Thank you for this explanation. In my experience, sulking occurs in the presence of the person intended to witness, or be a victim of, the sulk. It's quite different from a situation where one person has had enough of someone's abusive behavior and so decided to have no more contact with the abuser. In short, "going no contact" is not sulking, but rather a healthy choice to remove themselves from negativity.
I sulk habitually and I figured this out about myself: I become upset with someone or disappointed in them and I do not have the courage to speak my mind about what they have done to upset me, instead I communicate my disappointment in a passive agressive way, by sulking. At the root at it all is being too weak to communicate, too immature to accept what I cannot change in others and always feeling the need to get my own way. I am 33 years old this year and only figuring this out now.
i have found this exactly; the point of the sulk is to punish, induce guilt and thereby manipulate the other to adjust their behavior. Some delight in watching you try to repair the relationship, they are sadistic and purposely reject and taunt to inflict maximum anxiety so that you will never "hurt" them again by f.e. having a different opinion. These people seem to be stuck in childhood where they used this exact technique (not consciously obviously) because they had no other way to express the pain, hurt or anxiety they experienced... Very sad really but very hard to deal with.
hello fleurette of course you are right. a consensually shared sense of injustice has been one of the prime movers in social history. as you observe, that is not the point of my blog. i am more interested in the clinical, rather than the social, expression of injustice - war, murder, battery, infanticide, crime etc. i will be doing some blogs on misogyny quite soon. at the moment i am researching misogyny in music. just one more symptom but of interest to me as a piano student!
I very much enjoyed your vlog. Thank you for sharing your insights about the complicated inner workings of our psyche. I had a thought about what you said with regards to the reason why the SULK stops sulking and inflicting pain on the offender. You explained that in a normal sulk we inflict pain by withdrawing until we feel that a sense of justice has been made and that the offender is feeling as bad as we were made to feel. I was thinking instead that we inflict pain until we realize, by the object’s reaction (crying, getting upset), that they are also vulnerable and are suffering at our hands. At this point our stronger, nurturing self comes to light (maybe out of a fear of losing them? Killing them in the most extreme case?). The fear of losing the partner (of killing them) is stronger that the pain that caused the sulking. It also puts us back in a position of power which feels better, less vulnerable. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
A friend of mine told me about his aunt, who died in a psychiatric hospital at an advanced age, decades ago. She had been apparently quite well until one day, someone or something offended her, and she stopped speaking. Period. She never spoke again. The doctors decided she was mentally ill and she was admitted to a long stay psychiatric hospital (this was in the days before care in the community, aka sleep in the bus stop). And she was there till she died, a voluntary mute. If sulking were an Olympics sport, she'd have taken gold. Her story reminded me of Bartleby the Scrivener, perhaps the greatest sulk in literature.
Thank you for this explanation. In my experience, sulking occurs in the presence of the person intended to witness, or be a victim of, the sulk. It's quite different from a situation where one person has had enough of someone's abusive behavior and so decided to have no more contact with the abuser. In short, "going no contact" is not sulking, but rather a healthy choice to remove themselves from negativity.
I sulk habitually and I figured this out about myself: I become upset with someone or disappointed in them and I do not have the courage to speak my mind about what they have done to upset me, instead I communicate my disappointment in a passive agressive way, by sulking. At the root at it all is being too weak to communicate, too immature to accept what I cannot change in others and always feeling the need to get my own way. I am 33 years old this year and only figuring this out now.
i have found this exactly; the point of the sulk is to punish, induce guilt and thereby manipulate the other to adjust their behavior. Some delight in watching you try to repair the relationship, they are sadistic and purposely reject and taunt to inflict maximum anxiety so that you will never "hurt" them again by f.e. having a different opinion. These people seem to be stuck in childhood where they used this exact technique (not consciously obviously) because they had no other way to express the pain, hurt or anxiety they experienced... Very sad really but very hard to deal with.
hello fleurette
of course you are right. a consensually shared sense of injustice has been one of the prime movers in social history. as you observe, that is not the point of my blog. i am more interested in the clinical, rather than the social, expression of injustice - war, murder, battery, infanticide, crime etc. i will be doing some blogs on misogyny quite soon. at the moment i am researching misogyny in music. just one more symptom but of interest to me as a piano student!
Loved your insights! Please share some more.
I'd listen to this man read the back of a Febreze.
I very much enjoyed your vlog. Thank you for sharing your insights about the complicated inner workings of our psyche.
I had a thought about what you said with regards to the reason why the SULK stops sulking and inflicting pain on the offender. You explained that in a normal sulk we inflict pain by withdrawing until we feel that a sense of justice has been made and that the offender is feeling as bad as we were made to feel. I was thinking instead that we inflict pain until we realize, by the object’s reaction (crying, getting upset), that they are also vulnerable and are suffering at our hands. At this point our stronger, nurturing self comes to light (maybe out of a fear of losing them? Killing them in the most extreme case?). The fear of losing the partner (of killing them) is stronger that the pain that caused the sulking. It also puts us back in a position of power which feels better, less vulnerable.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Please please please do more of these Vlogs.
Thank you.
great video, pump the volume up tho ☺
A friend of mine told me about his aunt, who died in a psychiatric hospital at an advanced age, decades ago. She had been apparently quite well until one day, someone or something offended her, and she stopped speaking. Period. She never spoke again. The doctors decided she was mentally ill and she was admitted to a long stay psychiatric hospital (this was in the days before care in the community, aka sleep in the bus stop). And she was there till she died, a voluntary mute.
If sulking were an Olympics sport, she'd have taken gold.
Her story reminded me of Bartleby the Scrivener, perhaps the greatest sulk in literature.
I wrote my diploma paper once about Bartleby the scrivener (without really understanding him). I interpreted him as a symbol.
Vivienne? @#TsELLIOT? @#TomandViv?
@#SteveIsnTAnAbuser? @#JukeBox 2:44 2:45
Sulking a #SouthernThang? @ #SouthWestTrains 4:26
Hiya
Im going to email you if you are still around to repsond !
AdamJukes. Read your books😢? @# 0:32 0:34