Judgment

Oh, the blog. It's been SO violated. My little piece of joy where I feel like I can post my feelings and say my peace...where I can write stories that may be a bit exaggerated but hopefully make people laugh...it all came crashing down for me yesterday.
I want to post, to retaliate, to not care, to assert myself, to become a fabulous hacker and destroy these people...
I've been cyber bullied, and it sucks.
Some horrid woman found my "Toddlerhood: A play in two parts" entry and wrote that I was an entitled and terrible mother. Then she took my post, cut it and pasted it to some etiquette web site for all to comment upon. Stupid people took my humor post as literal and hordes of commentators all ripped me and my parenting to shreds.

Strangely, what they say about my parenting doesn’t bother me because they don't know me and they obviously took a humorous post as literal and entirely out of context. None of these people have seen all the entries about how much we love being parents and what really goes on...the only example they are shown is the one story about Madden in a pharmacy.

However, I do feel like I've been stolen from and violated in a very personal way. It frightens me and makes me want to shut down the blog or mark it private or retaliate in some way (but I know that would do no good). Those people are just not worth my time...but if I were to tell you that it didn't make me cry on and off all yesterday afternoon, I'd be lying.

I love blogging and what is upsetting is that somehow this person (and people) have tainted what I shared so openly. I feel violated, like someone broke into my house and slept in my bed and damaged my things. My writing is stolen, taken out of context, and laid out wide open for a bunch of strangers to destroy. My blood is boiling and yet I am also deeply hurt.

People write their silly comments and go on with their day.
But for me, the damage kept me awake most of the night.
In a week’s time, I will get rid of the comments and put them in the blog trash pile where they belong, but for now I've left them attached to the post so you can have a look and see the fuel and the fire that spread.

The woman who did the damage left no contact information… she posted with a name and nothing more. She is both spineless and vindictive.

Eric has encouraged me to continue writing and not to mark the blog as private. He is correct that I can’t let this get to me. When we had it marked private in the past, all our family and friends had trouble accessing the site. Besides, the comments that I receive from strangers have been 100% welcome and wonderful…. until now.

If there are any lessons to be taken away from this experience, they are as follows:

1. I will now screen my comments and not allow rude people to post anything at all on our personal blog.

2. It seems I need to include a disclaimer before my “stories” to state that they may be enhanced by a bit of poetic license. Apparently there are people out there that don’t know a piece of humor writing when they read it.

3. The biggest lesson I am choosing to take from this is a caution regarding judgment. It’s ironic that this somehow ended up on an etiquette web site, for the worst etiquette violation is what this woman did to me. She didn’t write to me…she just choose to steal from me. I have an email address listed…she could have written to me, but she didn’t. She interpreted what I wrote incorrectly and put me out in cyber space for judgment and ridicule.
I am unable to defend myself or even be given a chance.
I will not wait for an “I’m sorry” that will never come.
In my own life, I will seek not to judge. That’s the good that I can take from this. After all, what do we REALLY know about someone else? It may seem harmless to poke fun and insert one’s opinion…but I’ve just been on the receiving end of something a lot of people probably thought was harmless and I can tell you that it is not fun.

Tomorrow is my first day of maternity leave and I want to enjoy it and not be consumed by this crazy onslaught of feelings. Tonight I am freeing myself of these people and their ridiculous comments…I will take back my power and not give them another thought.

My life is too good and happy for this; I have no room for them.

P.S. Special thank you to Jenni from Oscarelli and to Anna Sullivan for the quick email returns, your encouragement, and insightful thoughts about these anonymous commenter’s. Your words of wisdom are being taken in and I’m trying desperately to let them resonate.