[Apollia]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

My thought is that this is a PD forum. We're explicitly here to help each other grow. Chad is not posting here by mistake, and he has been stuck for many months now. My opinion is that we're not helping him grow at the moment. I can totally accept his not wanting to grow, but not that we don't try everything in our power.

I can - since if you take the idea of doing everything in our power to an overliteral extreme, it's very unreasonable. Technically I could choose to devote my entire life, all my time and everything I own to the cause of saving other people - but, that would amount to falling victim to "Lightworker Syndrome" and ruining my own life in the process of trying to help others. It would only decrease my ability to help anyone.

So, while I would love to be able and willing to do more, I try to give myself permission to guiltlessly not do literally everything in my power, or even, more than I'm comfortable doing - especially since I think going totally against my own self-interest might even cause me to slightly resent the very people I'm trying to help, because of putting their needs ahead of my own as if I'm less important than everyone else.

(All that said, I don't really buy into the lightworker/darkworker concepts because I think going to either extreme would probably cause problems.)

We're not doing our job!

Well, the way I see it, no one is really obligated to respond to anyone on this forum - it's not really anyone's job, so, the way I see it, you've done much more than was required, and doubtless done your best all along.

I probably would have run out of helpful ideas months ago. Even now, I don't think there's anything much I could add to my first post to this thread, and I would probably get very stressed out about it if I tried to force myself to put in much more effort than I already have. So, I applaud your persistence and dedication.

Of course maybe the "tough love" approach won't work with him. But everything else - the sending love, the nice support and well meant advice - didn't work either. So what are we going to do now? Continue like this for years, or change our strategy and try something new? I say, it's worth taking the risk.

Well, if the "tough love" approach really works, I'll be happy about it. I definitely wouldn't recommend that anyone wears themselves out trying to repeatedly use an approach that doesn't work. Anyhow, as long as Chado's feelings aren't hurt by it, I see nothing inherently wrong with "tough love".

Best wishes,
Apollia