I just wanna say -- the random comments thread

[redwood66]

Matata I am so sorry for your friend and her family.

 

[lovedogs]

Matata I'm sorry to hear this, but am glad that she has made the right decision for her, and hope that her family can come to terms with it as well. You sound like a wonderful friend and I am sure she is grateful to have you in her life.

 

[Calliecake]

Oh Matata, I am so sorry. How heartbreaking for your friend and her family.

 

[PintoBean]

I'm so sorry Matata!

I went to my first support meeting last night. One thing that was said, well many things said resonated with me, but one thing I've been thinking about this AM is "hurt people HURT people". I don't want to be hurt anymore.

 

[missy]

Pintobean, (((HUGS))) to you sweetie. I am so sorry for what you are going through and it will all be OK eventually. I know it will be but in the meantime it sucks and I am thinking of you and sending lots of good thoughts your way. XOXO.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Pinto, much love and biggest hugs coming your way my friend.

 

[canuk-gal]

HI:

Decided to do some "Spring" cleaning today. Comforters and duvet covers--so off to the laundromat I went. A man opened the door for me.

The owner is the nicest fella. He came over to tell me he'd just made tea and would I like some.

Another man waiting for his clothing to dry asked me if I needed help folding my large/bulky items.

WHAT THE heck-o-rama are these nice people????????? Made my day.

cheers--Sharon

 

[VRBeauty]

HI:

Decided to do some "Spring" cleaning today. Comforters and duvet covers--so off to the laundromat I went. A man opened the door for me.

The owner is the nicest fella. He came over to tell me he'd just made tea and would I like some.

Another man waiting for his clothing to dry asked me if I needed help folding my large/bulky items.

WHAT THE heck-o-rama are these nice people????????? Made my day.

cheers--Sharon

And reading your story made my day! Thanks for sharing it!

 

[redwood66]

Yay for nice people Sharon!!!!

 

[missy]

HI:

Decided to do some "Spring" cleaning today. Comforters and duvet covers--so off to the laundromat I went. A man opened the door for me.

The owner is the nicest fella. He came over to tell me he'd just made tea and would I like some.

Another man waiting for his clothing to dry asked me if I needed help folding my large/bulky items.

WHAT THE heck-o-rama are these nice people????????? Made my day.

cheers--Sharon

And reading your story made my day! Thanks for sharing it!

And mine too! Thank you for sharing Sharon and Yay! I also firmly believe nice attracts nice so it doesn't surprise me in the least!

 

[AGBF]

Matata-

Your story is heartbreaking. I am so sorry.

PintoBean-

I have been to Al-Anon and I go to AA. I love the rooms. I cannot recommend them highly enough. I am so glad that you are trying them! As people say, if you don't like the meetings you can stop coming and we will refund your misery. I wish you comfort and real companionship in Al-Anon!

Hugs,
(((PintoBean)))
Deb

 

[VapidLapid]

I just wanna say I cannot take it anymore. I have to stay away from the political threads for my own sanity. The lack of humanity and the lack of compassion I am seeing in some of my fellow PSers is too much to bear. What truly terrifies me is not the few PSers who feel this way but perhaps a great number of people in the USA and perhaps all over the world feel like this. Reason has gone out the window and insanity has taken its place.

This is the main reason why I don't come here much anymore. In my youth I had expected that when my generation came of age there would be more knowledge and the wisdom to apply it. That has not come to pass. I get so angry, and am so disappointed with the minds and hearts of so many that I leave without logging in.

 

[AGBF]

I just wanna say I cannot take it anymore. I have to stay away from the political threads for my own sanity. The lack of humanity and the lack of compassion I am seeing in some of my fellow PSers is too much to bear. What truly terrifies me is not the few PSers who feel this way but perhaps a great number of people in the USA and perhaps all over the world feel like this. Reason has gone out the window and insanity has taken its place.

This is the main reason why I don't come here much anymore. In my youth I had expected that when my generation came of age there would be more knowledge and the wisdom to apply it. That has not come to pass. I get so angry, and am so disappointed with the minds and hearts of so many that I leave without logging in.

I am sorry for that, VL, both for what it means to you and for the effect it has on Pricescope.

Deb

 

[PintoBean]

I'm not feeling so swell right now and while it was nice that DH heated me so leftovers in the toaster oven and fed the cats, it'd be nice if he was sober now to keep me company, but within the next 30 minutes he will pass out, and I will go downstairs and make sure everything is secured for the evening. I could use a live person as company right now, but at least I can hug a cat. It's probably my hormones making me extra bleh tonight.

I do have a bottle of Mexican coke to polish off. It's part of a 6 pack my neighbor brought over as a "just because" present.

 

[Calliecake]

You are missed VapidLapid.

Pinto Bean, I hope things get easier for you. I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this. Is your DH getting help?

 

[december-fire]

Oh, Pinto, that makes me so sad. I wish I could fix things. I hope your DH is getting professional help, realizes the severity of the situation, and is working hard to stop drinking and resolve whatever issues are behind it. Some people think their behaviour only affects themselves; that's so wrong.

I know it can be lonelier to be with someone than to be alone. Your feelings are understandable and, in my opinion, not the result of hormones. You are not qualified to fix your DH's issues or change his behaviour. You can be supportive, without being enabling, but that's it. Look after yourself. Please know that myself and others care a great deal about you and wish you strength and clarity as you deal with this situation.

Sending you big hugs.

 

[Matata]

Hugs PintoBean.

 

[december-fire]

VapidLapid, add me to the list of those who miss you.

There is a lot of 'passion' displayed by some people when discussing their views and, from my perspective, the tone can be one which I don't find constructive or appealing.

However, there are lots of interesting people and topics on PS. I truly care about PS members who have posted about challenges and heartbreak. I also find joy in their celebrations and happiness.

I hope you'll continue to stop by and, if you feel like it, share how things are going. You're one of the individuals I think about, and I hope that life is being kind to you.

 

[AGBF]

I know exactly how you feel, Pinto Bean. Well, maybe not exactly, since no two people are exactly alike. And, also, I do not even know your husband. Drunks differ. (Should I say "vary" given the place we are speaking?) I do not mean to be disparaging by using the term "drunk"about your DH. In AA we refer to ourselves as "drunks", but I know you are new to the "game", so I wanted to make it clear to you that I wasn't using the word as a putdown.

Some people can drink and fall asleep and not be a "problem" in their early years of drinking except in that they are absent or may not wake up early or be bright and cheery for work. But other people can get nasty. While some can get very nasty. The stories one hears if one is in AA long enough are absolutely unbelievable.

Hang in there. We have your back.

Big hugs.

Deb

 

[azstonie]

I'm sorry to hear this, PB. I hope this situation resolves in your favor, and soon.

 

[missy]

Pinto!!!! Honey I am sorry and expect to hear from me very soon. BIG (((HUGS))).

Vapid, sending you healing vibes and lots of hugs too.

 

[canuk-gal]

Because what the hell is wrong with the universe that it isn't Spring (where I live). Honestly, there is NO good reason for -20C temps. And snow. And and and

ugh--Sharon

 

[Dee*Jay]

Sharon, it's currently 56 degrees in Chicago with a high of 60 projected for tomorrow. What time shall I expect you? I'll have cocktails ready!

 

[canuk-gal]

Sharon, it's currently 56 degrees in Chicago with a high of 60 projected for tomorrow. What time shall I expect you? I'll have cocktails ready!

Downright balmy! Yet just enough to put the champagne out on the balcony, to chill, for a hour or two. Say 8?

DJ, you made my (otherwise frozen a**) day.

cheers--Sharon

 

[Dee*Jay]

Sharon, it's currently 56 degrees in Chicago with a high of 60 projected for tomorrow. What time shall I expect you? I'll have cocktails ready!

Downright balmy! Yet just enough to put the champagne out on the balcony, to chill, for a hour or two. Say 8?

DJ, you made my (otherwise frozen a**) day.

cheers--Sharon

In anticipation of your arrival the Veuve is chilling and my favorite Art Deco era coups are at the ready!

 

[canuk-gal]

Sharon, it's currently 56 degrees in Chicago with a high of 60 projected for tomorrow. What time shall I expect you? I'll have cocktails ready!

Downright balmy! Yet just enough to put the champagne out on the balcony, to chill, for a hour or two. Say 8?

DJ, you made my (otherwise frozen a**) day.

cheers--Sharon

In anticipation of your arrival the Veuve is chilling and my favorite Art Deco era coups are at the ready!

That glass is divine. You are the best friend I've (n)ever known!

cheers--Sharon

 

[missy]

Just a little link that some of you might find useful. I didn't feel like getting into a thread with this so hope it is OK to just link it here as an fyi for those who are interested. Easy to ignore but easy to read if you want to.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243913

12 Ways Successful People Handle Toxic People
TRAVIS BRADBERRY

Toxic people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing other people’s buttons. Either way, they create unnecessary complexity, strife, and worst of all stress.

Studies have long shown that stress can have a lasting, negative impact on the brain. Exposure to even a few days of stress compromises the effectiveness of neurons in the hippocampus—an important brain area responsible for reasoning and memory. Weeks of stress cause reversible damage to neuronal dendrites (the small “arms” that brain cells use to communicate with each other), and months of stress can permanently destroy neurons. Stress is a formidable threat to your success—when stress gets out of control, your brain and your performance suffer.

Most sources of stress at work are easy to identify. If your non-profit is working to land a grant that your organization needs to function, you’re bound to feel stress and likely know how to manage it. It’s the unexpected sources of stress that take you by surprise and harm you the most.

Recent research from the Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany found that exposure to stimuli that cause strong negative emotions—the same kind of exposure you get when dealing with toxic people—caused subjects’ brains to have a massive stress response. Whether it’s negativity, cruelty, the victim syndrome, or just plain craziness, toxic people drive your brain into a stressed-out state that should be avoided at all costs.

The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control. One of their greatest gifts is the ability to neutralize toxic people. Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ to keep toxic people at bay.

While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when dealing with toxic people, what follows are twelve of the best. To deal with toxic people effectively, you need an approach that enables you, across the board, to control what you can and eliminate what you can’t. The important thing to remember is that you are in control of far more than you realize.

1. They Set Limits (Especially with Complainers)
Complainers and negative people are bad news because they wallow in their problems and fail to focus on solutions. They want people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. People often feel pressure to listen to complainers because they don’t want to be seen as callous or rude, but there’s a fine line between lending a sympathetic ear and getting sucked into their negative emotional spiral.

You can avoid this only by setting limits and distancing yourself when necessary. Think of it this way: if the complainer were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with complainers. A great way to set limits is to ask complainers how they intend to fix the problem. They will either quiet down or redirect the conversation in a productive direction.

2. They Don’t Die in the Fight
Successful people know how important it is to live to fight another day, especially when your foe is a toxic individual. In conflict, unchecked emotion makes you dig your heels in and fight the kind of battle that can leave you severely damaged. When you read and respond to your emotions, you’re able to choose your battles wisely and only stand your ground when the time is right.

3. They Rise Above
Toxic people drive you crazy because their behavior is so irrational. Make no mistake about it; their behavior truly goes against reason. So why do you allow yourself to respond to them emotionally and get sucked into the mix?

The more irrational and off-base someone is, the easier it should be for you to remove yourself from their traps. Quit trying to beat them at their own game. Distance yourself from them emotionally and approach your interactions like they’re a science project (or you’re their shrink, if you prefer the analogy). You don’t need to respond to the emotional chaos—only the facts.

4. They Stay Aware of Their Emotions
Maintaining an emotional distance requires awareness. You can’t stop someone from pushing your buttons if you don’t recognize when it’s happening. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in situations where you’ll need to regroup and choose the best way forward. This is fine and you shouldn’t be afraid to buy yourself some time to do so.

Think of it this way—if a mentally unstable person approaches you on the street and tells you he’s John F. Kennedy, you’re unlikely to set him straight. When you find yourself with a coworker who is engaged in similarly derailed thinking, sometimes it’s best to just smile and nod. If you’re going to have to straighten them out, it’s better to give yourself some time to plan the best way to go about it.

5. They Establish Boundaries
This is the area where most people tend to sell themselves short. They feel like because they work or live with someone, they have no way to control the chaos. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Once you’ve found your way to Rise Above a person, you’ll begin to find their behavior more predictable and easier to understand. This will equip you to think rationally about when and where you have to put up with them and when you don’t. For example, even if you work with someone closely on a project team, that doesn’t mean that you need to have the same level of one-on-one interaction with them that you have with other team members.


You can establish a boundary, but you’ll have to do so consciously and proactively. If you let things happen naturally, you are bound to find yourself constantly embroiled in difficult conversations. If you set boundaries and decide when and where you’ll engage a difficult person, you can control much of the chaos. The only trick is to stick to your guns and keep boundaries in place when the person tries to encroach upon them, which they will.

6. They Won’t Let Anyone Limit Their Joy
When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions of other people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something that they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or snide remarks take that away from them.

While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what toxic people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. Regardless of what people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as good or bad as they say you are.

7. They Don’t Focus on Problems—Only Solutions
Where you focus your attention determines your emotional state. When you fixate on the problems you’re facing, you create and prolong negative emotions and stress. When you focus on actions to better yourself and your circumstances, you create a sense of personal efficacy that produces positive emotions and reduces stress.

When it comes to toxic people, fixating on how crazy and difficult they are gives them power over you. Quit thinking about how troubling your difficult person is, and focus instead on how you’re going to go about handling them. This makes you more effective by putting you in control, and it will reduce the amount of stress you experience when interacting with them.

8. They Don’t Forget
Emotionally intelligent people are quick to forgive, but that doesn’t mean that they forget. Forgiveness requires letting go of what’s happened so that you can move on. It doesn’t mean you’ll give a wrongdoer another chance. Successful people are unwilling to be bogged down unnecessarily by others’ mistakes, so they let them go quickly and are assertive in protecting themselves from future harm.

9. They Squash Negative Self-Talk
Sometimes you absorb the negativity of other people. There’s nothing wrong with feeling bad about how someone is treating you, but your self-talk (the thoughts you have about your feelings) can either intensify the negativity or help you move past it. Negative self-talk is unrealistic, unnecessary, and self-defeating. It sends you into a downward emotional spiral that is difficult to pull out of. You should avoid negative self-talk at all costs.

10. They Limit Their Caffeine Intake
Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re surprised in the hallway by an angry coworker.

11. They Get Some Sleep
I’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present.

A good night’s sleep makes you more positive, creative, and proactive in your approach to toxic people, giving you the perspective you need to deal effectively with them.


12. They Use Their Support System
It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To deal with toxic people, you need to recognize the weaknesses in your approach to them. This means tapping into your support system to gain perspective on a challenging person. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something as simple as explaining the situation can lead to a new perspective. Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation.

Bringing It All Together
Before you get this system to work brilliantly, you’re going to have to pass some tests. Most of the time, you will find yourself tested by touchy interactions with problem people. Thankfully, the plasticity of the brain allows it to mold and change as you practice new behaviors, even when you fail. Implementing these healthy, stress-relieving techniques for dealing with difficult people will train your brain to handle stress more effectively and decrease the likelihood of ill effects.

 

[VapidLapid]

Due to the contagion of rabid stupidity that is plaguing our nation, I have had to resort to putting at least seven people here on ignore. One of whom I have long thought is a paid troll of propaganda for trump, who showed up here during the campaigning and has never, to my knowledge, posted about jewelry or gems, but manages to shock and awe the forum for ten hours a day. They get so high on their venom that reason, logic, and basic standards for validity are unable to penetrate their imperious wall of dung. I want not to be sucked in to their terminal cycle. I have a life with real goals, and real interests, and real problems. The time lost of my conscious attention and brain power, let alone the subconscious care to remove the seeds of their poison weeds from the gardens of my mind comes at a wastefully high cost. I salute those who have the fortitude to continue offering them opportunities for reasoned dialogue, hoping to save one or two.

 

[katharath]

Due to the contagion of rabid stupidity that is plaguing our nation, I have had to resort to putting at least seven people here on ignore. One of whom I have long thought is a paid troll of propaganda for trump, who showed up here during the campaigning and has never, to my knowledge, posted about jewelry or gems, but manages to shock and awe the forum for ten hours a day. They get so high on their venom that reason, logic, and basic standards for validity are unable to penetrate their imperious wall of dung. I want not to be sucked in to their terminal cycle. I have a life with real goals, and real interests, and real problems. The time lost of my conscious attention and brain power, let alone the subconscious care to remove the seeds of their poison weeds from the gardens of my mind comes at a wastefully high cost. I salute those who have the fortitude to continue offering them opportunities for reasoned dialogue, hoping to save one or two.

I so love your posts. We've never interacted much, but I've long admired your words. Hope you're well.

 

[missy]

Due to the contagion of rabid stupidity that is plaguing our nation, I have had to resort to putting at least seven people here on ignore. One of whom I have long thought is a paid troll of propaganda for trump, who showed up here during the campaigning and has never, to my knowledge, posted about jewelry or gems, but manages to shock and awe the forum for ten hours a day. They get so high on their venom that reason, logic, and basic standards for validity are unable to penetrate their imperious wall of dung. I want not to be sucked in to their terminal cycle. I have a life with real goals, and real interests, and real problems. The time lost of my conscious attention and brain power, let alone the subconscious care to remove the seeds of their poison weeds from the gardens of my mind comes at a wastefully high cost. I salute those who have the fortitude to continue offering them opportunities for reasoned dialogue, hoping to save one or two.

Agree with your wise post Vapid and putting certain people on Ignore can be a sanity saver!