What support really is and what being supporive isn't

So, hello, welcome to this little corner of the internet.  It's a small corner, to be sure, free of cute kittens and *****graphy, which is pretty rare these days.  This little internet cache is for us surgical weight loss patients, pending and present.  A place where we can share ideas, gather information, and provide support with only modest exposure to advertisements.

Let's chat about support.

I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what "being supportive" means and I'd like to open a dialogue and address those. I like to work from the back-end, so I'm going to discuss from the view of being "unsupportive".

It is not unsupportive of someone if they disagree with you.  This is a pretty simple one, but just look at interactions between Rupublicans and Democrats to see what insanity can ensue from disagreement.   Yes, it can be easy to feel like someone disagreeing with you is personally attacking you - and who knows, maybe they are?  But when someone shares their truth with you, they aren't being unsupportive.  You can accuse them of being wrong (be careful of this), but they are trying to help/support you.  Sharing what we believe to be true ("carbs are evil" or "carbs are necessary") isn't a personal attack.

It is not unsupportive to lack commiseration.  Let's put on our big-boy/big-girl pants, and all agree that we sometimes do this, myself included:  we come clean about some dumbass thing we're doing ("Is it ok to eat fried chocolate cake?") or such, and we want a 'there-there' pat on the back.  Well, getting commiseration on the web i****and-miss, folks.  There's no body language or tonal inflection, so people never are certain if you've just had an astounding revelation that changes your life forever, or if you're just fishing for permission to eat fried chocolate cake.  Honestly, if you feel you need to wade around in your mistake and temporary embrace self-pity for a while and share commiseration, use the right tool:  seek our your friends and/or a therapist.  That's why you have them.  Seek kindness from people, face-to-face, not from the internet.

It's not unsupportive to receive a wake-up call.  Another time of honesty.  At different periods of our lives, our heads have been up our asses, as the saying goes.  You are a human being and thus extremely fallible.  Some mistakes are small, and some are gigantic, like our former butts.  Someone may hold a virtual mirror up to your face so that you can see the image you are showing others without realizing it.  This can be extremely painful to be on the receiving end - I've been there with egg on my face, feeling like a fool.  But it's not unsupportive for someone to hold up that mirror to your face to try to help you.  In fact, doing this in person, face-to-face, can take a tremendous amount of bravery.  (Not so much bravery required to do on the internet.)  The fact of the matter is that a subset of you are eating crap, too much of it, and you're not going to get to goal - there's a vague, untargeted wake-up call from me.  And if you don't believe that, just look at forum postings each month from different people who come back months or years later, regaining.

Ok, so.... what then do I think being unsupportive really is?  I've got two big ones:

It is unsupportive to personally attack someone.  This includes name-calling ("you're a dumbass") or bringing in some personal element that isn't related to the discussion ("how could you be right about anything, you can't even hold a job").  If you feel you have to go to these places (whether you are giving or receiving information) then log-off.  You're not functionally supporting someone if you're attacking their character.  When providing critical feedback, it's vital to focus only on the behavior ("you're eating more than 3 ounces of food at a time") rather than the abstract ("you're an idiot for overeating").  

It is unsupportive to remain silent and not share your truth.  Ah ha!  Well here's where I'm just a big old hypocrite, because I pretty much do this fairly consistently now.  I'm not at the top of the vet chain, but am getting up there with almost two years out of surgery, a year out from my lower body lift, and being weight-stable at goal for over a year.  I see tons of posts and have information and experiences that could help them, but I don't share them.  Two reasons, one is defendable and one isn't.  The indefensible reason:  they are highly repetitive.  Honestly we should all gather up and write an FAQ (but that's for a different time).   The defensible reason:  A negative feedback gets set up when you do share your truth with someone, and it's received as a personal attack (because they disagree) or too mean (because I'm not commiserating) or bullying (by providing a wake-up call).  Still, I'm a hypocrite here and I'll own that. 

It's interesting how personal some of us take critical feedback and how with others it's like water off a duck's back.  I wrote this post over a year ago about how you have to maintain a militant-like mentality if your goal was/is to get to 100% excess weight loss.  My view is that this post is highly supportive; others were mixed.  Some find it supportive because of the content, others posted (in neighboring threads) that it lacked support because there was no gentleness or commiseration.  

I think we need to remember that the vast majority of the time, even if what we reads feels bad, it goes from a foundation of trying to support one another.

Well said! 

Thanks for going to the effort of writing all this out. Great message.....

A

I'm 11 lbs from goal. I for the most part eat what I'm suppose to. I log every bite. I keep my water & protein & carbs where they need to be. In the beginning I was ignorant of a lot of things. I've learned a tremendous. I've written posts where I was on a rant so to speak about other's behavior. People who had surgery a while back & know their eating is off course but continue that behavior. I was blasted about this. It wasn't my behavior. Then when I made this clear I was blasted for unrealistic  behaviors. I later posted a question when I was stalling. I researched before I posted. I couldn't find what I was looking for. The only responses I got were from newbies with less experience than I had & people I doubt were exercising except maybe 30 min. Walk a day. It had to do with stalling after upping my exercise to very vigorous high intensity circuit training 2-3 hours a day 4-5 days a week. I finally talked to a trainer who actually gave me some real insight without berating me or giving me info. From someone who didn't have a clue. I'm getting fed up with this site. It's not support what I'm getting. It's berating. I'm staying on plan. I just want info. Ill go to the professional experts next time not the novices who think since they lost 15 #'s they know everything or the more experienced who berate others for sticking to their plan. Good bye OH

Oooh,  a Board suicide with only the 3rd post. That's gotta be some kind of record for you, Ruggie!

I still can't work out the "finally got help from a trainer who doesn't have a clue".

Ah well.

I couldn't work out a lot of it.

But I think a lot of people seriously need to get over themselves. This is the internet, not Kindergarten and we're random strangers, not your doctor or your mother.

It's like going to a Meet-up event or some other social event organized around a common interest. You don't know most, maybe any, of the people. Some of them are on their best behavior. Some of them are on their worst. Some of them are doing their best, but have marginal social or communication skills. You have something in common with them but it's not like everyone you meet is guaranteed to be your besties forever just because you all have WLS. Or even the same WLS. Or the same surgeon.

This is what I say to them:

You may get what you want out of this particular corner of OH or you may not. If you do, come back. If you don't, go somewhere else. But there's no need to be so dramatic about it or to accuse those who are here of being horrible people because what we do here doesn't meet your needs. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of online weight loss support groups online with all sorts of focuses and all sorts of cultures. If this one doesn't cut it for you, find another one. It will be better for everyone.

If you need a very gentle group where everything is sunshine and roses, there are groups like that. If you want a group where people kick you in the ass every other second even when you kind of didn't want them to, there are groups like that. There are groups for people who like to fight about everything. Or never want to fight about anything. There are places for the crazies to hang and tell each other that everyone else is crazy and they are the normal ones. There are places for people very newly out and people who are years out. There are places for people who hardly ever want to talk about WLS or who want to talk about nothing else.

There's a place for everyone. It may be this place. Or not. It may be this place today but not tomorrow. I went away for a few years from this particular board on OH even though I was still around on other forums here. And even now I don't read half the threads. I do what I need to in order to get the support I need while giving back a bit like people gave back to me.

But I'm not going to give up my sanity or endanger my own recovery to do that. If that means I have to go away again because where my head is at doesn't mesh with where this board is at, I will. But you can be sure I won't post some melodramatic board suicide over it or even some passive-aggressive crap about people letting me down or not being what I expected or whatever. I'll just start hanging out more somewhere else.

This is a great post and and I am glad you took the time to do it.  I agree with you, which is typical, on every point.  Your kind of support is exactly what keeps me here.  I need to hear your journey and your truth because it buttresses my own experiences.  I hope that you will always feel comfortable to call me out when needed and I promise to do the same for you if you should ever post that chocolate cake seems to go down very well as long as it's followed by cola. :)

I know you know this, but I love you!

I shall have to see where smartass snarky ***** falls in this list. It wasn't bolded.  

 

That's a fine line, that is.