so about that pesky Captain Awkward

[vom_marlowe]

I quit reading CA a long time ago, for the most part.  For the mild social situations like what to do when you want to go restaurant A and your friends wish to go to restaurant B, I think she's fine.  Gifs, funny quotes, snark, sure.

But I think her advice on mental illness is terrible.  I think her advice on how to deal with oneself or one's partner in a context of mental illness inside a healthy relationship is pretty spectacularly awful. 

I have been doing a LOT of thinking about the CA thing, and disability issues, and relationships.  I just can't help thinking that the attitudes and advice there is like a siren-song that's luring some people to their (relationship) death and it makes me sad.

(I could explain why I think this, if people are interested, but I'm pretty sure I am a far outlier on this topic.  Near as I can tell, most people love CA.)

Comments

[kore]

TELL ME MORE


I had to actually leechblock CA a while ago, I don't remember exactly what did it -- I think it was the increasing echo chamber comments ('Jedi hugs!') and how every single small relationship problem was solved by 'DUMP HIS LOUSY ASS.'

[vom_marlowe]

I think my actual breaking point was the advice to tell your depressed partner to do XYZ housework as you're leaving, then expect them to have done it, and if not, DTMFA. Let me see if I can find it--it's not even the most recent ridic housekeeping one.

[kore]

'If you can't get off that sofa you can at least DUST around it, baby!'

[vom_marlowe]

Here we go: http://captainawkward.com/2013/01/05/429-430-when-depression-is-contagious/
combined with this:
http://captainawkward.com/2013/07/06/little-things-that-people-say-that-totally-shift-your-perspective/

I just feel like CA is really in an unhealthy place in a completely contradictory twisty fashion. 1. It's Good to tell depressed partner to take out the garbage! They totally have to pull their weight when you tell them to or you should dump them! 2. I'm so depressed that all I can take responsibility for today is folding a single piece of laundry. Folding a single piece of laundry is a victory!

Aaaaiyiiyii. I think this pendulum swing reveals a lack of skills in the middle ground where I think healthiness resides. I don't think either way will really result in a health dynamic with a longtime partner. (Even though I think using ones words and making tiny goals both have their place.)

[havocthecat]

I feel like the general CA mantra is very self-focused. Like, the logic is there, but the underlying premise seems to be 'do what's best for you,' not 'let's see what can be done about the situation.'

Sometimes, sure, you need to set standards and have people help pull their weight (though I think that 'or you should dump them' need not be a first resort piece of advice), and also sometimes that itty bitty goal of folding one piece of laundry really is that major victory. But neither one is really about anyone other than yourself.

Some people need to be reminded that they deserve to take care of themselves too! But in CA's case, it feels like a one size fits all solution, and I feel like sometimes she and her commenters don't take empathy for others into account when suggesting solutions either. So it falls flat and feels simplistic to me.

YMMV and anyone reading may feel free to disagree with me, of course. I will admit, I became disenchanted with CA once I discovered she was planning to write a book based on her webpage and use selected comments in her book. I asked her to delete my comments, provided her with links to all of them, and I certainly hope that she has respected my wishes and done so as she agreed.

[vom_marlowe]

Yeah, I think the self-focus is a big part of it where it falls down for me. I decided to go ahead and write up a post about my thoughts, but I thought I'd burble a bit now.

Part of my feeling, that I'm really shy about sharing, is that my issue with her advice is how much it's self-focused. Like, improving my relationships despite my depression (and even scarier to mention!) my disability required me to think of how I was affecting others. Not in the huge ZOMG I suck! suck! suck! way, but in a "when I'm depressed, I sometimes forget to do this dishes, and sometimes I don't show appreciation for what others do." Which is HARD, really hard, the HARDEST. (In a lot of ways, the black n white, "I suck at everything!" + "No, it's OK, I'm awesome!" tropes are easier.) Because what I need to look at in the middle road isn't what matters to *me*, but what matters to my loved ones. They may not care about the dishes or the appreciation but be really pissed about something else altogether--and how scary is that? But that's something *they* get to decide. Accepting that someone else's viewpoint is the "right" part is super tough, but, kinda important.

One thing that has really struck me is how much a "we/us" solution seems to be lacking in the general advice. In working out solutions in longterm relationships, I think a "we" solution is pretty important. It's been crucial to my own successful relationships, and all the old (happily) married folk I know talk in "we" terms at times. Like, my friend said, "Yeah, a dishwasher saved our marriage. We're both terrible at dishes." Even though her husband wasn't there, she still was thinking of her and her guy against the Evil Mountain of Housework. Not a me/he, but an us.

Overall, I think her advice tends to lack input from the other side. Empathy, feedback, flow, negotiation, compromise, and sometimes just damn hard work, all play a role in getting through the Heavy Shit. Sometimes, I think, there may also be times to just let a relationship be one-sided for a while. I mean, I've done that with grieving or ill friends, and gotten the same in return at other times. None of this stuff is easy, for sure, but.... I don't know. Anyway. I hope to get some stuff written up about it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I hadn't heard that about the book at all, wow.

[kore]

I like that a lot. Like v_m says, I don't think I've ever seen CA advise doing something for someone else -- even a little something! -- in the name of compromise or easing strain or making people feel better, or whatever, and while I know women get used to doormatting themselves due to cultural and personal expectations, it's like she goes too far in the other direction.

I discovered she was planning to write a book based on her webpage and use selected comments in her book

HOLY CRAP WHAT?

[boxofdelights]

Do you mean all the contempt toward people who aren't pulling their own weight? I am still reading, I do still like her, but ow, every time there's an opportunity to vent some anger toward people who are failing to cope, ow ow ow.

[vom_marlowe]

Partly, yeah.

OTOH, if partner isn't pulling their weight, she advises telling them what to do (no real shared solution). "I need you to take out the garbage, thanks."
OTOH, if a sibling is chronically late, just don't expect them to be on time for three months, because shame spiral/struggle/reasons.

I think both options aren't very effective. The first amounts to nagging. The second is, well, failing to hold people responsible for their actions.

I do feel rather bad at saying this, but in general, I've found people who have successfully negotiated the troubled waters of a tricky relationship over decades usually talk about solutions quite differently. I've shared a home with my partially disabled mom for good lord, many years, as well as lived with a lot of different kinds of people and been involved in same, etc. Keeping things going well has required a ton of different tools, and if I'd stuck with CA's approach, things would have flamed out long ago. While she seems like a good person, I don't think that relationships necessarily work the way she sees them. I'm also profoundly uncomfortable at how much advice she directs to and about mental illness without professional training (the social anxiety guy was AWFUL but I formed this opinion before that).

[kore]

I'm also profoundly uncomfortable at how much advice she directs to and about mental illness without professional training (the social anxiety guy was AWFUL but I formed this opinion before that).

YUP

I thought some of her DTMF 'advice' was sketchy but it's not at all on the same level as 'Let's mock the person with mental illness!' Gahh.

[jjhunter]

This is really interesting to hear. I like CA's advice re: conversation scripts and certain elements of here's-how-to-handle-x-social-situation; I very rarely read any of the comment sections; I do not have the lived experience romantic relationship-wise to parse the relationship-specific advice critically to the same degree I can parse most of the other stuff.

Are there other columnists / writers whose advice on the subject of

how to deal with oneself or one's partner in a context of mental illness inside a healthy relationship

you'd recommend instead? I'm fond of Dear Sugar, and Hyperbole and a Half, but neither of those seem to be updating currently.

[vom_marlowe]

Let me think about other places to read about those issues. Hmmm. I'm lucky in that I have a couple long-time happily married friends who give pretty great advice, but they're not exactly writing columns. I do think that's where I'd look first, though. Couples who have gone through hard times, but they still speak with warmth and fondness of their spouses.

[daedala]

I never really sat down to figure out what my issue was with the blog, but I don't read it regularly. Sometimes I like the social advice, but yeah, the more serious stuff just rubbed me the wrong way.

[havocthecat]

I would love to hear more. I am not a fan of CA for several reasons, though I don't say that much because of her general popularity.

[ironed_orchid]

I mostly like the blog, but there is this big message of "You Get to Look After Yourself" which sometimes ends up coming over as "You come first" and likewise the message that it's okay to walk away from relationships that aren't working (which I think is a good and important message) sometimes see4ms expressed as "if relationship isn't working, then walk away".

Which is not very helpful or nuanced.

[via_ostiense]

I go back and forth on CA; some entries are useful, and some make me go ^.-.

[kore]

Someone asked me something like 'But what do you do when using your words _doesn't_ work?' (I think the context was a difficult conversation with a parent.) And DTMF usually seems like the rote answer, which....no.