This may seem as a bit of an odd post to some of you, but an incindent that happened yesterday has left me very angry and upset. A very attacking post was made about me on a public forum. I'm not going to go into details, although I know that two of you are aware of it. I have to write this post to get it off my chest or I will explode because I refuse to reply to the person concerned.
One line stood out for me in amongst all the spouting and a lot of crap and accusations that just bore no truth was this one:
[I am] not very godly person as far as I can guess from your tastes and interests
This person (female) has never met me in person, never spoken to me in person, knows very little about me, only what she has gathered about me online. I am fully aware that you build up impressions of people when you share the same forum, but this isn't a blog forum and I don't generally give a lot of personal (about me) information away on this forum.
So how can someone 'guess' that I am not a very godly person from my tastes and interests that she is aware of? Because I like heavy rock music such as Metallica, and I like motorbikes and dragons and fantasy artwork, does that make me a Satan worshipping, drunken slut who bites the heads off bats?
I am a 41 year old mother of three. I dress as normally as any other woman of my age. I don't stand out in the school playground for being 'different'. I have never mentioned my religion or lack of to anyone. It is my business and will remain my business. If people believe in any kind of God, that's up to them. If they don't believe in any kind of God, that's also up to them. I have friends who are very religious and friends who are complete atheists, and it makes no difference to me what category they fall into. But how can someone judge me because of my tastes and interests..? of which she only knows of motorbikes and rock music. She doesn't know that I make and paint fairy doors to sell on ebay. She doesn't know that I make jewellery, or candles, or cards.. or any of the other things I do... but obviously bikes and rock music are what define me as a person and make me ungodly. I don't even drink alcohol.
And a few points in my head that I need to get out in response, but only here. They're out of my head, won't be sent to the person in question, but once I've written them down, I can move on. This is just how I feel and please feel free to ignore my rant.
It's not ok to attack me online publicly, defaming my character which is visible to over 300 people.
It's not ok to make assumptions about me when you have never met me and never spoken to me in person.
It's not ok to accuse me of things that you actually know nothing about and then slander me for it.
It's not ok for you to make your mind up over a situation and decide your truth of a matter, when in actuallity, you have your facts completely wrong. Especially when I have evidence to prove this.
It certainly is not ok for you to make judgement of me based on (as you put it) my interests and tastes when you know nothing about me personally.
It's not ok to play the martyr card about being a victim of bullying on a regular basis. I know what it's like to be bullied. I lived through it myself, but of course, you don't know that I was in a relationship for three years with a violent schitzophrenic (at that point undiagnosed) and was beaten 2 or 3 times a week, pushed down the stairs, held by the throat so my feet didn't touch the floor, and when I wasn't being physically beaten I was verbally abused. At 17 years old, I was too young and too scared to be able to get out of the situation especially with a small baby! But you don't know that because I don't talk about it. No one other than my family actually knew this until now.
It's not ok to berate me in public for something I forgot to do. You don't know that I have Fibromyalgia and CFS and some days I can barely move. Some days I can forget where I am never mind what I should have done yesterday. It's a by-product of Fibromyalgia called Fibro-fog and it is legitimate, it's not an excuse. It's a cognitive disorder that during a fibro-flare causes loss or malfunctioning of short-term memory. I try to do my best with it, but sometimes it fails. A personal reminder would have done, not harbour a grudge for six months then air your views on the matter publicly. That was between you and I, not 300 people.
Basically - it's not OK to make a long forum post, speaking to anyone the way you spoke to me. YOU DON'T KNOW ME!!
