I want you to go to PostSecret http://www.postsecret.com/ or OneSentence http://www.onesentence.org/. Browse around. If you've never been here, you'll be addicted. Guaranteed. You will laugh. You will be surprised. Maybe even shocked. These are glimpses into personal worlds. Many of them are also good examples of psychological needs.
What was your experience reading these? How do they make you feel? How do they make you think? Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need. Justify your answer by providing evidence from the book about that psychological need, and you linking it to the secret or OneSentence you've chosen.
What was your experience reading these and how did they make you feel?
I looked at both sites. Some of the comments were funny but most of them made me feel really sad. It amazing how cruel honesty can be when no one knows who’s posting their feelings on the internet. A lot of the posts talked about abuse or drugs, sexual abuse and pain. It made me feel sad.
How do they make you think?
I found lots of examples that relate well to chapter six. On the http://www.postsecret.com/ website I found a picture that was targeting motivation when working out in a gym. The quote said, “If you stand right next to me waiting for the piece of equipment I am using, I will triple my reps!” This post relates to the definition of competence. (The psychological need to be effective in interactions with the environment, and it reflects the desire to exercise one’s capacities and skills and to seek out and master optimal challenges (Deci and Ryan, 1985b, pg.155.) This guy was showing off his skills while also showing that he fits well within his environment. The second post that I found was also on http://www.postsecret.com/ and it was a picture of a man holding a cat. The quote on this picture read, “I feel more connected to this man through his novels and poetry than I do to anyone I have ever met, and it is crippling.” This post relates well to the definition of relatedness. (The Psychological need to establish close emotional bonds with other people and the need to be involved in warm relationships, pg. 162) Whoever posted this was saying that they find a connection with this author and it gives them a since of worth because they fell they can relate to this man. The third and final post that I found was one that bothered me the most. (Also at http://www.postsecret.com/) It is a picture of a very old man and the tag says, “I only wrote to him so he wouldn’t leave me out of his will.”) This picture illustrates the definition of Autonomy (When our interests, preferences and wants guide our decisions etc., pg. 146.) This person clearly was only thinking of money and not their relationship with this old man. (Maybe a grandfather/ other relative.) It shows that the greed of wanting wealth over a strong relationship was more important. Frankly this last picture I’ve described disgusts me!
What was your experience reading these?
I have already been to PostSecret, so I decided I wanted to look into OneSentence instead. My experience was full of emotion, mostly sad. I read through the posts quite a few times, but after the first time reading them I had to walk away from it. I can handle hearing one person talk about their problems, but it was difficult to read through so many peoples’ experiences in one sitting. It was as if I was allowed to have a glimpse at another person’s life and know just briefly what their story is.
How do they make you feel?
Most of the entries I read on OneSentence made me really sad, yet I had a yearning to find out the whole story rather than just a single sentence. Although I did not know the individuals, I had empathy for them and wanted to be a support system to them. Reading some of these sentences brought me to a place when I was in a similar situation, and reemerged some of the feelings I felt I felt in that moment.
How do they make you think?
It made me realize that everyone has their own interpretation of situations, so no one will respond in the exact same way. Therefore, what may be a blessing to one is a curse to another. Each person has their own problems, and that sometimes people are so wrapped up into their own life that they do not reach out to help another. It made me consider that, as a society, we need more preventative approaches to reduce the amount of depression, drug usage, and other forms of injury.
Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need. Justify your answer by providing evidence from the book about that psychological need, and you linking it to the secret or OneSentence you've chosen.
“It still bothers me that my own mother didn't care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did.” This example represents the need for relatedness. This person wanted her mother to care about her and notice that her child was engaging in self-harm. Instead it was a science teacher that noticed. This teacher was responsive to the student’s needs and acknowledged that there was a problem. In this situation, the student may not have the connection to warm and loving relationships, since the title was “SearchingForSuperman.” There is definitely absence of relatedness with the student’s mother, but it was present to some extent among the concerned teacher.
“I started to think that maybe I wasn't a normal child when I had an anxiety attack at the mention of something I'd gotten wrong on a test.” The person that submitted this OneSentence strives for competence. While the opportunities for challenge were high, this individual believed their personal skills and competencies were low. This could provoke anxiety. Maybe this person felt as if he/she failed themselves or others.
“I put away the razors again.” This short statement that says so little could mean so much. This sentence is the one I believe to be the strongest demonstration of multiple psychological needs. I see autonomy present in this example. The person made the decision to put away the razors. It also says again, so this could be a reoccurrence, which unfortunately means this individual could pull out the razors again and cause self-harm. Each time the razors are pulled out and put away depend on the person’s choice. Also, the difficulty of day to day life could present challenges that the individual may feel as if they are not good or competent enough. In addition, there may be a lack of relatedness. When a person cuts themselves, it is often a way of reaching out for help when they feel no one else is available or cares. If this person feels as if he/she does not belong, it lowers the feeling of relatedness and could increase depression. Maybe since the person is putting away the razors someone has developed or reestablished a caring relationship with this person.
“I told him it was just sex for me, too.” The tags say that this person is lying about this post. This girl may have wanted to establish a close emotional bond to the boy she is having sex with. It does not seem to be satisfying the relatedness need. I sense that she feels lonely, so she turns to him to have someone there, and guilt may be present, as well. This interaction does not seem to make her feel better.
What was your experience reading these?
Reading these posts were really interesting to me. I've been pretty blessed with a great family and life so reading these gave me a glimpse into others lives that I normally wouldn't think about. I know that everyone has a different life and different experiences than others but reading these made them seem more real.
How do they make you feel?
As stated above, reading them made me really grateful for my life and the things my family has given me. I haven't really had an experiences that I can think of that would be like these. It also kind of hurt me to know that other people are going through these experiences in their lives. As someone going into mental health counseling, it made me want to help them through the harder times in life in the more deep and hurtful posts.
How do they make you think?
They made me think about the differences of people. The world we live in is so diverse with everyone having different experiences. It also made me think about how people have different needs from each other and how each person interprets and uses the needs to work with their situation.
Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need. Justify your answer by providing evidence from the book about that psychological need, and you linking it to the secret or OneSentence you've chosen.
There were two posts that really stood out to me. The first post was in PostSecret (http://www.postsecret.com/) and was posted on February 16, 2013. The post said "For my birthday, I am going to get help - I am going to be happy because I am tired of living like this - I am tired of being tired. I want to be HAPPY." This is a really good example of autonomy. I feel that this statement is a problem with drugs or depression (but of course, I could also be completely wrong). By saying that they want help because they want to be happy, they are making a choice to change the way they're living and get the help that is needed. The book states that behavior is self-deteremind, otherwise known as autonomous. By being self-determind, one makes their own decisions. It allows people to decide for themselves instead of beings swayed by others.
The other post was from OneSentence (http://www.onesentence.org/) and was posted on January 23, 2013. It said "It still bothers me that my own mother didn't care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did." This shows a great example of relatedness. One would think that their closest relationships would be with their parents. Children live with their parents, the parents provide for them and care for them and spend most of their time with them. As for teachers, the child could only be with the teacher during the class period during the day. This could just be a couple hours each day. Yes, the teacher and student could have had a close relationship and the student could have found the teacher to confide in. The mom might also not be as involved in the child's life as expected and might have problems of her own. This shows relatedness because the child formed a closer bond with the teacher than they did with their parent. In relatedness, it's when one can form close bonds with others. Also in dealing with relatedness, one forms these bonds with people that they trust to care for them. In this situation, the teacher and student must have formed a closer bond than the parent and student. This also cause the student to trust the teacher more than the parent which in return made the teacher care for the student more than the mother. This final most hit me more than the rest. I have a very close relationship with my parents and go to them for everything. I can't imagine not having my parents be there for me to support, help, and care for me. It hurts to know that other people don't have those things from their parents.
My experience reading these was mostly shocking. I mostly felt sad. Many people do not say these sorts of things out loud and they keep it to themselves. It’s hard to realize how much painful things people have to go through. A few of them shocked me at how crude they were. There was one on PostSecret talking about how their raper gave them the best orgasm of their life. I thought that was very disturbing and wrong. It is unreal how crazy reality and honesty are.
On PostSecret, I read a secret that said, “I wish I was straight so I could get married in the gown my mother and grandmother both wore.” This woman has a psychological need for autonomy. She wants to be free to marry whomever she pleases without having to be controlled by her environment. I believe she also lacks the psychological need for relatedness. She has the need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments to a significant other of the same sex through the sanction of marriage. She also would feel an emotional bond by wearing the same wedding gown as her mother and grandmother as she is united with the love of her life. There is another post on PostSecret that says, “If you stand right next to me waiting for the piece of equipment I am using, I WILL triple my reps.” This shows that the person has a need to show their competence. They are influenced by their environment because someone is watching and waiting for the person to complete their workout with that machine. The person wants to show off their capacities and skills by mastering challenging personal skills.
When reading these I had very mixed emotions. This seemed to be a place where people admitted the truth behind things that they might be guilty about.
Some made me feel happy, others made me sad, and some made me feel angry. Lots of these stories were sad but there were also some that told good stories.
These made me think about how you don’t really know what people are thinking. Things are going on in people’s heads that you can’t imagine. It also made me think of how horrible some people can be. There were others that made me so sad that these things had happened to people. It made me think about how hard it is to go through these scenarios. Some of these sentences confused me. They were very vague and it made me wonder what was going on in their situation.
One Sentence has a sentence that says, “I told him it was just sex for me, too”. This shows this person’s need for relatedness. They lied to this person because they thought that was what they needed to do to stay close and not lose the emotional connection.
Another person wrote about how they joined the army so they could murder someone. This shows how they need autonomy. They want to choose if someone lives or dies. This was one of the sentences that shocked me on how horrible some people can be.
Another person wrote, “The hardest moment of my life was telling my 5 year old little girl that her daddy died unexpectedly last night while she was asleep”. This shows the little girls’ relatedness towards her father. She feels an emotional connection with him. This makes it hard for this mother to tell her son.
There was another one titled bad dad that says, “I read, and reread, the note only to find that yes, my thirteen year old daughter did just tell me that I was a great friend”. This shows his psychological need of competence. Whoever wrote this wants to be competent as a father.
I looked at the Post Secret website. I had heard of Post Secret before but I had never been to the website before. It was interesting to look at these and once I looked at a couple, I wanted to see all the rest. Some were humorous or inspiring, but the majority were very serious. There were some deep confessions and some almost haunting secrets that people put on there. A couple made me feel happy, particularly the one from a suicide survivor that said he/she was very grateful to be alive today. A lot of them made me feel sad that this is the truth that some people go through, and I can only hope that putting some of these secrets on this website perhaps gave some people a sense of freedom or relief that they shared that secret, even anonymously.
It mostly made me think that you never really know what someone is going through. Often people may seem like the strongest, most put-together person but really they’re going through something that no one knows about. I’ve seen that in my own life, and these secrets are a reminder of that. Reading some of these made me grateful for my own life.
A couple examples stood out to me as relating to our readings about psychological needs. One in particular was an image of a man holding a cat and the caption read “I feel more connected to this man through his novels and poetry than I do to anyone I have ever met, and it is crippling.” Although I don’t know who that man is specifically, it’s evident that he is a poet and that the person who wrote this secret is experiencing the psychological need of relatedness. The person finds a connection with this man, even though he/she has never met him. The other one that stood out to me is related to autonomy. The postcard says “I wish I was straight so I could get married in the gown my mother and grandmother both wore.” This person is experiencing a need for autonomy because they wish they had the freedom to get married as they wish. We want to make our own choices and decisions and the fact that this person doesn’t have the choice to get married legally, it’s restricting their autonomy.
How do they make me feel?
I looked at both One Sentence and Post Secret. One Sentence honestly made me feel a lot better about my own life. There were a lot of short sentences that packed an extreme saddening punch. It is amazing how a few simple words strung together in a sentence can have such an impact. Many of the sentences don’t explicitly state the hardship, but prelude to the fact something awful has recently happened. I believe these sentences have even more impact because the writer is too mortified to even state the hardship in plain text. On the other hand, Post Secret made me laugh. This site was very clever and witty. There were a few sensitive subjects portrayed in the pictures, but for the most part this was a comical website.
How do they make me think?
As I mentioned above, One Sentence made the reader think hard about what the writer may have been trying to portray when they didn’t explicitly state their hardships. It made me wonder if I could form one sentence for a catastrophic or even monumental event in my life. It really made me think about the power of words and the emotions they can invoke. Post Secret made me think about the hidden meaning behind the surface level comedy. In each comical picture or statement, there is an underlying message (mostly negative) being portrayed. This site also made me think how powerful words along with a picture are in releasing so many emotions.
Examples:
One Sentence: Privateschoolgirl
“It was when I was picking used pieces of the drug out of my carpet that I thought I may have a problem.”
- In this sentence, the girl was experiencing a severe lack of autonomy over her life. This was not due to another person taking that self-direction and personal endorsement away, but instead drugs. Now that she realizes she has a problem, she will be able to better make a perceived choice providing the decision-making flexibility to choose what is best for her. Her addiction robbed her of the power to choose, but now that she realizes she has a problem she can finally satisfy her need for autonomy.
One Sentence: Wolf
“I haven't spoken to her in five years, but it's still habit to look at her house as I drive past.”
- This personal statement deeply reflects this man’s psychological need for relatedness. There is a void between his actual state and satisfied state of relatedness so he must look at the previous love of his life’s house every time he drives by. I would guess he is still single and misses the potentially supportive marriage he used to have. He now feels lonely and lacks a close intimate relationship, or has one that is not emotionally satisfying.
~What was your experience reading these?
Well I started this blog assignment off by looking at Post Secret website, but this site did not really click for me. Since Post Secret really was not something that I thought was something I would be interested in or enjoy looking at so I decided to try looking at the One Sentence website which was totally something else when looking through it. There were so many comments I tried looking at as many as I could, but there was just so many comments I gave up since they would take so long to look at. I also could just not handle continuously looking at some extremely depressing comments
~How do they make you feel?
A lot of the statements by the people were really depressing since so many of them were about family members passing away, abuse, and so on. Some made me laugh because a comment would be about some form of a funny rebellion. Overall though for most of the posts I was disgusted to see so many horrible comments about rape victims, abuse, and parents leaving their children. Though there were so many depressing comments I feel this is a good chance for many people to start to become more open and eventually explain to others how they actually feel.
~How do they make you think?
They made me think that there is so much out in the world that just seems to be going wrong since several comments were of abuse, fathers leaving their children, and even a lot about death. Sometimes I did not really understand why some people just put what seemed to be random posts about an everyday activity. I am not sure if that is referring to them having a good life in the past but now have a crappy life which I saw a few posts about some people becoming homeless which may be has some sort of similar aspect.
~Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need.
“It still bothers me that my own mother didn't care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did.” (OneSentence, 2013)
This comment shows signs of both signs of a lack of and presence of relatedness. The lack of relatedness is coming from the mother due to the fact that she does not care that her child is suffering. On the other hand the science teacher is showing relatedness through a student teacher relationship by interfering with the actions she was doing and confronting her.
“After completing the examination of my newborn the doctor looked up at me with a slightly bored expression and said "She was born without eyes and will be blind", and then walked out of the room.” (OneSentence, 2013)
The comment of a parent who had a child without any eyes is something that any parent or doctor would be affected by. The doctor had to show a lack of autonomy by the way he/she had to tell the parent the bad news in “a slightly bored expression” since this behavior was caused by an outside force that was unpleasant. This could also be viewed as a presence of competence from the doctor since he/she had to obtain the skill of giving bad news in such a manor to being able to handle the profession of being a doctor.
1) I wonder if you still dream of me as often I still dream of you but – you'll never see this and I'll never ask.
2) I wish I was straight so I could get married in the gown my mother AND grandmother both wore. It's been my dream since I was 6.
3) I feel more connected to this man through his novels and poetry than I do to anyone I have ever met, and it is crippling.
I went to the Post Secret Event at UNI last year with a friend of mine who loves the Post Secret website. I was reluctant, because I do not like to carry the burden of other people's secrets. I don't find the stories cute nor do they make me feel better about my own life. It hurts me, in some way, to know that people feel that alone or have been hurt that badly to where they feel such pain in extreme ways. I know people in real life with secrets that are similar to what is on Post Secret, and honestly, posting the secret does not make their life any easier. It allows them to admit there is a problem but having it out in the open does nothing to solving the actual problem.
I chose these 3 secrets because they addressed a similar and popular psychological need which people often feel that they are not satisfying. This need is the need to belong or relate to others. The psycho-social need is one which many people have problems satisfying. In the first secret, the narrator pines over someone who they do not address their thoughts to. If this were something they wanted to fix, they should talk to the other person. I know that people can have disorders or illnesses that cause them to have issues addressing their problems, but one has to try in order to get better. I don't mean to sound bitter but it is true. As for the third secret, the narrator feels most connected to a man through his writing than anyone in real life whom they have met. I think the narrator should meet more people. If the ideas of the person whom they connect with exist, there is a person to relate to, as well. Although, the fact that they are able to relate to something should bring them satisfaction in their need for relatedness. I think they need to accept themselves better, first. And as for the second secret, I honestly felt very bad for this narrator. I think the concept of sexuality can be a very difficult subject. The sexual need is very basic and strong, which is, in my mind, nearly impossible to control. As for the dress, I am very disappointed that their family would not accept their daughter for who she is. I feel like all of these people have problems relating to others, they have lost autonomy over their life and have therefor feelings of low competence. It is very unfortunate that they feel this way.
But the whole point of Post Secret is not for others to judge one another's secrets. I think the point is for the writers to get through the first step in overcoming their past by admitting out in the open that there is a problem. It is then the job of the narrator to help themselves get better and for them to continue the process of moving on. I am not a huge fan of Post Secret, but if it helps others help themselves, than I am all for it.
What was your experience reading these? How do they make you feel?
I was mainly shocked at some of the things people put. There were some funny ones and some that I sincerely hope the people that wrote them got help.
How do they make you think?
Some of them did make me think about things that had happened to me or people I know. It made me wonder, would I feel better if I just wrote this stuff on a random site or told someone?
Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need.
Justify your answer by providing evidence from the book about that psychological need, and you linking it to the secret or OneSentence you've chosen.
Postsecret.com
The, I am a survivor of suicide and am so very grateful to be alive today have some psychological need in it. The fact that they did not go through with it or was caught and saved and now are happy shows the growth that is talked about on pg. 143 second paragraph. It states that in the satisfaction of doing something we are happier and that is considered growth and not a deficit. Yes that person wanted to kill themselves however it did not happen and now they are grateful or happy thus showing just the act of wanting to do something and a positive outcome was achieved.
I’ve learned more about God in my college global ideas class than I ever have in Bible study I feel does not show a psychological need. It merely is stating whoever was teaching their Bible study class needs to change what they are doing. Plus it is no gratification or sadness about it. Just plain and simple statement.
OneSentence
As I walked out the door to teach others people’s children, I felt extra guilty leaving my seven year old sick at home. There is The Conundrum of Choice on pg. 147 that explains this. There are two options, stay home and care for the sick kid, which as a parent would make a lot of sense and feel better about you. That is until the bills pile up because you had to miss work and now you’re sick as well since you had to make the choice to eat or power the house. I’ll be it a little extreme but I would imagine this is what that parent had to decide on.
On a windy day a plastic grocery bag chased my dog down the sidewalk and now he can’t stop looking over his shoulder. Since we really don’t know what goes on in a dog’s head, no psych evidence here. I suppose you could argue the fact the owner noticed these things make them think about the plastic bag and being cautious while using one around the dog. Or
Browsing and reading these websites made me feel lots of different emotions. The post cards and sentence were very raw powerful it was extremely hard not to feel anything while reading them. Some of them were very funny and made you laugh, but the very next one would be extremely sad and heartbreaking. It was also a little uncomfortable at times. These people were saying some of the deepest secrets they had. We were taking a large look into someone else lives. It was also almost exhausting. I was feeling so many emotions in such a short amount of time. I almost needed to take a break. I felt for these people and had great empathy even though I have never met them or don’t know who they are. I part of me also felt grateful. I was glad that these people had an outlet such as these websites to be able to bear themselves. I thought to myself that I hoped it made them feel better. It made me think lots of different thoughts as well. It made me realize how small some of problems really are. These words can be very humbling and make you realize what you have. It also made me think of how different people are but can be so similar. All of these people had completely different issues, but were all able to put them into words and express them to others.
There were many examples in these two websites that can relate to our psychological needs. “SearchingForSuperman:It still bothers me that my own mother didn't care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did” This to me was a call for relatedness. She wanted to her mother to care for her. He psychological need was not being met, and this sentence explains that very well. “Ka, I told him it was just sex for me, too” this was also an example of the relatedness psychological need. She was lying to the person she was having sex with and saying she didn’t want that relatedness. It seems by this sentence that she is wanting to feel the connectedness with that person. The other person seemed to be rejecting her psychological need of relatedness. This made her feel sad and embarrassed so it seemed she lied to them. Another example of relatedness was the post card of a person writing to someone she (the handwriting looked like a woman’s) still had feelings for. She asked him in the post card if they dreamed of her, and she still dreams of them. It goes on to say that she would never tell them. This is an obvious need for relatedness. She is missing the person that she had a connection with and now the need is not met. “Wasted talent. Without a word, I walked out those doors for the last time.” Showed the psychological need of autonomy. They made the choice to walk out of the doors. We desire choice and desire to make our own actions. This is what the person demonstrated. There was also post card that was a good example of competency. the person wrote on the card that if someone stands next to them, they will triple their reps. We need to satisfy a need that involves challenge and striving for a goal. The person is using a challenge when someone else is around him.
What was your experience reading these? How do they make you feel? How do they make you think? Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need. Justify your answer by providing evidence from the book about that psychological need, and you linking it to the secret or OneSentence you've chosen.
I decided to check out the website Post Secret. This website was addicting, and I found myself wanting to read more. Some of the things that people had written were funny, some where shocking, some were sad, and some even made me feel uncomfortable. The statements and secrets that people were sharing were mostly just interesting to me, but after I began thinking about why people might be saying the things they were saying I thought how relieved they might be feeling that they had shared the thoughts that maybe no one else was aware of. I thought how liberating it might be to share a secret with a group of people that you will probably never meet, but you know that people know your secret. I think that this might be very therapeutic, even if you do not know the people you are sharing your secret with.
Throughout this website many psychological needs are being met. The first secret that I will quote is, "If you stand right next to me waiting for the piece of equipment I am using, I will triple my reps." This post relates to the psychological need of competence. "Competence is the psychological need to be effective in interactions with the environment, and it reflects the desire to exercise one's capacities and skills, and in doing so, to seek out and master optimal changes," as quoted by the book on page 155. This person is experiencing and uncomfortable feeling while be waited on to complete his repetitions, and he is aiming to feel competent in his environment. The next quote I would like to discuss is, "I wish I was straight so I could get married in the gown my mother and grandmother both wore." This person is attempting to satisfy the need for relatedness. They want to be able to relate to their mother and grandmother because they want to be able to wear the same wedding dress. They also want to relate to every straight person because they are able to experience things like getting married in their mother or grandmother's wedding dress. In general, I think that these websites allow people to relate to others and share things that they may not otherwise share. They are attempting to meet the psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This is a safe environment for them to do just that.
When I read through the post secret website or books (that I own) I have a mix of emotions about them. Some make me feel bad for the author, some I feel the same way, and some of them disgust me. Some of the depressing ones I wander if post secrets are how they are relieving their stress, or if they have someone in their lives that they can also talk to. Most of the post cards are done up and decorated very nicely. There was thought in what it should say and looks like, just a spur of the moment kind of thing. People fears or regrets seem to draw me in the most. Missing an ex boyfriend or fear of the future are very innocent feelings that I would think everyone has a little. You can just tell these people want to feel as though they are not alone in their fears, regrets, and desires.
One sentence: As I walked out the door to teach other people's children, I felt extra guilty leaving my seven year old sick at home. tags: teacher mom stomach flu guilt
This one sentence I say expresses a lack of competence and autonomy as a working mother. Because of her job, this mother cannot be the best possible mother to her sick son. Work is essential to support her family, so she has no choice but to go to work and lack in her duties as a mother. Her son’s sickness challenged her as a mother and she fell short, causing her to feel guilty.
Post secrets: “My grandparents at age 19, before they were even engaged. (Young grandpa kissing young grandma) My greatest fear is never finding what they had for nearly 60 years. I am 19 now”
This post secret author is lacking relatedness in their life. They have not yet found that one person they feel understands them the most, is most like them, and will always be there for them. Like the books says marriages can have a lot of interaction, but without being emotionally satisfying, like say to keep a marriage strong for 60 years. This fear shows this person longs for a partner who understands you inside and out, and still loves you, and wants to be with you forever.
My experience reading some of the things from both PostSecret and OneSentence is a sense of interest. You are given a quick glimpse into someone else’s world. It makes you remember that no matter the person, you don’t really know what is going on in their lives, in their minds, and in their hearts. It is important to always remember that you actions or words can do damage even if you think it wasn’t that big of a deal. Most of them were quite sad and I was feeling empathy for these people. When I read the ones about suicide I thought that I may be reading someone’s last thing that they wrote and that they may in fact be dead and therefore successfully committed suicide unfortunately. But I do feel as though these websites provide an open forum for people to just put it out there and know that someone has read it, and cares even if they hadn’t met the person face to face.
One example that really struck me was “It still bothers me that my own mother didn’t care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did”. It just really struck me that this person’s own mother didn’t give two shits about their own child and that it took (I’m sure) a very passionate and caring educator to notice and seek help for this person. This shows the student’s want for relatedness, they obviously are not fulfilling this need at home. Another example is one from PostSecret that said “for my birthday, I am going to get help - I am going to be happy because I am tired of living like this - I am tired of being tired. I want to be HAPPY." This shows a sense of autonomy. This person is using free will to determine that he needs help and wants to be happy.
What was your experience reading these?
I watched the video chat “fifty people, one question”, what is my secret? as well as read the Sunday Secrets. (http://www.postsecretcommunity.com/video)
The video was interesting because in the beginning people were reluctant to say their secret, but once the first secret came out people kept spilling their secrets. Some people were shocked and befuddled by when and why they shared their secret with a camera crew. Most of these are mind blowing to me. These secrets put things into perspective and make me realize how selfish I can be sometimes. “My rapist gave me the best orgasm I have ever had”. That one made me physically stop and think. Within that one sentence there is no hate nor love, it is an eleven-word sentence with pages of meaning behind it.This website plays on all three psychological needs, autonomy, competence and relatedness. These secrets mean different things to different people and emphasize the emotional responses and psychological needs we all crave.
Examples
“I feel more connected to this man through his novels and poetry than I do to anyone I have ever met, and it is crippling.”
This secret shows both autonomy and relatedness. This person is seeking out relatedness and is consumed by autonomy. This person wants to be able to relate others, but does not seem to be connecting. The inanimate objects carry more relatedness than people. This person strives for autonomy (when our preferences guide our decisions), but does not seem to be getting it from another human. The person want and desires to make connections and have relatedness with other, but only seems to find them in the novels and poems. This person has competence as well, the environmental effect (reading the poem or book) has lead to this feeling of connection with the author (even without the physical presence of the author). This person may be lacking competence in connecting with other people whom s/he is interactive with. The environment (being physically present or being interactive) does not lead to a connection.
“I’m a lot better before you really know me” (from the video)
This person also has trouble with the psychological need of relatedness. She has a “wall” up and people can only get to know her so much before she shuts them out and breaks down. Much of relatedness related to the lack of autonomy. The lack of control and decision making leads to less relating to others. She loses competence the more she gets to know a person, the effectiveness of her communication deteriorates and she loses the desire to become a “great friend”.
I made the mistake of looking through PostSecret during my 15 minute break at work. I took much more than 15 minutes today. I was truly disgusted by some of the things that I was reading.
The post “My rapist gave me the best orgasm of my life”. I am truly, completely disgusted by this because how terrible to think of someone who had sex with you forcibly, was also (by Cosmo’s definition) the best sex you’ve had. That must make it very difficult to understand and reconcile that violation of being raped. As I sit here trying to write this blog, I can’t help but let my mind wander to other victims of rape and wonder if this is common. The note below, saying that this should not be a defense for rapists claiming that their victim “didn’t know what they wanted” was a very important inclusion for the website I believe. This fits into psychological needs loosely. The rape victim might feel a lack of competence or relatedness because she might feel as if she is tainted or broken, which she is not. (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M9cCt9v9_AM/URRjY_n9bOI/AAAAAAAAXn4/72iomdpsP3Y/s1600/maybeishouldnothavepostedthisone.jpg)
The next post I looked at was the one that said “I dream every night of beating the crap out of the woman my husband left me for”. This one is interesting because there is a sense of forced autonomy where maybe she doesn’t want to have autonomy. Her husband left her and she feels that this is the fault of the woman he ran off with. She is probably feeling incompetent because she was unable to hold on to her husband and lastly she is probably experiencing a high need for relatedness because she has partner has left her. (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-skx3HuGMRHg/URRj0Va8RvI/AAAAAAAAXpA/JxSQSl56Ddo/s400/onback.ihopeshewakesupeverynightfilledwithguiltandshame.jpg)
I don’t have a specific post from onesentance because it was impossible for me to pick just one that stood out to me. The posts ranged from sad to happy to pathetic. I found myself reading through pages and pages of the posts and was fascinated by the statements posted. I tried to think of something that I could post but I couldn’t think of anything which made me wonder if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I’m sure that I will be addicted to PostSecret and OneSentence for a very long time.
My experience with reading these posts was mixed emotions. Some of the posts I felt relatedness towards. Others were very shocking. And some were just weird. They made me think about thoughts I have, and what kind of thing I would post on a site like this. A lot seem to be written out of guilt. I found myself wondering if the people writing them got much relief out of admitting these secrets when they are admitting it to no one in particular.
One that stuck out to me on OneSentence was, “I started to think that maybe I wasn't a normal child when I had an anxiety attack at the mention of something I'd gotten wrong on a test.” This person has a strong psychological need for competence. The need for competence is satisfied by positive feedback and the perception of progress. When the feedback was negative from a wrong answer it made him or her anxious and left feeling incompetent.
Another post on OneSentence said, “Like usual, they prepared food I would not eat.” My guess is that this is from someone struggling with an eating disorder. I believe this person is trying to experience autonomy by being in control of if he or she eats or not. A simple behavior, but for someone with an eating disorder there is a battle between your physiological need and your psychological desire to have the choice of eating or not, along with a lot of other psychological struggles.
On PostSecret I read one that said, “I feel more connected to this man through his novels and poetry than I do to anyone I have ever met, and it is crippling.” This person is struggling with the psychological need for relatedness. He or she is unable to meet that need in relationships with others in his or her life, but has found it through an author’s words. Unfortunately it’s crippling because this is not a reciprocated relationship that can fill the relatedness need.
You can read posts like these from UNI students on the ‘Confessions of a UNI Student’ Facebook page. These occasionally give me a very good laugh when they are not too stupid.
I first went to post secret, and at first they were funny, then when I got about half way through they started to become really sad, depressing and also disturbing. It makes me think that a lot of these people need some psychological help, especially the people who talk about suicide. For example one of them said that they were a survivor of suicide however they were grateful that they were alive.
Another example that I found disturbing and shocking, and other feelings that I really don’t even know how to describe was the secret that a girl’s rapist gave her the best orgasm of her life. I really don’t even like the fact that the secret is posted on the site. In this example this person is missing relatedness. The last example that was sad and also slightly disturbing was one that said everyone thinks I had a second trimester miscarriage, but I really had an abortion because I didn’t want a handicapped child. This is very very sad, and also heartless. Clearly this woman did not have a problem with autonomy, it was her choice to have the abortion, and maybe she suffered from competence since that child could have been a challenge to take care of.
After looking at post secret, I went to one sentence and these were either stupid and to me had no meaning, they were just thoughts, or they were sad. I honestly don’t think that I will ever go to these sites again just because they make me sad, and I hate that feeling. One of the sentences was, we had a lovely day, my oldest son and I, wine tasting and driving through the foothills to celebrate his birthday, only because I did not tell him that just the previous day I was diagnosed with cancer. This person clearly felt that relatedness was important which is why they spent quality time with their son, but it’s sad to hear they have cancer because that is not something we as humans can decide to have or not have, and having autonomy is out of the question since they did not decide to have cancer. Another sentence said, there’s really no feeling in the world like the feeling you get when your dad says he regrets having children and he feels like he’s a prisoner in his own house. This is heart breaking. I feel so bad for this person who wrote this, clearly there is not much relatedness between this person and the father and I’m sure it does not help their competence to try and strive better for themselves either. All and all these secrets and sentences were interesting but mostly sad, and I hope that at least through these websites that these people can start feeling better at the fact that they told their secrets.
What was your experience reading these?
After reading each post I noticed how hard it was to accept everyday reality as the truth. These things happen all the time but it takes a negative correlation for people to understand. I liked how both websites made it easier for people to voice their opinions and or feelings in a way in which they wouldn’t be judged
How do they make you feel?
Both websites made me realize that everyone expresses how they feel differently than others as well to always remember that people are always fighting a battle, they might not be the same hardships but everyone has a hard time and trying their hardest to get past each hard situation. These websites made me want to understand everyone’s hard time and to stop judging others because I never know what someone is going through.
Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need. Justify your answer by providing evidence from the book about that psychological need, and you linking it to the secret or OneSentence you've chosen.
“It still bothers me that my own mother didn't care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did.” I picked this because I was an education major and did my student teaching in a 6th grade English and math classroom. I had this student that I cared a lot about but her mother wouldn’t push her to come to class, do her schoolwork and or keep her out of the streets. Even with all of my effort’s I could not help this child without the help of her mother. The psychological concept that comes to mind is relatedness this student was happy she could depend on their teacher to be there but wanted love and support from her mother as well. She wanted a better relationship with her mother so that she would notice the cutting as the teacher did.
The second example I also got from the one sentence website. “I started to think that maybe I wasn't a normal child when I had an anxiety attack at the mention of something I'd gotten wrong on a test.” This person felt very anxious when getting the results from her test, which in my opinion shows competence, which is striving in different areas of interest such as school, personal lives, work and or relationships.
Terms: Competence, autonomy
Although I have been to the PostSecret website before, it still shocks me every time I go through it. Like Dr. MacLin said in her description of the assignment, I found some of these secrets to be funny and others to be downright depressing. I had similar reactions to the OneSentence website. With this site however, I thought of it as being a simplified version of PostSecret in that no fancy postcards or drawings were needed alongside the secret, but these people just laid out a summary of what is going on in their lives in a single sentence. It takes a lot of courage to reveal some of these secrets I read, so I think these sites are very healing for those going through intense and difficult times.
After reading these posts, I can definitely say I had some mixed emotions. Like I briefly mentioned, I found some of the posts to be quite entertaining and then others to be very personal and depressing. For the latter kind, I really believe that reading these comments force me to think about and appreciate all the good is in my life. I really do have so much to be grateful for. At the same time, these comments make me want to reach out to these people to try and help them. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m a social work major!
Although there were many secrets and sentences that provide good examples of psychological needs sought out by these individuals, I want to focus on two in particular. The first example came from PostSecret. The one that stood out for me was a black and white photo of a man holding a cat. The secret in this picture read, “I feel more connected to this man through his novels and poetry than I do to anyone I have ever met, and it is crippling.” I thought this example, even for how sad it is, provides great evidence in how someone lacking relatedness to others must feel. It is apparent that this person does not hold any close emotional bonds to others nor does he or she feel a need of belonging. These two aspects are just a few of what makes relatedness an important psychological need. All in all, it seems that this person may be just lonely and is in dire need to make a connection with others.
The second example I would like to point out is one I found in OneSentence. This comment was made by “Charlie.” Charlie stated, “When asked what has been my greatest achievement at work, I think to myself it’s definitely catching a projectile box fan by the cord just before it hit that kid in the face, but I respond ‘ helping the kids better themselves’ so people don’t think I'm weird.” I found this post to be somewhat amusing. However, I think this is a good example of Charlie’s competence not being entirely fulfilled. Although it seems that he is effectively interacting with his environment (protecting a child at school, I’m assuming.), I would say that he has not yet exercised enough of his skills and capacities to the point where he can say he has fully mastered optimal challenges in his field of work. The fact that he cannot honestly answer this question suggests that he does not take pride in what he feels he has accomplished thus far in his work. It almost seems like he is not challenged enough at work. In order to reach his full competence potential, I would suggest that Charlie seek out opportunities to challenge himself at certain levels that match his personal skills and competencies.
Terms: Relatedness, Competence
I looked at both of the sites and OneSentence site was a lot more depressing. I hate reading about stories like that, even if it is just one sentence. It really makes me sad to read ones about cancer because my dad passed away from cancer 3 and a half years ago. It is so hard for me to think about the way other people feel in some of these situations. Some of the comments were funny or just weird, but then there were some that made me feel really good about my life. I have my ups and downs just like everyone else, but things have not gotten so bad that I consider cutting myself (like in one of the posts).
One example that really points out relatedness is the post saying "It still bothers me that my own mother didn't care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did." This is so sad to think about. This person has a very bad relationship with their mother. She just flat out did not care about her child. She could be mad at the child for being born because they don't care that the child was trying to kill themselves. And they have a good relationship with the teacher. Every person needs people that they can turn to when they have a problem. The teacher was that person for them. There was another strong example of relatedness that stated "There’s really no feeling in the world like the feeling you get when your dad says he regrets having children and he feels like he’s a prisoner in his own house." I cannot even fathom my parents saying this to me. The child obviously wants to relate to their parents and have a relationship with them but it is extremely difficult when that is what your parents think about you.
Another example that stood out to me was "I couldn't stop smiling when I was told that for the first time, my work would be acknowledged in the school magazine." This is a perfect example of competence. Writing or whatever the work was is very important to this person. The comment makes it seem as though they have been working very hard towards getting it published in the magazine but it has just not happened yet. When it did, this person was extremely happy. More than likely, they will continue to work just as hard to experience that feeling and accomplishment again.
I looked at both sites, but only the One Sentence one for a short period of time. The Post Secret site made me feel very sad for most of the posts. Some of them were worse than others. But it also made me think of the power of anonymity. These people are not only admitting to terrible and sad things but they are doing so to complete strangers, and only because no one will ever know it was them who posted.
I found a lot of posts that relate to chapter six. On the PostSecret site there is one that says, "I have this irrational fear of throwing up upon my boyfriend's proposal...". To me, this post says, "I'm afraid to marry my boyfriend for fear that he will leave me." It may not make much sense to others but this is how I interpreted this post. This shows the concept of relatedness. The one thing this human needs, closeness, she is afraid will lead to her being alone. Also, her fear of being alone, or alternatively of being trapped in a relationship, brings about a physiological reaction of nausea. Another example of relatedness in these posts is one that says, "I feel more connected to this man through his novels and poetry than I do to anyone I have ever met, and it is crippling". This individual is lacking relatedness with people in his/her life. The only way this person feels close to anyone is through a man's poetry. The need for closeness is so great that it is found through writing. But a crucial point to this post is the last part, the part that says, "it is crippling". The individual is aware that the relatedness he/she is getting from writing is not substantial enough; it is not the real thing. This shows the importance of having people in your life that you care about.
Terms: physiological, relatedness
I went onto PostSecret. I have been on this sight before to read posts for another class, but again it just surprised me how honest and how deeply intense the posts were. So many people are wanting help, wanting freedom, wanting to be known by others, to make a different choice, or to change their life, and yet they are stuck. Their hunger for freedom stops at the secret, they won't bring their secret to the light: they won't tell anyone and own up to how they really think and feel, so they remain secrets, they remain stuck.
For example, one of the posts was: "This pill could change my whole life for the better. I won't let it because I am scared...& part of me thinks I don't deserve it." This person wants to have a better life, but is scared. They have the competence of knowing the pill will help, and yet they refuse to make the choice to take it. Their need for autonomy: to make a choice for themselves is fully in this person's hands. They have been given a choice, so their need for autonomy should have been satisfied, but they are withholding the ultimate satisfaction by wrestling with the choice to take the pills or not. This post makes me sad because this person could have a better life, but chooses to not live it. And it makes me sad because they believe for some reason that they don't deserve the better life that is available for them. This post greatly illustrates this persons need for competence and for autonomy. They have satisfied the need for competence, in that they have discovered knowledge about this pill and know about their life and situation. And they have autonomy in that they have a choice to make: to take the pill or not. This autonomy is free and true because no one will force this person to take the pill, and no one can make the decision for them, they must make it and choose.
Another post I read stated, "For my birthday I am going to get help- I am going to be happy because I am tired of living like this- I am tired of being tired. I want to be happy." This person, unlike the person who wrote the first secret above, is ready to make the choice to move on, to live, to better their life. They are tired, and I would argue, tired of not truly satisfying or fulfilling the need for autonomy in their life. They have been feeling tired and sick of where they are for a while, but are now so sick of it that they will actually do something about it: get help. They have had the free choice, the autonomy, but in leaving it incomplete by not acting on the available choice (just like the first example), they do not feel true satisfaction in the level of autonomy they have. But unlike the first example, this person is ready to move on, to actually make the choice, to take advantage of the options she has and to satisfy the psychological need she has.
This post made me feel sad and excited. Sad because this person has let their life get to this point of complete unsatisfaction and unhappiness, but excited because they are taking a step to move forward. This person sounds like they have finally surrendered, finally admitted what they are feeling, and have finally been honest that they can't do it on their own: they are ready to ask for help. This relates to autonomy because now that the person is truly ready to ask for help, they will experience more satisfaction in making that choice because they are so desperate and ready for it.
I went on OneWord.com for this assignment. I was expecting to find a gold mine of hilarity while reading this but I was painfully disappointed. I was prepared for a much needed comedic relief therapy but the majority of the posts on this website were depressing and sad. I did not enjoy reading these. It was a lot of posts of people complaining about their lives and a very small amount of posts that were funny or happy.
These posts kind of depressed me to be honest. I was disappointed and this was not a pleasant experience like I had expected.
These posts didn’t really make me think. All I was doing was reading stupid sentences and trying to relate them to stuff discussed in the book; there wasn’t much to truly make me think.
“He asked me if he could walk me to my door and I said ‘Oh god, I'm so sorry, are we on a date?’”
To me this quote showed a lack of the psychological need of competence for both people in the situation. I’m sure both the guy and the girl felt awkward because neither of them were on the same page. Both of them misjudged the context of the environment they were in which showed they were not competent in that situation. The guy probably had to build up his courage to ask the girl on the “date” in the first place and also to ask to walk her to the door. This was a challenge that he more or less failed which is an aspect of competence. This is also an example of the psychological need of relatedness. Relatedness is about having or establishing emotional bonds between yourself and others. In this situation, the guy was seeking a more intimate relationship than the girl was. The guy is probably now feeling an unsatisfied sense of relatedness and the girl is probably confused as to how she’s supposed to feel.
“In college, I was in a morning class with 500 other students in a lecture hall, only to fall asleep and wake up about 5 hours later in the middle of another class.”
This quote is one I can relate to because I’ve fallen asleep in many of my large lecture classes. I think it shows a lack of autonomy. The person is stuck in a boring lecture hall when he/she clearly does not want to be there. Chances are this person didn’t have much control over the making of its own schedule either because no one in their right mind would choose to have a class at 8:00. When a person is stuck in a class they don’t feel very autonomous because they have to be there; they can’t just get up and leave. This person also wasn’t very competent. In the review of the chapter our book says this about competence: “people experience flow which is characterized by maximal enjoyment, intense concentration, and full absorption in the task.” This person clearly wasn’t experiencing any of those things. He/she didn’t feel engaged in the environment he/she was in and therefore just fell asleep. This also shows a lack of relatedness. This person wasn’t engaging in any personal interactions with others. I’m kind of like that in my classes too. When I don’t have anyone I know to interact with class is a drag and I can just fall asleep because there is no one I can try to relate to.
Having been on PostSecret before, I knew some of what to expect coming into this assignment. Many of the secrets make me smile, because they are clever or funny to think about. However, most of them make me very grateful for the fortune and opportunities I have been granted in my own life. For example, one secret states, “I am a survivor of suicide and am so very grateful to be alive.” Personally, I have never been in a situation where I felt so awful about myself that I wanted to end it all, and for that I am extremely grateful.
While this particular secret is not specific about the reasons for attempting suicide, a big part distress can come from a lack of relatedness. As humans, we all have the psychological need to establish close bonds and attachments with other people. Maybe this person felt that they had lost all connections with the people that mattered most to them in their life, and that in turn there was no reason for them to continue living. On the other hand, maybe this individual was experiencing a lack of autonomy, in which case they felt that something was controlling their life. Perhaps they had an issue with drugs, and felt that their abuse had gotten to the point of no return.
One of the more disturbing secrets I found on the website was: “My rapist gave me the best orgasm of my life.” This post truly hurt to think about; it was almost as if a girl was looking for a bright side to experiencing a sexual assault. With posting it, maybe she is fulfilling her need of autonomy. While she cannot control the events that have transpired, she can still use the perceived choice aspect of autonomy to control how she feels. If she can act like some good came out of it, then the rapist has lost their power.
In fact, I believe that most of the secrets posted could help to build the autonomy of the individuals presenting them. While it is still kept “a secret” to those around them, the poster can share their feelings anonymously with others, even if they cannot share this information in real life. This gives them the power to tell their story in a safe environment.
In any case, it was interesting to read over the posts that people had sent in. It is one thing to simply read about the lives of others, but it is another entirely to read their own words creatively arranged for the world to see, especially when some of the secrets are so tragic and depressing.
What was your experience reading these?
I went to onesentence and read through about a dozen or so. Its strange how random and extremely broad topics are posted. Some are happy and others depressing. It is very interesting to read and get a glimpse into peoples lives. It just seems strange growing up thinking that things so personal should be kept to oneself or at least to people whom you are close to.
How do they make you feel? How do they make you think?
For the most part the post made me sad. The people who post these could be completely normal and need a place to vent a bad day or share something exciting. What broke my heart where all the tragic post, for example about cutting or about a lost relationship. Though both different things, its sad to think that this is possibly someone’s only outlet. I’m glad that these sites exist, for the people who post and need the outlet; but also for the people reading. I think the people who read get a sense of relatedness in the way of knowing that someone somewhere is experiencing the same thing.
Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need.
I was a grandfather for 46 days.
I chose these two particular ones because for one reason or another. I think the particular post about being a grandfather for such a short time is reaching at the need to grieve and relate. Its involving relatedness because the person posting is choosing to share this information with others, and through a few tags or likes and dislike buttons people can show some sort of encouragement/sympathy. This ability to interact, though small, gives the perception of a social bond.
Using my $40 light saber, I fought with the mini-Darth Maul using my Sith-like mind tricks, and I won his bag of candy.
This was the closest thing I could find for vitality. I wanted to find something happy, that made you want to be like “that’s awesome, Internet high five!” It might be a small thing, but this totally made my day. This small victory could have easily given this person a sense of autonomy and competence. Posting it gave them the sense of relatedness too possibly.
I was sad to have to search so hard for something positive, when I scrolled through the tags for sentences they all seemed to be sad in nature. Which is arguable for why people choose these sites. It helps them relate to people without fear of rejection, because the site encourages expression and real emotion to drive these stories.
Terms: competence, relatedness, autonomy, vitality, involving and supporting relatedness.
In my experience reading these I did not expect some of the quotes/secrets to be so blunt or revealing. Some of them were pure comedy, whereas others were rather 'dark' and disturbing. It is good to have sites like these so people can in someway express their thoughts, hopefully giving them some sense of release or comfort, but its good to show how one thinks inside, for I would bet that most of these are statuses that the author would not express publicly with their name attached to it, but are given a way to secretly do so via the blogs. They made me feel good and bad. Some of them were something i would write, whereas others were ones i would suggest getting help. It made me think how psychiatrists could alter their approach for if people can be so open on a public website, maybe the ones with obvious problems are demonstrating a way to confess their darkest problems, of which would be very beneficial to all types of Phd's.
Wasted Talent: "Without a word, I walked out those doors for the last time." This OneSentence here displays competence. The subject here desires to interact effectively with their surroundings in an effort to improve their talent or potential, yet as you can tell with the 'attitude' in the expression they lacked the understanding of what it takes to succeed when faced with failure, they needed to grasp the situation as a motivation to engage themselves to grow and endulge in a challenge to slowly make progress, not just give up.
"It was when i was picking up used pieces of the drug out of my carpet that I thought I may have a problem." Here we see the psychological need of autonomy at work. The subject is displaying a need to experience self direction and personal endorsement in the initiation and regulation of one's behavior. (146) What the individual must understand is that this desire to obtain more of the drug is not necessarily detrimental for our interests, preferences, and wants guide our decision-making progress to engage/not-engage in a particular activity. They must understand that it is not internal force, such as having a problem, as it is a external force that presses on our thought, pressures to think, or ways in which to behave. Through autonomy we can fight these desires to pass on addiction and satisfy autonomy other ways.
"I cried and deleted links to sites that sell wedding rings." Here we see relatedness at work. Everyone needs to belong, or feel as so that they do. We all desire social interaction and seek out relationships that not only satisfy our psychological need for affection, but also seek out the responsive relation from the other in return. Here a girl had lost her companion and lost that sense of the other wanting her back. Although I am no heart fixer, one must understand that social bonds are endless and even though one may slip through our fingers our psychological make up allows us to continually form and develop further relationships that will one day rewrite those that scar us, it just takes an understanding that relatedness is not lost once damaged, but curable possibly even in a much improved fashion.
I am and have for a long time been a huge fan of PostSecret. Although I have seen Frank Warren's Post Secret presentation live before, own all of his books, and frequent the website, I have never thought about the posts in terms of motivation and emotion.
The posts do a lot to make me both feel and think. Some of the posts are very dark, dramatic, and disturbing. These make me feel knots in my stomach and sympathize with the person going through that hard time. Other posts, on the other hand, are more light-hearted, and they might be "secrets' only because they are embarrassing or otherwise deemed "weird" by society. Either way, the posts are very real, and this is the core of why PostSecret is so moving.
While reading these secrets, you become hyperaware of the fact that there are nearly 7 million humans on this planet, each with secrets of their own. Browsing the site, one might come across a few secrets, and these belong to real people on this planet who have never revealed that secret to another human being- until now. The anonymity brings in a whole new level of unity to the entire experience, which is why I see "relatedness" being a common theme in ALL the posts. Regardless of the content in the post, the very fact that a person felt compelled to share their secret with others means that they were motivated by their psychological need for relatedness-- they wanted to connect with another human being.
One particular secret I came across on the post secret website read:
"For my birthday, I am going to get help. I am going to be happy because I am tired of living like this- I am tired of being tired. I want to be HAPPY."
The relatedness factor has already been discussed. This person explicitly calls for his/her need for relatedness however, in saying that he/she is going to seek help (presumably from another human being). It also calls to this person's need for autonomy and competence. The fact that this person wants to take charge of his/her life and make a change means that they want to feel that he or she is in control again. It also is a call to inner competence, the fact that this person chooses to say "I AM going to be happy" is a declaration. This secret reminded me of the section in the chapter on achieving "flow." To feel happy and content with his/her life, this person needs to seek an optimal balance of challenge and personal skill. When these two factors are both high, it results in concentration, holistic absorption, and enjoyment.
The secret immediately below made me laugh:
"Taking these didn't make me any less depressed. But they did make me shit myself in church."
Taped to the postcard is a packet of antidepressants. I think it's funny only because it's obvious that the person writing the card had a sense of humor and knew someone would get a laugh out of it, satisfying their need for relatedness. This also relates to their perceived competence (or in this case, lack thereof) as well as their loss of autonomy, as defecating on yourself is probably the least independent thing you can do. In this case, I think this person is using their lack of autonomy and competence to *relate* to others. This would also be the case in any kind of self-deprecating humor. I think people poke fun at themselves because it increases relatedness, even at the expense of their autonomy and/or competence.
I had already been exposed to Postsecret, so I decided to explore http://www.onesentence.org/ . Reading through these posts brought about a lot of different emotions in me. Some were funny and evoked joy, but most of the posts on this website brought extreme sadness or anger. It was hard to read some of them knowing how much pain the people who wrote them must have been experiencing.
“The hardest moment of my life was telling my 5 year old little girl that her daddy died unexpectedly last night while she was asleep.” The woman who wrote this has experienced a great loss. An external event has taken her control out of her life temporarily, undermining her sense of autonomy. It is also clear that her sense of relatedness has been hurt, as a relationship that once caused warmth and comfort for her and her daughter no longer exists. Her level of competence may potentially have gone up, when she did tell her young daughter what had happened, knowing that she had the courage to say it out loud. I think the very fact that she posted this sentence on the internet for the world to see shows that she was, somewhere inside, a little bit proud of herself for accomplishing this terrible task.
“Out of all the things I’ve done in life, teaching my once abused shelter cat how to play again might be what I’m most proud of.” This quote shows a contentment found in a raise in competence. The person writing this quote could have chosen a perfect new kitten to have or any other cat, but instead they chose a cat that had been abused, knowing this would be a challenge. This person clearly worked to get the cat to play again, thus beating the challenge. The person would have had to use some type of motivation to get the cat to play as well.
What was your experience reading these?
I experienced dissimilar reactions when I was reading the posts in PostSecret and the posts in OneSentence. When I was reading the posts in PostSecret I was shocked because of how explicit the secrets were. When I saw the link to PostSecret I just thought that it was going to be people just telling their secrets, kind of how OneSentence is structured. But when I opened the web page I could not believe the material and secrets I saw. I was shaken because of how graphic the posts are, the thing that made the post so unforgettable is the pictures that were associated with the statement in PostSecret. OneSentence was a little less explicit than PostSecret only because they did not provide the images, so one could only paint a picture with their mind.
How do they make you feel and think?
I felt like the images on PostSecret were very disturbing. But I felt that these websites can help people express their feelings and emotions. For example, I felt that a lot of the problems that were on the blog would not be socially acceptable to talk about with your peers. You could not have a discussion about these secrets, the secrets that were posted on PostSecret, with somebody unless you completely trusted the person, but if it was me in that person’s shoes I do not think I could discuss a secret like the ones on the websites with anyone. I would feel like that person would look at me different for the rest of my life. So I think this website could benefit people because they can express their emotions anonymously without feeling judge.
Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need.
Justify your answer by providing evidence from the book about that psychological need, and you linking it to the secret or OneSentence you've chosen.
I am going to compare a few examples from PostSecret and OneSentence, the dicuss how it is related to the chapter. I had mention before that most of the posts on PostSecret were very explicit. There was blog that read, “Everyone thinks I had a second trimester miscarriage, But really I had an abortion because I didn’t want a handicapped child.” And the picture that they used to illustrate this secret is a picture of a little baby in a diaper with a rope tied around his head. The picture is very disturbing; it really has a gloomy vibe. It really gives me chills when I look at it because it really looks like the baby is about to get harmed and right above the baby is a picture of a heart. Another picture that I found really shocking was a post that read, “my rapist gave me the best orgasm of my life.” The picture displays naked women in awkward sexual poses. All of the people in the picture are female expect for one creepy guy that looks like he is trying to lure more victims to his dungeon. The background color is bloody pinkish red. It looks like one big orgy, but the girls are paired into couples. Each couple appears to be having sex but they are trap in a box and have the expression of fear in the faces. I believe that nearly all the people that posted their secret lack the psychological need relatedness. Relatedness is the psychological need to establish close emotion bonds and attachments with other people, and it reflects the desire to be emotionally connected to and interpersonally involved warm relationships. Relatedness is an important motivational construct because people function better, are more resilient to stress, and report fewer psychological difficulties when their interpersonal relationships support their need for relatedness. But, it one must also think that it would be really difficult to discuss this stories so maybe they get a since of relatedness when they posted their secret online. It lifts a weight off of their shoulders because they let their emotions out.
I had never been to either of these websites before. It was pretty interesting to see it as a way for people to anonymously get things off their chest. For some it would probably help them feel better, but for others it might take more than just posting one sentence on a website. I noticed a dramatic shift in my emotions as I went from one post to the other. As I read them, I really tried to feel and get in the mindset of what the person who wrote them might try to actually be expressing. It was definitely a roller coaster!
On post-secret, someone had a picture of an author and the caption was "I feel more connected to this man through his poetry and novels than I do to anyone I have ever met, and it's crippiling." This shows the enormous need for relatedness, but that it is not being met by someone in their everyday life, and it's really hurting them. The book states that while we individually have different needs for relatedness, it can be problematic if those needs are not being met.
Another one on post secret stated, "I'm afraid my company is going to be the next Enron. I've tried to warn people and I've been blackballed." This relates to the need for autonomy. It appears that she feels as though she has no control at work. The company is going in a different direction than she wants, but she can't do anything about it. Her attempts have been shut down, and she is beginning to feel hopeless and out of control.
I had never been to either of these sites; most of the things I read are depressing and uncomfortable to read. Nonetheless there are some psychological concepts that we have discussed so far in class that are present in these stories. Visiting these sites gave me awareness to the types of problems a lot of people are probably feeling, and can only express their situations through anonymity. It is sad that the stories I read had to be confessed on the internet, but it is good that those people have an outlet at least to dismiss some of their pent up feelings.
Relatedness was the first psychological concept that jumped out at me, mainly because we just had an assignment dealing with it. People go to this site to visit and confess their stories in hopes of relating to people in similar circumstances. I can’t help but feel that the people who comment their stories had no one else to talk with, so they post them on the Internet in hopes of finding a connection. “It still bothers me that my own mother didn't care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did.” “There’s really no feeling in the world like the feeling you get when your dad says he regrets having children and he feels like he’s a prisoner in his own house” Both of these are a testament to my point on relatedness. It is pretty clear that these people are having trouble with relationships in some aspect of life and are looking for a way to get closer to people.
“I trusted my surgeon completely when he told me that the swelling after my jaw surgery would be gone after 6 months, and so it kills me that I three years later find myself every morning checking my face in the mirror to see if the swellings gone.” This post makes me think of autonomy. Three years of having no control over something that is such a focus of judgment in our society. Putting myself in this persons situation even makes me feel helpless, so I can understand why they would visit this site to release some frustration with the lack of autonomy they have currently.
I went to the websites of both PostSecret, and OneSentence. I had mixed feelings after reading them. Some of the posts have an uplifting or inspirational message, but there are also some that are quite depressing. I found it relieving to be able to just read about other peoples’ problems because it makes me feel like my problems aren’t that bad. There are so many different types of people and kinds of situations we get in that it is hard to recognize them all. Websites like these help others to cope with stress, and tell others of our problems.
There was a post in particular that caught my eye initially. The post was from Onesentence.org and it stated, “It still bothers me that my own mother didn’t care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did.” This shows her intense desire for the psychological need of relatedness. She doesn’t have a concrete figure in her life that she can count on to be there when she is in a state of disarray.
The next post I read was another from Onesentence.org. I found I could relate a little better to this post than most others. The post stated, “When I returned home after my first semester away at school. The doorknobs felt wrong.” This person obviously has a need for autonomy or they would have never left home in the first place. When they say that the doorknobs felt wrong, it seems like they also have a slight need for relatedness. If they could talk to someone that also feels discomfort in returning home from college for the first time then they would most likely feel more comfortable.
The final post was “The thing I want most in the world is for my husband to live long enough to need ear hair clippers.” In one sentence, this post describes a couple’s need for competency and dealing with cancer. The cancer will give them a reason to fight and overcome such an optimal challenge. The couple has both an internal and external perceived locus of casualty at this point. They are fighting to stay alive because they don’t want to die, and also are motivated by each other to not give up.
I get a mixture of feelings when I hear these one words sentences. Some of them make me feel sad, happy or make me laugh. Some of them remind me of times in my past where I experienced what they were describing in the sentence. Like this one for Example, “I am a Survivor of Suicide and am so very Grateful to be alive today” it makes me think of my troubled childhood and how I came back from rock bottom.
I think the above statement is found on p. 164 under, “Internalization” because the describing being a survivor of one’s own self indedicates a struggle from within. To help overcome a problem feeling relatedness to others will help you overcome that problem. It will help you find the drive and will power from within to help overcome those negative feelings. I know when I felt down and someone helped me find it within myself to rise back up and survive I was feeling some kind of relatedness to them.
Another passage said, “A year ago on the PS app, someone posted they would be here a year ago(shows a picture of Disney World). I hope that person made it.” This passage makes me think of inspiration and drive to accomplish one’s dreams. I have always been a dreamer and have lots of goals, and a big believer that you can do anything you set your mind to. On page 167,”What Makes a Good Day?” they describe how positive experiences meet psychological needs and help build positive emotion as well as psychological well-being. Interesting how they state that psychological need for satisfaction can predict our good days and bad days. I would think accomplishing a dream of being at Walt Disney World would make you have a great day because you met your psychological need.
What was your experience reading these? How do they make you feel? How do they make you think? I have never heard of either one of these sites before and so I checked out both sites. I have some mixed emotions about these sites. I think that it is a great way for people to “vent” and get their feelings out while remaining anonymous. I think it is sad, some of the comments, and it makes me think of my life and we all do have our own ups and downs but I am very thankful for the life that I have and thankful for those in my life. I feel that these are good sites for those who also have similar issues/stories/feelings to see that they are not alone. I also was disturbed by some of the comments left on these websites, for example “my rapist gave me the best orgasm of my life,” and “It still bothers me that my own mother didn't care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did.” It is hard to think that people feel that way or have issues going on in their lives where they are not noticed by the ones who should notice. Both websites are addicting because there is so much diverse things posted to these sites they are interesting to read.
Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need. Justify your answer by providing evidence from the book about that psychological need, and you linking it to the secret or OneSentence you've chosen.
1) We had a lovely day, my oldest son and I, wine tasting and driving through the foothills to celebrate his birthday, only because I did not tell him that just the previous day I was diagnosed with cancer (one sentence)
a. I feel that this comment relates to autonomy. I feel that the mother in this comment made a decision to not tell her son the bad news and making a good situation out of a bad one. I think that she made the decision not to tell him so his birthday was a special day for him and not a sad one.
2) There’s really no feeling in the world like the feeling you get when your dad says he regrets having children and he feels like he’s a prisoner in his own house (one sentence)
a. I feel that this concept relates to relatedness and wanting the feeling of belonging. The children want a feeling of belonging and with a father who regrets having them and feels like a prisoner, makes them feel “unwanted.”
Experience reading these and how they make me feel:
Most of these posts made me feel sad at first. When reading posts that I could relate to, they seemed to resonate more with me and I felt more compassionate for the anonymous poster. When reading ones that I couldn’t relate to I tried to imagine the circumstances that must have led some of the people to have had their experiences and what motivations they must have for posting. I feel that doing that helped me see issues that people with circumstances different from my own face and how it can feel to deal with those challenges. It also made me feel somewhat good since I was happy that these people had found an outlet for some of the emotions and feelings they have.
In one picture on post secret there was a picture of a baby with captions across the picture that explained that people thought the poster had a miscarriage when in reality they had an abortion because they did not want a handicapped child. In the book, it describes that we have a psychological need for relatedness to others and that we desire to have other people know our true selves and have ourselves validated by another. This situation makes it extremely difficult for others to know the true self since there is a very difficult and significant part of herself that many would view very negatively. The psychological need for relatedness is likely what motivated her to post on post secret since it is the closest thing to revealing the true self she can do that won’t have possible negative social repercussions.
In another post we see a need for autonomy being expressed. The card says, I wish I was straight so I could get married in the gown my mother and grandmother both wore. The poster does not feel they could marry a man and from the rainbow coloring it is safe to assume she is a lesbian. Due to the presence of the Defense of Marriage Act and most states not allowing marriage between two men or two women, this poster likely struggles with having autonomy and perceived choice. She would have autonomy if she was presented with the option of marrying anybody she comes to have a relationship with but this is not the case. Instead she finds a rigid social environment/government that doesn’t allow real choice and try’s to push people like her towards other actions such as marrying men or not marrying at all.
I have heard of these websites before but had never really taken an in depth look at them before. Most of the posts were absolutely depressing. It’s amazing the things people will express when they know no one can actually see who is posting them. I feel so bad for these people and wish I could help them honestly. Hopefully posting their feelings and having people respond to them will help them out. They make me think of all the people out there that are feeling the exact same way and finding relief or comfort in the fact that they are not the only people out there who are feeling it. It also makes me think of all the people out there who are feeling the same way but have no way to express those feelings. I hope that websites like this will become more common so those who have no way to express their feelings can utilize them and help them with their recovery.
I found three great examples that related directly to chapter six. The first one said, “I feel more connected to this man through his novels and poetry than I do to anyone I have ever met, and it is crippling.” This post clearly related to the psychological need of relatedness. This person is obviously lacking in this criteria so they are resorting to befriending a novelist. Relatedness is the need to be close to someone and have a strong relationship with them. Through reading this man’s novels she felt connected to someone so that she could try to satisfy her need for relatedness.
The next example stated, “I realized I was lonely when I started kissing the sides of my fish tank to say goodnight to my fish.” This is also a great example of someone with a lack of relatedness in their life. The fact that this person is kissing the fish tank rather than someone else means that they would like someone to be in their life most than a fish tank. They needed to feel as if they were close to someone/something so that’s why they resorted to kissing the fish tank every night.
The third example described, “It still bothers me that my own mother didn’t care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did.” Statements like this break my heart. This should not be the case for anyone. It shows both the lack of relatedness with their mother and the presence of relatedness with the science teacher. Their mother showed no relationship with this person and either did not realize that the person was doing these things or did not care. But the science teacher showed they cared about the person through expressing that they should not be cutting themselves.
I’ve been on postsecret before and found there are a variety of stories whether they are the people themselves or writing about someone or writing to someone else. I think it’s a unique site where people can just let out a confession or thought or feeling and not be judged for it because the submitters are anonymous. I decided to look at One Sentence because I haven’t been on that site before and I thought it was interesting. I liked how each story/sentence had a title though some of the titles didn’t make sense to me of how they went with the sentence that followed. I read through some of them and it wasn’t after a few minutes did I realize these could be people my age writing about struggles or experiences. I like how they are all one sentence, but with each one I want to know more about the story. I feel like it’s hard to put an experience into one sentence, but a lot of these people did. One sentence whether it’s three words or ten words can be very impacting.
The first one I chose was from One Sentence.
“Ka I told him it was just sex for me, too”. Posted Jan. 5, 2013. http://www.onesentence.org/stories/4196/
I chose this one because it made me think of relatedness and how it’s the psychological need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people. I think a lot of young adults my age have had the experience of being used and pretending to be okay with it. I think this person is lacking in the relatedness need of intrinsic motivation because they probably wanted more out of the situation and wanted that connection rather than it not meaning anything.
Next one I chose on Post Secret
“I wish I was straight so I could GET MARRIED in the gown my mother AND grandmother both wore. (backside it’s been my daydream since I was six”.
I think this relates a lot to the lack of autonomy this person’s life. Granted they might not be from a state where gay marriage is legal, but that shouldn’t stop them from doing what they want. Autonomy (being the self-directed and personal endorsement psychological need) is something people can definitely build on. I think if this person really wanted to be married in the gown worn by the women in her family before her, then she would. Again, with these types of stories being so short I don’t know the full story and it makes me wonder why can’t she do that? I think about the perceived autonomy and it breaks down into internal perceived, volition, and perceived choice over one’s actions and I hope this person gains the volition to do what they really want to do and get married in that wedding dress.
Third one on One Sentence.
“It still bothers me that my own mother didn’t care that I was cutting myself, yet my science teacher did”.
http://www.onesentence.org/stories/4206/
This person definitely lacks in relatedness and I don’t think it’s necessarily by choice at all. The title of Searching for Superman strikes me as a kid wanting a close emotional bond with anyone who could come save her from herself or the situation she’s in.
This post makes me want to confront her mom and be like do you know what your daughter is doing to herself or do you even care? I know if I was cutting myself, I couldn’t hide it from my parents because they were actively involved in my life. With all the stories I’ve read I want to know more about why is this happening or how come you are doing. I wonder if the daughter is cutting herself because her mother doesn’t care.
What was your experience reading these?
While I was reading these, I felt like sort of a new experience. I was in awe of the secrets that some people had but may have suffered from their whole life.
How do they make you feel?
At first I was humored by the funny posts. As the posts continued, however, it was evident that many of these people post on an anonymous website because they don’t have anywhere else to turn. It’s hard to talk about these issues while people you don’t completely trust.
How do they make you think?
I thought it was god-awful reading some of these. The few I read at the top were humorous, but most of them were provoked sad feelings. Many of these postings are from people who are bulimic, anorexia, emotionally scarred, picked on, and so forth. Some of these people could have the same problems as people that I see every day in class!
Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need. Justify your answer by providing evidence from the book about that psychological need, and you linking it to the secret or OneSentence you've chosen.
“My friend is BULIMIC. I’m scared to confront her about it. Instead, I made this postcard for millions of people to see. I am a coward.” This statement grasps the difficulty people go through relating to others. The writer obviously doesn’t want to see his/her friend suffer from the drastic effects of such an eating disorder, yet he/she does quite have the connection or relatedness to the bulimic to approach him or her. It’s a social bond or friendship that isn’t entirely developed.
“I steal whole carts of food from the grocery store – I just walk right out like it has all been paid for. No one has ever tried to stop me.” A more humorous postcard, this one captures the idea of competence. The person who made it has an environmental goal of obtaining food, but food comes at a price. With creative thinking and the skills to get away with it, he or she manages to overcome the problem of price by simply pretending they food is paid for. It’s a simple behavior, yet it is risky, providing the doer a balance of challenge and competence (although if he/she does it too much, it’ll seem too easy for him/her).
What was your experience reading these?
When I was finished reading these, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Some were outrageous, some were sad, and some were happy. I also thought it was awesome. It’s nice to know that there is a place on the internet where people can anonymously post their deepest darkest secrets. These posts are things that people would probably never admit out loud to someone, and maybe not even to themselves. It’s cool that they are taking the first step in admitting them by posting them online. It gives them a place to put their thoughts when they feel they can verbally let them out.
How do they make you feel?
A lot of them made me feel like my life isn’t that bad. I realized that it could be much worse. Everyone has worries, and everyone goes through rough times. These posts made me realize that I’m not alone. If I am struggling with something, someone else has probably gone through it as well. They make me feel much better about my own life. That might sound kind of conceited, but it makes me appreciate all the good I have. I read these and I feel thankful.
How do they make you think?
They make me think a lot about these different people. I hope that posting these things on the internet was just the first step for them. I hope that some of them find help and I hope that most of them find happiness. I think that these people are using these websites as a sort of outlet. They post these things because they feel a need to let it out to someone. And maybe it is their way of saying, “I hurt”. Or maybe it is their way of saying, “I’m okay.” But overall, when I read these, I am thinking of the different people who posted them. It could be anyone out there in the world. And all I hope is that they are okay.
Choose a couple of examples (provide them in your comment) and describe in detail how they reflect the presence or absence of a particular psychological need. Justify your answer by providing evidence from the book about that psychological need, and you linking it to the secret or OneSentence you've chosen.
The first one that caught my eye was on OneSentence. Right away it almost brought tears to my eyes. The title on it is “Bob”. At first glance it looks boring. There wasn’t much to it and the title wasn’t too captivating. But after I read it I realized that that was all he needed. All he needed were those 7 short words. “I was a grandfather for 46 days.” It instantly tugged at my heart. I think was this man needed was relatedness. He had lost a grandchild after only 46 days, and I can’t even imagine what kind of pain that would bring. He needs close relationships. I think he needs someone to look him in the eye and say, “I’m here for you.” Or, “Everything will be okay.” He probably posted that because he felt he needed to say it out loud. He needed to get it off of his mind anyway that he could. The next one that I really noticed was on PostSecret. It said, “Eating makes me feel vulnerable, starving gives me strength.” This one I had to really stop and think about. At first I caught myself thinking, “How can starving yourself give you strength?” That didn’t make sense to me. But then I realized that this girl needed autonomy. She needed to feel self-control and she did that by starving herself. All of these posts were very interesting to read in their own ways. And I was instantly hooked from the beginning, just like you thought we would be!