I'm not saying such conversations are pleasant or make you like someone, when it's your own life or addictions or obsessions that are being criticized. But I've been on the receiving end of it and I'm willing to listen and consider someone else's perspective and whether it's true and whether I might need to look at reforming my behavior if people are telling me these things. I can deal with harshness if I believe they are the kind of person who isn't doing it to puff themselves up or make themselves feel better, but is simply giving me a cold analysis.

I feel like when your reaction is to detach from that and rely on emotional arguments to say it's emotionally impossible for you to handle the person criticizing you, that's when you've crossed a Rubicon after which nothing anyone says will change your self destructive behavior.

I'm saying this as someone whose two sisters both died from drug abuse in their 20s. Some people tried to reach them with empathy and others with criticism, but it's the point where someone says "I can't listen to this and I won't be subjected to this" that they become a victim in their own head of other people's harshness rather than being able to look objectively at their own state in a way that might let them change course.

In other words, content is more important than style. If you turn off because of style, that's an excuse to avoid thinking about the content. The people I know who survived are the ones who didn't use the style or delivery of the criticism directed at them as an excuse to avoid thinking about and self-reflecting on the content of what was being said.

I'm sorry that your sisters died from drug abuse. I feel for your loss, but please realise that substance abuse is not the same as losing yourself in an interest or hobby.

You make the assumption that you are absolutely right about a "garbage obsessed" person. That's reasonable when it comes to substance abuse, but it's unlikely to be reasonable when it comes to an obsession. If you are not willing to consider you're wrong about the obsession, you shouldn't have the conversation.

Even if you're right, a truly obsessed person is not going to listen someone who's full of their own righteousness. But chances are you're just wrong, and then the conversation is just useless.

> If you turn off because of style, that's an excuse to avoid thinking about the content.

It's not an excuse, it's a reason. I like my obsessions. If someone is open and willing to understand, I am willing to explain or tell. But I do not care whether or not anyone thinks it's a garbage obsession. If that's all they're willing to talk about, I see no value in having the conversation.