I love the passing of time

We had a RAD kid living with us for a while. Jim & I were talking about her the other night. Remembering how she would go blank when we’d be working with her on her homework & when she had to do word problems. She knew *how* to do all of the different math functions. She knew how to add, subtract, multiply & divide (for the most part), but she had no idea how to decide which one to use in which situation. We would read through the word problem & then ask her what she thought she should do. She would randomly choose numbers from the problem and math functions & put them together for her answer: I should times the people and the time, right? I should add the cows to the bottles?, etc.

And, I got to thinking, it was the same for her with social behaviors, too. She *knew* how to be polite, how to be assertive, how to be independent, how to behave, how to be responsible, how to have fun… She just had no clue *when* to be each of these things. She was just randomly choosing behaviors, or, choosing the ones that might have worked before, or that were fun. But, seldom did she seem to be choosing a behavior because it was the appropriate behavior for the situation. She could get the easy ones (pious in church, for example), because of sheer repetition over the course of her life. But, when faced with something where she hadn’t made repetitive successful choices, she was lost.

I wonder if they are related somehow

Last night I dreamed that someone (allison, annie, me?) accidentally clicked on ‘buy it now’ to buy a horse listed on E-bay. The horse cost $4900!

I decided that we really couldn’t afford it & that it was too far to go pick it up, anyway, even if we were going to go ahead & buy it. It was in Iowa or Ohio, I think.

I retracted the bid. And, decided that, instead of emailing an apology, this deserved an apology in person. So, Annie & I drove there & apologized to the woman (at that point, I told her that Annie was the one who clicked on ‘buy it now’, but in the dream I felt like I was lying, then). She was like, “Well, you’re here, now, anyway - do you want to buy it?”. I said that I couldn’t because I didn’t have a horse trailer.

I’m thinking that I actually made the purchase, but then regretted it thinking about the pickup and about where we would stable it & how we would feed it.

me: I really want to sew when I get home - i figured out the hat pattern (i think)
me: and, annie wants that sleeping bag
jim: yeah, she asked me when you were going to be home.
jim: i had been napping, and we were cuddling on the couch
jim: and i asked her if it was because i was so boring today
jim: and she said no, she wants her sleeping bag
jim: and she showed me her pillowcase

Every time I write about something like this, I think: I should really get a life. I shouldn’t be thinking about message boards so much, that I feel I need to have ideas about them that I feel I need to ‘work out’ or write out. But, I do. Over the years I’ve got so much from them. And, I’ve had so much fun with them. But, it’s just so ‘virtual’, so unreal sometimes, so much like a text-based computer game…

There’s this one message board that I go to that prides itself on it’s ‘no blowing sunshine up people’s asses’ attitude. I haven’t been there in almost a month, now, though. Weeks ago, someone from that board saw that I had blogged about some issues that I was having with some of the replies on that board. She said, quite rightly, that if I had issues there, I should talk about them there, because everyone there ‘can take it’. I guess that I was afraid (?) to post there, or didn’t want to post an opposing opinion there, because I just don’t feel like arguing my point or trying to justify my feelings. And, as that person had me thinking, if that’s what they are & if I don’t feel like I fit in there, then, why go there? And, why blog about it?

If I enjoyed arguing, I might have said that I blog about it because it’s my blog & that’s where I write what I’m feeling. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. But, I can understand the ‘why go there’ part, I guess. So, I just kind of stopped going there. Problem is, there are so many people there that I have come to care about. :sigh:

Now, on a completely different message board thing, but I think they kind of fit together in the end… I think that I’m starting to see something that is a real problem with the way some posters approach some support sites. Especially support sites that deal with day-to-day real life issues that can be approached in a variety of different ways. What I’m seeing is a lack of real empathy & real active listening.

Some people on support sites are really great at this. I don’t know if I was ever or am really good at it myself.

But, what I think I’m seeing is two different kind of replies and, really, not too much difference in their fitting into a real ’support’ system.

The first reply is the ‘You’re right, honey!’ kind of sunshine blowing that lets someone post about how they hate their stepkid just because they exist & that existing makes the OP feel bad. I’ve seen quite a few message boards, lately, that :soapbox: about how unsupportive this kind of reply is. In this kind of post/reply exchange, the original poster might as well just be blogging what they have to say. There is no growth, no resolution, no change for them.

The other reply that I think is just as unsupportive, is the ‘You’re wrong!’ kind of automatic ‘this is my opinion and no matter how you feel, I’m not even going to try to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing’ reply that, really, takes just as much concern and empathy as the first. In this kind of post/reply, the replier might as well just be blogging what they have to say. There is no reaching outside of their own beliefs to try to really understand the OP enough to give advice that might actually resonate with the OP.

In both, there is no real exchange, no growth, no sharing. No active listening to the OP or repliers. No consideration on the part of the ‘listeners’ or the OP that the OP or the repliers might have something to teach them, too. Just people saying what they’re going to say & people replying & no listening.

At least, that’s what I’m thinking about & feeling right now.

Of course, there are good, empathetic listeners on every board that I’ve ever been on (and in real life, too). There are some awesome support boards out there. And, some awesome friendships have come of them. There are boards that are just plain fun, whether there’s support going on or not. But, I dunno, I guess I’m just feeling & thinking about the hypocrisy of the ’sunshine blowing’ and the ‘no sunshine blowing’ more today than usual. Probably because I’m missing some of my friends & some of the fun we used to have, all because I’m not able to get over my own issues enough to either try to effect change or to ignore the things that I think need changing.