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)

Like Bees To A Honey Pot

CAUTION: This post contains discussion of self harm and may contain triggers for some people.  There are purposely no disturbing images contained in the post, but if self harm is an issue for you I recommend caution in reading.

Image courtesy of [image creator: Dan] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Sometimes when you have to compete with a chronic illness, there can be a delay in the process of the idea of a post to actually seeing it to the point of ‘publish’.  Thanks to fibromyalgia, this is the case, but it’s not always a bad thing.  It might mean that I am posting about an issue several days after the rest of the world, but at least it gives me time to think over what I want to say.  Meanwhile I guess I’ll never be ‘hot off the press’.

It doesn’t take much for some of us to be triggered by what we see and what we read.  A few days ago I got wind of the issue of Justin Bieber and self harm whirling frantically on social media.  First let me say that I never, in a million years, thought I’d be writing about Justin Bieber, but then it’s not really about him, is it?.

A few days ago a well-known website encouraged it’s viewers to self harm and send pictures of that self harm in ‘protest’ to news of Justin Bieber smoking marijuana.

“let’s start a cut yourself for bieber campaign. Tweet a bunch a pics of people cutting themselves and claim we did it because bieber was smoking weed.  See if we can get some little girls to cut themselves”

You can see a report of that (without images of self harm) here.  Social media went mad, and images of young people, either showing their dripping wounds or showing fake wounds, flew around with ridiculous abandon.

I saw some of the images on Twitter and Facebook and was very sad… and angry.  As well as the images, were the conversations that followed about people who self harm.  This is what I found the hardest to take.  Seemingly they are weak, attention seekers and from homes with poor parenting.

The problem with that is that it will have all been read by, not just Justin Bieber fans or people who know nothing of the harsh realities of self harm,  It will also have been read by those struggling, trying to recover from self harm.  They will all be like bees to a honey pot.

Often we know we would be better off to not look at something, but we do it anyway.  For me it’s images of self harm (it takes me back to my own past of self harming as a way to cope).  It is also images of people with anorexia (I don’t want to be that thin again but the reminder of the control I felt at the time is enticing).  Images of pumped bodies in gyms, remind me of the hours and hours I spent trying to tone my body to what I thought would be ideal, all the while damaging my body.

We know we would be better off not to go there, but we can’t help ourselves sometimes.  All the hashtags (which I’m purposely not including) which search the images freely for us.  We get there, and then we feel judged and very alone.  Just because the millions can search those images, does not mean they can, or even want to, understand the reality of self harm.

Self harm is not about sharing photos.  It is so easy to share a photo now days, all too easy, and we end up with this crazy, constant stream of triggering images of which no one has any control.  Self harm is also not some publicity stunt.

Self harm is a serious problem.  While it’s not about suicide, there are unfortunate occasions when self harm ends in death.  There are regularly serious consequences.

It’s really hard to beat self harm, for anyone.  It’s an addiction for many people, and was for me.  It takes years of battling urges and triggers, and finding effective ways that can distract you from the desire to harm.

It is a daily battle, even an hourly battle.  It’s not about attention usually, and certainly not about some celebrity.  If anything, sufferers try very hard to hide the scars of their harming.  Actually the trying to hide is what gives the secret away often.

If anyone thinks self harm is a joke, let them try to give up a serious addiction, probably with little help.  The people who are fighting to recover from self harm deserve our support, and our admiration for beating something so hard.  It takes guts to beat this thing, something of which most people have no understanding.

They don’t need ridicule.  Let’s give them our love, support and our acceptance.

♦

“Other times, I look at my scars and see something else: a girl who was trying to cope with something horrible that she should never have had to live through at all. My scars show pain and suffering, but they also show my will to survive. They’re part of my history that’ll always be there.” 

―    Cheryl Rainfield,    Scars

Related articles

• Self Harm & Me (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• What Are The Scars All About? (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• A dangerous trend (selfharmsanctuary.wordpress.com)
• ‘Cut For Bieber’ campaign encourages Justin Bieber fans to cut themselves over marijuana allegations (mirror.co.uk)

Violating Community Standards

I had firmly in my head, what I was going to write about today. But you know how things happen. We see things, we read things, and suddenly there is a whole new post bursting out of us? That’s me today.

Image credit: Wikipedia.com

Earlier this morning I came across a picture on a Facebook profile which I found offensive and disturbing (not the image above).  I know I’m prone to be disturbed by such images depicting violence, and so usually I have to take a step back and ask myself ‘would others be offended by this picture?’  I thought they would have, so reported the picture to Facebook, hoping that they would also find it offensive and remove it.

I’m not posting the picture here because of how much it disturbs me, and I don’t want others to be disturbed by content on my blog.  But it was an image of a woman holding a hand gun to a man’s head.

This is what Facebook reported back to me:

Status Photo not removed

Details Thank you for your report. We carefully reviewed the photo you reported, but found it doesn’t violate our community standard on graphic violence so we didn’t remove it.

Someone has a gun pointed at another person’s head, and that’s doesn’t violate community standards?  Excuse me, but I find that refusal almost more disturbing than the image I objected to.

Interestingly when I followed their hyperlink to graphic violence, I found a lot of words but no specific definition of graphic violence.  What they did do was define violence and threats as:

“Safety is Facebook’s top priority. We remove content and may escalate to law enforcement when we perceive a genuine risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety. You may not credibly threaten others, or organize acts of real-world violence. Organizations with a record of terrorist or violent criminal activity are not allowed to maintain a presence on our site. We also prohibit promoting, planning or celebrating any of your actions if they have, or could, result in financial harm to others, including theft and vandalism.”   (1.)

But that’s talking about what people say on Facebook, rather than what they depict in their images.  What happened to the phrase we all know ‘actions speak louder than words’?  The same ‘images speak louder than words’ could apply, but my guess is that because it wasn’t the owner of the Facebook profile portrayed holding a gun to someone else’s head then everything is fine.  That’s not fine too me at all.

I accept that the gun laws in my country are very different from in other parts of the world.  It is one thing that makes me glad to be a kiwi.  But look what the world was faced with just a few weeks ago when 28 adults and children were tragically killed by gunfire.  The idealist in me would like to think that social media would have reacted quickly and prohibited this type of violent image to be shown.

Personally I can cope with seeing the image, although I find it very disturbing and unnecessary.  I can manage my reactions so that I don’t think that the behaviour depicted in the image is acceptable behaviour.

But my 13-year-old nephew can see this image too, from his Facebook profile.  I think he is a pretty wise kid, but he is a kid and I don’t think it’s acceptable that he is confronted by this sort of stuff simply in keeping up with his friends.

I’m wondering what would make it unacceptable to Facebook?  All I can think of (and I apologise for the graphic impression) is that is the image included a bullet travelling into the victims head.

Facebook say above that “Safety is Facebook’s top priority“.  What a joke.  What safety do they actually care about, other than their own?  If impressionable minds see the type of image I reported today, they assume that such behaviour is normal and acceptable.

I will never accept that one person holding a gun to another’s head is either normal and acceptable.  And God help us if our society gets to the point where it is.

Right now there are people talking about wanting to keep guns away from people with mental illness, but it is not just those people who need to be kept away from guns.  It’s the people who think that the use of guns against others is okay.

And in that group, I’d be inclined to put Facebook. Shame on them, they have an opportunity to take a stand against gun violence yet they aren’t interested.

After-thought:  There were some other issues about this Facebook profile which should have been of concern to Facebook too.  Don’t get me started…

♦

And apologies to any American’s personally offended by my use of this quote today.  I simply use it, not to offend, but to make a point:

“You can’t talk about fucking in America, people say you’re dirty. But if you talk about killing somebody, that’s cool.” 

―    Richard Pryor

Related articles

• Beauty for Mourning (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Just Like Me (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• How We Treat Our Mentally Ill (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Peace Not War   (Passion Profile Challenge #1) (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

A Bit Mental (Lilo The Waikato)

Image credit: Lilo The Waikato (used with permission)

Yesterday I watched a great piece of television, and what’s more it was on mainstream television channel TV3.  The scheduling wasn’t great but at least it got there.  The programme was all about raising awareness of depression, and that has to be a great thing.  If you want to watch it, here’s the link.  It will be there for a couple of weeks.

Inside New Zealand – A Bit Mental – Special – On Demand – TV3.

Location map of Waikato River, North Island, New Zealand (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Bit Mental is a documentary about Jimi Hunt, a New Zealand man who has struggled with depression for two years.  As part of his recovery he created a challenge for himself of travelling down New Zealand’s Waikato River… on a $8 lilo air mattress (in other words cheap!)… and in doing so raising awareness for depression.  If you’re not sure what a lilo is, that’s the yellow thing Jimi is floating on in the picture above.  Just plastic and air.  He went through 11 in the whole trip as he succumbed to punctures.

He described it as:

“a ridiculous journey to raise awareness for a super serious problem.”

For those in other parts of the world, the Waikato River is our longest river at 425 kilometres.  There is some gorgeous scenery but some very serious white water known as the Huka Falls, as well as a few hydro power stations to get through.  In other words it’s a crazy journey that no one had done before on a flimsy plastic lilo, but Jimi did it.  The link above will give you the full story.

Jimi was told by his doctor that his depression had a chemical basis, rather than psychological and so his recovery was about correcting that chemical balance.  I admit I was slightly concerned when he commented that he wasn’t bad enough to need medication.  It was one of those things that just didn’t sit right with me.  Maybe because I was ‘bad enough’ to need medication.  Was he saying that because I needed depression I was much worse?  To me, I was just different.  I decided to drop the issue in my head, maybe I was seeing things that weren’t there (it happens often!).

Back to Jimi’s recovery, he was challenged by his doctor to get some exercise, get fit and set some goals.  And so Lilo The Waikato was born with his aim to raise awareness for depression and funds for Lifeline (a 24 hour telephone counselling line).

The Huka Falls, Waikato, New Zealand (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The thing I really liked was that along the journey Jimi set himself up so that he had to ask for help, something which he recognised as key to his recovery, and something that he took a while to learn.  He had to ask for accommodation (the journey took about two weeks) and meals.  He had to ask for the occasional tow.

It was a practical reminder of how asking for help is so important when struggling with depression, and mental illness.  I guess it rang home to me because it is something that I recognise I have struggled with at different parts of my mental illness journey.  Some parts would have been so much easier, and less painful had I asked for help at the time.  Jimi recognised it as something that would have made a big difference to his recovery too.

What Jimi did was pretty amazing.  You wouldn’t get too many people who would take on such a challenge, let alone while raising awareness for mental illness.  And what’s more, there were many people (including more than 20,000 Facebook followers who encouraged, supported and followed his journey).

All this got me wondering, as I watched the programme, what awareness and support could be raised for other mental illnesses?  There is no official hierarchy of mental illnesses, but I’m inclined to think that depression is a little more ‘acceptable’ to the general public than other mental illnesses.  So what if there was a person with say, Schizophrenia or Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) who could raise this kind of acceptance?  Would it work?  Would the general public just say “s/he’s crazy”?

No doubt plenty of people said that Jimi was crazy.  It’s certainly not something that I would choose to do.  But people got behind him and supported his cause.  It would be great to see more people backing a greater awareness of all mental illness.

Currently there is a woman, Annie Chapman, who is walking the length of the North Island – using the Te Araroa Trail (1600 kilometres), here in New Zealand to raise awareness of the need for better treatment options for those with mental illnesses.  It’s a completely different undertaking being a protest walk (known here as a hikoi) with community meetings along the way.  What interests me is that her Facebook followers amount to under 200.

Why is there such a difference in support?  I guess there are a lot of reasons, but I wonder whether the need to ask for help when you’re battling depression is more acceptable somehow to the public than the nitty-gritty of treatment options for all mental illness.  I don’t know, and perhaps I’m not being fair, but it does raise the question of what is acceptable to the public and what is too much?

What I do know is that what these two people, and probably others I haven’t heard about, are doing is fantastic.  Whatever is done to make mental illness easier to talk about, and more widely acceptable has to be great.

♦

“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” 

―    Friedrich Nietzsche

Related sites

• Lilo the Waikato (facebook.com)
• http://www.depression.org.nz/
• http://www.beatingtheblues.co.nz/
• http://www.thelowdown.co.nz/
• http://www.lifeline.org.nz/
• Hikoi for healthy choices in Mental Health (facebook.com)

Step Away From Your Screen

Step Away from your Television

Step Away from your Computer

(after you have finished reading this)

Something very terrible happened yesterday in Connecticut, and there’s no denying the trauma that has caused for many people, both those involved directly and those of us who are watching it all replayed on our screens.  In what I am about to say I am not down-playing what happened, nor am I ignoring the needs of the victims and survivors.  What I want to talk about it how do we manage our feelings as onlookers.

I have a mental illness, and because of that there are a number of things that I have difficulty with.  I know I’m not alone in this, and that’s why I am stepping away from my normal policy for my blog of not giving advice.

I just want to share something I’ve learned over the past couple of years.  With the shooting yesterday I know the automatic thing is to sit glued to the news channels, etc.  Don’t.    You’ve got the facts.  Now turn off the television/computer/ phone, or whatever your source of media information.

The media are there to give us the information but so often in times like this, they ‘play it up’ for want of a better term, they go on to talk about why something has happened, and really they don’t have the knowledge or the experience to do that without setting people off on tangents that really aren’t helpful.  They might give us information but they make it more emotional, hype us up and leave us more upset.

It’s hard for anyone to handle, but it’s harder for people with mental illnesses for a number of reasons.  Firstly our moods can already be lowered, and news like this plummets anyone’s mood lower.  For some people (including those like me who have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) we struggle at best of times to regulate how we’re feeling.  News like this leaves us unsure of how to react, and how to manage those feelings we have.  The temptation can be to reach out to unhealthy coping mechanisms like drinking, drugs, self harm and the like.

We know it’s happened, we know it’s terrible.  But we don’t need to go on tormenting ourselves by watching it.  Turn it off, light a candle, say a prayer or whatever you need to do, and then do something nice for yourself.  We don’t need the details replayed to us, over and over again.  Turn it off.

The other thing that is difficult for people with mental illnesses is the inevitable talk of whether the gunman had a mental illness.  I am choosing not to debate that here because I don’t think it’s helpful right now.  What does matter is that if we have a mental illness ourselves, we can hear what the media, or other people say about people with mental illnesses…   and we hear them saying that stuff about us.

Suddenly we’re thinking that media and others are saying we’re capable of such terrible acts.  That’s not what is being said, and if it is then they’re saying it as a cruel generalisation.  It’s hurtful and it’s dangerous.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I commented on my personal Facebook page that watching the television news was very traumatic, and that it could replay in our minds things from our past.  I said this in relation to a weather event in New Zealand, because watching it had brought to mind all I had experienced in our earthquakes in Christchurch during 2010/11.  Simply watching the television was replaying my traumatic memories.

What is being played on television and other media today, and in the weeks to come, is traumatic for anyone.  But for a person with a mental illness is going to be so much harder to bear.  I really believe (and am choosing to do this for myself as much as possible) that it is time to turn it all off.

Remember the victims and the survivors.  Think of those who are working to help the town grieve for their lost.  But what good can come from having it replayed over, and over on your screen?  What is something more productive that we could do?  One thing we can do is something to soothe and take care of ourselves.

♦

Image credit: FB/Bullying is for Losers

“And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, ‘Yes, the stars always make me laugh!’ And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you…” 

―    Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,    The Little Prince

Related articles

• Beauty for Mourning (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

Loyal

“If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn’t follow. I’d be at the bottom to catch them when they fall.”

 - Anonymous

One of my weaknesses, according to my mother, is that I’m too loyal to my friends.  Out of loyalty to my mother I’m not going to go into why her opinion on that matter doesn’t hold much value for me.  We are like chalk and cheese in that regard, and there is not much we see eye to eye on.  I’m learning to accept that, and I still love her.

I’ve never seen loyalty as a weakness, although I accept that at times my loyalty has hurt me.  That’s where it gets hard.  At what point do I protect myself from hurt, because sure hurt is part of life.  If I don’t risk hurt, then am I really alive?

What is loyalty?  Out of curiosity, and amusement, I looked up the Urban Dictionary.  It defines loyal as:

“Faithful to a person or a cause;  firmly in alliance
to somebody or  something.   Always there for
somebody when they need you.”  (1.)

As a comparison, the Oxford Dictionary (the one I grew up with) defines it as:

“giving or showing firm and constant  support
or allegiance to a person”  (2.)

From both of those definitions, I’m still inclined to refuse to see loyalty as a weakness.  Actually I don’t think there is enough of it in our world today.  Wouldn’t it be great if we believed in the people who matter to us, and stood by them, no matter what?

Actually I’m inclined to believe that mental illness wouldn’t be such a big problem if we stood by our friends.  I’m not denying the seriousness of mental illness, but I am convinced that it’s effects are made worse because of isolation and a lack of care for each other.

I’m not one of those people who has hundreds of friends on Facebook.  I know plenty of people but regardless of Facebook’s definition of ‘friend’ I choose my friends because they are people who matter to me personally.  There is something wrong when I can have hundreds, if not thousands, of ‘friends’ but not have one that I can turn to in need.

Even aside from social media I don’t have a whole lot of people that I count as friends, but those that I do can know that I believe in them and I will support them, no matter what.  It’s not my place to judge anyone, ever.  Although don’t get me wrong, I choose my friends very carefully.  I guess in a way you have to earn your friendship with me, and I repay that with loyalty.  I will always stand by people I call my friends.

But yes, sometimes that hurts.  And it has hurt over the past week as I have chosen to be loyal to a friend I love.  Not because that friend has hurt me in any way, but because I have chosen to share the hurt they are experiencing.

I’m not a parent but I am sure it is the same as how a parent can get hurt in loving their child.  Sometimes there is pain, but that’s not a reason to not love.  As I write, it occurs to me that sometimes it hurts me to love my mother.  But I still do, and I will still stand by her.

Actually I think it’s a shame that Facebook chose to name connections with others as ‘friends’.  It’s taken the meaning out of the word.  ‘Friends’ to Facebook are simply connections you have made, and not necessarily people who matter.  I think this cheapens, and degrades the real meaning.

Out of curiosity again I went back to the Urban Dictionary, because it’s definitions offered more sense of warmth than the Oxford.  It suggested a range of definitions of a friend, including this one:

“A person who would never intentionally hurt you, lie to you, deceive you, manipulate you, abuse you and who takes great care to be kind to you, honest with you, dependable and loyal. Someone who you trust without question because they have never given you any reason not to trust them. Someone you enjoy being around and look forward to seeing. Someone who would sacrifice themself for you.”  (3.)

I know that asks a lot, but it’s not too much for someone who offers the same back to me.  Because that’s the thing about friendship.  It goes both ways, and while I might have hurt for a friend this past week, maybe they will hurt for me next week.  It’s not that I do it for that reason, but there are benefits both ways, always.  Meantime I stand by the people I choose to call friends.  It doesn’t matter whether I have met them in person, or not.  I’ve made my decision and I will stand by them.

As regular readers will know, I am a fan of NZ music and I particularly like Dave Dobbyn.  This song is almost an over-played one in my country, but for good reason.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” 

―    Henri J.M. Nouwen,    The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey

Related articles

• Henri J.M. Nouwen: “that is a friend who cares.” (lifeondoverbeach.wordpress.com)
• Do you consider yourself a loyal person? (jimmersgirl.wordpress.com)
• Where My Loyalties Lie (fromraewithlove.com)

Mr Positive (And Becoming Little Miss Okay-With-That)

Image credit: http://mrmen.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Funny

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” 

~Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1893

Do you remember the 1970′s series of Mr Men?  I always liked Mr Funny best, followed shortly after by Mr Pernickty, because I like the word ‘pernickty’ (also known as Mr Fussy).  There were 49 Mr Men characters (followed by 42 Little Miss characters) but some years back I named a 50th Mr Men.  That was my Dad, and I named him Mr Positive.

I need to start by saying that I mean no disrespect to my father, who has since died, and he was aware and amused by my naming of him, so I am sure he would have no problem with what I write.

Dad was the ultimate positive person.  He wasn’t just a ‘glass half full’ man but rather a ‘glass overflowing with your favourite drink, even when all you can see is a few drops in the bottom’ man.  This had to be a good thing, especially when in his job he spent a lot of time helping other people in some very dire circumstances.  The thing is though that when you’re the ‘glass half empty with a hole in the bottom of the glass’ daughter, with a tendency toward severe depression, all this positive stuff could be a little grating at times, to say the least.

Some people, including my Dad, took the view that to pull me out of my depression I needed the good things in life pointed out, and Dad had a knack of being able to see good in absolutely everything.  For me though, love him as I did, I hated it and would want to crawl into oblivion because I happened to know that there simply wasn’t good in everything.  Actually sometimes there is bad.  Sometimes we get hurt and unexplainable tragedies occur, and that it is very difficult to see how there could possibly be any good in them.

Dad would say “life is good!” and his pessimistic, depressed daughter, if given half the chance, would say “bollocks!”  And there we would come to a friendly but frustrated impasse, me unable to see his view and him unable to see mine.

What I’m realising now that if it had been possible to put our two views together then we might have got somewhere, instead of me simply putting my hands over my ears and saying “Mr Positive, Mr Positive, Mr Positive” while pretending it all didn’t exist.

Yesterday I wrote My ‘Anti-Social Media’ Day expressing my frustration with the level of negativity to be often found on Facebook.  What concerned me was that when we fill our minds with negative things, then we run the risk of becoming that negativity.  I think Dad would be smiling at that, because while I still don’t like a blind ‘everything is great’ attitude, there is some definite advantages to some positive thinking. (Yes, Dad I really did just write that).

Several people commented to me after that post that achieving a balance is what is necessary, and I totally agree.  If all I see is negative then that is all I know, but to take out some of that negative and replace it with positive means that I get to know something good.  And so I took some steps to limit the negative posts arriving on my news feed.  I ‘unliked’ a few things and restricted what I see from some other sources.  I also walked away from my computer for a good while, and spent some time with people who have a positive effect on me.  Already I feel better.  Already I don’t have that ‘sinking to the bottom of my boots’ feeling when I have to see some of that stuff on my screen.

I will never become Little Miss Positive, because I recognise and acknowledge that there is bad in this world, there is hurt and not everything is good.  But I am starting to realise the importance of what I let into my mind.  not only by what I see on my screen but even in the people I spend my time with, and how I let them influence me.

I am realising that I have the control over what influences me.  It’s my choice.  I’m not denying that negative happens, and I’m not turning my back on people who are trapped for now in a sea of negativity, but I am finding ways to ensure that doesn’t turn me into a negative person.

I suspect I will always have a natural tendency to ‘glass half empty’.  I always have, regardless of the state of my mental health, but I can work with that and I can simply enjoy that I have a glass and it has something in it.  And that is enough for me.

“The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity
to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil,
of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes  and silly people.” 

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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My ‘Anti-Social Media’ Day

Preface: It is important to note that none of the content of this post is based on, or about the activities of the on-line support groups that I run.  I have always kept anything from those groups completely out of my blog out of courtesy to the members.

I think I could call this my ‘Anti-Social Media Day’ today.  It doesn’t happen often because I choose to use social media every day in my effort of ‘paying it forward’.  Other people have helped me get out of very dark places, and I want to pay that forward and be there to help others do the same.  And that’s what I do, until today when I have been so sickened the range of things that have thrown themselves up on my computer screen, that I have to find myself withdrawing for the sake of my own sanity.  I realise that it is slightly ironical that I use another piece of social media to tell you about this, but I do recognise that there is good with the bad.

Today I have seen women objecting to someone posting about men as victims of domestic violence.  Their objection seemed to be that it took away from women their position as domestic violence victims.  It wasn’t actually what was being said at all, but fierce battles with raging as someone tried to highlight that not just women can be victims of domestic violence.  It left me feeling ill.  Can we not acknowledge that many types of victims of all types of crime exist without having to fight for our moment in the spotlight?

Next, I was hit by a one-person attempt to fill my screen (and presumably that of all his/her friends) about how untrustworthy people are and how we should never trust anyone but ourselves.  All people are inherently bad and out to hurt us apparently.  Actually it just left me feeling sad, because s/he must have been hurt badly to feel the need to continually post such things.

Further on there was a photo of a child being physically abused, apparently in the name of sport and success.  There was so much wrong with this, not to mention why someone stand idly by and take a photograph of this?  But also what is actually being done, aside from posting swear words on social media?

I saw posts from people saying “I would never say this to the person concerned but…” and completely tearing strips off the person concerned… to everyone else on the internet.  Does this seem wrong to anyone else?  Again to me it seems wrong on so many levels.  And so I moved on…

This time to jokes and innuendos at the expense of others.  “It’s funny so it’s okay to laugh”…  even though it would be hurting someone else, let alone stigmatising them.

The final one for me was comments by someone about their parent’s sexual activities.  At that point I got up and walked away from my computer.  I really didn’t need to know that information.

Maybe I’m painting myself out to be some type of uptight freak.  I’m not.  But you’ll have to take my word on that as I have no one on-side right this minute to verify my non-uptight-freakish nature.  It just seems to me that this social media has become a way of avoiding real communication, even real activism.  Everything (and I mean everything) gets said in the social media arena.  We vent (I’m not sure that venting existed beyond opening a window until the rise of social media), and apparently feel better for it, but we never tackle the actual issue.  The person who has the problem doesn’t address it with the person causing the problem because hey, it was easier to just tell my 800+ friends.

If you have seen my All About Me page, you will see this image.  It’s a statement by Ellen DeGeneres of what she stands for and I used it because it pretty well summed up what I stand for too.

It doesn’t really matter to me whether these are “traditional values” or not, but honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way I want to be treated, and helping those in need is what matters to me.  If I am anything other than this, or am a sideline spectator of anything other than this, I don’t see that I am being true to myself.  And I know that if I’m not true to myself, my mental health takes a dramatic downturn.

I know the easy answer is to just look away, but I don’t even feel comfortable with that.  Because of things that have happened in my life in the past I am already pretty careful about what I subscribe to and what I allow to get onto my computer screen.  But it’s hard to rule it out totally.  I know I can choose my friends carefully but I have no control over what those friends might say or do.  We all know that this stuff creeps through, and there it is in front of us.

While I was raised in a religious environment, I don’t regard myself as religious but I still find that something I was taught as a child from The Bible keeps jumping into my mind.  It is:

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, whatever is excellent, or worthy of praise, think on these things.” (1.)

I’m no saint, and you’ll have to take my word on that again, but I believe that what we fill our minds with is what we end up expressing in our lives.  Or in other words:

Garbage in, garbage out!

If I fill my mind with the absolute rubbish I so often see posted in social media, then I can’t expect to be the person I want to be.  Even if I don’t participate in that garbage, I get tainted by it, and frankly I don’t want to anymore.  I would much rather have my mind filled with what is right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and worthy.

What I’m not sure is how I do that while still doing the things I am committed to doing.  There is a lot in social media that is good.  I have gained richly from the connections I have made, and I know other people gain from what I do, but if I keep exposing myself to such garbage then all I succeed in doing is pulling myself down.

So what do I do?  I’m not sure.  I wonder whether others struggle with the same things?  How do you be who you want to be without getting tainted?  I know it is possible.  After all medical people can go into disease invested regions and not become diseased themselves, but how does that translate to social media?  I would love to hear your thoughts…

“Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.”

 - Martin Luther King Jr.

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Deceived

“Nothing could be taken for granted. Women who loved you tried to cut your throat, while women who didn’t even know your name scrubbed your back. Witches could sound like Katharine Hepburn and your best friend could try to strangle you. Smack in the middle of an orchid there might be a blob of jello and inside a Mickey Mouse doll, a fixed and radiant star.” 

―    Toni Morrison,    Song of Solomon

I have said before that I spend a lot of my time involved in running two on-line mental health support groups.  This is something I purposely keep very separate from my blogging, so it doesn’t get mentioned very often.  But in order to understand some feelings going down, it is necessary for me to think through some things that happened at the end of last year.  That’s when I was deceived.

Over a year ago I joined a support group for people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  It was run by a man who lived on the west coast of the United States.  It seemed a really good, supportive group and I quickly made friends with a lot of great people, including the man who ran it.  Some time later I was asked to become an admin on this, and several other groups the man ran.  I liked what he was doing and felt I was in a good position to do this, and so agreed.

To cut a very long story short, time eventually revealed that this man wasn’t who he said he was.  Actually he was a woman, living in another part of the United States, creating an extremely fanciful, but false story of who she was and why she was running these groups.  Mayhem quickly followed and people who I thought I knew, and people I thought I could trust, suddenly turned against each other, including against me because I was now involved in running the groups.

On top of this I had become (what I thought was very close) to another woman also involved in running the groups.  I had believed everything she told me about herself and we had chatted for literally hours over some months.  Unfortunately I seemed to be perhaps the last person to realise that actually it was mostly lies.  Because I had believed her what she had told me, I lost other friends, some of whom I have since re-connected with.   I lost her frienship, because I couldn’t accept the way that she lied to me.  It turned out that she was in on the whole scam with the original woman.  To my horror, some thought I was in on the scam.  I wasn’t.

I now run groups away from these original groups, but including some of the people badly hurt by this whole deception.  I set them up because I was concerned about the hurt that people were feeling but thankfully am pleased to say that these groups have now pretty much moved on from the hurt of last year.  Although I think it is fair to say that it made us all more cautious of whose story we believe.

On-line support groups are a very important means of support, communication and connection with the outside world for many people isolated by mental illness.  Unfortunately there will always be bad groups around and it becomes essential that those who join are very careful in who they trust.  The thing is that for many people with mental illness, and especially for those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) who find it difficult to trust people at the best of times, it is already hard to trust.  That’s usually one of the reasons they lost connection with the non-cyber world (I hate the term real world).  The other group that I run is for people working to recover from self harm, and those people also tend to be vulnerable and in need of a safe place where they can be understood.

I am committed to what I do but I have to admit that I sometimes find myself a little skeptical now until someone proves to me in some way that they can be trusted.  I find it sad that I have become that way.  I don’t want to dis-trust people.  I never have.  I hate that I have to try to check people out before they join my groups, but last year’s events aren’t an isolated case.  There are constantly people who want to wreck something that for so many people is a good, and sometimes life-saving thing.

It was a long time ago that a friend gave me some very good advice, which I hold to today.  At the time I was concerned that another friend had been lying to me and asked him how I should treat what I suspected were lies.  He told me to treat the person as if what they say is true, until I had clear evidence that it was otherwise.  It was simple, but very valuable and it has stayed with me for many years.  I have used it in my working life, and in my personal life, and now I try to always use it in the groups I run.

Being deceived can be a sure-fire way of shutting us down and making us refuse to trust anyone.  When I was deceived last year, especially by the second woman who I really thought had become a true friend, it was tempting to simply retract myself from all social media.  Not trust anyone who I couldn’t see standing right there in front of me.

I think now days that I am pretty careful about who I connect with on social media.  I don’t see the point in connecting with total strangers just for the sake of adding more ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ to my list.  I don’t need hundreds of so-called ‘friends’.  I get concerned for people who do.  And I hate how Facebook use the term ‘friend’. While I am fortunate to have many who I know I can trust, I regularly encounter people who have hundreds of ‘friends’ but not one they can turn to in a moment of need.  To call these people ‘friends’ is just crazy.  Facebook is simply fooling people.

How do I tell who is worthy of my trust?  A very unscientific means of gut feeling.  Sometimes that gets it right, a few times it doesn’t because there are constantly people out there who want to deceive.  But I’m always learning and always delightfully surprised when someone turns into a true friend.

I could have turned my back on all this last year, and I know many who did.  Many people were very badly hurt by people they thought they could trust, some to the point of harming themselves over it.  It has been hard to keep going at times, because sometimes instinct tells me to guard my heart and mind almost over zealously.

People will continue to hurt me whether through social media or in day to day life.  Unfortunately it seems to be human nature, but the gains I have made through staying on-line have been amazing.  The good people far outweigh the bad thankfully, and so I choose not to harden my heart but to continue to treat people as I would want to be treated… with the truth.  The good I receive from connecting with people on-line far outweighs the bad.  I choose to be careful, but open to the goodness that comes my way.  And right now, there is lots of goodness.

“What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of human beings, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the sufferings of the injured.” 

- Bukhari

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Cate: 1 BPD: 0

Image credit: D.Hilgart/Flickr.com

I’m celebrating a victory today.  Small, yet still very meaningful to me.  Personally I think celebrating the small steps is just as important as the major break-throughs.  Always.

Someone swore at me today on my Facebook page.  This was a first, although it is something I am used to in the support groups I run (although only when trolls sneak in).  I can handle that when it happens  I have a responsibility to protect members of the groups from these people and so have come to accept that it is simply part of the job.

But to swear at me on the Facebook page associated to this blog was new to me.  I immediately recognised the name as a friend of a friend, but had no reason to think why this person would do that.  The victory though, was that I didn’t immediately take it personally.  Actually my first thought was that the person didn’t agree with the quote I had posted, and it wasn’t until later that I thought that perhaps it was aimed at me.

Now I know this stuff goes on in social media all the time, and I have handled it so that it won’t happen again (from that person anyway).  But let me explain why this happens to be a victory.  Firstly I need to put it in the context that I’m not someone who swears often.  When it happens (like when a family member accidentally lost control of their car and tried to run me over recently) there is usually a pretty good reason.  That said, I accept that unfortunately, for a lot of people swearing is almost second nature.  I find that sad.  Why can’t they find some real words to express themselves properly?

People with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) invariably assume that everything is directed at them personally.  We can have paranoid thoughts (although that has never been a great problem for me) but more so, we have a very unstable sense of self.  That means we take things personally.  We have a tendency to assume everything is about us, although I hasten to add that isn’t some sort of vain pride but rather the inability to separate ourselves from the situation.  Anyone who has BPD will tell you that it is a constant battle to achieve this separation.  While we are great at splitting, realising that the whole world is not about us is a little more difficult.

But I did it.  My automatic assumption was that this torrent was not aimed at me but rather at the quote.  This is big!  It is very big for me.  Actually in hindsight I’m sure it probably was aimed at me, although I don’t understand why, but it doesn’t actually matter and I can shake it off and not let it wreck my day.  Actually the person who posted it is the one with the problem and this is not all about me.  It’s time to celebrate.

Oh, and if you were wondering what the quote was,  it was something very relevant to me right now:

“We need others.  We need others to love and we need to be loved by them.  There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death.”

 - Leo Buscaglia

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