Definition of Stupid

Believing everything you read on Social Media is true.

Social media is not Academia, and so everything that is said, is not backed up by 20+ references to prove it is fact.  It is simply a reflection of what someone wants to say.  And yes, even what I write here should not be taken as fact.  Is the above definition really the definition of stupid?  If you take the time to check it out in a Dictionary, for example, you will know that in fact this isn’t the definition of stupid.

It’s my definition of stupid for today, simply because it is something weighing heavily on my heart today.  It doesn’t make it true, and if you choose to believe that it must be true because I said it, then (I’m sorry but) you are stupid.

According to a more worthy source of factual information than me, The Oxford Dictionary, stupid is defined as:

lacking intelligence or common sense (1.)

Or if you don’t want to take such an academic approach, The Urban Dictionary, which for all it’s downfalls makes some valid points, defines stupid as:

Someone who has to look up “stupid” in the dictionary because they don’t know what it means. (2.)

The problem with stupid (and I’m thinking of this in terms of social media) is that stupid takes what it reads on social media, believes it to be true, and then makes judgements about people on that basis of that which is probably not true.

I’ve written about the tendency to judge people before, so I don’t want to repeat myself.  Personally I don’t believe I have the right to judge other people.  It’s simply not my job as a fellow human.  I am just as flawed as the next person, and therefore have no right to stand in judgement.

Of course you may not feel that way, and I have no right to expect you to think as I do, but if you’re going to judge a person, at least check your facts.  What is said on Facebook, Twitter or even on WordPress is not necessarily true.  It maybe completely fabricated, and by your choice to blindly believe what you read, you run the risk of creating a whole lot of hurt.

Image credit: FB- Peeling Away The Layers

If we want to stand in judgement of other people, let’s at least make sure we have our facts right.  Let’s at least make sure we’ve given the person we’re judging the opportunity to speak and that we’ve heard all of the story.

When we don’t, the risk of losing what is so important to us is much greater than we stupidly think.

“Evil isn’t the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it’s a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference.” 

―    Jim Butcher,    Vignette

Related articles

• When Do You Lose Your Right To Be Treated Humanely (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Let The One Who Has Never Fallen (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• I Need A ‘Dislike’ Button (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

Is This Significant?

Image courtesy of [Danilo Rizzuti] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

I’ve been looking around the blogosphere and it seems that 200th post is significant, so let’s be significant today. I’m not entirely convinced that it is a point worth noting, after all it simply says I’ve pressed ‘publish’ 200 times. So what? If I’m honest, quantity has never been important to me. What matters to me is quality?

Every time I pressed ‘publish’ did I have something worth saying? I have absolutely no desire to simply meaninglessly fill your in-box, but am much more interested in knowing whether what I have to say each time I press ‘publish’ actually makes a difference.

So far, to my knowledge WordPress hasn’t found a way to let me know that.  I have numbers coming out of my screen at a rapid rate, and while WordPress also can convey ‘comments’ and ‘likes’ to me, they can’t actually tell me if I made a difference.  Did what I say, inspire or encourage?  What about all those who chose not to ‘like’ or ‘comment’?  I often don’t feel like doing either myself, but I know that a post can have made a difference without that.

If you’re looking for a great 200th post, this one, My 200th post from aliceatwonderland is great.  As usual with her work, I laughed my way through it, and I know I could not repeat, or even replicate her imagination.

Meanwhile I keep pondering.  Numbers have not meant a lot for me for a while now, and blogging is no different.  You see after years of thinking the size in an article of clothing meant the world, and the number which shows up on the scales is the most important thing that day, I know that numbers just don’t matter.  Numbers meant a lot when I had anorexia but now I know I’m better to ignore them and focus on something else.  Numbers are after all, completely relative.

The last time I stopped and thought about numbers here was when I wrote my 50th post, Lessons For Cate So Far…  It was useful for me to think about what I had learned from the blogosphere in the time I had been involved.  At this point, what is relevant to me is what I have learnt about myself as a blogger.  There’s a couple of things worth noting.

I’ve realised that advice is not the thing I’m interested in.  That is, I’m not blogging to give you advice.  And I’m not blogging to get advice.  I’m neither experienced, or trained enough to offer advice to anyone and therefore I would be insulting your intellect if I did.  There is, sadly, plenty of rubbish on the internet, blogosphere included.  That’s okay if that is what you want but I really don’t have any passion for adding to it.  All I want to do is share my experience and my opinion in a way that is hopefully helpful.  None of it is fact, or necessarily right or wrong.  If readers manage to draw their own conclusions from what I have written then I am a happy woman.

I admit too that I’m not even that interested in drawing advice.  That’s not why I share.  If you want to give me advice, fine but what I am more interested in hearing is about your reactions.  Again, there is nothing right or wrong.  You don’t have to agree with what I have said (I’m not used to that anyway), and actually I welcome constructive dialogue.  I won’t be upset if you disagree.

The other thing I have come to realise about myself as a blogger is that I am passionate about being careful with other people’s work and respecting the effort they have invested.  The amount of times that bloggers break copyright that is atrocious, and often it is probably because bloggers haven’t taken the time to find out the rules. Ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law.

I’m not about to give a lesson on copyright except to say check it out from a reliable source.  Copyright is not only illegal, it is also a hard slap in the face to our fellow writers and artists.  It’s not difficult to respect those people enough to either not break copyright, and at least ask permission before we use their words or images.

I am not aware so far of anyone using my material in this way, and that’s not why I object to it.  Instead it is because I see it regularly on blogs I read, and have come to the conclusion for myself, that I will not follow blogs where I see them consistently break copyright.

Actually I don’t follow your blog to read what someone else says anyway.  I’m interested in what you have to say.  For the same reason I rarely chose to read re-blogs. And if I don’t stand up for the rights of other writers and artists, then I fail to be honest and fair.  I’m not telling you this in order to tell you what to do, but rather to explain my own choices.

♦

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” 

―    May Sarton

Related articles

• Lessons For Cate So Far… (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• My 200th post (aliceatwonderland.wordpress.com)

Let The One Who Has Never Fallen

As often happens, I was going to write about something totally different today.  It will have to wait.  Why?  Because today, through another blog that I follow, I learnt of the suicide of a young woman.  She wasn’t someone I knew, but she was a fellow WordPress blogger.  For some reason, and perhaps because of the tragedy of a suicide leaving a grieving husband and child, I felt drawn to read the story told by one of her friends.

If you want to read it, the link is contained in the Related Articles below.  That said, it is a disturbing read.  I don’t feel comfortable going into much detail myself out of respect for someone I didn’t know.  It is her story, and that of her friends.  It’s not my story to tell.

That said, one of the things this young woman struggled with in recent days is the judgement of her readers.  It left her feeling like she didn’t have a place to tell her story anymore.

I guess it really made me think after a conversation I was part of earlier today about that very issue.  The tendency of us human beings to judge others.  No matter what religion you might follow, there are instructions that we do not judge other people.  The one I know best is

throw the first stone”

In other words, s/he who has done no wrong, is the only one who can judge.

When I published my book, Infinite Sadness, I came under attack from a few who felt they could judge the things I had done and the decisions I had made.  I knew it was one of the risks I faced in telling my story, particularly under my own name.  I had already been judged by a few when those things I wrote about actually happened.  Because some people just want to think they are better than anyone else.

We’re not.  It doesn’t matter who we are, what we believe, or what we do… we don’t deserve to be judged ever.  A quote from the story I read hit me quite hard:

“Humanity is not perfect. We are people who screw-up. The worst of the worst come from us. However, the fact is, that the best of the best exists in us too. It is this that God sees. It is this that God understands.” (1.)

I’m not someone who chooses to talk about God, or any other figurehead of religion.  My beliefs in that respect are personal to me, and I don’t see the need to put them unnecessarily on others.  That said, I believe that ‘God’ can take all sorts of forms for different people, and that’s how I think about it in terms of what was written.

Whoever I choose to believe is ‘God’ has an understanding and acceptance of both my, and your goodness.  That’s what matters to me.  And it’s not my role to intrude on that and judge another’s good or bad.  It’s none of my business.

Maybe that’s a simplistic approach for some people but it’s not only about how I treat others, but how I hope others treat me.

This young woman who took her life a few days ago was judged by readers of her blog.  It actually blows my mind simply because I have never felt anything like that from readers in the time I have been blogging.  Being judged is something I often fear, but it’s never something I’ve experienced through my blog.  It’s more than sobering that the judgment she received stopped her in her tracks.  Writing was part of her healing process, but she lost that ability. It’s more than tragic,  it’s something for all of us to think about.  I am confident she was a flower, as much as any of us.

♦

“Once in a golden hour,
I cast to earth a seed,
And up there grew a flower,
That others called a weed.”

―    Alfred Tennyson

Related articles

• The Final Post for Sara. (Trigger Warning) (deenakdrowaln.wordpress.com)
• RIP Sara (crazyinthecoconut.co.uk)
• Infinite Sadness… the book (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

Just One More

The Courageous Confessionals Award

I said a few days ago that I had just one more award to mention and that is the Courageous Confessionals Award  which my friend Kina of Human In Recovery has presented me.

Kina created this award a while ago to honour the kinds of blogs she was reading, which offered a variety of styles and content, and spoke to her at a heart and soul level, those where the authors are taking a huge risk by sharing “their rawest, deepest, darkest, and most painful struggles and allowing the rest of us a chance to see what lies beneath.  These are courageous people who are basically confessing their truest sense of self, whatever that means for them”.

To be included in those who have received this award is a great honour.  Since I published my book three years ago, and my story became pretty much public knowledge, I have somehow tended to put aside the fact that what I share in my writing is pretty personal.  It just is, for me and while there are obviously things I don’t share, particularly to protect other people, I strongly believe that being open and honest is my way of contributing towards getting mental illness spoken about in a more open way.  It’s not right for everyone and I completely respect, that but it is right for me.

There are two pictures which go with this award, and I love them both so you get to see them both.  There are also no requirements of things I must do or say.  I like these ones.

Thank you so much Kina for firstly creating this wonderful award and for considering me worthy of it.  Your recognition of why efforts to be open and honest, with a purpose, make it worthwhile.  Thanks.

One final note, that when I first read Kina’s post of my award, I mis-read the title of the award as the Confessional Blog Award.  I thought, that’s funny that Kina has created an award just for Catholics.  That led onto but I’m not Catholic.  LOL.  At which point I thought for a moment that I was a completely fraudulent awardee (I often feel like a fraud, that’s just life for me)… until I read the title a second time.  The moral of the story?  Read it properly the first time.

♦

“Life, she realized, so often became a determined, relentless avoidance of pain-of one’s own, of other people’s. But sometimes pain had to be acknowledged and even touched so that one could move into it and through it and past it. Or else be destroyed by it.” 

―    Mary Balogh,    Simply Love

“I Am Worth Loving Too” Challenge

My friend Kevin from Voices of Glass has inspired his fellow bloggers with another Challenge, and while I usually choose to avoid the Challenge suggestions that float around the blogosphere, this one appealed to me.

Remember cassette tapes, and recording your own mix of favourites?  True love was about making a tape for your beloved.  Ahhhh!

But back to reality, Kevin suggests that it time to look at how we see and treat ourselves?  How do we treat ourselves  especially in our times of need?   Actually I completely agree with him.  After years of ignoring the whole idea of looking after myself, because I thought stupidly thought it was selfish and vain, I’m learning fast that actually I deserve some love and care from me too.  So here’s how it works (straight from Kevin’s blog):

“Get a pen and paper (or pull up a blank word file on your computer) and compile a lit of songs which remind you how loved you are and/or remind you that you are worth loving.

They should be songs that mean something to you and my advice is to aim for about 10-12 songs.

Once you have written your list or lists set about finding and obtaining those songs.

Once you have them all, burn yourself a CD or set up a playlist on your music player, that you can use any time you are feeling down or lacking in self-worth and need some encouragement.

And how about sharing the fact that you have taken up this challenge on your blog and sharing your list with others.  You can even share why certain songs mean so much to you.  Oh and feel free to link back here so that I can check out your songs too.”

Great idea.  I love music and while I used to participate, via voice and flute, now I just listen.  Music means a lot to me because it often expresses things that I can’t find the words to say.  While I love music I admit I’m not someone who has music on all the time as background.  It just becomes noise to me, and being ‘slightly challenged’ in the hearing department, it actually prevents me from hearing other things going on.  So when I have music on, it is to listen to.

I’ve made my playlist (see below).  I couldn’t quite decide when it came to narrowing it down, so I’ve exceeded Kevin’s suggested limit by going to 14.  But hey, rules were made to be broken.

How have I chosen these songs?  Well, they’re not my favourites, although my current favourite is included (I’m not disclosing which it is, but feel free to take a guess).  For lots of different reasons, including the music, the words, the memories, the feel, the people the song reminds me of,  and my mood at the time I was putting it together…  these songs are my ‘feel good’ songs.  They remind me it’s actually okay to feel good, and head me in that direction.  Simply put, listening to them is a way to look after me.

If you read A Late Entry… Music (Passions Profile Challenge #3) you’ll know that music is one of the things I am passionate about.  I have a wide range of tastes, and this list doesn’t completely capture the diversity of my tastes.  As I’ve said before I love music from my country so  there are a couple of kiwi musicians in there on the list.  Have a listen.  I hope they leave you feeling good too.

The magic 14 are:

Louis Armstrong - What a wonderful world

Marc Cohn – Walking In Memphis

Van Morrison – These Are The Days

Celtic Woman – Pie Jesu

Tiki Taane - Over The Rainbow

Finn Brothers – Nothing Wrong With You

John Lennon – Woman

Eric Clapton – You Look Wonderful Tonight

Cher - You Haven’t Seen The Last Of Me By

Lou Reed – Perfect Day

Tiki Taane  – Always On My Mind

Joshua Kadison – Jessie

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

Aaron Neville – Ave Maria

♦

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”

― Victor Hugo

♦

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” 

―    Friedrich Nietzsche

Related articles

• A Late Entry… Music (Passions Profile Challenge #3) (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Launching The “I Am Worth Loving Too!” Challenge (voicesofglass.com)

Long Enough

A few days ago someone, who has been using my blog as a means to track me down personally, took a step to contact me directly.  I’ve just realised that I haven’t posted since then.  I have written, but I just haven’t quite got as far as pressing ‘publish’.  I am still a little reluctant to hit the ‘publish’ button because I guess it has left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

I can’t go into the details, because there are others involved, and I’m not prepared to cause them hurt.  I stand by my friends, always.  But I’m also not prepared to run and hide.

Writing a blog in my own name also had some risks for me, which I have explained in previous posts.  In spite of those risks I got to a point where I had hidden for long enough, been silent for long enough, moulded my life to fit those fears for long enough.  It is my opinion that by writing what I do in my own name, that I am taking one small step for stamping out stigma associated with mental illness, and while I totally respect that others don’t do this (for their own good reasons), for me it is important to keep writing in my own name.  I have literally hidden from my own name for long enough.

I’m not going to run and hide.  I don’t believe the person who contacted me is actually looking out for my best interests, but rather that they are doing it to serve their own purposes.  Yes, their use of my blog for these purposes leaves me feeling like it has been tainted.  But I know that I have a wonderful set of connections through this blog and I’m not willing to stop speaking, and risk losing those.

If you are completely confused by what I have written, I apologise.  I realise it is a little more cryptic than I would like, but now that I know for certainty that I am being watched again, I am trying to be careful at the same time as attempting to explain my silence.

For long enough I have been subjected to people who want to watch and listen, to see what I say, and what I do.  To those people I say, you just keep that up if it makes you happy.  I’m not changing my life to suit a few who like to tell themselves they have my best interests at heart.  As we often say in New Zealand, as an ode to a familiar beer advertisement…

Yeah, right!

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” 

- Martin Luther King Jr.

‘Honorary Status’ Brotherhood

I have two brothers who are both very special to me.  We don’t always see eye to eye, but they’re my big brothers and pretty much, they’ve always been there when I needed them.  Right from when I requested they not attend my fifth birthday party.  I think the reason was something to do with me not thinking they mattered as much as my friends, and room around the table and for once I got my own way.  Now I know better.  Brothers matter greatly.

One of my brothers has been amazing with his financial help over some very difficult years, and the other has been of more practical help (but he’s still welcome to give me his money anytime! And yes, that is a hint )  He’s the one to keep arriving with the trailer when I was shifting houses, and do all the heavy lifting.  Because he now lives nearby he is the one I get the hugs from, when I need them.  Well, when I can go and get them anyway.  They are both important to me, and so when I received word of this Award, I thought of my own kin first.

Kevin of Voices of the Glass has very kindly bestowed upon me  A Brotherhood of World Bloggers Award ‘Honorary Status’.  Being a part of a Brotherhood is a significant honour in my mind.

This Award has no rules, and is just mine to have and appreciate.  It is very much appreciated. My blogger brothers are important to me and so I am greatly honoured to receive this Award.  Thank you Kevin.

I’m leaving you with this song for each one of my blogger brothers.  I enjoy the unique perspective that you bring to what seems a very female-dominated part of the blogosphere.  It’s always great to have another way of looking at things.

Related articles

• The All New “Brotherhood of World Bloggers Award(s)!” (voicesofglass.com)

Seven Plus Seven

Image credit: RickChung.com/flickr.com

It’s time to celebrate!  This week I have been fortunate enough to receive two Awards, for which I am very grateful.  Kevin from Voices of Glass kindly nominated me for the ‘Seven things about me’ Award and Kathy from BipolarandBreastless nominated me for the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award.  Wow!  I am very lucky to be recognised by two such fine friends and bloggers.  A huge thank you to both Kevin and Kathy.

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The rules of both Awards are largely the same, so I won’t repeat myself.  This is what I have to do for each:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you.
• Share seven things about you.  (so for two Awards I guess that means 14)
• Nominate other bloggers you think deserve the award, and post on their blog to let them know they have been nominated

So… 14 things about me

(I’m not sure that there are 14 interesting things that I haven’t already told you but we’ll see how we go).

1.  I love vegetarian food.  I do eat meat occasionally but would be happy without it.

2.  My most precious possession is a gold ring made from a gold cufflink that my mother gave to my father when they were married. It is inscribed with Dad’s initials.

3.  And my second most precious possession is my teddy bear.  Those of you who know me in real life, or have read my book, will already know this.

4.  I have two older brothers.  One I have talked about who lives nearby and grows mushrooms, the other is an economist and lives in Wellington, NZ (apparently he was the one that got the brains from the family gene pool).

5.  I have lived in 17 different houses in my life (actually one house I lived in twice so I guess that makes it 16).

6.  I can play the flute.  I also learnt classical guitar and piano although wouldn’t venture to play either in public.

7.  My 20′s were my best years to date (even though my big mental health crash happened when I was 28) but I’m always looking to improve on that.

8.  I have been a bridesmaid three times and once a bride.  I always thought I’d like to be a ‘best man’ (just for the fun) but that has yet to happen.  But let me be clear, I’m not planning any trans gender change.

9.  I am seriously thinking about getting my first tattoo.  It was to be this week but this week has been a disaster and I thought it was best not to do something as permanent as a tattoo when my head was all over the place.

10.  The biggest sadness in my life is the argument I had with my father moments before he died.  We didn’t argue often so it was definitely out of the ordinary.  We both said things that hurt the other.  I think I’ve got to a point of forgiving myself but wish for just a few moments with him to say sorry and make sure he knows I love him.  I often still talk to him anyway so hopefully he knows.

11.  The happiest time of my life was in 1990 when I spent four months globe-trotting with two friends.  Oh, to do that again!

12.  I admit I can’t really be bothered with the Olympics.  I’ll take it or leave it.

13.  I am very passionate about people being treated fairly and am quite disturbed by the way the New Zealand Government is handling the rebuild process in Christchurch after the earthquakes.  For some reason buildings, churches and sports grounds come before people and that breaks my heart.

14.  One of the most useful books I ever read was ‘How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me‘ by Susan Rose Blauner.

Wow, I actually got to 14 and had a couple left up my sleeve.  You’ll just have to wait for those but meanwhile I hope you weren’t too bored.

Nominations

For the Seven Things ABout Me Award I would like to nominate:

fibrofella

Frank at Shitegeist

Redheadcase’s Blog

Ruby at I Was Just Thinking. . .

As for The Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award I would like to do something a little different.  Obviously this Award is for female bloggers but I think there is occasion when perhaps an honorary award could be made to a man.  I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes and I certainly don’t want to break any rules created when the award started but I happen to know that one particular male blogger has expressed interest in becoming an honorary member of the Sisterhood.  Personally I think this would be a good thing and I’m also keen to stamp out any suggestion of sexism.  Therefore I would like to nominate for an honorary Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award to:

Kevin at Voices of Glass

It is important to state that if any members of the Sisterhood have strong objections to this then it might need to be recalled.  Also my talents are great, but not quite up to doctoring the Sisterhood image to show the honorary status, but I suspect Kevin is more than capable of doing this.

Meanwhile wouldn’t it be great if the male bloggers around set up their own similar Award?  There’s my challenge to you guys.  And my quote for today goes with that challenge:

“To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible. If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely irrelevant. What we must do therefore is to strive and persevere and never give up.” 

―    Dalai Lama XIV

Related articles

• Wow!  I Got Some Awards (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Infinite Sadness… the book  (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

I Love Technology

I have now changed my domain address to match my new name but while I thought WordPress would re-direct from the old address, I now find it doesn’t.  Ah, such fun!  So please be assured that I am here under:

http://infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com/

My Facebook page will remain the same, as Facebook seems unable to cope with my change. The link to that continues to be:

http://www.facebook.com/InfiniteSadnessorwhat?ref=hl

If I am on your blogroll, or list of blogs you follow I would much appreciate it if you could update my blog address.

I apologise for the inconvenience if you lost me momentarily, but all is well and housekeeping is hopefully sorted.

Is It Just Me?

Image via glogster.com

Is it just me?  Am I the only one who feels like I’m stalking people?  That is probably near the worst of things I personally could do to some other human being, and I accept that my reluctance to ‘stalk’, or even ‘follow’ has been heavily influenced by those who had no hesitation to stalk me.

It’s not a nice experience being stalked.  Being followed, watched, talked about, threatened, generally unable to live your own life without knowing full well that everything I do is noted.  I had a shadow hanging over me.  Actually I had two shadows and that just made the intensity greater.

Image via CrunchBase

Recently I (finally) signed up with Twitter.  This is a big step for me.  I knew it would be good to get my blog further out into the wider world but had been putting off the big step for a while.  It took me forever to join Facebook, as a few of my in-real-life friends can tell you.  I only joined because one friend was constantly on at me that this would be a great way for us to stay in touch (we don’t live near each other).  The ironic thing though is that it hasn’t really worked that way.  Sure, she sees my posts and I see hers, I see what she likes and she (I guess) sees what I like.  I see updated photos of her kids and that’s nice.  I can’t believe how fast they grow.  But that’s about it.  We really don’t communicate directly with each other much.  And I have to admit that lack of direct communication, coupled with the ability to simply watch is a little off-putting for me.  Probably some of that is just that neither of us have the time.  I think that’s okay because our lives have headed in different directions that are perhaps hard for the other to comprehend, but I still feel a little sad that it didn’t turn out like it was promised.

Image via CrunchBase

That aside though, joining Facebook was a good thing for me, and as well as putting me back in contact with people from the past, it has also given me the opportunity to ‘meet’ a whole lot of other people who have become very special to me (even though we have never met).  It also enabled me to get involved in mental health support groups.  This was very important in continuing to work on my own recovery as well as now being able to help others.Unfortunately, because I now run two groups on Facebook, I regularly come across trolls, or people who create a false identity in order to create chaos in social media sites.  The chaos that is caused by these people, and I’ve had a few who were expert in their field, puts me off the whole Facebook thing entirely.  I’m not about to leave Facebook because the good outweighs the bad, but it reminds me daily that we don’t really know who we are interacting with across the internet.  Really nothing much can prove an internet identity and I am constantly wary.  Gut feeling counts for a lot but even then, a couple of times I have been badly wrong.

So now I enter into the world of Twitter.  Three days on, and I am following 12 people and I am getting tired already of being asked to follow the New Zealand All Blacks (our national rugby team).  I’m a rare kiwi in that I am not interested in their every move but I suspect Twitter is going to keep asking me to follow them.  No!  Back to the point though, I have this feeling in my stomach that I am stalking those 12 I have followed.  They didn’t give me permission to ‘follow’ them.  I just chose to.  I know what it is like to be followed and frankly I’m not comfortable with it.

The other side is, of course, that while only one is following me so far, I am kind of relieved.  Don’t get me wrong.  If you are a friend I am happy for you to follow me but… maybe if Twitter could just use a different term I might feel more comfortable.  There is also a reverse to this that I must confess.  One person is following me!  Wow! How many people on Twitter have only one follower?  How sad is that?  I know, I know, I can’t be satisfied either way.

(And don’t get me wrong.  I want to interact with both friends and yet-to-be-friends through social media.  It’s just that this voice of caution is always sitting on my shoulder.  I’m also not afraid of anyone in particular.  It’s simply a cloud of, perhaps, irrational fear generated from years of looking over that shoulder.)

I’m going to say this although I fear what your reaction might be.  This bind of not wanting to be followed, yet wanted to be followed is something that happens with real stalking too, and I am only too well aware of it.  Not for one moment would I suggest that being stalked is a pleasant experience because it’s anything but.  Somewhere deep inside, for someone who was full of self hate and doubt, the concept that someone (or two) thought I was worth stalking really did my head in.  When I felt unloved by others in my life there was this tiny voice that said ‘well, they will love you’.  Sick as it is, and I hate it immensely, it’s just one of the many ways that stalking really gets to you.  It becomes impossible to know what is real and what is not.  And they didn’t really love me.  It was an obsession that was anything but love, but the mind plays powerful games.

But again, back to Twitter.

What do I do?  I don’t like the idea of people knowing what I’m doing, without me knowing that they are watching.  Would I be better forgetting Twitter?  Or should I stick it out?  Is it just me?  Even though I have come a million miles forward to recovery from my lengthy stalking experience, am I just letting it trip me up?  If you have any thoughts on this I would love to hear them.  I need some rational input into what is perhaps slightly irrational.

Meanwhile, my Twitter account is set up and my blog posts are going there, but do I feel comfortable? Not entirely.

Image via CrunchBase

PS.  I should add that Skype totally does my head in too, although I can see benefits.  The idea of someone, not physically with me, being able to see me sitting at my computer?  No, that’s way to freaky for me.  No doubt though, like Facebook and Twitter, eventually I will give in to this when I someone gives me a good enough reason to abandon such founded but still irrational fear.

All that said, I don’t find WordPress is a problem, so maybe it is all just irrational.

I’m re-training my mind!
Image via FB – A Beautiful Mess Inside

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