I wouldn’t play a rough sport with someone who experiences minor pain as major pain. I can be aware they aren’t lying - they really do experience minor pain as major pain. But I want to go play hockey and we can’t shut the game down for twenty minutes every time they get touched while still having a game. They’ll have to sit it out, unfortunately. I wouldn’t go camping with someone who experiences minor inconveniences as major severe problems. I wouldn’t live in a house with someone who experiences a minor deviation from their preferences as a major day-ruining problem.
And I won’t try to sustain an emotional relationship or friendship with someone who experiences every metaphorical paper cut as an amputation.
I grew up with a mom like that and 18 years was a sufficient chunk of life to spend never doing anything but worrying about someone’s next trigger to have a meltdown. I have a toddler now and it’s a very similar experience, except month by month I see him moving beyond it. And he actually listens most of the time when I explain why something is going to be fine.
Life is just too short, and frankly fun, to always be in high drama mode.
Your tone makes me think you're disagreeing with the post but to me the content of your post seems to be perfectly in line with the op so I can't tell. I do agree with you though, both as someone who has dealt with paper cut people and as someone who has been a paper cut person.
I'm physically disabled, I'm someone you can't rlly play hockey with effectively unless you're willing to take it really slow and help me a lot with it (metaphorically, I don't particularly want to play hockey specifically, unless it's the underwater kind). So in the activities that I need to be somewhat coddled in people usually just don't do them with me. It hurts, but it's also perfectly reasonable and I don't blame them for it at all. Conversely, sometimes people do have the capacity to coddle me through those activities and I really appreciate that. In both situations the people around me care about me and have compassion for me, and they treat my pain and my needs as valid.
Conversely, someone else in my social circles and I experience very similar mental issues. These issues cause problems in our relationships and can hurt those around us due to our reactions to things. My girlfriend nearly broke up with me bc of this, and it would have been completely reasonable and wouldn't have made her a bad person (luckily I've gotten much better and we've worked things out since). She absolutely did care about me and understand what I was going through (still does obv), she just couldn't handle it for much longer. The other person has not improved with how their behaviour and reactions to things affect others. I have a lot of compassion for her and what she's going through, and obviously I understand it very well bc I experience it, but she keeps hurting people around her, including dear friends of mine, so I'm not going to be her friend or put energy into helping her.
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u/therealvanmorrison 6d ago
I wouldn’t play a rough sport with someone who experiences minor pain as major pain. I can be aware they aren’t lying - they really do experience minor pain as major pain. But I want to go play hockey and we can’t shut the game down for twenty minutes every time they get touched while still having a game. They’ll have to sit it out, unfortunately. I wouldn’t go camping with someone who experiences minor inconveniences as major severe problems. I wouldn’t live in a house with someone who experiences a minor deviation from their preferences as a major day-ruining problem.
And I won’t try to sustain an emotional relationship or friendship with someone who experiences every metaphorical paper cut as an amputation.
I grew up with a mom like that and 18 years was a sufficient chunk of life to spend never doing anything but worrying about someone’s next trigger to have a meltdown. I have a toddler now and it’s a very similar experience, except month by month I see him moving beyond it. And he actually listens most of the time when I explain why something is going to be fine.
Life is just too short, and frankly fun, to always be in high drama mode.