Well, you did suggest I speak for myself...
Note: I will be screening any comments to this post. I will likely unscreen any made, but I want to read them myself first
I showed Sean Glenin's post for a reason, one that I think she understands, when there were only a few general reassuring comments.
I was less than happy, as you can probably imagine, when I later realised that along with the post, Sean had been reading people bitching about him; comments which had sprung up some time between me reading the post, and Sean doing the same.
Added to that is the fact that I hate bitchy comments. Even if they're fully deserved, I try my hardest not to say something nasty about someone to a third party who is a friend of those involved... or even to say anything nasty in public (to which I will refer you to my silence over the... 'debacle'... last december, along with certain incidents with Heather and Lenna).
I wasn't 'up front' with my feelings, because until that point I didn't really think there was anything to be up front about. Other than the odd post in Ilora's LJ, everyone had pretty much been good with the whole not bitching about Sean in front of me thing.
However, like I said, I wasn't happy. And so I said some things to Sean that I probably should have kept to myself... it wasn't anything bad, just that I wished my friends wouldn't be so quick to bitch about him in places I could see.
I had absolutely no problem with Glenin's original post. I know her relationship with Sean isn't great, and I can accept that... although I am kinda tired of playing piggy in the middle between various groups of people, I'll admit. Which is also something I told Sean.
What I did have an issue was that everyone's answers to Glenin's problem, with a very few exceptions, were to insult Sean.
Now, I was already feeling bad enough that the man I love was causing Glenin that much pain... the 'hurt' of the nasty comments on top of that was a little more than I was ready for... I don't deal well with pain or hurt.
So I said what I said to Sean, he made the post - which, by the way, he told me I was making. If you have no clue why I hate speaking for myself in a public arena, read my last fricking post. While there's alot there, it wouldn't kill some of you to learn that there are more reasons for silence than abuse - and that should have been the end of it.
But it wasn't.
Certain people felt the need to get involved... and their attacks got personal.
And I'm sure you're all bright enough to figure out who I'm talking about here.
Now, I can deal with criticism, but not attacks. To be quite honest with you, while I hate people bitching about anyone, I cannot STAND people bitching about me.
The only time I really got angry or upset with anyone, was when the personal attacks on both Sean and I started... but especially when everyone decided to include me in their insults to him.
To give you a little more info on something Sean didn't want to go into because he was respecting my privacy, I had a less-than-stellar childhood.
My father walked out when I was 2, shortly after my sister was born. My mother, who had given up her job to keep her husband's household and be a proper 1980s Catholic housewife, was left on her own with two small children, no home, no furniture, and no source of income.
Over the next eight years, said husband made a few half-assed attempts to spend time with us... so long as my mother arranged the visits, of course. Quite frankly, he didn't want the time or effort involved in being a parent... and he made sure we were aware of that. During that time, on the few occasions we actually spent time with him, most of the conversation revolved around him telling us how much he hated our mother, and how she never let him see us. Funny that, because he never made any effort to arrange visits.
By the time I was 6, I knew quite well that my father didn't want me.
My 'friends' went out of their way to make my life, every single day of it, a waking nightmare. They violated my trust and privacy, and physically and mentally bullied me for six years. Unfortunately, as it was the only school in a very remote part of the country and my parents' jobs depended on us living right there.... I had no other option but to suffer through it. Without the support of my family, because the only person in the position to help who gave a dam was my mother, and she was too busy working constantly to really notice anything that was going on.
It was also around that time that my stepfather, the man I'd called 'dad' since he married my mother when I was 7, went through a violent stage... the normal teen angst got blown way out of proportion, and has left me with more than a few issues about arguments and speaking my mind.
After all, if stating an opinion gets you slammed into a wall with a hand around your throat, you quickly learn to keep any opinion or thought to yourself.
As I've mentioned in the past, I have more than a few issues with trust and friendship... for some reason, peoples' opinions - even the opinions of people I don't particularly like - matter alot to me. To which I should probably again refer you to my last post.
With time, and the unconditional love of a good man - and, no matter what some of you may think, he is a good man - I had begun to feel like I'm regaining myself... my life was, and still is, headed where I wanted it to go, my dreams for the future were realising, coalescing... and I finally had friends who I thought I could put my trust in.
Thought.
In my life, short though it may be, I have put up with more than enough crap from supposed friends and other people who are supposed to care about me.
I don't need friends who will turn a silly disagreement into a major personal attack or grudge. Been there, lived through that, and will be damned if I have to go through it again.
Ohhh, and one more thing.... in reference to Chani's comment some time yesterday about the only reason Sean and I were supporting Dal was because we saw we could easily be in the same situation... I'll quote someone else and mention not talking about things you know nothing about.
Knowledge comes from experience, not hypothesis.
I showed Sean Glenin's post for a reason, one that I think she understands, when there were only a few general reassuring comments.
I was less than happy, as you can probably imagine, when I later realised that along with the post, Sean had been reading people bitching about him; comments which had sprung up some time between me reading the post, and Sean doing the same.
Added to that is the fact that I hate bitchy comments. Even if they're fully deserved, I try my hardest not to say something nasty about someone to a third party who is a friend of those involved... or even to say anything nasty in public (to which I will refer you to my silence over the... 'debacle'... last december, along with certain incidents with Heather and Lenna).
I wasn't 'up front' with my feelings, because until that point I didn't really think there was anything to be up front about. Other than the odd post in Ilora's LJ, everyone had pretty much been good with the whole not bitching about Sean in front of me thing.
However, like I said, I wasn't happy. And so I said some things to Sean that I probably should have kept to myself... it wasn't anything bad, just that I wished my friends wouldn't be so quick to bitch about him in places I could see.
I had absolutely no problem with Glenin's original post. I know her relationship with Sean isn't great, and I can accept that... although I am kinda tired of playing piggy in the middle between various groups of people, I'll admit. Which is also something I told Sean.
What I did have an issue was that everyone's answers to Glenin's problem, with a very few exceptions, were to insult Sean.
Now, I was already feeling bad enough that the man I love was causing Glenin that much pain... the 'hurt' of the nasty comments on top of that was a little more than I was ready for... I don't deal well with pain or hurt.
So I said what I said to Sean, he made the post - which, by the way, he told me I was making. If you have no clue why I hate speaking for myself in a public arena, read my last fricking post. While there's alot there, it wouldn't kill some of you to learn that there are more reasons for silence than abuse - and that should have been the end of it.
But it wasn't.
Certain people felt the need to get involved... and their attacks got personal.
And I'm sure you're all bright enough to figure out who I'm talking about here.
Now, I can deal with criticism, but not attacks. To be quite honest with you, while I hate people bitching about anyone, I cannot STAND people bitching about me.
The only time I really got angry or upset with anyone, was when the personal attacks on both Sean and I started... but especially when everyone decided to include me in their insults to him.
To give you a little more info on something Sean didn't want to go into because he was respecting my privacy, I had a less-than-stellar childhood.
My father walked out when I was 2, shortly after my sister was born. My mother, who had given up her job to keep her husband's household and be a proper 1980s Catholic housewife, was left on her own with two small children, no home, no furniture, and no source of income.
Over the next eight years, said husband made a few half-assed attempts to spend time with us... so long as my mother arranged the visits, of course. Quite frankly, he didn't want the time or effort involved in being a parent... and he made sure we were aware of that. During that time, on the few occasions we actually spent time with him, most of the conversation revolved around him telling us how much he hated our mother, and how she never let him see us. Funny that, because he never made any effort to arrange visits.
By the time I was 6, I knew quite well that my father didn't want me.
My 'friends' went out of their way to make my life, every single day of it, a waking nightmare. They violated my trust and privacy, and physically and mentally bullied me for six years. Unfortunately, as it was the only school in a very remote part of the country and my parents' jobs depended on us living right there.... I had no other option but to suffer through it. Without the support of my family, because the only person in the position to help who gave a dam was my mother, and she was too busy working constantly to really notice anything that was going on.
It was also around that time that my stepfather, the man I'd called 'dad' since he married my mother when I was 7, went through a violent stage... the normal teen angst got blown way out of proportion, and has left me with more than a few issues about arguments and speaking my mind.
After all, if stating an opinion gets you slammed into a wall with a hand around your throat, you quickly learn to keep any opinion or thought to yourself.
As I've mentioned in the past, I have more than a few issues with trust and friendship... for some reason, peoples' opinions - even the opinions of people I don't particularly like - matter alot to me. To which I should probably again refer you to my last post.
With time, and the unconditional love of a good man - and, no matter what some of you may think, he is a good man - I had begun to feel like I'm regaining myself... my life was, and still is, headed where I wanted it to go, my dreams for the future were realising, coalescing... and I finally had friends who I thought I could put my trust in.
Thought.
In my life, short though it may be, I have put up with more than enough crap from supposed friends and other people who are supposed to care about me.
I don't need friends who will turn a silly disagreement into a major personal attack or grudge. Been there, lived through that, and will be damned if I have to go through it again.
Ohhh, and one more thing.... in reference to Chani's comment some time yesterday about the only reason Sean and I were supporting Dal was because we saw we could easily be in the same situation... I'll quote someone else and mention not talking about things you know nothing about.
Knowledge comes from experience, not hypothesis.