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Post by laura on May 2, 2011 22:32:17 GMT -5
You have no respect for us - at least not over your own skewed ideals. We (collectively) wanted this one single board private, for members only, because we've all shared personal things here. But you just went and made it public anyway. Because your ideals were more important than your "friends". Remember that. If you want to know why we're all gone, that's the reason why.
It's very sad to see what's become of this place. It used to be so nice here.
Peace out, y'all. You know where to find me.
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Post by rad on May 3, 2011 4:59:03 GMT -5
We (collectively) wanted this one single board private, for members only, because we've all shared personal things here. But you just went and made it public anyway. . If anyone wants any posts in this section deleting now it's gone public, please PM me or Kiri and I'm sure we can do this for you. Those of you not currently on Boolprop or any other sims/writing forums, I'd suggest you join Twitter as most of us are there and I'd hate for us all to lose touch. After this latest experience, it seems to me that it might be time to call a day on this forum. It was a lovely place and I'm so glad to have met you all, but I don't want to be in a place where it constantly feels as though it's not a community, but somewhere where one person exerts control and continually berates the members. We don't need to be in the secrets again, and it's going to keep happening, especially now IRL has gone public against most of our wishes. I love you guys and I'll stick around to take care of business until this weekend but I think after that I'll be joining the exodus. This is no longer a safe space. Thanks for all the good times and great reads - keep blogging, keep participating in other forums, keep tweeting - let's stay friends. I know I'm behind on reading your blogs but I promise I'll get round to it when my PhD work slackens off a little more. Stacy - I sympathise with your situation - it's awful that you can't get health care because I think you would benefit greatly from some therapy, and if there was a way I could make your situation better, I would, but the internet can't replace professional help. Admitting you need help is not a weakness - the majority of us need help at one time or another, and you've had some awful personal experiences you probably need help with. Us saying you need help is not an insult to you, it's a way of expressing concern. One point I was rather offended by - we do not think sim stories or web fiction are stupid or a waste of time - why else are we here? Sure there are people 'out there' who might think that, but they're not the people here. Please don't think we are any 'less' than you because we enjoy writing, reading, playing and commenting. For many of us, we really enjoy the stories we create, for some they're a bit of fun, for some a springboard for something else, for some an outlet for creativity - you have no right to judge any of us on our motivations, the comments we make, the discussions we have or the work we produce simply because they don't fit with your ideals of 'art' or because they're a hobby rather than something all-consuming. There is a middle ground, which most of us occupy - a balance between our stories/writing and our real lives; a balance between caring about the world and having to live in it; a balance between online friends and offline friends. I know you're a person of extremes, I know you don't see the middle ground, but you need to respect those of us that are trying our hardest to live in that, to work, to love, to see friends, to study, to raise families, to cope with illnesses and bereavements, to cope with difficult political/financial/practical situations in our own countries and neighbourhoods. I am not saying this because I hate you, I am saying this because I care about you and because I care about everyone else here and your behaviour is not acceptable - we've expressed concerns to you so many times and you don't understand or listen to us. I hope you write more fiction, I would love to read it - but I can't put up with the frequent diatribes aimed at people who have been supportive to you any longer.
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Post by lhasa on May 3, 2011 7:21:01 GMT -5
After reading all of this, I have to say: What the hell?! I haven't been coming on here a lot lately and if I did, it was just to visit a specific topic I had been following in the past. I was completely oblivious to what was going on. I must admit I started wondering why I saw so many of the "regulars" deleting their accounts and leaving. When I finally decided to get to the bottom of this, this thread caught my eye. I started reading it and the other threads that preceded it. Now I understand. I completely understand and I am throwing my hat in as well. Quite frankly, this isn't worth it. I'm going to keep this account open long enough to reply to a few more threads and then I'm going to join the exodus. It's obvious people aren't wanted here unless they yield. Stacy, I'm going to try to be as civil as possible with you and not just explode in a flurry of curse words. Please stop with the armchair politics. You urge everyone to "get involved", but what are you doing yourself? Sitting around all day retweeting and chastising people for not living up to your so-called "ideal" isn't helping either. And would you please stop comparing the events in the highly privileged United States to the events in other countries? Even as a queer formerly-homeless POC, I could never compare the acts of prejudice I have experienced to anything people in other countries have to experience every single day. And it's even more sickening to read that someone living a life of privilege thinks that they can "understand what the people are going through." No, you'll never understand unless you have lived through it. Stop appropriating their suffering. And just because people don't respond to your threads doesn't mean they don't care. A lot of people don't want to talk about politics in a sims forum. Just because they don't doesn't mean they are bad people or aren't involved in some way themselves. And if they aren't, who are you to judge? It doesn't matter. Seriously. Back off and re-evalutate your thought process. Please take some time off from the internet. It's not healthy. VSS used to be an amazing forum where And now it's just a breeding ground for...this. If you want to stay in contact with me, you can just catch me on twitter: twitter.com/sanskritshower If not, I understand. Bye.
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Post by Stacy on May 3, 2011 10:28:23 GMT -5
I have apologized over and over and over. I have said that I take responsibility for hurting people even if I had no clue how I was doing it, over and over. I have shown a willingness to figure out how I was hurting other people so I could work on that and stop doing it. Progress wasn't instant, but I was working on it. I wanted things to get better. I wanted to make amends. I wanted to understand what had happened so I could work on it and become a better person and hopefully prevent it from happening again.
But every attempt to do that apparently just makes it worse. And I don't know what else I can do, at this point. I've apologized. I've taken responsibility. I've introspected and tried to figure things out. I've been honest about my feelings, because at least in my world that's how I work out conflict. I'm honest and I talk it out.
It's pretty clear to me that I had been rationalizing things, and that probably explains my attempts to understand it through the idea of different perceptions of reality. And God - okay, I'm sorry if that hurt people. In my internal reality, different does not mean better or worse. It just means different. So, in my perception, I wasn't implying anything hurtful. I was just exploring ideas and trying to understand things and contrasting my desires and perceptions with the desires and perceptions that I saw in others to see if that could explain the conflict. Which, you know, I probably misinterpreted people's views and desires. But I don't see how that is so horrible when other people misinterpret every word I type.
I would try to think things through, again, to go through and see if I could possibly figure out what I said in my previous posts in this thread that was so horrible and wrong and evil and awful, but I'm fucking tired of this. And yes - this post, I know, will make people mad. But whatever, because hell - I could post "I like writing." or "I think the sky looks like it may be blue." and people would yell at me and hate me and delete their accounts. So I'm fucking done.
I tried, in good faith, to be honest and real, to start working it out. And no one had to read this thread if they weren't interested in doing so - but apparently at least Galatea was. It's not like I posted this thread. I was responding to an inquiry.
But at this point, I guess working things out is not a possibility. I don't know - maybe it's not a misinterpretation thing. Maybe it's not a failure of communication. Maybe it's just my thoughts and feelings really are not acceptable to some people. Which, hey, that happens.
For those people who are willing, who aren't completely disgusted by my very being - I will still be reading emails. Not today, not when it's a struggle to not have a panic attack and I've already lost that struggle once. Today, after this, is reserved for IRL, where communication is sane, where people don't hate me, where I can predict how people will react to what I say, where I know that if there are misinterpretations, people will ask me what I mean as opposed to storming out the door, leaving, and filing for divorce. But I promise soon.
Because I am still willing to apologize and work things out and figure out what happened and learn how to be a better person and get over the social anxiety - just on individual terms with people who think it's worth it, and who are willing to listen to me as I work on listening to them. Because, hey, I get it, that with the social anxiety and the more external focus these last few months that I haven't really been listening to you guys, that I was seeing the forest instead of the trees. And I think part of what happened is that I was talking to the forest, and the trees heard and thought I was talking to them.
And oh, let me guess, someone's going to get a stick up their ass about my metaphors and feel horribly offended by being referred to as a tree.
If you're not horribly offended, if you're willing to listen to me, I am willing to work on listening to you, on learning how to see the forest and the trees at the same time, on healing the damage I caused as much as I can. But it's clear that with some people, maybe I did too much damage for that to be a possibility. And just like people have a right to their feelings that I'm not listening to them, I have a right to my feelings that I'm not being heard by some people either and that, on my side, it is a completely lost cause. And, not that it matters, but I take responsibility for that and I apologize for it and I'm sorry that it got to that point. I am deeply sorry, down deep in my soul, that I hurt you to the point where even apologies and attempts to understand and make it better and take responsibility for my part in hurting you just sound like more hurt to you. I didn't mean for that to happen, but it did, and it looks like there's no way to fix it, so let's just cut our losses.
Goodbye.
Fuck it, I can't delete my account. Pretend it's deleted.
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Post by simslia on May 3, 2011 10:55:27 GMT -5
I am going to have to leave too. I came back to this place because I thought it was a community where we can share our ideas and write about the sims and just blog. But its become a problem, something uncomfortable in my life. I don't look forward to being here.
I have met great people here and will continue to read their blogs and comment. I will figure out which posts of mine I want deleted and let Kiri/Rad know before I go.
Know that you can come find me if need be, but I won't be here anymore.
Stacy -- the bottom line is that you did not listen to us when we said we wanted this forum to stay private and members only and be a safe space for discussion.
We said it over and over, and you said you came back to listen, but then made it public anyways?
Its clear to me this is no longer a place where I belong. I will be commenting on all your blogs and then when the time comes for me to start up my new one you will all know where to find me, I will make sure of that.
This is sad, but I just can't handle it anymore.
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Post by mdpthatsme on May 3, 2011 22:23:21 GMT -5
I have noticed that we have loss a ton of members and it has upset me so I decided to investigate. I didn't even know any of this was going on...and I come on this forum almost every day...I do miss the "old" VSS where we talk about writing styles, direction, how to help each other's stories, work out writer's block, etc. And I don't believe that any of "the loss of the old VSS" is Stacy's fault. To me, if you don't want any personal stuff posted for people to see it, don't post it. I understand the need to reach out to others for advice and what-not, but that's why forum makers made the ability to PM. We all have separate blogs also to post whatever we want. This seems like everyone's letting their emotions get the better of them, instead of thinking logically. If that pisses people off, I can't help it. That's my opinion and I can't apologize for it. If you want to fix a problem, you don't walk away from it. You build it up, find the problem, and adjust what you need to adjust. If Stacy's threads bother you, don't view them. You have the power, use it. I will continue to post on this site, continue to make theme prompts, continue to talk about writing, and help everyone in any way they need me until the site closes down because of a nuclear bomb in the Internet. That's the point of a forum. Cheers
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Post by celebkiriedhel on May 4, 2011 8:00:48 GMT -5
MDP - it's not like we haven't tried to fix the problem, but there comes a time when you learn that no matter how much you try to resolve it, it won't make anything better and the adjustment to be made is to remove yourself from the drama.
This is a relationship problem - and it takes two to resolve it.
Stacy is the forum owner - it's difficult to avoid her, because the forum is hers, and her behaviour sets the forum culture.
The private information has generally been in response to her posts.
The other problem is that a lot of this has gone on behind the scenes in emails and pms and on twitter. Many of the people who have left have beared the brunt of private messages and emails as well.
I have been away for 2 weeks due to moving and no internet connection, and I was not surprised to see that this has continued to blow up.
I am uncomfortable in being in a place where the owner doesn't respect the people in it, and has a forum owner that doesn't abide by their own rules.
Sometimes the way to fix a problem is to remove yourself from the source of it. That is what people are doing.
I won't be returning to the forum, although I care about many of you. I have enough dramas in my life without adding a forum one to it.
I will be hanging around for the next week to delete things that people want deleted, but after that I'll be gone and won't be coming back.
Kiri
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pinkfiend1
Full Member
Missing everyone
Posts: 467
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Post by pinkfiend1 on May 4, 2011 13:53:56 GMT -5
I feel like we should have started a leavers thread for everyone to say their goodbyes in.
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Post by mdpthatsme on May 4, 2011 14:05:23 GMT -5
face-palm
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pinkfiend1
Full Member
Missing everyone
Posts: 467
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Post by pinkfiend1 on May 4, 2011 14:37:25 GMT -5
hehehehe. Or maybe we should have just started up an identical forum and all switched over there, and then nobody would have left, kind of. Strangely that doesn't sound as right as it did in my head.
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Post by Stacy on May 4, 2011 20:24:53 GMT -5
Okay.
So I did actually go back and reread my previous posts in the thread and try to figure things out.
And I think I came up with something, and it's big enough to require me to come back and post.
I think....
I was taking into account posts from months ago, where I'd apologized and taken responsibility and prostrated myself in repentance. For instance - the "I really am sorry" thread, which I moved to the critique forum the other day. It had no replies, and last I remember it didn't have many views either, but it was there and I'd written it. I've also personally apologized to a few people in emails, and I remember apologizing within a few other threads.
So I was in the mindframe of explaining my side of the story - hey, the thread's subject is "What's going on with you?"
But I reread all the posts I'd made in this thread, and finally, finally...I saw it.
See - like I said, progress isn't instant. This takes time.
I think that other people didn't see it in the frame of okay, this is Stacy telling her side and trying to see why she got so upset and what stirred the flames and what were some possible underlying causes and how can she fix those things or take them into account, which is how I saw it. Which that is a strategy that has worked for me before - like when I figured out that the reason I got so upset at Hoopty's sudden disappearance was my abandonment issues. And then things got better.
I think....
I think maybe other people saw it as me NOT taking responsibility, as trying to blame them. I've learned enough to know that I shouldn't probably post speculations on why.
I took it as a given that I was exploring my feelings and my reactions to see why I did what I did, so I could know myself better and control my reactions better in the future. And personally, in the posts I see a progression from rationalizing in self-defense to being more open and more thoughtful. And I'm not going to apologize for that - I will apologize for posting it in public, because maybe I should have done all this on my own in private, but yeah...
I have severe self-hate issues. I needed the shell of rationalization for protection. But then as I went on, I started breaking the shell.
Ah, but there's the rub - I think I needed other people to see it to progress. If I was just talking to myself, why not just stay inside the protective shell?
Anyway - I think it all came across entirely wrong to others, but I think I can see how it could have come across that way to them.
You can all thank Grace for this - I talked about it a bit at dinner, and she asked if it was a qualified apology.
As far as I know, my apologies in previous threads weren't qualified. My apologies in personal emails weren't qualified. But I can totally see how my posts in this thread may have come across that way.
She also said that I'd been dealing with normal people for a while now, and hadn't I noticed any patterns, and how maybe she should monitor my social interactions and interpret things for me.
Anyway...I think it all came across perhaps as me being all smug and martyr-like and not apologizing and blaming others. Is that right? Did I figure something out here?
And while I still wish people would be patient and wouldn't immediately assume things and would check to see if what they heard was what I thought I was saying - I can see and understand how that happened too.
I should mention another thing that bothered me - I just don't like to name names, but believe me - I do know and remember the people who were supportive on the secrets issue and I painted with too wide a brush in that bit.
I also remember all the other support. I do. Which is why I personally think it's worth the time and effort to figure things out and make it better, and that's why I went back and reread my posts to see if I could figure it out. That's why I had one panic attack and just managed to hold off two others yesterday.
Because I care. Because you guys are important. Because, at the moment, I can't even focus on Libya because instead I'm going around hating myself for being a horrible person and making you guys upset. Because when I think about it, I can't breathe.
Please - if you think this post would help, and you're still here reading, please do tell others about it. And I appreciate that you're still here, that you still think it's worth it.
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lepifera
Junior Member
"....."
Posts: 93
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Post by lepifera on May 5, 2011 7:44:49 GMT -5
Stacy,
If you really want to take responsibilities, and repair the relationships that are important to you, you would have to rely on yourself, rather than asking people to pass on the words for you.
It isn't just about people misinterpreting you. You are so focused on your own feelings and concerns that you haven't given other people's concerns and interests enough thoughts.
If you want, visit the websites of people you still consider friends, and try to really "see" where they are and what they are trying to say through their works, and have conversations about things they care about, not just what YOU care about.
May I suggest that you stop writing from Seth's perspective, and instead, stretch your imagination, and write from someone else's perspectives. Someone who you don't necessary agree with. Someone who you may even hate. Learn to look at things from other points of view. You don't necessarily have to agree in order to understand where others are coming from.
I would still suggest you to really branch out a bit socially IRL, maybe even try volunteering for a local soup kitchen, or big sister or brother type of program.
BTW. Responding to this thread has quite distracted me from what I am supposed to be focused on IRL. I am going to take a break from this forum for a while to focus on other things.
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Post by mdpthatsme on May 5, 2011 14:04:09 GMT -5
lepifera and Stacy: I have plenty of theme prompts in the Exercises thread to help writing from someone elses view if you want to give it a try.
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pinkfiend1
Full Member
Missing everyone
Posts: 467
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Post by pinkfiend1 on May 5, 2011 15:09:22 GMT -5
I have just come up a good prompt idea too, which may be beneficial at the moment to people.
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Post by Stacy on May 5, 2011 22:47:01 GMT -5
So someone told me one of the things that made her upset. And it became crystal clear why I have no idea why people got so upset. The bit that she mentioned - to me, it was just a nice rhetorical flourish, a nice strong dramatic rhythmic ending to an essay-ish post, that I wrote and then never thought about again. It wasn't aimed at anyone here, anyone who would read it. It was a minute's thought, and then it disappeared from my mind. I never ever ever in a million years thought anyone would take it so seriously or see it as directed at anyone here. This is what I meant by me talking to the forest and the trees hearing and thinking I was talking to them. The bit that she mentioned - when I wrote it, I thought NATO was deliberately slacking, letting the Libyans die, letting them lose, because hey - an insane dictator is much better for capitalism and the arms trade and the oil companies than the Libyans having a free democratic government. So it was polemic directed at...well, directed at corrupt officials, oil company executives, capitalism in general, etc. You see? It had absolutely nothing to do with VSS, nothing to do with anyone here, nothing to do with anyone I know personally. And I just... Okay, I thought my offense was my little blow up about how no one seemed to be paying attention to current events. Which, okay, yes, I am sometimes irrational and quick to anger. But I am also quick to get over that anger, and quick to feel horrible for getting angry, and quick to apologize for it. And I apologized for what I thought was my offense. A lot. And a long time ago - I thought people would have had time to get over that by now. The stuff I've posted since then, since I posted that "I really am sorry" thread - I thought I was just sharing cool essays I'd written and/or news I found important with my friends, and they could read them if they had any interest and contribute thoughts or whatever if they wanted to. If anyone, anyone at all, had taken one minute to think, to send me an email or a PM before it got to the point where my social anxiety exploded and I became completely avoidant, this would have fizzled away into nothingness. I do take full responsibility for my part of it, but if people hadn't yelled at me, if people hadn't lectured me, if people had been open and thoughtful and sent me a gentle civil "What do you mean by this?" note, I could have said "Oh, that? OMG, I'm sorry, I was talking about NATO, oil companies, etc. Didn't mean you or anyone here at all. Next time I'll put a disclaimer, or just not post it here." and OMG. Everything could have been fine. I guess - I KNOW that I started it, and I take full responsibility for that. I do. I know that my blow up started it and put people on the defensive. But I had help in escalating it. The "fuck you" message, the lectures, hiding the IRL forum. All of that triggered my social anxiety, and because it was from people I thought were friends, people I thought understood - the social anxiety went to Red Alert and I shut down and got all defensive and completely avoidant. And that reaction, which I take responsibility for and which I know was not the most intelligent, escalated things as well. I know that I played the main role in this, that I started it, that I helped a lot in escalating it. But I wasn't the only one involved. We actually are all complicit here. All of us. I started it, and I did not respond well or wisely to provocation. But I wasn't the only one. I'm not and never will be perfect. I'm only human. But I just figured out that you're all only human too. I've decided that I'm not going to walk around hating myself and wishing I was dead and fighting off panic attacks and having a constantly constricted throat that the internet tells me is due to anxiety. I'm not going to make John upset by constantly asking him to reaffirm that he is my friend and that he doesn't hate me and that he doesn't think I am the worst person on the planet. I'm not going to walk around with all the color and joy drained out of the world because I am the most evil horrible person in existence and I will never be good enough, will never be perfect like everyone else, will always be wrong and evil and full of fault and a waste of oxygen. I'm going to forgive myself. It's not the worst thing in the world to get mad at your friends and then try to apologize for it. I'm not the first person to do that, and I won't be the last. What happened is that we were all human, we were all emotional and irrational, we all assumed things, we all interpreted things in the worst way possible. Reality is chaos, and in that chaos sometimes humans are thoughtless and impulsive and actions like just writing and posting something that you think is neat and sounds cool without thinking it through blows up into a giant storm. It's the butterfly effect. I forgive myself, and I forgive everyone else. Because we are all human. Because none of us control anything. Because we are all good people. Come on guys. You know that. You know that we're all good people here, with good intentions, and that we used to get along and support each other. We all make mistakes. Every day. I made the biggest share of the mistakes here, and I admit that and I take responsibility for it and I apologize for it and I am working on ways to do better and prevent it from happening again. Like I've definitely learned - in the future, include a disclaimer explaining what I mean and who I am directing my rhetoric at if I decide to go on a rant about something unrelated to VSS. And I promise you guys that I will do something about the social anxiety. If nothing else - at work there is an employee assistance program (it was actually mentioned at this week's meeting) and I do think that they can help with social anxiety. So I will look into that. I think that when it got to the point of fighting off multiple panic attacks in one day and getting up in the predawn hours with my throat all congested and gagging and telling John "I'm scared" and making him get up and walk with me and rub my back and calm me down to the point where I could lay down.... It became clear to me that I may not be able to handle this myself. So - no, I'm not blaming anyone or saying anyone else is at fault. Clearly, I'm the one who started it. I'm just saying that none of us responded well, and we all contributed to it getting out of hand. So - I've found some sort of peace. Hopefully, one day you guys will too. Take all the time you need - if I don't hate myself, if I don't want to die, if I don't think I'm the worst mistake that was ever born - then I don't have to chase forgiveness. I don't have to keep digging until someone tells me it's okay, until someone lets me out of the jail that my social anxiety and self-hate creates. With the rather ironic effect of just alienating people more and making the jail harder to get out of and more...jail-y. I can go ahead and let myself out. And I hope that one day you guys forgive me, that you come back, that we all move on and go on with our lives and our friendships. But now, with some internal peace, I can wait for that. I can be patient. I can respect your feelings, because my own don't seem quite so dire and life-threatening now. My throat feels fine at the moment. I really do love you all, you know. In all your togetherness that I can't seem to always enter into, in all your posts that I can't quite understand, in all your glory and in all your imperfections, which are really just the same thing. You are all beautiful, and good, and true. Sometimes humans are silly and irrational and we get all upset, over nothing really. And I got angry and scared and you got angry and hurt and it was all bad, but it was just all in our minds. And it will happen again in the future. It'll be different, because we'll have learned our lessons from this and so we'll prevent this particular thing from happening again, but we are only human. We will fall again. But we have the choice to get back up. And I am now exercising my choice to do that. I really do love you all - I feel like I can see the shining good souls now, like I've cleared the fear from out of my eyes, the deep soul fear that was blinding me, that was keeping me inside myself. I'm not blind anymore. Now I can see. And so I can wait. I can let you go. If it's meant to be, you'll come back. And if it's not meant to be - thank you for all that you have taught me, in the good times and in the bad times. Thank you for being a part of my life, whether we are destined to part ways now or if we have a little ways more to travel together. Thank you. Ah. I just now remembered a more recent statement that was rather inflammatory, in the thread that was originally about Benton Harbor. But you see- it hadn't crossed my mind this whole thread until just now. More human faults, more human silliness, more limited human perception. I am sorry for that. I will not excuse it, nor even explain it. I will just say that I am sorry, both for posting it and for forgetting about it.
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Post by Galatea on May 6, 2011 2:20:54 GMT -5
If anyone, anyone at all, had taken one minute to think, to send me an email or a PM before it got to the point where my social anxiety exploded and I became completely avoidant, this would have fizzled away into nothingness. I do take full responsibility for my part of it, but if people hadn't yelled at me, if people hadn't lectured me, if people had been open and thoughtful and sent me a gentle civil "What do you mean by this?" note, I could have said "Oh, that? OMG, I'm sorry, I was talking about NATO, oil companies, etc. Didn't mean you or anyone here at all. Next time I'll put a disclaimer, or just not post it here." and OMG. Everything could have been fine. I For plumbob's sake, Stacy, what do you think we have been doing?! Let me tell you something Stacy, and for once in your life I want you to listen, and listen good: You are not so different. I know you like to think you are, but there are so many ways in which you are just as boringly human as the rest of us. I hate to break it to you, but there it is. I do not need to read a journal article in order to understand someone or accept someone as they are. Stop insulting my intelligence this way. If you feel "unwelcome" or that you "don't belong" in a forum of your own making, that is your emotional decision. We are not responsible for your emotions. If you don't want to feel unwelcome or "like you don't belong", then take that bloody "worst human ever" statement off your avatar, stop whinging about how you can't communicate, and just speak. Say what you have to say, and say it SIMPLY. In as few words as possible (the mark of a true writer, btw). And we will listen to you. But if you give the world a self-pity-no-one-understands-me-I-hate-myself party every damn time you open your online "mouth" (so to speak), then fewer and fewer people are going to stick around to listen. I have BEEN there, Stacy. I have lived with social anxiety. I have had panic attacks so strong and so sudden that I have been physically unable to walk, in the middle of a public place. Strangers have had to scrape me off the sidewalk and hold me up until I got to a seat or to my front door. I have lived with depression. I know what it does to a person's perception of the world and of the people around them. I know how the universe can seem hostile, foreign, and alien. I know what it's like to be so caught up in my own feelings, thoughts and perceptions that I simply cannot hear - and do not want to hear - anyone else around me. I am gifted and highly intelligent: your giftedness and intelligence do not faze me. I am more than a match for you, I can promise you. And I can also tell you, I know that intellectual giftedness has a cost: emotional and social immaturity, insecurity, loneliness, and the feeling of being alien and different. I have lived with that as well. The only way to come to terms with any of these things is to STOP harping on about your intelligence and how you're so different, and START dealing with your emotional problems. You are a grown woman. Start taking responsibility for your emotional decisions, and stop blaming everyone around you, which is exactly what you have just done in your last post. As much as you say "you take responsibility", what you have actually done is lay blame on our doorstep. Of course people are angry at you. You made an executive decision to strip forum members of their right to a safe "space", exposing God-knows-what to God-knows-who. Did you, as forum owner, have the courtesy to check all the threads in this forum before you went ahead, to make sure there weren't other really private matters being discussed by other members? Matters which weren't actually about you? Stuff they just wanted off their chest? Two of your fellow administrators said they wanted out in this thread because of this. That's pretty serious. You said it was about "your ethics". There's nothing ethical about stripping people of their privacy, Stacy. How many PMs and emails do you need? What does it take to get you to listen to us and respond to what we say to you? Neither NATO, nor Libya, nor Wisconsin, nor any other political revolution going on, has had anything to do with this one simple fact: we tried, and you did not listen.
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Post by rad on May 6, 2011 8:47:30 GMT -5
I just read Galatea's post after composing this. Read it - she is wise. If anyone, anyone at all, had taken one minute to think, to send me an email or a PM before it got to the point where my social anxiety exploded and I became completely avoidant, this would have fizzled away into nothingness. I'm sorry Stacy, because I do like you and I have tried my hardest not to fuel the fire but many, many of us have emailed you, PMed you or posted replies to your messages doing exactly this. If you chose not to read them we can't take responsibility for that. I don't see anyone yelling but I have seen many, many people give you advice, for months now. for example: BTW, Stacy, it would really do you some good to tighten up your arguments and ideas before posting. Some of your long posts are so raw, they are almost like stream of consciousness writing, hard on most pairs of eyes to follow. Poetry is beautiful because it says a lot in fewer words. Stacey if you want to change politics in what I am assuming is your local area, meet up with other like minded people in your area, but trying to recruit people who don't live in the same continent let alone state or town as you isn't going to make a difference. All your doing is scaring people away from a forum you created, and said you were leaving. You created this forum to be about writing, not about political debate. It's not that people are "refusing to talk about this". It's not that they're sticking their heads in the sand or driving their fingers into their ears and singing off-key. Sometimes, people just have to deal with their short-term concerns before they can fight for the long-term ones. I'm glad that you feel so passionate about this, but you have to understand that just not debating this or discussing it in depth doesn't mean we're treating this with acceptance or even apathy And I could give you dozens more examples. Look at galatea's first post in this thread for one. There are two PMs I sent you ages ago (because I was trying to be polite and keep advice private) doing just what you're accusing us of not doing that you have never even opened. I know for a fact other users have sent you similar PMs and emails. I am sorry if you construe people's advice and responses as shouting or lecturing, knowing everyone here I doubt that was anyone's intention, but you must have sensed a growing exasperation from most of us, building over several months. You have posted 'I'm leaving' threads many times, and have said you wanted Kiri and myself to look after things, yet when Kiri moved the IRL forum to private, all of a sudden it's "your" forum again. Your 'it's my forum so deal' tweet was pretty much the final straw for me though this has been building a while. One thing I've learned from this is that all forums should have an administrator account that several people can access so that there is no single forum owner - each user with access to the admin account should have their own user account as well. One forum 'owner' is always a problem as you couldn't delete your own account or put a freeze on it without deleting the board. people I thought were friends, people I thought understood - the social anxiety went to Red Alert and I shut down and got all defensive and completely avoidant. Friends do not legitimise everything each other says. Advice and criticisms were offered as friends, not enemies. Do not blame us for this. Yes, maybe some people's tones became less than friendly - but no-one was as hostile or combative as you - and human nature kicks in - we were being attacked so we're bound to come off as defensive. I've decided that I'm not going to walk around hating myself and wishing I was dead and fighting off panic attacks and having a constantly constricted throat that the internet tells me is due to anxiety. Good. That's a good thing. But I hope you learn two things from this: 1) Think before you post, redraft things. 2) Don't let the internet be your social life. As several folk have suggested, some voluntary work or something would be great for you both to have a practical outworking of your political convictions and as a way of meeting new people. I made the biggest share of the mistakes here, and I admit that and I take responsibility for it and I apologize for it and I am working on ways to do better and prevent it from happening again. I don't think you are. I don't think you've read or understood what people have been saying to you. The fact you spend much of this post blaming us and saying we're just as bad is testament to that. Don't hate yourself, don't harm yourself - but it wouldn't be a bad thing to modify your behaviours. Like I've definitely learned - in the future, include a disclaimer explaining what I mean and who I am directing my rhetoric at Good. That'd help a lot of issues with miscommunication. And I promise you guys that I will do something about the social anxiety. I hope you do. I hope someone will be able to keep you to this promise. Stacy, I can't be in a world you control any longer. I am happy to still read your fiction, I am happy to be part of more neutral environments where you might also belong and to talk with you there, but I can't be in your environment any more. I wish you well. I hope you are brave enough to move away from introspection and sitting online all day and to move into the real world a little more. And I hope one day to read Seth's full story and in it see something beautiful. But for me and VSS, it's goodbye. I am very, very sad about this as I love everyone here, but I can't be in your space any more.
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