Anonymous wrote:You look so pretty, TODAY.

What’s wrong with that? Sometimes I wear a shirt that really goes with my coloring, or I spent a few extra min on hair/makeup

I'm not a big fan of any of the God's plans type messages but otherwise I recognize it's the intent of people's words that's important. I can't imagine getting offended over someone saying "you look pretty today!"

“God’s plan is better than ours.”

It’s why I left Christianity. Any religion preaching that children dying is part of a loving deity’s plan is cruel.

You look so pretty, TODAY.

Anonymous wrote:Generally when something so terrible has happened that people are trying to comfort me, I don't pay attention to the words, I pay attention to the intent behind them.

And the intent is usually kind. It doesn't matter if it comes out super awkward. I know what's in your heart.

Apart from my mother, who when I shared that I was depressed because my spouse had lost his job and we had to relocate with two young kids to a studio apartment, snapped: "He's ruined your life". In a nasty tone.

Don't be like my mother, and you'll be fine.

I think more people are like your mom than you think. I think many people are annoyed are angry by people's grief, and it makes it hard for them to feel empathy or kindness. Sometimes the words even technically sound kind but you can tell they don't mean it. Or yes, as with your mom, sometimes they can't even muster generic kind words.

Anonymous wrote:"I can't imagine what you're going through"

This, to me, is one of the absolute worst things to say to someone going through something difficult. It has always struck me as horrible but people say it all the time.

MWK?

"Are you nervous? Don't be!" Well, NOW I am!

"You look really tired."

"Are you OK? You look really worried."

I HATE this. I have one colleague who says some variation of this to me regularly, and I am never tired or worried when she says it. I will be walking around having a good day and thinking I look nice that day, and then BOOM: "You look really tired/worried." It ruins my day.

I once asked her what she meant and why she always tells me this, and she said, "Well, you must just have a distressed-looking face."

So I guess if anyone wants an idea for how to passive-aggressively ruin somebody's day and make them feel bad about themselves, put on a voice of concern and tell them they look tired or worried.

Anonymous wrote:Generally when something so terrible has happened that people are trying to comfort me, I don't pay attention to the words, I pay attention to the intent behind them.

And the intent is usually kind. It doesn't matter if it comes out super awkward. I know what's in your heart.

Apart from my mother, who when I shared that I was depressed because my spouse had lost his job and we had to relocate with two young kids to a studio apartment, snapped: "He's ruined your life". In a nasty tone.

Don't be like my mother, and you'll be fine.

This! I hate it when people criticize awkward words with good intent.

Anything like "God needed him" or "God never gives you more than you can handle".

My MIL was recently diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor not too long after my FIL died and those comments have been incredibly hard on her.

Anonymous wrote:It was meant to be.

A variant of this is when someone dies and people say that God needed them in heaven or God needed another angel or something. When I was 14 a friend of mine from school was killed in a car accident, and this was the entire theme of the memorial service we held at the school -- people saying that God needed this kid in heaven so he had to die. It made me so angry and was not even a little comforting.

Generally when something so terrible has happened that people are trying to comfort me, I don't pay attention to the words, I pay attention to the intent behind them.

And the intent is usually kind. It doesn't matter if it comes out super awkward. I know what's in your heart.

Apart from my mother, who when I shared that I was depressed because my spouse had lost his job and we had to relocate with two young kids to a studio apartment, snapped: "He's ruined your life". In a nasty tone.

Don't be like my mother, and you'll be fine.

It was meant to be.

"I can't imagine what you're going through"

This, to me, is one of the absolute worst things to say to someone going through something difficult. It has always struck me as horrible but people say it all the time.

... but that usually have the opposite effect?

I was just watching a coach try to encourage some tweens who had had a bad performance today, and he did so by repeatedly telling them they didn't need to worry about being embarassed by their performance, because probably no one noticed. You could tell the kids were not encouraged by this in the least -- they still felt bad about having performed poorly, but also felt bad that apparently their efforts were so unimportant that none of their competitors or spectators cared one way or another. Not the reassurance I think the coach intended!

It reminded me of a time many years ago when I was going through a bad patch in life (break up, job loss, health issue all at once) and a friend told me that I needed to be grateful because there are people in war zones or experiencing famine who have it much worse. While that of course is true, it didn't actually help me solve any of my very real problems, but did successfully make me feel guilty for having them in the first place given how fortunate I am to not be starving or living in a house that might be bombed. I think my friend thought this was perspective I hadn't considered when in reality I knew I am privileged in a global sense, but in a practical sense it was pretty irrelevant to my problems at the time which were things like how to see a needed medical specialist when I'd just lost my health insurance.

Anyone have any other good examples?