psychological growth. When you tell someone to bury and quell their rage in a letter, you defuse passion, when you encourage someone to utilize energy and physiology, you get them breathing again from where fear can turn into excitement, and then the excitement can turn into passion and clarity!

Btw...yeah, chucky and I seem to have a lot of similarities, he and puma rock.