I've been thinking about the past few days...

... and why it made me so upset. It has nothing to do with the story from FB, but the reactions of people regarding me that has upset me. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, that's fine and I'm not arrogant enough to believe that everyone should agree with me. It is the way in which people disagree with me, and that is what I have a hard time handling - when people are overly confrontational to me or talk to me as if I'm a piece of shit, that is when I become angry. I don't think it would have hurt as much had the guy from FB had any real contact with me lately, but he hasn't (the galling thing being that I'd recently sent him a cd that cost me £12 for free and then refused his offer to refund the almost £3 it cost me in postage to send it to him!)

Then I had someone I don't remember attack me here, when she has never once posted any kind of comment on this blog before. Then she tried to justify her doing so by saying that because I had commenting set to 'everyone' it gave her the right to speak to me like crap. Then she had the cheek to lecture me about 'lacking common decency' - that now strikes me as quite funny. I guess she knows all about that as she lacks it herself.

Apparently she has done it in the past as well, to people I do remember (and it was only when my brother went searching for her that he found a blog that posted her screen-name, which I kind of recall... although I still didn't have any contact with her directly even then). I guess some people are so arrogant and have such high opinions of themselves and their opinions they somehow feel they have the right to ride roughshod over everyone else regardless of what kind of damage they may do in the process. Having a loud voice doesn't always mean you have to scream at everyone all the time. One day they will scream at the wrong person and find someone screaming back... I just wish I could be there to see it happen and give them the old classic of  'I told you so'.

It's probably because I do take the things that people say to me seriously, and when I'm attacked online it feels just as bad as when I'm verbally attacked in the street for being fat. As much as I try and shake it off and tell myself that people don't know me and are just saying hurtful things to be hurtful or impress others and make them laugh, deep down it still cuts and bleeds and causes a scar. I struggle so much to be myself and not worry what other people think of me, it has taken years for me to do that and most of the time I still feel vulnerable and exposed when I attempt to be myself around anyone not a member of my tiny inner circle. It is akin to building a high wall around yourself to keep the world out and then having to gradually remove bricks in order to rejoin the world... only to have someone come along and try and batter the wall down so you build it back up, stronger and higher than before. Leaving you right back where you started, in fact in a worse place than where you started as you have more bricks to remove just to get back to that place.

People are always saying that I should stand up for myself and not allow people to stop me being who I am... yet it always seems that on the few occasions I do just that, I am once again attacked, belittled, dog-piled and  made to feel like I'm a horrible person for merely being myself. I can't win. I'm told I'm too lenient and a bit of a doormat, and then when I stand up for myself I'm told I'm 'not who I thought you were' and that I'm in the wrong and somehow lacking basic human decency.

I wish I could stop the people that don't matter from affecting me so badly, and for all of the positive and supporting messages I receive I still remember the negative and nasty ones. I may have a strong opinion, but I rarely use it against other people unless they attack me first. I have a strong opinion regarding issues, not individuals... and I would never speak to people the way they speak to me, especially in public. That to me 'lacks common decency'.