Do others post threads undermining you?

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Have you ever seen a thread someone posted while you were carrying out a lively discussion, that you thought was intended to undermine some story you were telling or some point you were trying to make or some trait you have?

Example, I was on here a few months ago, loudly complaining about NTs being evil and deluded and full of egotistical, irrational schemes and games. I was filled with a need to talk about my sexual harassment and retaliation trauma and the scheming, manipulative NTs who engage in that kind of behavior. During that time, every time someone posted a thread, "Do you suffer from delusions?" or "Do you imagine that other people mistreat you?" I wondered if they were taking digs at my story, without having the guts to come out and say so.

Similarly, when someone starts complaining about something and others get interested, you see these side questions come up and get posted. Is that a case where people are just reflecting on the ideas that the issues raise in their minds, or where they are actually targeting the OP with some game, like to undermine him/her? Have you ever felt someone posted a thread to undermine you?

Has that ever happened to you, where you were emotionally engaged in some issue or discussion, and then you felt others posted topics that you felt might have been intended to undermine you or answer their spin-off questions?

If someone ever did, would that strike you as mean, evil, dysfunctional, pathetic, funny or entertaining?

I recall the threads you are referring to but that particular poster was digging on everybody and was eventually banned. It generally only occurs with some new troll who needs someting to post about. This is much different than where two or more people get into a running disagreement within the body of a thread. That can be educational for everybody.

Yeah it can be. Can I be honest again? After reading certain posts here I feel nothing but defensive. That's how I feel sometimes reading posts here. Just defensive and alienated.

I totally agree. It seems to me the place is a little subdued now. There are much more lively and educational threads when people are allowed to disagree and argue their points.

Even though it seems personally hurtful when people dig at your stands and stories, it does make for lively and educational discussions.

If an idea is worth defending and arguing over, then it's worth and relevance becomes obvious during the debate.

IMO it's important to not suddenly start personalizing the debates too much, because that suppresses lively exchange of ideas and also throws a wet blanket over discussions because then everything becomes a personal attack.

I think many of us feel defensive and alienated by nature without even visiting WP.

Garyww, I know what you're saying but can't you at least agree this is a valid point instead of just glossing over everything, calling it educational discussions? It's not educational discussions. A lot of it is I don't know what you'd call it. Insulting? How is being insulted an educational discussion?

Last edited by ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo on 13 Mar 2009, 8:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

Not threads, but individual posts. When I said about my mum taking my stuff away, someone said in another thread something about "spoiled brats who think their parents abuse them when they are punished". I'm SURE that was aimed at me. I never said anything about abuse anyway, other people said that for me. And I'm not spoiled.

My mum's taking my stuff away again now and all. Not just the internet and DVDs, either, EVERYTHING. I'm on here now cos she'll be taking my laptop really soon. I have had to hide my iPod, phone (I don't trust her not to look through it), diary (ditto), and some books. She's trying to make my home life suck so I'll go back to school. Epic fail, cos anything she can throw at me will still be better than being insulted by random chavs at school. And besides, I am almost never bored at home, I have too many thoughts to get bored.

I agree about the sudued thing for sure but right now everybody is depressed by taxes, bailouts for rich people and a new administration that appears to be clueless and still has no staff in the treasury after 50 days in office.
It will pick up after after the revolution starts to gain momentum.

Last edited by garyww on 13 Mar 2009, 8:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Siiiigh...see? It does absolutely no good. It's just a bunch of pretense. It doesn't matter what you say or do the results are always the same.

There are threads/posts here that I've taken exception to, but I'm not quite paranoid enough to think that they're directed at me.

No.

To be honest, I don't really think much of what other people say; whether it's because I can't or I don't care, I don't know (in other words, I do the total opposite to what this thread is about). I try to be reciprocal, but it's just fake; I just feeling nothing with words people say out in the open--it's all meaningless to me. This is probably autism.

I think a lot depends on how paranoid a person is before they come to the site but as others have said this site is very mild and considerate of members sensitivities compared to sites where we can really be mean and rude to others.

Garyww...I disagree somewhat. Why excuse some of the posts by comparing them to posts on other sites that are worse? That's not an excuse. It still doesn't take away from the insulting content of the posts here.

I agree with this, too. I have felt so much under attack personally for stating some ideas I was passionate about and defended. When you get to the point where you feel that instead of engaging your ideas and theories and words openly, you are just being undermined personally, it's a sour feeling.

But you cannot let the snide people or underminers silence your voice. That's the story of my existence out in NT world, and I just totally ignore them when I think it happens here.

You can never win against clever underminers because they don't face you directly. These are people who can't argue to your face because you're either right or they're afraid to expose their true opinions, so they are either cowards, too stupid to argue with your points, or stealth enemies. In my experience with NT underminers, they have already made the decision that they can't or won't win if they engage with you openly, so they start trying to create a hostile environment around you with other people behind your back. They're want to win despite not being able to prevail on any point or argument, so they just knock down others.

The fact is, when someone doesn't have the know-how or guts to engage you directly in a discussion on your subject of interest, it's a personal or intellectual failure on their part. People who engage in behind-your-back undermining are those who want to win without being able to win on the merits of anything relevant they have to say. They are attacking the messenger, because they don't like the message and they can't win an argument.

People like that on message boards just stifle really interesting discussion and they use cliques to try to keep everyone talking about subjects that are within their comfort zones at a level that doesn't exceed their I.Q.

WP is nothing like what it was a few months ago.

I think a few self-appointed thought police who are in the minority have succeeded in shutting down lively debates and arguments, and discussions they were uncomfortable with and/or couldn't understand. I think they have succeeded in stifling the open airing of opinions and making WP a dreary, quiet place.

Maybe I personally am a lot like Daniel and other autistics in that a whole lot of the words, phrases and terms that many people find insulting (or funny) aren't interpreted by my mind the same as they are by normal people so much of what goes on both good or bad literally is over my head since it is largely verbal/writen rather than visual.
Keep in mind my favor spot on the entire site is the random picture thread. Autistic people are all very different and unfortunately most just have to fend for themselves.

I'm so sorry to hear this. It sounds as if depriving you of things in your special interest is one way your mother thinks is a good way to discipline or manage you. But interfering with an AS's special interest is really torture, disrespectful and almost abusive. Your mother should respect your interest and your things. If she is trying to shut down your life enjoyments to try to control your social decisions, she'll probably only succeed in making your life suck more in general. Is there some way to talk to her about how she is making her parenting decisions? Sounds like she is feeling a lack of control and is trying to get control via your things.