Dear anita,

I hope your health issue isn’t a big one and it gets resolved soon! Wishing you swift recovery! Take care!

* Dear Tee: thank you!

Dear Helcat:

“Wishing you good health and peace!“- thank you!

“I am less willing to discuss more traumatic incidents, I think that is understandable considering that many of these events are triggers. This conversation has been triggering for me“- yes, it is understandable. I figured that having a conversation about your traumatic incidents of abuse as a child would be triggering to you. This is why I wrote to you on Sept 15: “maybe you wouldn’t like to read your own words in regard to painful emotional topics (ex., your mother’s abuse of you), and maybe you wouldn’t like me analyzing your words, and come up with my understandings. Therefore, I ask you: would you like me to proceed and submit a post to you in a couple of hours or so?”

I proceeded with my Sept 16 reply only after you answered my question as follows: “Hi Anita Please feel free to analyse away and share your understanding. I appreciate the time and effort that you put into your messages“.

After I submitted my Sept 16 reply, in your most recent post here, you wrote: “You might have good intentions when you question people asking them if things really happened, but it is hurtful. It’s very similar to accusing them of lying“- I am very sorry that you felt that I accused you of lying.

That was not at all what I had in mind when I wrote to you “At first, when I read this, I  ‘heard’ myself  asking you incredulously: did it REALLY happen? I was surprised that you didn’t share such a severe traumatic detail in an original post on your first or second thread“- you  know how sometimes something happens that is so different from the ordinary,  so terrible, that you question: did this really happen? I was sharing with you my honest, natural reaction to how terrible indeed is the abuse that you that you suffered. In my reply, I did not AT ALL think in my mind or suggest in my post that you lied about the abuse that you suffered.

I wrote that I was surprised that you didn’t share about it earlier because the abuse was so severe that it requires being addressed, but I understood yesterday as I still understand, that it was too traumatic to address, at least on a public forum.

“I have experienced issues with feeling powerless. I felt powerless as a child and at times as an adult. When I was raped, I felt powerless. When I was unable to walk for 6 months and felt like I was dying due to health issues, I felt powerless. I hated and blamed myself for being powerless… I don’t know how to make peace with feelings of powerlessness. For me, it is intrinsically tied  to severe trauma. It would be like, forgive the hyperbole ‘accepting the feeling of being raped’“-

-this is a very meaningful paragraph and I want to take my time and process it before I respond, if you’d like me to respond to it, that is.

“I would suggest you stop asking this question on the forum. It is understandable that you have concerns about truth on an anonymous forum, but it isn’t helpful to share that… Wishing you good health and peace!… I would just like to know if and when you are safe“-

I would like peace and a feeling of safety in my life, including in the context of my participation in these forums, and I am sure that you do too. This is one reason why I have never criticized your replies (or any other Responder’s replies) to other Original Posters (OPs).

In the above paragraph from your most recent post here, you mentioned my replies “on the forum“: that is, my replies to other OPs. I have an issue with your critical and confrontational posts directed at me and/ or addressed to me in the various threads of other OPs, seven confrontational post beginning on August 4 in KP’s thread, and ending on Sept 3, in T.K’s thread. There’s been an 8th critical post on Zeeza’s thread on Sept 11.

I get the sense that I rub you the wrong way, and I’d like to understand why, so we can engage peacefully in the forums. If we can’t engage peacefully, I’d rather we don’t engage with each other at all.

anita

Helcat:

“Regarding September 11th, I replied to the original poster who purported that her abusive partner was abusing her because of his bipolar condition“-

– Zeeza (the OP) did not at all purport that her boyfriend has a bipolar condition. The only time she used the word bipolar was in this sentence: “To me it was maybe a bipolar moment” (Sept 8), (2) Zeeza did not at all share that her boyfriend abused her because of a bipolar moment or condition; she did not make a connection between being bipolar and being violent.

“I did report your later comment which suggested that an individual with bipolar or schizophrenia could snap and kill someone for the same reason“- the suggestion that “an individual with bipolar or schizophrenia could snap and kill” (your words) is a suggestion that Dr. Peter Ash, director of the Psychiatry and Law Service at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia made. I quoted him and I agree with him: an individual with bipolar or schizophrenia could (not would) snap and kill.

“‘Did it really happen?‘ suggests that it didn’t happen, which in turn suggests that I’m lying. It may not be your intent to suggest this, but these connotations are a direct result of the phrasing and language used“-

– you took my words (“Did it really happen?”) literally and out of context. You shared earlier about your tendency to take things literally: “It should be noted that due to my learning disability I have difficulty interpreting non-verbal signals and tend to take things quite literally” (May 18). In my Sept 17 post to you, I explained to you best I can what I meant by these words in the context in which I used them, but you ignored or rejected my explanation.

“I stopped commenting on your disrespectful comments to other members since 3rd Sept“- there was absolutely nothing disrespectful about my reply to Zeeza. You reported the reply you felt was disrespectful for inappropriate content but the flagging (for inappropriate content) was removed and my post remained unchanged.

Not every time that you feel disrespected, or that you project feeling disrespected to an OP, means that disrespect really took place.

“I did my utmost to be respectful while making you aware of behaviour that you might not have realised was disrespectful“- do you at all see the arrogance in this sentence: making me aware of my behavior..? You present yourself as my moral superior and an authority figure who is qualified and entitled to let me know when (you think that) I am wrong.

You wrote that you did your utmost to be respectful to me, but treating me as your moral inferior is disrespectful. How does one go about being respectfully disrespectful…

“I’m curious about the issues you have with my comments that highlighted disrespect present in your comments?“- you keep repeating that I disrespect OPs when this is not the case. Another example where there was absolutely no disrespect is my reply to Hailey (an OP), a reply that you criticized.

I wrote to her on Aug 18 that she can improve her emotional intelligence just as I have improved and keep improving my own emotional intelligence (an excellent, detailed reply, if I may say so). For some reason you found my reply worthy of criticism: “Anita, People with low emotional intelligence can have disorders that are the cause. No matter how hard people try for people with disorders this issue may never change“. Hailey found offense in your suggestion that she may have certain disorders that render her incapable of changing and improving her emotional intelligence, and asked you on Aug 19: “May I know what kind of disorders are that??”

“I decided to only report and that I would not clarify why unless you ask for an explanation“- I appreciate that you decided to only report my reply to Zeeza and that you submitted a post addressed to her where you explained what you feel strongly about without criticizing me.

* To promote safety and calm in the forums, it is important that Responders (members who choose to reply to an OP, in the OP’s thread)  do not criticize other Responders. It is not at all necessary because a Responder can thoroughly express his/ her understandings, convictions, etc.-  as many times as she wants, and at length- without criticizing other responders. Not only is there no benefit to the OP in such criticism, but it can easily turn an OP away from his/ her thread and discourage Responders from responding because of fear of being criticized. 

Here is the thing, Helcat: I am not perfect, as you know. My goal is to become a better and better person every day, in real life and on the forums. I am dedicated to this goal. When I make mistakes, I address my mistakes and correct them best I can.

An example of doing so is in my Aug 31 reply to Starglazer following two of your critical replies:  “Dear Stargazer: Looking back, I can see that it was a mistake on my part to submit that long post yesterday because it resulted with you feeling offended and not helped at all. It is not my first mistake and will not be the last. I will try to learn from it best I can and do today better than I did yesterday….’We’ve both made mistakes in our relationship‘, you wrote about yourself and your boyfriend.  You can add me to the sentence: we all made mistakes, and will still make more mistakes… can’t help being human. All we can do is .. do better today than yesterday, and do better tomorrow than today”, etc.

“”If you wish to return to ignoring me again, that is your decision. Personally, I would prefer to discuss and resolve issues“- I think that it was only yesterday that I thanked you for your kindness. Today, following hours of study and contemplation, in the context of our communication, I no longer find your politeness, kindness and good wishes to be genuine. In the context of your communication with me, I don’t trust you to be a person of good faith, and I believe that you have a personal vendetta against me.

In this thread, you didn’t post for a month and a half and then you posted on Sept 13 a post that caused me to feel empathy for you. I didn’t want you to go unanswered so I replied and I genuinely tried to be helpful best I was able. I really, really tried, and failed. It was not my first effort to help you, but it was my last.  I still feel lots of empathy for you for the abuse that you suffered as a child and I wish you well. Also, many of your replies OPs are excellent, so I am interested in your continuous participation on tiny buddha.

I am about to close this post. I assume that you will reply to this post but I will no longer communicate with you in any context. It’s a promise I am making to myself for the sake of my well-being: I need to protect myself from you.

anita