[sirsinsalot]

The "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" thing is ironically an example of black-or-white thinking which psychologically works to prevent people from dealing with the complexity and nuance of emotion.

It's a positive dismissal.

It makes people weaker.

[rightbyte]

It is some sort of "cope".

The best counterexample is freezing damage. Each time makes you weaker.

I believe both e.g. participating in war or being a victim of a crime makes you mentally weaker.

Many veterans seems to be the brink of collapse and those people were probably better suited mentally than the average man for ensuring war since they self selected for it? Or maybe less naive people would fare better?

[geraldhh]

'positive dismissal' seems intuitively useful and i do appreciate the nuance of weakening emotions that can be converted into productive assets with this kind of thinking.

not sure about the rape analogy thou

[sirsinsalot]

It isn't useful, it is used to avoid going through a healthy emotional arc.

It is reflective of a society that sees emotions that don't feel productive as "bad" and to make excuses or falsely positive reasons to dismiss them.

The classic example is the British attitude of the "stiff upper lip".

These narratives result in lower happiness, compassion and generally poorer mental health.

Don't let a society that encoded outdated views on emotional health dictate that you shouldn't freely allow emotions to complete their cycle and be expressed.

I truly cant express how bad perpetuating this kind of thinking is on an individual and societal level.