@Gesundheit
I'm going to give you a long and complete and final response to your comment and I'm no longer going to reply. It was a simple harmless thread. It's my thread and I think it has turned into an argumentation pit and I have no words to describe how bad I'm feeling right now. It's awful how I was attacked on this thread and then to question my defense is even more awful. There was no purpose for someone to simply come around and shit on my thread in the first place and then further attack me for simply defending myself.
Please reflect on each and every word I have written here and read it completely and you will realize that there is enough substance to my justification. And even the answers to your future responses to my reply are already in this response. I have nothing more to say to you other than this whole and complete response. And please do not come to my journal to respond to this. I do not wish to be hassled anymore, by you or by others.
It takes a lot of effort on my part to craft a long response so please give value to my effort.
I'm now very apprehensive of starting a thread in the future.. I never expected that a simple defensive response from me will result in me being attacked so horribly. In a way its like saying to me "just shut up and don't defend"
People who resent a person defending themselves are not people who want true peace, they simply want that person to tolerate humiliation or offense and shut up and stay quiet and not fight back. Because if the person fights back and defends, then their bad behavior is being exposed and they resent that.
But knowing the culture of this forum by now and why Leo needed more moderators to control the gaslighting here, I'm not surprised that some people just randomly chose to drop on my thread to attack me and call me a bitch. All over me defending myself against a trollish question.
I have used the word "you" as a third person reference. So "you" is not meaning "you" actually. I hope you understand that.
So here is my response to your comment and advice.
Some people do not react at all. Some people overreact. Get over it. You're interacting with people, not with robots. People have emotions. Respect those emotions. Different people will perceive the same situation differently. Also some people suffer trauma. Their trauma should not be used against them to demonize them.
Get over it. No need to chastise me for simply reacting. And no need to judge me. Because you are not at the receiving end of the comment, but I am. So you are nobody to tell me how I should feel. It's my choice how I respond to the person and its my choice how I perceive their comment.. Similarly if someone said something to you, it is completely your choice how you perceive it and how you respond to it. It is not my duty to judge or coach you on what you should or shouldn't say..
Plus it is wrong if you took offense at something that I said to another person, because it wasn't directed at you. Here nobody is speaking on behalf of others. Everyone can speak for themselves. Please don't resort to gang mentality. That's why creating groups on the forum is strictly forbidden, exactly for the same reasons. Because people can easily attack one person in gangs..
If you don't like someone reacting to you, then be careful with your words and don't be too personal with them and then demonize them for reacting.
If someone said something that hurts me or implies something that is provoking me in some way, I will defend. I'm not supposed to tolerate that hurtful comment or simply be silent at provocations. That's not my job.
Respectful comments and questions always get respectful answers and replies.
Provocative questions will get provocative answers. Mean questions will get mean replies.
This is how the world has always been
Respect has to be earned and not simply dished out.
When we talk to someone we should always be respectful and take into account their sensitivities. If they are hurt or offended by a remark or question, then don't bother them or simply let go or at least explain yourself how you didn't mean to hurt. Do not chastise that person for reacting, because the same statement can be taken in different ways by different people. It's your responsibility to explain yourself properly (without any personal attacks) to the other person since you're the person asking or commenting on that person's comment. Your comment can easily be misunderstood so it's your job to explain that person what you exactly mean by your question or by your comment.
If I walked up to someone and said something without giving proper context and if my comments were judgemental, then I shouldn't blame the other person for reacting, because I didn't do a good job of explaining myself and just allowed the person to misunderstand me and then attacked the same person for reacting. This is a simple act of provocation and the person is completely justified in their reaction.
You can't provoke a person in one breath and also expect in the same breath that the person shouldn't defend.
Also what doesn't appear provocative to you might be provocative to the person who is reacting. You are not in their shoes to judge them. So do not judge them for reacting.
If you think that how I react to someone is inappropriate, then understand that in my mind what that person said or asked me is also equally inappropriate and that's why I reacted that way. My mind is not yours. You can't control how I think. Also it's only my mind that can react since it was at directed at my mind and not yours.
If someone is beating me, I can attack them in return, you can't ask me why I'm attacking them, because clearly they are beating me and not you.
Any form of attack can be either physical or mental.. Maybe a person is not attacking me physically, but they could still try to hurt me mentally. If someone's comment is causing me any emotional or mental distress, I'm completely justified in my freedom and choice to defend against such a provocation.
Something that a person A said to you might be provocative to you but to me it might appear completely innocent.. However it is not my right or obligation to judge how you feel or how you react, since I'm not in your shoes and the comment is not directed to me but to you. It's easy for me to judge because I am not the one to whom the comment is directed. So only you can decide how you feel and how to react and I'm nobody to blame you for it.
For example take a rape victim called H. If person A made a rape joke to person H. Person H reacts and defends aggressively. You might step in between the two and say, it is simply a joke, why is person H overreacting. In your perception it is an overreaction from H.. But in the mind of H, it's an act of provocation, the person is simply defending themselves, and they have every right to do so. Person A need to be careful next time in their conversations with H or simply avoid H if their comments are only serving as a trigger to H..
But a third person (for example you or me) has no right to judge H for their reactions.. Because neither you nor me are in the place of H to understand how they are processing the question/comment. Also since the comment/ question made by person A is solely directed at person H, it's very very easy for me or you to judge because we are not feeling the sentiment of that question or comment since it was not directed to us. So we can feel perfectly fine emotionally and say why is the person H overreacting since we are not experiencing the emotion person H is feeling because of that question or comment.
So to say that person H is overreacting is completely absurd from our standpoint and we as a third party should not even interfere between Person A and person H and let the two persons resolve their differences and misunderstandings on their own
Notice that by our interference between two arguing people, one provoking, another defending or reacting, we are doing nothing but simply bringing our judgement and bias to that situation.
When something is being said by one person to another, it is only and only between the two people. And the only person to decide what's needs to be done is the moderator. Also the Moderator always takes into account the forum guidelines to see if whatever the person said is as per forum guidelines
If a person has used name calling in the course of an argument they should be called out on that.
Defense does not simply drop from the clouds.. You could say that I'm being overly defensive only when a person said something that wasn't about me and it was said to someone else. If I went off at this person, In that case it is reasonable to believe that I'm overly reacting, simply by the fact that the comment wasn't directed at me.
But if a person said something to me, I'm completely justified in how I react because it was said to me and how I perceive it is completely depended on me and no one else.
So taking offense at something that was not even directed at me is called "real overreaction."
Whatever I just wrote is a great course in learning sensitivity in approaching people and their emotions
Being judgemental doesn't help.. It won't make me feel better in any way and it is not good advice.
When you Judge someone who is reacting and feeling provoked , you're only extending their provocation or making them feel bad for having defended.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with either reacting or defending.
If you don't want someone to take your comment personally, then by the same logic you should not take their response or reaction personally.
If you think that someone should not get offended by what you said to them, then by the same logic you should not get offended by their response or reaction to what you said to them.
Since the comment/question is directed at me, I'm the only one who can decide how to react and how to feel about it. Others are not in my shoes to judge me.
Also I am no Saint nor am I perfect in any way. I am not claiming that. I have also made offensive comments in the past on the forum. But I have also taken care to apologize for them. I am also learning how to be sensitive to how others feel. But I'm much more sensitive at grasping people's personal emotions because deep down I try my best to operate from empathy and I never have the intention to offend anyone. I always avoid any interaction/person if such an interaction with the person is going to be bad for them. I avoid that person completely in order to ease the tensions. Because I have no agenda to hurt a person.
Once I offended a person on the forum but I sent them a personal apology and now that person is very friendly with me.
I am not vindictive or vengeful in any way, it's this forum which by its own atmosphere is bringing out the worst in me because to be very very honest, a lot people here have no concept of how to respect a person's vulnerabilities.
If a person is sensitive and vulnerable, instead of respecting that, they continue hurting that person. They just don't know how to leave a person alone.
I can sum up my entire message in the following words
In short, don't dish it out if you can't take it.
Yes I'm a victim of child abuse and trauma and so are several people on this forum. There are rape and trauma victims on this forum just like me and they are very vulnerable. It is not okay to further antagonize them by using their trauma to deny them their humanity. Be sensitive to them rather than judging them.
I have had several arguments with people on this forum in the course of my time here. And in most cases, decent people on the forum usually respond with
"hey I didn't mean to offend you"
"please don't take this thing personally"
"I'm sorry if you felt attacked"
"hey can I ask you a question and I hope it's okay"
"I don't mean to attack
"please don't take me wrong. I wish you well."
"I'm sorry my words offended you. But let me explain what I meant."
"oK"
"I don't enjoy arguing."
" hey, my words were taken out of context. I didn't mean that."
"you misinterpreted me. I wasn't talking about you.."
"I think there is no point in us arguing this anymore"
This is how decent people speak in a conversation. They clearly reflect to a person that they don't want to offend in any way.
And when they realize that their comments are serving no purpose other than triggering the other person, they don't keep pressing on that person or invalidate their feelings or deny their feelings or oppose them, they simply let them go because they want the hurt to continue.
What do indecent people do?
They continue to attack. They double down on their behavior. They continue to deny the person's feelings by making the person feel bad. They gaslight the person and tell the person that it is wrong that the person felt offended by the words rather than reflecting on how their actions are hurtful. They don't care to apologize but they are quick to attack and quick to judge. They don't care to explain anything. They don't care to address the situation or other person's concerns. They show complete indifference and yet when they are called out on their offensive behavior, they are quick to make the other person feel guilty for defending. They don't bother to reply or explain after making a trollish one line sarcastic comment. They just leave it there for others to see. They don't respond to the person and resolve any differences. They talk to others about that person in order to gather support to attack the person again. They ridicule the person publicly and tell others that the person is a joke or make a caricature out of that person. They act hostile towards the person and continue to hurt and offend even when the person is telling them to leave them alone. They gossip about the person. The main thing is that they don't ever try to settle any differences or mitigate the offense in any way. They get obsessed with the person and follow that person throughout the forum. They go completely quiet if the person is asking them to clarify their offensive comments. They remain stubborn in their opinion and don't try to comfort the person who has been offended. They don't even avoid the person consciously. They keep chastising the person endlessly to keep on with their offensive narrative. They don't show any humility or acknowledgement that somehow their comments could have been offensive.
If I said something to someone and if they were offended by me and they conveyed it to me in their defense or reaction, I would immediately apologize and if I don't feel the need to apologize at least I will explain myself to them in the hope to create goodwill with them. Or I will simply say "I don't wish to argue" and wish them well. This is called being decent to a person who has been offended by my words.
However if I don't bother to reply or apologize or explain myself , it means I'm completely okay with them being hurt by me and I have no intention to show my goodwill to them. In that case they are more than justified in reacting and feeling offended since I put zero effort in resolving their perception of my behavior. I am simply implying to them "I don't give a cent how you feel". This means I am being completely insensitive on top of being offensive
Notice how the person doesn't explain themselves after my objection to them,clearly indicating that they don't care how I feel. And this means that they have zero intention of goodwill towards me because if they were sensitive to how I have perceived their comment then they would have easily wanted to explain themselves. And mitigate the offense or hurt.
If they have zero intention of showing goodwill to me, then I have no obligation on my end to show goodwill to them.
You can't attack a person and then also tell the same person to not take it as an attack. This means that you actually want to attack but at the same time you're covering your bases so that you don't have to take the consequences. It's equivalent to saying "I am going to slap you but please don't take it as a slap"...
Another example of how a user was being decent with me is on the same thread..
So the user nistake says
I totally get you. It's good to see that you're not suppressing your emotions and you stand up for yourself. It's a good practise which comes in handy IRL as well.
Nistake is right.. I'm not supposed to suppress my emotions. I should convey it if I felt hurt.. And that person should also respond correspondingly instead of letting it fester. And if they don't respond, it's their burden, not mine.
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