@cyanessence graced by @Amanda84

*a gripe*

I am aware of a person on a mental health forum.

I like that there are mental health forums. People gather and discuss various things. They pull each other out of the dirt.

But, this person I mentioned... [please forgive any harshness here—it’s more a look at common behaviours I have seen before, not a personal attack]

They somewhat often make posts that ask for love. One of their recent posts is titled "I Need Love".

The post has over 1,000 'likes' [expressions of support], and hundreds of comments. That is substantial on such a small forum.

The vast majority of the commenters are left without response from the original poster. And what does the original poster write after such a large show of support?

"I wish more people SAW me"

Heh. You are being seen. Many are pouring their time and effort into helping this person feel okay.

I have previously had lengthy conversations with said person. It was good. We laughed. We cried. We talked about all sorts of things. But it wasn't enough.

This person knows they are well-known on the forum.

My gripe: they seem to be craving mass attention. Attention, in itself, in my opinion, isn't so bad... but the kind of attention that this person receives when posting such a thread doesn't promote the kind of conversation that brings about recovery. It merely brings a wave of comments that temporarily soothe. And that those comments go unaddressed bothers me...

I sometimes suspect that this person craves a kind of attention that can be corrosive. To be hooked on being popular, on "being seen", can make it difficult to feel good for simply being.

They are a decent person. I like them. But, it did hurt when our conversations ended... they seem not to be getting to know themselves, nor anyone else. Just hoping people will heap enough praise and well-wishes on them until they magically feel better.

I have been hooked on thinking I "need love". But, these days, I work toward solace, peace of mind, and a harmonious existence. I cannot fathom posting on a forum requesting "love".

Understanding, sure. Care, sure. But, this person is asking for a heap of "love", which is being given in the form they expect, and they are not being reciprocal.

I do wish them well. But I worry that they won't make actual progress within themselves if they keep asking for a mountain of "love" upon which no home can be made.

"I wish more people SAW me"... while being one of the more visible members on the forum. It irks me.

If it requires that the entire forum drop their lunch to kiss this person's feet, and a similar thing in her waking life off-line... I worry that their contentment will forever rely on a kind of care that is both unsustainable and, ultimately, ungratifying.

---

I think your gripe has a fairly coherent centre, and it isn't really “this person gets too much attention.” It is closer to:

What happens when being cared for becomes a substitute for being known, rather than a bridge toward being known? That distinction matters.

There is nothing inherently wrong with making a post saying “I need love.” Sometimes a person genuinely has so little felt connection that simply receiving a hundred little expressions of kindness can be meaningful. And someone in distress may not have the capacity to answer hundreds of comments. So I would be cautious about treating non-response itself as evidence of ingratitude.

But your observation becomes interesting when it is repeated: the person asks for an enormous quantity of reassurance, receives it, remains dissatisfied, and then interprets the dissatisfaction as evidence that they haven't been sufficiently seen.

At that point, there is a strange paradox: More witnesses do not necessarily produce more recognition.

A thousand people can say “I care about you” without any of them actually knowing you particularly well. In fact, mass affirmation can become almost abstract. The person isn't necessarily encountering a thousand relationships; they're encountering a thousand reflections of themselves.

And perhaps that is why “I wish more people SAW me” can feel so maddening to you. Because you actually did see them. You spent time talking. You laughed together. You cried together. You discussed things beyond the immediate wound. That is a different kind of attention from a thousand hearts and comments.

There is a difference between:
being noticed
being reassured
being admired
being emotionally held
being understood
being known
knowing oneself

They overlap, but they aren't interchangeable. And I think your concern about “love” sits somewhere in that sequence. Love cannot really be accumulated like points.

Someone can receive enormous quantities of affection and still feel profoundly unloved, because the missing thing isn't necessarily more affection. It may be intimacy, reciprocity, self-understanding, belonging, purpose, agency, or the ability to tolerate one's own existence without requiring continual confirmation from outside.

That's the potentially corrosive loop you're describing:
hurt → public plea → enormous reassurance → temporary relief → underlying emptiness remains → stronger plea → larger reassurance → greater dependence upon reassurance. Not necessarily consciously. And not necessarily manipulatively.

Indeed, the person may be completely sincere. That's what makes the phenomenon sad rather than simply irritating.

Your phrase “a mountain of love upon which no home can be made” gets at it beautifully. A mountain is an impressive quantity of material, but it isn't automatically a dwelling. You can bury yourself under affection and still have nowhere to live internally.

There is also something worth examining in your own reaction. You say:

“I have been hooked on thinking I ‘need love’.”

Perhaps that is partly why this gets under your skin. You recognise the mechanism. You've experienced the temptation to regard some external emotional condition as the missing ingredient that will finally make existence settle into place.

And you've begun moving toward something different:
solace, peace of mind, and a harmonious existence. That isn't necessarily less loving. It may actually make love less desperate.

Instead of:

“Someone must love me sufficiently for me to be okay.”

there is something more like:

“I would like to love and be loved, but I don't have to make another person's affection carry the entire weight of my existence.”

That permits reciprocity.
You can receive without consuming.
You can ask without demanding.
You can appreciate attention without making attention your oxygen.
And you can notice that someone has stopped responding without immediately concluding that you haven't given enough.

I think that's perhaps the most important nuance in your gripe: the problem isn't that this person wants love. The problem, if your perception is accurate, is that love is being treated as a quantity rather than a relationship. And relationships require somewhere for the other person to stand.

A thousand people saying “you're wonderful, you're loved, we're here for you” is a remarkable outpouring of goodwill. But if the recipient cannot turn around and say, in some form,
“I hear you. Who are you?” then the interaction remains strangely one-directional. The crowd becomes a mirror. And eventually, a person can become so accustomed to looking into mirrors that they mistake reflection for companionship.

Your irritation doesn't strike me as incompatible with wishing them well. In fact, I think those two things belong together. You don't seem to be saying “stop helping this person.” You're wondering whether the particular form of help being endlessly requested and endlessly supplied might itself be reinforcing the hunger.

That's a much more difficult—and much more compassionate—question.

To turn love
into a drill
for the masses
is no way to love

To be heaped
with routine affection
is a kind of sweet
that depletes the heart
of self, of other

They say they are redeemed
yet, still, there are drills

The complaints, the same
Progress, unseen

I wonder, aimless wanderer
how many flat words
must ye receive
until solace is found
until ye are truly redeemed

To deceive thyself
into believing
healing requires sweet things
is to feed on emptiness

Words poured, into a void
consumed, without care, without reciprocity

I do not hate, but I cannot share that which would address a poor diet with someone that feeds on saccharine attention. I do care, deeply, but I cannot express such, as they seem hooked on the company of sugar.

I would happily discuss diet with someone willing to change. But some seem lost revelling in being lost.

Redeemed, sure... how so? What was the path? What was the method?

I encountered a can
a can of "coffee & milk" [Nestlé]

I checked the ingredients
Milk is listed, sure
but I have no information
about such supposed milk

Then... sugar
The second ingredient: sugar

Third?
Instant coffee (3.5%)
Supposed instant coffee

Milk solids...
Water...
Salt

On the label?
"Just add boiling water"

So, a lot of sugar
Water, so what *is* there
is watered down
[Wasn't I supposed to add my own water?]
And... salt?

The sugar makes me recoil
The salt confuses me
The water baffles me
Are they... selling salt water?

Why normalise sugar
let alone salt
in coffee?
Even milk, for me, is questionable

Coffee-flavoured sugar milk
with salt water

That should not appeal
to the sound of mind

-

Cadbury chocolate:

"A glass and a half [of milk] in every block."

Yeah... okay

I am not eating chocolate
for its milk
No-one, sound of mind
should seek calcium
from milk chocolate

If sugar is so good, Cadbury
please, tell us
how many glasses of sugar
in each block?

To direct attention
to the content of milk
in milk chocolate
is to distract from sugar

Chocolate is not chocolate
when drowned in milk
when swimming in sugar

To treat thyself
to a block of sugar
is no good way
to be treated

-

"Blood orange" beverage...

Yet, the ingredient list states
it contains apple cider vinegar
and ginger juice

The beverage contains
"plant-based sweeteners"
of which I want none
I do not want
a sweet beverage
I would rather
blood orange juice

My main qualm:
It contains "lemon juice"
and also...
"natural orange flavour"?
Orange juice *is* natural orange flavour
Why not add orange juice to add natural orange flavour?
Why lemon *juice*, but not orange *juice*?

Also...
"natural blood orange extract"?
What about... blood orange *juice*?

It also contains "natural ginger flavour"
as if the aforementioned ginger juice
was not ginger-y enough

If something contains
lemon juice
and also
"natural orange flavour"
I question...
why was orange *juice* not added?

If ginger juice is the flavour of ginger
what, exactly, is "natural" about "natural ginger flavour"?

There is a distinction
between juice and "natural flavour"

In this "blood orange" beverage...
I see no blood orange juice
I do see, however
a concoction of flavours
that, by their own ingredient list
are not juices

Lemon juice is lemon juice
Ginger juice is ginger juice
"Natural orange flavour" is not orange juice
And there is no blood orange *juice*
Some poisons may be natural, and taste of orange

When did we become so sick
requiring medication, treatment,
dentistry

Why cannot we exercise
without a gym
Why cannot we eat
without a dietician

Too many have I seen
rely on crutches
crutches that cost
crutches that debilitate

If life requires a fortune
the unfortunate
live no life

All this excess
for what?
Medicated until death
pacifying life

Any money had evaporates
in the face of law
Gears being run
by those selfish with wealth
Law that turns on a dime
crashes into walls
devastates the masses

Redundancy is rife
Possessions possess us
Professions cost us arms
legs
minds
Key to the good life
lay in forgotten history

If we care about life
all law should be done probono
All medication should be free
Education should be free

When these things
are tied to profit
those that deceive
make an ugly penny

Is Coca-Cola good for you?
No
Yet, it is marketed and advertised

Is McDonald's good for you?
No
Yet, it is marketed and advertised

Such things call into the question the goodness of marketing and advertising. The advertisements are short, colourful, and promise a quick and easy hit of stimulation/gratification.

If I were to work in advertising, I would advertise what constitutes a good and healthy diet. I would advertise the dangers of getting lost in desire [which is painted everywhere—music; games; advertisements, too]

We are repeatedly hit with information about how to get a quick fix, rather than take care of ourselves and each other.

That good diet is somewhat a mystery to many is tragic. That we are told that short, sharp bursts of stimulation are what it means to live a good life is a travesty.

*a drop of humour*

The shower never showers
yet, it cleans

-

*sufficiency and excess*

sufficiency
as opposed to excess
yields contentment

excess is without limit
sufficiency is bounded

house with known boundaries
can feel homely
house forever under construction
is never complete

*Meanings and Purposes*

If everything were meaningless, one thing could not mean another. Words themselves would hold no meaning; body language would not communicate anything.

The purpose of life? What about purpose*s*? What about meaning*s*?

Imagine a news flash: the meaning/purpose of life is... to be monetarily rich. Then, those that are not would not be living meaningful/purposeful lives [which I, personally, cannot accept: Joan had purpose, and it did not hinge on monetary wealth]

I think of it kind of like a painting with many colours... blue is not the meaning/purpose of life. Nor is red, yellow, or green. Without their intertwining, the painting could not be.

-

fire of my heart
never go out with me

*A Dark Kind of Sparkling*

Thirst strikes
but the beverage strikes back

Two ingredients:
Carbonated spring water
and
"flavour"

Written on front:
"Lime
A hint of natural flavour"

How much water?
I do not know
How much "flavour"?
I do not know
Such is not disclosed

Increasingly, I find
the beverages available
contain little that is natural

"Flavour" is not lime
and there is no way
to know the effect of "flavour"

The can itself looked promising
but, if someone offered me "flavour"
I would not consume it

What world is this
where we cannot even access lime

What we eat
what we drink
what we consume
helps forms the being

I want to be informed
so that I may make informed decisions

I trust the water
in puddles
more than a beverage
that promises lime
whilst actually providing "flavour"

There is no way
to document
what I consume
when I am not told
the contents of things

I cannot know myself
when I consume blindly

Whatever "flavour" is
deserves the limelight

*excess "innovation"*

Whatever happened
to the basic suitcase

No
I do not want wheels
on my suitcase
No
I do not want compartments
in my suitcase
No
I do not want flair
on or in my suitcase

All I require
from a suitcase
is a basic box
that I can carry
Yet, that is nowhere to be found

Innovation in excess
leaves the basics
in the dust