Why do I keep coming on here when every time I ask a question I end up being made to feel stupid for how I'm feeling about a situation?

Your into S&M.

^You’re

I participate on a few sites that are for very specific types of issues and discussions. Perhaps finding a place that is more attuned to the types of situations you encounter at work (a Special Needs Education site?) or your medical needs or some such. The fact that you repeatedly say that we aren’t helping or don’t understand you leads me to believe that…yes…we aren’t helping and don’t understand you. Most of us genuinely try to address your concerns, as we understand them, it’s a shame that we fall so short.

You say we don’t understand where you’re coming from, but perhaps the problem is you don’t want to hear our advice. I’ve read all your recent threads, including your last one about your boss and the painters. This question seems to have been generated after some people questioned your motivation for attacking your boss. If you seriously want advice, you have to take the good with the bad. Often the most valuable guidance we receive is the advice that we don’t like. The bitter pill. It is often exactly the medicine we need and the information that will do us the most good.

So whether you choose to continue to post here is up to you. However, if you ‘only want the nice people who will tell you what you want to hear to answer’, I can guarantee you will be disappointed.

The fact that you give your power away is sonething that only you can work on. This is essentially a group of strangers, and we should not be able to “make you feel” anything at all. It soulds like you are looking for validation outside of yourself. Stop it. Take back your power and validate yourself. Ultimately, you’re the only one who can.
We all like to have lots of people just jump in and totally agree with our POV, whatever it happens to be. But life isn’t like that, either online or in the real world.
Maybe you should think of this as practice for the normal give and take of human adult interaction. Learn that everyone has an opinion and most of the time it will be different than yours, and adjust your expectations accordingly. You’ll be a lot happier in the longrun.

You seem to be really chafing against your new boss, and all we can do is respond to the situation as you set it out. It looks to me like people here are honestly trying to help.

If that’s depressing you, you might try asking the questions a different way?
Or being more open to the advice given here?

Maybe you need to ask some questions that are of less consequence to yourself, personally to get some perspective on the people here and how they’re relating to your problems. That might also distract you from your troubles at work?

I’ve not seen anyone be rude, mean, or vindictive.

@yankeetooter: On the “boss” thread, I asked a bunch of times about your job description because I work for an organization that advocates for employees and one of the things I do at work is negotiate when employees are having issues such as yours. There is room for negotiation with some things, but not with others. That’s why I was asking what’s in your job description, but you didn’t answer.

I think on both threads, if I had to guess, you were looking for a certain type of answer. I would guess you were looking for sympathy, people to side with you. I said on your second question (the one about the boss’s comment) that you should try to chill out a bit about him. You might just get to like him.

With myself, when I have someone who rubs me the wrong way and I’m not feeling good about the person, what helps me is for me to go forth and try to interact with the person on another level. Strike up a bit of small talk and try to see if you might get a bit of humanity out of him. That’s just what works for me. “Did you have a good weekend?” “Well, my wife wanted me to clean the basement but instead, she changed her mind and we went for a walk at the new waterfront park.” “How was that? I’ve been meaning to check that out.” Then I might feel better about him. That’s just what works for me.

I only know of the past two questions, because they were work related and because of my job, as I explained above, this is what I do. As far as previous questions you’ve asked, I’m not sure.

Sitting at the deaths the whole time is not actually in my job description, but we have that lovely phrase that says other duties as assigned so I know I don’t have a leg to stand on. At any rate that’s what he’s decided I need to do. I don’t know what’s behind the decision, I just know I have to do it. The sad thing is I’m to the point now that many the things I did before that were not expressly part of my job, I am feeling that I am just not going to do. And because he doesn’t know they need to get done they probably won’t get done. I hate to be like that but he just seems to put up so much resistance every time I ask him about a particular task, so that I have decided that I’m just not going to make waves. I’m going to do those things explicitly outlined in my job and anything else he tells me to do and that’s it. And if things fall by the wayside it will fall on him not me. I’m not usually like that but he just seems to be shooting down everything that I suggest, and it gets a little tiring. I guess that’s the way of passive aggressive people deal with things. If we try to help and our help is rejected enough times, and in such a way at the discount everything we did before, one gets to the point where they decide to do what I am doing.

Edited by me. Never mind.

@yankeetooter: Yes, I work for government too, and most of our job descriptions have “related duties as required” or something vague like that, which means they can have an accountant doing xeroxing and stuff like that. Just be nice to him, lay low, stop making suggestions because he obviously is not interested in them, and chill out with your emotions. Chill out with your anger toward the job, and chill out with wanting to do things for others. Let it fall to the wayside. It’s not your problem.

@yankeetooter This is a collection of strangers (well, I have met some Jellies face-to-face, but most remain anonymous names). Fluther is a microcosm of society at large – most people are polite, but some are combative; most are tolerant and open to calm discussions, but some like to preach and tell us all what’s true; most are open to different opinions and new ideas, while others argue without basis.

There are certain Jellies I simply don’t like or wish to encounter. I just avoid and don’t engage them. When one of those people asks a question or posts an answer, I breeze past and don’t respond.

Before you terminate your ID and leave, would you consider doing the same? If you communicate with the Jellies you find helpful and pleasant, this can be a nice message board for visiting and participating.

My life I live is very specific to me and would be very foreign to a lot of people. When I ask questions here I first read the replies through the lens of my life and my experiences and by doing so I run the risk of seeing things as I see it and not through the perspective of the person writing the comment and that gets me into trouble and alienated many jellies here. And when I get it wrong I REALLY get it wrong. And for me that is the beauty of Fluther as there is such a wide spectrum of really smart people from all over the world who do have different perspectives and wisdom and very rarely will anyone make you feel bad for getting it wrong. Again the people here are quite sharp and if you feel the answers you are getting aren’t specific or good enough to what you need advice on then I would suggest you are not asking specific enough questions.

You COULD look at it in a positive way: You have equal opportunities to feel validated in your ideas or educated to new ones.

Someone wrote here that perhaps fluther is not the type of forum for the questions you are asking and I agree.

It’s hard I know when you first arrive here as you feel like these people are friends. Some try and give insight into a situation, but really fluther is to my mind, more of a regular question and answer site. Questions that pertain to current events, economics, fun questions and even science, biology, etc. is more in fluther’s arena.

There are tons of forums on the internet for specific issues. I am a member of a few, including skin disorders for e.g. I really hope you don’t feel stupid but rather realize that we are not psychologists, and even if we are practicing this is not the space to be doing so and any advice on that type of situation should be taken with a pinch of salt.