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No see i have a problem with people who lack empathy and there's certainly plenty these days. It's the fact that the world can be cold and heartless, is one of the biggest reasons why drug addiction is such a big problem.
Empathy is false. No one can ever know what another person is feeling, it requires both stereotyping of a person and complete assumption of the person's situation/personality/history.etc to claim *empathy* with another.
I have a few cousins that have always been screw ups and all became drug addicts. All have been in and out of jail for years. My young cousin just overdosed and died a couple of days ago and everyone on that side of the family is making her out to be a saint now. I have zero sympathy for any of them since they all stood by for years while she was a junkie. I am frankly disgusted by her and them. I have a real problem feeling sorry for drug addicts. I have no desire to offer my condolences because it would be a fake with no sincerity. I so not believe that addicts have disease it is a choice. Everyone knows that people destroy their lives with drugs so why anyone would starting using makes no sense and if you choose that life you deserve whatever you get.
I feel as you do, but probably not as harsh, but we are all our own victims of our choices, and I believe you associate this as a grave weakness. And yes, it is, but what people also fail to view, is the great pain these addicts cause those who love them...before and after death.
I will never see this as a disease...when you start playing around with drugs, you know before hand what can happen, so....
And I also believe that addiction runs in a person's genetics, all the more reason, to not play with fire.
It is very very sad...but it is in fact a choice...and it probably makes you angry to see such a life snuffed out by addiction
Condolences are for the people who are grieving. Even if you don't care that she died, imo, it's pretty heartless to not care for the pain of her loved ones.
Idk how old you are but making the dead seem better than they were is not unusual. You ever hear of the saying "don't speak ill of the dead "? You're choosing to focus on the bad part of her life but I'm sure they have many great memories of her beforehand.
Even though you're not a junkie, imagine if you died but some people don't like you. How would you feel if someone knows your family is in pain but they refuse to comfort them bc of their feelings towards you?
You really shouldn't be so black and white. You never know what life may bring you. What goes around comes around.
Condolences are for the people who are grieving. Even if you don't care that she died, imo, it's pretty heartless to not care for the pain of her loved ones.
Idk how old you are but making the dead seem better than they were is not unusual. You ever hear of the saying "don't speak ill of the dead "? You're choosing to focus on the bad part of her life but I'm sure they have many great memories of her beforehand.
Even though you're not a junkie, imagine if you died but some people don't like you. How would you feel if someone knows your family is in pain but they refuse to comfort them bc of their feelings towards you?
You really shouldn't be so black and white. You never know what life may bring you. What goes around comes around.
maybe the op is still in shock and angry....there are several emotions that follow death....
sounded to me, like the OP was extremely disappointed....sometimes when people write, they come across differently than they really feel....
I would be angry if it were my cousin....b/c it's senseless....and didn't have to be....
but I believe in time, the anger goes away, especially as we age?
I have a few cousins that have always been screw ups and all became drug addicts. All have been in and out of jail for years. My young cousin just overdosed and died a couple of days ago and everyone on that side of the family is making her out to be a saint now. I have zero sympathy for any of them since they all stood by for years while she was a junkie. I am frankly disgusted by her and them. I have a real problem feeling sorry for drug addicts. I have no desire to offer my condolences because it would be a fake with no sincerity. I so not believe that addicts have disease it is a choice. Everyone knows that people destroy their lives with drugs so why anyone would starting using makes no sense and if you choose that life you deserve whatever you get.
If you feel that strongly about it, and honestly don't care, then why bother making a thread about it. I mean really, why bother writing a post, and having people post their opinions for you to read if you truly don't care. What would be the purpose of the thread for you, since you have absolutely no sympathy, and no desire to express any sort of condolences. I believe you do care, that can only be the purpose for your thread. Even if you just came here to vent, or try to validate your feelings, you had your cousin on your mind. Behind the anger stage of your grief, I believe you really do care. You are probably angry that all the people around her couldn't save your cousin. It's ok to be angry and I'm so sorry for your loss.
It's too bad that Narcan was invented. Just like our welfare system, it enables failing people to keep failing.
yes, I have to wonder, how many of these people who are saved over and over from Narcan, are treated to be free of drugs.
You have to wonder what their parents and relatives are going thru?
I heard that schools in NJ are now going to be required to carry the drug....
There is something very wrong within our system, within our parenting skills, a much deeper rooted problem, and it's a shame that kids are not raised with that fear of drugs in their minds.
This is also something a miss in our society as far as education, for parents to realize, if there is a weakness within the family chances are the weakness will fester and grow within the children.....
I fear we have not progressed intellectually, but more so, have regressed.
No see i have a problem with people who lack empathy and there's certainly plenty these days. It's the fact that the world can be cold and heartless, is one of the biggest reasons why drug addiction is such a big problem.
Why should anyone feel sympathy for a heroin or meth addict? Or someone addicted to opiods? While some opiod addicts got hooked on painkillers prescribed for them, others have stolen the meds or bought them from dealers. Most drug addicts have only themselves to blame for their poor life choices.
And having such disdain for that sort of activity is why there are no drug addicts in my family. We also have the same feelings towards teen baby mommas... and no surprise that my family has never produced a teen baby momma either.
yes, I have to wonder, how many of these people who are saved over and over from Narcan, are treated to be free of drugs.
You have to wonder what their parents and relatives are going thru?
I heard that schools in NJ are now going to be required to carry the drug....
There is something very wrong within our system, within our parenting skills, a much deeper rooted problem, and it's a shame that kids are not raised with that fear of drugs in their minds.
This is also something a miss in our society as far as education, for parents to realize, if there is a weakness within the family chances are the weakness will fester and grow within the children.....
I fear we have not progressed intellectually, but more so, have regressed.
They ARE raised with the fear of drugs in their minds, with the education, but that doesn't always do it. It doesn't have to do with "parenting skills", either. You're old enough, I know, to remember the old saying that "the same fire that melts butter hardens iron." There are no guarantees that a particular child will turn out one way or the other. You do the best you can, but in the end, a good part of it is a crapshoot.
I do think the tendency toward addiction that you call a weakness should not be disregarded, but in the end it might not help anyway.
My ex-husband is an alcoholic, and I suspected he had bipolar disorder because of his cycles of mood swings. I had him carted out by the police when our daughter was 8, divorced him not long after, went through the legal system to have him required to do some rehab time before he could have unsupervised visitation, the whole nine.
Raised my daughter from that age to know what alcoholism was, to respect her father without ever saying he was an abusive dick-head, and to warn against the possibility of her having inherited his tendencies.
She was a completely straight-edge geek throughout high school. She would not touch alcohol or drugs. She dated the son of a preacher man and they went to church and wrote music together and hung out with other geeky kids all through high school.
And then.
In college she decided to have some drinks when she went out with her friends. Long story short, by 24 she almost killed herself one night with a mixture of tequila and xanax and landed in the hospital vomiting blood and wishing she was dead, and told the doctors that.
She has bipolar disorder and is an alcoholic, just like Daddy. She is in recovery and her illness is treated with medicine.
Now you can jam your hand down your pants and dance around like a palsied chicken pointing fingers at my kid for her "weakness" and point fingers at me for being a bad parent who should have done something to prevent this, but the fact remains that I did everything I possibly could and the fact remains that my daughter was born an alcoholic/addict and there was nothing I could have done to change that.
On the other hand, she is a PhD candidate in the Mandarin language, and you couldn't construct a grammatically-correct English sentence if someone put a gun to your head, so there's also that thing where sometimes the crazy comes along with the intelligence. There is nothing a parent can necessarily do about that, either.
I don't really care that you can't write clearly, cremebrulee. This is just a stupid message board, and I know some people suck at English. I suck at Algebra. That's not the point.
The point is that you can't sit where you are and pontificate about what other parents should have done because sometimes we did our damnedest and it didn't make a difference anyway. Whether it's the inability to control our substance intake or the inability to ever learn something that everyone else seems to pick up easily; sometimes, it's just the way we all were born.
I have a few cousins that have always been screw ups and all became drug addicts. All have been in and out of jail for years. My young cousin just overdosed and died a couple of days ago and everyone on that side of the family is making her out to be a saint now. I have zero sympathy for any of them since they all stood by for years while she was a junkie. I am frankly disgusted by her and them. I have a real problem feeling sorry for drug addicts. I have no desire to offer my condolences because it would be a fake with no sincerity. I so not believe that addicts have disease it is a choice. Everyone knows that people destroy their lives with drugs so why anyone would starting using makes no sense and if you choose that life you deserve whatever you get.
For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. matthew 7:2
They ARE raised with the fear of drugs in their minds, with the education, but that doesn't always do it. It doesn't have to do with "parenting skills", either. You're old enough, I know, to remember the old saying that "the same fire that melts butter hardens iron." There are no guarantees that a particular child will turn out one way or the other. You do the best you can, but in the end, a good part of it is a crapshoot.
I do think the tendency toward addiction that you call a weakness should not be disregarded, but in the end it might not help anyway.
My ex-husband is an alcoholic, and I suspected he had bipolar disorder because of his cycles of mood swings. I had him carted out by the police when our daughter was 8, divorced him not long after, went through the legal system to have him required to do some rehab time before he could have unsupervised visitation, the whole nine.
Raised my daughter from that age to know what alcoholism was, to respect her father without ever saying he was an abusive dick-head, and to warn against the possibility of her having inherited his tendencies.
She was a completely straight-edge geek throughout high school. She would not touch alcohol or drugs. She dated the son of a preacher man and they went to church and wrote music together and hung out with other geeky kids all through high school.
And then.
In college she decided to have some drinks when she went out with her friends. Long story short, by 24 she almost killed herself one night with a mixture of tequila and xanax and landed in the hospital vomiting blood and wishing she was dead, and told the doctors that.
She has bipolar disorder and is an alcoholic, just like Daddy. She is in recovery and her illness is treated with medicine.
Now you can jam your hand down your pants and dance around like a palsied chicken pointing fingers at my kid for her "weakness" and point fingers at me for being a bad parent who should have done something to prevent this, but the fact remains that I did everything I possibly could and the fact remains that my daughter was born an alcoholic/addict and there was nothing I could have done to change that.
On the other hand, she is a PhD candidate in the Mandarin language, and you couldn't construct a grammatically-correct English sentence if someone put a gun to your head, so there's also that thing where sometimes the crazy comes along with the intelligence. There is nothing a parent can necessarily do about that, either.
I don't really care that you can't write clearly, cremebrulee. This is just a stupid message board, and I know some people suck at English. I suck at Algebra. That's not the point.
The point is that you can't sit where you are and pontificate about what other parents should have done because sometimes we did our damnedest and it didn't make a difference anyway. Whether it's the inability to control our substance intake or the inability to ever learn something that everyone else seems to pick up easily; sometimes, it's just the way we all were born.
I am very very sorry for your pain....sorry that you've been made to see this happen to your daughter....no one should have to go thru this...no one....
When speaking about this, and parenting, I certainly didn't mean you....but can see how you would feel and understand your feelings.
My grandfather was an alcoholic, he abused his four daughters, both sexually and physically beating them up all the time. My mother beat me up...b/c it's all she knew. In her distorted mind, I guess it was her way of interrupting love. I don't know...what I do know, is, that one of my aunts killed herself, two of them were confrontational, loved drama and causing drama, and I had been slapped around so much, I can still hear the ringing in my ears from my mother hauling off an slapping me, constantly. S
My mother loved bringing others down to her level of pain...she hated people, especially those who were successful, most of all, she disliked herself. I was no good, never did anything right, and yet, went to work when I was 13, and handed all my money over to her. I had to...I had to help put food on the table.
She constantly reminded me, how she could have given me up and had a good life, but didn't. I wished like anything she had.
She and her sisters were of course, attracted to abusive men...my aunt married an alcoholic, who sexually abused all of his daughters and two sons and me, since we were very young. I was five years old. All of their five kids grew up with terrible mental problems....and I've had to struggle with cutting them all out of my life...my maternal mother just passed away. I felt nothing, but remorse for the relationship we never had.
So in my own mind, I realized, somehow that this all came from drinking...I seem to forget, that not everyone has the strong personal constitution that I have managed to adopt since a child so for that I apologize...but didn't set out to hurt you, b/c I didn't know...
When I talk about parenting, I'm talking about the kind of parenting that I came from...and I'm extremely harsh, because, it took it's toll on me....so please understand, my strength came from the weakness of my mother's father and the problems my mother had mentally.
I wish and hope and will pray that your daughter improves with each new day...
I'm very sorry and sorry that you took my posts personally....they were not aimed at you or anyone else, except dysfunctional families like the one I came from and do hope you believe that.
Please know, you'll be in my thoughts and prayers.
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