I learned something

I learned something about myself today.

Not a happy thing but maybe a useful thing. I described it on Twitter as "part of my damage" and yes, I am using it in the "What is your DAMAGE?!?!" sense from "Heathers" (which I never actually watched all through; too much swearing)

Anyway. Without tracking the trash here, I'll just note that it was a moderation situation, where I thought it was best (as moderator) to ask people to be nice to each other, as the topic was getting heated. I had several people in mind but the post came right after one person in particular's post, and that person apparently assumed my post was about them. I had simply asked for people not to go ad hominem on each other.

Well, said person sent me back a rather scathing personal message. It HURT. It hurt A LOT. Fortunately I am capable of some discretion and I told myself "you are not allowed to respond immediately because you will respond in kind and you don't want to do that."

I did later send back a message essentially saying I was too upset to address it point by point but that the person should be aware it wasn't about JUST them. (though it partly WAS about them because they were one of the people piling on - I didn't say that though).

I considered several courses of action: asking to no longer be a moderator. Then I thought, maybe I just put the person in question on ignore. Then I thought again, no, maybe I just LEAVE THE GROUP because if someone dislikes me that much as to send me a message like that, then forget the whole group, they must not want me. And then the final action - decided to just put the thread in question on ignore for myself. And maybe I don't post in the group for a few days, I don't know.

But I realized later on: yeah, this is part of my damage. After I asked the other moderators about it and they said, "Your response was fairly measured" and I re--read it and figured there was nothing really inflammatory in there, and if someone sent it to me, I'd go "Oh, whoops, I'm being rude' and back off. But whatever.

Here's my damage: I immediately assumed I was in the wrong. That the person who snapped at me was correct, I had violated some unwritten rule of etiquette and besmirched their honor or something, and it would be best if I just left the group.

And I have always been that way. To the point where I very, very, very often censor myself, to the point where it's hard for me to stick up for myself. (Other people, I can - if a student is insulting another student in class I will tell them to back off or leave. But I have a hard time defending myself). I think on some level - my damage again - I think I'm not worth defending. I think of all the times in school I just put up with stuff because of the "I'll not be your friend if you...." stuff that kids did. And fortunately, I never had a boyfriend who pulled the "If you loved me, you would" mess on me, or a friend who tried to coerce me into doing something illegal or seriously immoral*

(*I think the reason I teased Stacey - a girl below me on the pecking order - was because of that kind of thing. And yeah, it was immoral, but it wasn't immoral in the same way as some things I've heard of kids doing)

But yeah. I was so afraid of losing friends or slipping even lower in the hierarchy of the school that I often bit my tongue or kept my opinion to myself or played the game someone louder and more forceful wanted to play. And I think as an adult I complain overly much about "never getting my way" is because I never learned how to ask for it - I was too afraid of losing friends.

I think this is related to why I find it so hard to delegate tasks, or to ask people for help - I am afraid they will resent me for it, and I can't bear the thought of someone resenting me because that childhood pattern somehow taught me "you have so few friends, don't screw up and lose this one"

And that sucks. And that's why I nearly left the group, I thought I had committed an unforgivable breach of etiquette and I didn't know the rule I broke, and and and.....when it was probably the person in question was hurting a LOT about something and just lashed out at me.

But, that's the thing. That's why I find it so hard to be a human. Because if you step on a raw nerve someone has exposed, but you don't know that nerve is raw, then they turn around and attack you - and you get hurt, and it's just a constant series of bad ripples, and I don't know how to fix it or change it. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

I dunno. I am assuming silence - not making it any worse - is probably the best way to go in this. If someone apologizes or something, of course I will be gracious, but I don't expect that - one thing I have learned is that it is very hard for people to apologize (it is for me some times).

But yeah. One of the reasons I'd rather bake or knit or crunch data or make quilts or just about ANYTHING other than deal with people is that people are so darn unpredictable and you sometimes don't know what will set them off. And it's extremely painful to put out what you thought was a measured response to something and get your head bitten off.

I also think the reason I was so hurt was that it went to part of my deepest image of myself: that I am a considerate person who thinks of others' feelings, and this person as much as said, "you have mortally offended me and you are a Bad Person and you are inconsiderate." And yeah, that's (probably) not true. (And some later interactions suggest even more to me that I was not in the wrong, but still.....I am SO DONE with the whole situation.)