6 ms·
What a bitter, twisted thing to write about a dead person. It seems her husbands problems have become a large part of her identity, and what greater way to fee
by jacobtracey 11y ago
What a bitter, twisted thing to write about a dead person.
It seems her husbands problems have become a large part of her identity, and what greater way to feel better than write an opinion piece about how shitty he was in the NYT?
- mylons 11y agoHe drug her down with him. There's no excuse for that.
- Mr24601 11y agoIts generally incorrect to moralize (ie no excuse) anything, especially an addiction.
- jacobtracey 11y agoI wasn't excusing anything, simply stating that perhaps airing ones dirty laundry - particularly about a dead person - in a newspaper no less, just seems bitter.
- grayclhn 11y agoA more charitable interpretation is that she is sharing her experience because she felt like no one she spoke to had a similar experience and wants to reach out to other people in the same boat. She writes the first part ("no member’s situation was similar to mine") but the second part is speculation. If you look carefully, you'll see that it's a post on a blog that deals with end of life issues, so rest assured that it's not a newspaper and every entry probably deals with dirty laundry about dead people in some way.
- vacri 11y agoIt's comments like this that shame people talking about hard times in their life, and help perpetuate the problem. The author even leads off with how she's shamed into not talking about the problem. The article is also not the hatchet-job you're painting it as. She's not abusive towards her late husband, but talking about how the alcoholism screwed them both over. By shaming people into not talking about this, you're also preventing people from finding parallels in their own life, or finding out about support groups.
- grayclhn 11y agoDon't be too harsh, you don't know what the commenter's going through either. :)
- vacri 11y agoheh, but what if I'm going through something, too? :)
- jacobtracey 11y agoShe claims to be ashamed to admit to a periodontist that her husband died of alcohol related causes... Then proceeds to describe on a hugely trafficked website how he urinated in a basement sink every night and left her with $64,000 of credit card debt. I have no desire to shame anyone, it's written now - again I simply stated that it felt bitter to me. Having spent 15 minutes reading her blog, it seems that is a reasonable description of her current mental state.
- vacri 11y agoHuman emotion is a complex thing. Clearly she's hit a wall where she's tired of having to hide what happened, and is using an appropriate venue for discussing it - an opinion article. The article wasn't trying to shame or defame her late husband, but describe the kind of events that happened to her and how they affected her. It's very clear that you were trying to shame writing about this taboo, at least in your initial comment. You weren't 'simply stating', but were making value judgements - the writing was 'twisted', and she was trying to make herself feel better by shitting on her husband. She may well be in a poor mental state, but it's been six years since the guy died. How long do you want to keep up "don't speak ill of the dead"? By maintaining that taboo in an ongoing manner, you're preventing people from getting better by talking about the bad things they encountered with the deceased person.
- jacobtracey 11y agoPersonally I don't feel that airing someones dirty laundry on a huge website is an appropriate venue. Isn't this exactly what support groups like AlAnon and therapy aim to address in a more delicate manner?
- Aloha 11y agoWe talk about the dead as if they were saints... "never hurt a fly, a wonderful person" and so on, why? speaking of the dead as if they had no flaws prevents the grieving process from getting underway.
- mikecmpbll 11y agoMy immediate gut-feeling after reading it was the same (though perhaps less strong). Through the author's journey, the article seems to suggest there's either guilt or blame, and no possibility of an in-between feeling of "it was out of my control." Still, a very interesting read.
- JesperRavn 11y agoFrom my reading, the author didn't connect these two issues. It's just that perspective, and time, lead her to realize that her husband's death wasn't her own fault, and also allowed her to feel anger at her husband for his actions.
- aaron695 11y agoHe's dead, he doesn't care and she might be his only surviving family. I would agree if he had a lot of family it would be hurtful to them and as such should be not have been written as it is. You could defiantly see a human, mixed up, spitefulness in it. But I think as an article it had a lot of value and this was part of it, she's still not over it.
- obstacle1 11y agoClassic alcoholic strategy for keeping the problem under wraps: enforce silence on the issue via shaming and guilting anyone who talks. The more air, the better. Sorry you have/had to go through it too.
- aaron695 11y ago> Classic alcoholic strategy for keeping the problem under wraps: enforce silence on the issue via shaming and guilting anyone who talks. Nonsense, what plant does this happen? There are heaps of movies on the issues of alcoholism. There are many many support groups. Who on earth would shaming or guilt anyone who talks? Do you hang with monsters? Or is this in your head?
- obstacle1 11y ago>There are many many support groups. Go to one, and they will tell you how they employed the strategy I'm talking about when drinking.
- lamuerteflaca 11y agoAiring things out is quite healthy.