Posted by Dinah on August 27, 2007, at 8:32:18
In reply to What is with the flounce posts?, posted by Maria01 on August 27, 2007, at 0:09:15
I've been known to leave Babble on occasion, and yes, I always come back.
I can only speak for myself. Sometimes it gets too overwhelming. Sometimes I get too angry (usually at something Dr. Bob has or hasn't done, since I tend to shift my anger to him.)
But a lot of times it was that my experiences growing up made me see myself as a social pariah. Someone defective in social settings. Someone unacceptable. Or there might have been things about me that made *me* feel ashamed. Not unnaturally under the circumstances, I would tend to view things through that lens. If I posted about something I felt ashamed about and didn't get many responses, I'd be embarrassed and think I should take myself away from human contact. Or I'd think I was too weird for people to deal with. And if I got criticism, I'd flash back to middle school and the taunting and rejection I got there.
But by posting those feelings and getting responses, I learned that a) Babblers were not like the girls from my middle school, and b) maybe I wasn't so defective, weird, and doomed to failure in social settings. (I wish I could carry that to real life).
Attention seeking was definitely not my goal. When I seek attention I usually do it by trying to be good and helpful, because that's what I was trained to do. My times of leaving Babble were painful, even in retrospect.
I understand that not everyone's reasons for doing something are the same. And I echo Joni's thoughts that seeking attention is really not such a bad thing. Surely we all do it in some way or another. It seems a logical drive from an evolutionary standpoint.
Dinah, posting solely as myself
poster:Dinah
thread:778977
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070822/msgs/779008.html