Don't waste spoons on people that ask for your advice but don't want it.

Let me share an anecdote from real life (not internet !).  It concerns a neighbour I had at my previous address.  She was passing by while I was feeding/weeding the lawn with a combined weed/feed granular product, carefully measuring the amount I was applying to each square metre.  She walked straight into my garden and demanded to know what I was doing, she then demanded and insisted that I write down the name of the product and the name and address of the shop where I bought it.

A month or two later we met on the street and she gave an earful, shouting at me that the stuff I recommended for her was absolute rubbish and that she found a different product in a different shop which was cheaper and much better.

A couple of years later I was painting my wooden window frames, again, this lady was passing and walked straight into my garden demanding what I was doing and demanding/insisting that I write down the exact name of the product and the name and address of the shop I bought it from.   This time I carried on painting and told her to go away.

The lesson is that some people like to play games, by asking for help and advice just to annoy others.

Yeah that's the thing, even with the other person saying "I wouldn't expect/want you to take it on as your problem" there's a little bit of guilt, but it's not as bad.

I think that particular event made me more vigilant. The person in question is also autistic and they were a bit drunk at the time, and I know they didn't intend to make me feel guilty for how I handled it but I still did.

In hindsight I could have directed them to Samaritans or whatever and just be honest about my ability to handle it. Because I didn't I felt like I had to feel bad about it and that continued for like 9 months.

I did my best in terms of offering words of support, maybe they wanted me to stay up and keep talking to them but I didn't know what I'd have said.

They cited it as the thing that killed whatever friendship we had - up til then we were on the road to it. I don't know, maybe there was just a big clash.

HMO said:

Even though they'd never expect me to, I fear that I'd be being unreasonable by keeping an eye on my own mental health. Like I'm being selfish and don't care.

No that's pretty much what I mean. You should not feel guilty for self preservation.

HMO said:

One time someone I knew was clearly at crisis point and she was messaging me (late night). I made the mistake of leaving her to go to bed because I did find it very heavy and overwhelming and I didn't know how to deal with it. She wasn't happy and remained upset with me for the best part of a year.

I could have handled it better but at the same time, I just didn't know.

You weren't wrong to go to bed though, this is the point: you are not a Samaritans tele-person, it's not your job to suffer for others, not being able to be their makeshift therapist into the small hours while your eyes are burning and your brain is turning into sleepy mush isn't a failing on your part because you were never responsible for them. You can love a person very much but you still aren't their keeper.
That doesn't mean you stop caring and say "deal with it", it means you need to acknowledge when you have hit a wall and hand the person off safely to another avenue of support, ie an actual crisis service.

That must have been really difficult. It's not the same thing but whenever friends would talk about something they're struggling with, I would always feel like I need to actively fix it for them. 

Even though they'd never expect me to, I fear that I'd be being unreasonable by keeping an eye on my own mental health. Like I'm being selfish and don't care.

One time someone I knew was clearly at crisis point and she was messaging me (late night). I made the mistake of leaving her to go to bed because I did find it very heavy and overwhelming and I didn't know how to deal with it. She wasn't happy and remained upset with me for the best part of a year.

I could have handled it better but at the same time, I just didn't know.

I want to add some additional context.
For weeks and weeks (abt 2-3 months actually) on a mental health support discord server before I wrote this post quite a few of us there had been trying to talk another user out of suicidal ideation and the user kept making out there were no good sides to life and it took it's toll on the mental health of those who had become extremely emotionally invested, eventually one of us who had initially been in a good place started to have their own mental health decline, and eventually took their own life... it was scary to see something like that almost act as if it were contagious, and I realised although it wasn't wrong to care, it was a mistake to get too attached to a total stranger like that. And proved unhealthy for at least one of us there. That Discord server now has a new rule, we are there to support eachother but we are not a crisis service, you need to already be in a strong place yourself to do that, and those people at Smaritans have training and check ins for themselves too, which we don't,  so if someone comes in to that server with ideations now we have to just direct them to actual crisis services.
I'm not saying it is contagious in the physical sense but it is true that what I witnessed was someone taking on the emotional burden of another to the point it became self harming. You cannot and should not be expected to ripp yourself into peices just to keep others whole. I've noticed some of us here do duck out of the forums for a while for self care before coming back again and that is a healthy way to treat online spaces in general tbh.
I didn't want to write the whole sorry tale in the original post at the time I wrote it as I know if people are already feeling down putting more emotional load on them can be dangerous and I didn't want to do that here. But I decided to add it now because I couldn't help but feel like some people may not realise this is more than just "omg bad vibes ew" it's a serious thing.

Martin said:

I presumed it was triggered by a specific poster who appeared to be making a plea for help, but then just insulted autistics generally and also specific people whose initial concern and goodwill became quickly exhausted.

Oh I've seen that happen since, quite a few times, but no, it wasn't what specifically prompted me to write the original post, I'd have had to be a time traveler otherwise.

I presumed it was triggered by a specific poster who appeared to be making a plea for help, but then just insulted autistics generally and also specific people whose initial concern and goodwill became quickly exhausted.

Martin said:

I think it is fairly obvious, given the specific trigger for this thread.

Actually there were 2 different events that led to support burn-out for me just before I wrote the Original post (which I have not eddited since day one), although there have been newer members here who have showed similarities and this thread unexpectedly revived since. The original post wasn't about them specifically as some folks arrival on the forum came after this thread initally started. And the 2 events that prompted it ... well the people involved in those actually haven't been involved in this thread yet. Not least because one of those events was not about autism specifically and happened on a Discord server instead.
So sorry but to me it was not so obvious.
It is a good analogy you made though, I can see why the connection there.

I think it is fairly obvious, given the specific trigger for this thread.

The parallel is reasonably close. Both black and autistic people are a minority in this country, are subject to prejudice, suffer from higher rates of mental illness, are more often un- or under-employed, are more often killed by the police, suffer more harmful restraint techniques etc. than the majority community.

Oh, yes, I see what you mean upon consideration.

Quite a few of us, probably... :c(

To whom are you referring Martin?

Imagine a black person who decides that all his difficulties, disappointments and perceived inadequacies throughout life were due to being black. He then joins a specifically black online support group, and starts insulting the other black people, denigrating the black online community, and projecting his self-hatred for being black on everyone who is black. How would that be received?

"Don't waste spoons on people who are actively seeking to generate and promote unpleasantness."

Such people will proclaim how happy and together they are in themselves, or the opposite - and mainly both.

These people are not here for community, nor seeking advice from it, but are here to divide the community.

The best way for members of that community to handle such matters = be passers by = walk over the bridge, stand one side or the other, shout at each other from either side all you like.........but discount the voices that choose to lurk under the bridge.

My thought for the day.

Fair enough but I will say, that if you are using the word of Shakespeare to retort or the words of Kipling, you are not using your words. You are not using your initiative to find ‘magic’, you are using the correct words put in the correct order by a more-correct mastery, that the person you are retorting will have no way to combat, save for the use of greater rhetoric. 

I would also argue that if another had words beyond his own mind and the greats, he would not be drowning in the first place, I do not say that cheaply by the way civilisations rise and fall with the power of rhetoric.

What I do say is that the west can’t even comprehend the same heights of rhetoric anymore, which is the larger reason why balances get lopesided, which is the reason why we are in decline and are the prey of tyrants.

We'll just have to chalk that one up to different experiences then. But even if I thought that worked it wouldn't get me the degree of social battery I'd need to spend on any single conversation to find some magic words. I have an extensive vocabulary, that has never been an issue, but even with all the "want to" in the world I just don't have the spoons to sift through my entire lexicon. What I say is what you get, a conversation with me on the day is not like an essay I can chip away at over a week.

You say that but I’ve turned people around, from situations when nothing I say or would-do would’ve worked, I’ve quoted a phrase or clause from the bible and there is this baffling disarming/disengaging spark that occurs sometimes.

I think rhetoric is a ridiculously under-appreciated science, because no one really respects it as a science, I think it is the first art a person should learn.
It’s not about saying it better or worse, it’s about saying it correctly and there is a ‘correctly’ in communication, there is no ‘pinch of this and that’ in language, there are documented formulas to correct communications.

I would say that there is almost total illiteracy in society today, when compared to the grammar and vocabulary of old, most people professional and amateur have no idea what peaks there works would yield if perfect literacy was used. I am unquestionably one of that number of sub-literate and I am completely aware of it too..

I understand why you might say that but I don't think it's a lack of better rhetoric. I think even the best logic and pathos is not enough to save a particular subest of those that do not want to be saved because their mind is so far in crisis and closed it couldn't see a solution even if it were handed directly to them. It's like they have mental health tunnel vison and the only light they perceice to be at the end of it their mind percieves not as daylight but an oncoming train.

I think you can save drowning men who won’t reach back, it just required an equal measure of persistence to match their intention, then you require better rhetoric and/or technique.  
Additionally it carries a likelihood of drowning yourself in reaching for the unwilling. I will say that trying/failing to save a willing-rescuee, carries the greatest risk of drowning, sometimes when I am dealing with drowning men that refuse to take my hand, I feel as if they are doing so because they can see the potential of creating the latter-rescuee in me..

The thing is: You don't know how many people are reading who have the same problem and for which your advice IS a lifesaver. 

And sometimes when you discover that you've formed some of your personality or personal policy on shaky ground and re-evaluate things, then suddenly a lot of things can slide into place, including an understanding of previous advice given that you might have rejected as irrelevant at the time.

The behaviour that you speak of is detailed in the book I recommend in my bio, It's call "why don't you, yes but" (YDYYB) or something very similar, and the given description of the state of mind of the people who play this game is quite illuminating.