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DreamingSia

Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
9
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Location
Sweden
Hello everyone!

I'm 26 years old, female, living in Sweden, and I'm the kind of person who spends an hour writing a long intro post, deletes it before posting, and spends another hour writing a shorter version, all in fear of bothering people with the length of the post, lol.

I've known about this forum for several months, and after much hesitation, I decided to finally just join already, as the thought of joining kept popping up for me. I've always had (most of) my social life online, and lately I've been experiencing a growing need to be connected with people again.

I'm in a long-distance relationship with another girl, since about two years back, but luckily as she lives in Germany we at least manage to meet in real life about every two months, for a week or so at a time. She makes all the difference in my life, but as I miss being part of an online community, I thought I'd try and see if I find what I'm looking for here.

I've struggled with various aspects of myself for most of my life (with my main issue being anxiety), though I was still a naturally positive, enthusiastic and very curious person. However, in the last two years, after getting a job working in customer service, my faith in humanity and the world in general was basically razed to the ground. Even though I no longer work there now (instead I went back to get my degree in behavioral science), I'm finding it very difficult to crawl out of that black hole of cynicism and negativity. I'm hoping that meeting some new people here, and participating in some games and discussions, might help me regain some sense of meaning and hope.

So, yeah, that's me. I look forward to getting to know all of you! :D

And now I better hit "Post Thread" before I chicken out, LOL.
 
Welcome to the forums :)
 
Warm welcome to you (though it's probably only slightly warmer in UK than Sweden at this time!).

I hope you can find some helping hands to grab you and get out of that black hole :)
 
Hi and welcome, I think and hope you will find this a nice place to be. I also joined feeling a need to connect and I feel in that goal I have succeeded.

I hope you find the same :)
 
Welcome to the forum.

Customer service can be a rough job, I've been doing it most of my working career. It's amazing the level of stupidity and disgusting behaviour some people will stoop too. But they are a very small percentage of the worlds people. And there are some very good people and on rare occasions they show their appreciation for the work you do. That's the one thing I miss with my job, now that the place I work for has closed and I'm in the head office doing all the final "paper work". So it does have it's rewards, it's hard not to let those idiots who make it difficult not get you down but also you have to remember the number that you may have dealt with who didn't, and although may have never said anything would probably understand your job and appreciate you.
 
hi and welcome to the forums! i started out like you, mostly just lurking threads, typing out replies but then just erasing them. but im starting to get the hang of things and everyones been really cool. i hope youll find this place helpful!
 
Welcome, DreamingSia. As for your predicament, I wish I could give you that old soft soap about how most people really are basically kind at heart. But I too have had too many experiences with a fairly diverse cross-section of people to believe that (though not as a customer service flack). My best advice to you is to adhere to the Biercean maxim "Remember that it does no harm to treat someone as an enemy worthy of respect until (s)he proves him/herself a friend worthy of affection."
 
Thank you everyone for the super warm welcome! :D It really makes me smile! :D

Sci-Fi said:
Customer service can be a rough job, I've been doing it most of my working career. It's amazing the level of stupidity and disgusting behaviour some people will stoop too. But they are a very small percentage of the worlds people. And there are some very good people and on rare occasions they show their appreciation for the work you do. That's the one thing I miss with my job, now that the place I work for has closed and I'm in the head office doing all the final "paper work". So it does have it's rewards, it's hard not to let those idiots who make it difficult not get you down but also you have to remember the number that you may have dealt with who didn't, and although may have never said anything would probably understand your job and appreciate you.

Oh, you're absolutely right about there being some good people too, and they were the ones who basically got me through the days of working there. I think one of the major problems, for me, was that I was working in one of those customer service call centers where people call whenever they have a problem, so almost everyone calling would be upset about one thing or another...and I happen to be terrified of conflict, LOL, to the point that my heart would pound violently and my hands would be shaking and my thoughts would just freeze completely when getting yelled at. So yeah, not a good combination there, me and that job, lol.

I think, though, that the even bigger problem, is that the company I worked for value money so much more than people, and I just wasn't prepared for it. I initially took that position because I wanted to HELP -- genuinely help people in some way, no matter how small the way may be -- but I soon discovered that that wasn't the goal of the company at all. My first week there, they were like, "you're not allowed to feel sorry for the customers". We were praised for saying 'no', and scolded for actually being helpful because that took too much time and resources. That was, by far, even worse than the abusive customers. Knowing that you COULD help but that you weren't allowed to. Ugh. I still feel like some part of me dies every time I think about that.

Wow, sorry about the rambling, that topic just awakens such strong feelings and I get carried away! Just, what kind of world is it we live in when compassion and empathy is actually discouraged, for the sake of money... It was the rudest awakening ever for me. I mean, it's like, sure, everyone knows it's like that, right, but you don't actually KNOW until you see it like every minute of every work day, and you see what it brings for other people too...

maidendeth said:
hi and welcome to the forums! i started out like you, mostly just lurking threads, typing out replies but then just erasing them. but im starting to get the hang of things and everyones been really cool. i hope youll find this place helpful!

Ah, I'm glad I'm not the only one, lol! :D And yes, I must say, this seems like such a cool place! Everyone really seems so understanding and so nice, and that really puts me at ease. :)

MTrip said:
Welcome, DreamingSia. As for your predicament, I wish I could give you that old soft soap about how most people really are basically kind at heart. But I too have had too many experiences with a fairly diverse cross-section of people to believe that (though not as a customer service flack). My best advice to you is to adhere to the Biercean maxim "Remember that it does no harm to treat someone as an enemy worthy of respect until (s)he proves him/herself a friend worthy of affection."

That's an interesting and thought-worthy quote, thank you for that. I will keep it in mind. Though the silly thing is, I still want to believe that people are basically kind at heart, lol. I still somehow do. It's just that the people who are rotten, are usually rotten all the way through (in my experience), and that ruins so much. I also abhor how in this society, it seems like the people who get ahead are the ones who use and abuse others, and take advantage left and right. The people at the "bottom" are usually the nice and understanding ones, because they know what it's like to be in need (at least until they reach that point where they simply snap and decide to become bad guys themselves).

I suddenly wonder how weird my world view seems to other people, lol.

Again, thank you everyone for the welcome, it seriously put such a smile on my face! :D I feel really excited to be here! :D
 

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