Oh, absolutely. That’s why I work so hard to try to reward those people I can trust to tell me the truth. To mitigate all the messages of high-stress that I can’t help but put out when I encounter something unexpected and distressing as well as I know how; asking for a moment to decompress, using distractions to calm down until I can deal with it more directly, and all-importantly remembering to thank and affirm the behaviour even when it’s stressing me out, and afterwards at other times when it isn’t. I say things like “it’s important that you’re able to talk to me about these things” and “it would be so much worse if you didn’t tell me and then it blew up later”. They are vital mantras to me, not only to reassure my friends but also to remind myself.
I tell my trusted friends that I love them and trust them because I don’t have to worrywort over everything they say, and I can ask them to remind me of the comforting truths as well as alerting me to the uncomfortable ones and they seem to be alright with that. Because it’s true. Because it’s helping me to recover some of my paranoia and deal with relationships in which I don’t have that openness by being able to reliably turn to ones in which I do.
Sometimes I still get stuck in a panic spiral about the negative reinforcement stimuli that I know I’m putting out. But recently, my honest friends have been quick to reassure me on that front. I notice it far more than they do, because I care so much about noticing it, for exactly the reasons you give.
Putting a lot of energy on rewarding people might also leads to them giving less feedback because it signals that getting feedback is a big deal and that it’s not possible to give you feedback without you making a big deal about it.
Oh, absolutely. That’s why I work so hard to try to reward those people I can trust to tell me the truth. To mitigate all the messages of high-stress that I can’t help but put out when I encounter something unexpected and distressing as well as I know how; asking for a moment to decompress, using distractions to calm down until I can deal with it more directly, and all-importantly remembering to thank and affirm the behaviour even when it’s stressing me out, and afterwards at other times when it isn’t. I say things like “it’s important that you’re able to talk to me about these things” and “it would be so much worse if you didn’t tell me and then it blew up later”. They are vital mantras to me, not only to reassure my friends but also to remind myself.
I tell my trusted friends that I love them and trust them because I don’t have to worrywort over everything they say, and I can ask them to remind me of the comforting truths as well as alerting me to the uncomfortable ones and they seem to be alright with that. Because it’s true. Because it’s helping me to recover some of my paranoia and deal with relationships in which I don’t have that openness by being able to reliably turn to ones in which I do.
Sometimes I still get stuck in a panic spiral about the negative reinforcement stimuli that I know I’m putting out. But recently, my honest friends have been quick to reassure me on that front. I notice it far more than they do, because I care so much about noticing it, for exactly the reasons you give.
Putting a lot of energy on rewarding people might also leads to them giving less feedback because it signals that getting feedback is a big deal and that it’s not possible to give you feedback without you making a big deal about it.