How are you feeling today?

[BelindaN]

1 hour ago, Marigold Devin said:

Here in Rotherham, we don't seem to do Pikelets, but in one of the adjacent towns - Barnsley - where I used to live, it was always pikelets rather than crumpets. From memory, pikelets seemed to be a fraction thinner than crumpets, and easier to eat with bacon and savoury stuff, but crumpets are just made for slathering heaps of butter on (and sometimes honey).  Ohhhh I can feel the butter dribbling down my chin now.

Here's a thing Marigold....did you know there's a Yorkshire Chicks Group? I found it last week. So far it's been quiet, but you never know......

 

[MrsSeren]

Today is good day; I found new sim to explore further which I do later today.

[Eva Knoller]

Hugs to you @Seicher Rae, and everyone who needs them in this thread. I am so glad that things are looking up for you.  And I really love  how supportive it is here. ❤️

My health complaint is a small one comparatively, but I did break my toe this past Saturday and it’s a real pain to hobble around on flip flops at half my usual pace. 

 

[Cindy Evanier]

1 hour ago, Seicher Rae said:

Humor is my protection mechanism. Bantering is my way to divert my attention from myself.

100%  with you on this.   Taking the P out of myself over my symptoms is what stops me going into a meltdown.  Banter with friends who can banter back is a skill I like to think I excel at.  Got to laugh or you'll cry is how I see it.

I am sorry you were bullied but you are right not to give them head space at all

 

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

Since I'm not the one who hurt you, dear stranger on the internet, taking your anger and your pain out on me can only ever be a temporary reprieve, and a way of staying locked in the anger and the pain you hold so dear. Could it be that this is your goal?

vent over, because i'm far too ill and exhausted to deal with the backlash of saying this to her

[Marigold Devin]

1 hour ago, BelindaN said:

Here's a thing Marigold....did you know there's a Yorkshire Chicks Group? I found it last week. So far it's been quiet, but you never know......

 

I didn't know! I can't imagine it being quite - maybe they ran out of food to talk about and are all gorging themselves silly somewhere, like the pie and pea place in Barnsley market (I wonder if that is even still there?)... It was soooo glorious to have a warmed up pork pie in a deep blue and white bowl, completely smothered in mushy peas.   

[Selene Gregoire]

1 hour ago, Eva Knoller said:

Hugs to you @Seicher Rae, and everyone who needs them in this thread. I am so glad that things are looking up for you.  And I really love  how supportive it is here. ❤️

My health complaint is a small one comparatively, but I did break my toe this past Saturday and it’s a real pain to hobble around on flip flops at half my usual pace. 

 

She touched me! 

 

[Orwar]

   Couldn't sleep last night, went to the workshop for about an hour in the morning before going back home to collapse for a little bit. Set an alarm for lunch, slept through it. Woke up in the late afternoon with a biliary colic, luckily it only lasted for about an hour this time. 

[Zzevir]

2 hours ago, Seicher Rae said:

 For the record, because this is important: Yes to bananas, but only of a certain ripeness. Too ripe and they are only good for banana bread and I'm pretty ambivalent about banana bread.

I like my banana is so ripe you just need to rip down the top and you can suck out the banana like a smoothie. Yes I know I'm vile I was told before.

[Selene Gregoire]

28 minutes ago, Zzevir said:

I like my banana is so ripe you just need to rip down the top and you can suck out the banana like a smoothie. Yes I know I'm vile I was told before.

pfft Why not just let it ferment until you can drink it? 

Or better yet buy some banana beer for breakfast.

[kali Wylder]

2 hours ago, Seicher Rae said:

I wish more people would realize this, although for some it still wouldn't make a difference. 9 years ago, or whenever the years (yes, yearS) long targeting of me was taking place first in the old Forums then inworld, my real life was falling apart. My depression was at an all time low (for then, it's gotten worse). Suicide was considered. The bullying, while not the main issue in my life, did not help. SL had started out as my safe place to hide and to be when the real world was closing in too hard and too fast. The bullies took that safety away, and my life became that much more dire. I was not alone with the targeting. There was a certain group that targeted a few people. There was one bat-sh*t-crazy person though, in particular, that was my own private hell. She is vicious and obsessed. For all I know the abuse is still ongoing, but I've reached a point where a psychotic Internet nutjob is but a blip compared to other things. That doesn't mean my SL experience wasn't forever changed, because it was. So yeah, we should NEVER assume that everyone is living the dream. I can sit around and banter and goof off while also wondering if I'm going to be living under a bridge tomorrow. Humor is my protection mechanism. Bantering is my way to divert my attention from myself. Like the poster shared above of "I don't look sick..." Exactly. I don't look like there are problems in my life when I am in SL (and usually the Forums, unless you're an idiot spouting about mental health when you don't have a clue). In RL I don't look like I should be on disability, either. Or food stamps.  Normal people may need a reminder now and again to not be so quick to judge. We ALL do it. But the true psychopaths that are online, and there are quite a few, don't care who they hurt or how. Being bat-*****-crazy isn't an excuse for it either.

I remember those days.  I wish I understood all that was going on with you back then.  As I recall it you gave as good as you got and being the wimpy little people pleaser that I was, I just tried to steer clear of the whole mess. I failed and eventually abandoned my first avatar (mostly because my partner left SL but also because one of the people I thought was a friend turned out to be a jerk).

At any rate, I liked you even though I thought you were nuts.  Now I understand the nuttiness was just you coping the best you could. You have my heartfelt apologies for not standing up for you.

[Seicher Rae]

18 minutes ago, kali Wylder said:

I remember those days.  I wish I understood all that was going on with you back then.  As I recall it you gave as good as you got and being the wimpy little people pleaser that I was, I just tried to steer clear of the whole mess. I failed and eventually abandoned my first avatar (mostly because my partner left SL but also because one of the people I thought was a friend turned out to be a jerk).

At any rate, I liked you even though I thought you were nuts.  Now I understand the nuttiness was just you coping the best you could. You have my heartfelt apologies for not standing up for you.

Something that used to drive me nuts, and frankly still makes me cringe, is what I'd hear a lot of the time: "You are both the same." or "You give as well as you get." It took me a long time and distance to realize something, and that is that no one but a handful of people actually read everything and no one really paid attention after a while. That was understandable, to a point. The scroll feature is there for a reason, and there was sooooo much sh*t flying at that time, between so many people, that I was guilty of it too. Eyes just glazed over. "Oh, that again. Same song, different verse." The reality was, no one but a few people cared. To some it was entertainment (eff those people). The reality is, there was a huge difference in what was happening. Huge. But it got lost in the din.

I only gave as well as I got a handful of times. I did not instigate, not usually, only rarely. I did not seek it out. I didn't provoke, except by my mere existence. This wasn't standard, run of the mill trolling, in which if you don't feed the trolls they migrate elsewhere. I left, for months at a time, I changed avatars, only to find it still going. Yes, I made mistakes. I did a sockpuppet a few times and I used an alt...not to cause harm but to just hide from my tormentors. Since I'm bad at such things, I was found out, by outting myself, once on purpose, once by accident. The prime bat-sh*t-crazy person (PBSCP) actually was obsessed to the point of copying everything I ever wrote. Then when the "right" time came, would cut and paste, ALWAYS out of context to point to how horrendous I am. I would then try to take back my words, of course to no avail, because there is no logical way to fight crazy. PBSCP wasn't content with "just" stalking me through the Forum, but took it to personal blogs, hers and others, to groups, to... every once in a while I find by accident another old post in another place that I didn't know about. I never did any of that. I left the Feed for quite a while because if I commented upon some innocent third party's Feed, she would come in and start a sh*t show, and she said she'd continue to do that. I didn't want to foist that crap on other people. 99% of the time I was reacting. I won't claim well all the time. I would dare anyone to handle it "well" after years of it. She took my life and my stories, of which she knew damned little, but took the little bits that I had shared and just made them her own telling. I tried to recover that. At one point, she "took" away my story of why I participated in One Billion Rising, that I was raped in a day long ordeal that involved many episodes and a gun. I would NEVER, EVER do that to anyone, mock and belittle and cry "LIES" about someone's story like that, even if I personally thought it to myself. One never KNOWS. And on and on and on it went. So, no. Not the same. Not quid pro quo. 

But I understand NOW why people thought so.

Knowing that nobody reads much of anything any more (of course some people do read, I realize that, but it is few), helps me function in this Forum to the extent that I do. There's a recent tussle on another thread that I realize few people actually know what is going on, and I'm just dropping it. After being harassed by a truly psychotic person for all those years, it puts things into perspective.

There are still people who "hate" me from back then, who really, really don't know what was going on. They think there is some perceived damage that I did, that saw some things I did as "wrong" when they were merely taken out of context. While I did hurt a few people, and I have confronted those people with that and apologized, for the most part the people who hold grudges against me for those days are misinformed. I can live with that. I've lost "friends" over that whole thing, because they would get the fallout from associating with me. For a long, long time, if someone in SL wanted to be my friend, I would push them away with the disclaimer that anyone who was my friend would be targeted. Many innocent others left, a few that I know of specifically, because they were targeted as my alts (and weren't). It was a mess. Even I can't remember it all, or make sense of it. I have tried to explain it to people and just can't. It was crazy town. It wasn't MY crazy town, but I was caught up in it.

Anyway. I should probably delete this, but I won't.  It does make me extremely, physically tired to even go back "there" a little.

You are correct,  Kali, both in thinking I was crazy then (again, I was both depressed AND dealing with an insane situation and the PBSCP) AND coping with things the best I could.

Thank you for the apology, Kali, it does mean a lot. It was also not necessary. All of that was a long time ago. I am both that person and someone different. I didn't/don't follow the squabbles of others, then or now, and it isn't surprising to me that others didn't follow mine.

♥

[Cindy Evanier]

@Seicher Rae  This is a big deal.  I am sharing my Jason with you.  Just for a minutes hug

 

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

I have no desire to revisit this again.  I know I didn't read all of it then.  Some of that was by choice.  As much as I love reading the drama of others, that time was not fun or entertaining.  I stayed out it the best I could knowing there is ALWAYS more to a story than can be known.  Blocking and ignoring DOES work.  It takes time and distance which is difficult when you are the one going through it.  I am glad things are better for you now.  Hop out of the mud and don't wallow in it.  You are a new and different person today and you will be again tomorrow.  Enjoy your SL creativity.

[Seicher Rae]

Oh just.... bwahahahahahahaha. Just when I'm getting all mopey and serious and thinking about the past and getting bogged down, here comes SL to the rescue. I was looking at the shopping guide for Harajuku! and there was this, for all you banana haters AND lovers. WTF SL?

[Selene Gregoire]

41 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

@Seicher Rae  This is a big deal.  I am sharing my Jason with you.  Just for a minutes hug

 

You really should let him out a little more often.

[Selene Gregoire]

40 minutes ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

I have no desire to revisit this again.  I know I didn't read all of it then.  Some of that was by choice.  As much as I love reading the drama of others, that time was not fun or entertaining.  I stayed out it the best I could knowing there is ALWAYS more to a story than can be known.  Blocking and ignoring DOES work.  It takes time and distance which is difficult when you are the one going through it.  I am glad things are better for you now.  Hop out of the mud and don't wallow in it.  You are a new and different person today and you will be again tomorrow.  Enjoy your SL creativity.

You know what works even better than blocking or ignoring? Not bothering to look even look at the forums. I did post some in the early days but when everything went wild, wild west I left and didn't come back until a bit over a year ago... maybe 18 months. It just was not worth the hassle.

[kali Wylder]

47 minutes ago, Seicher Rae said:

The prime bat-sh*t-crazy person (PBSCP)

The PBSCP was in no way comparable to you.  She was that mean, vindictive kind of crazy that everyone needs to run away from. Her, I tiptoed carefully away and then ran like hell.

And you are right, I didn't read or understand it all.  More than once, I felt very sorry for you and was glad I was not on PBSCP's radar. I've been the victim of that kind of cra cra myself and I remember how miserable it made me.

[Seicher Rae]

It is the logical thing to say "mute" and/or "walk away from the Forum." I did that and more. I did all of the logical things. It. Didn't. Stop. And the thing to remember is that it wasn't just in the Forums. This was multi-platform. And it was MY life that was being affected, from my "story" being rewritten and maligned, to me losing friends, to... People tried to intervene. It wasn't a simple troll, and the simple things didn't work. SL was holding me together, the Forum actually, literally, saved my life, and a crazy person was trying to take that away from me. I don't take kindly to people taking things from me. It is either a character flaw or a feature. I won't be pushed out.

ETA: I stayed out of the Forums for what? 5-6 years for the most part? I only recently came back at the end of 2019. For better or worse.

 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Seicher Rae

[Marigold Devin]

1 hour ago, Seicher Rae said:

 

♥

I've said recently, on another thread, after taking a longish break myself from these forums, only popping in briefly now and then, and not having the mental or physical energy to deal with things until a few weeks ago, I feel like I have come back to a much kinder world - meaning these forums.  Back in the day, while I can't remember specifics (I have chosen to forget a hell of a lot of relatively recent stuff), I know there were certain "characters" on the forums who knew how to push people's buttons, and while I was pretty lucky, the worst thing I was ever called by one of the particularly vinegary now ex-forumites was "a tree hugging green person" (because I favoured the Emerald viewer), some of the threads got unreasonably personal and nasty, and they gave me real life indigestion, which led to a real life ulcer. Who needs that kind of stress in a virtual world - don't we all come to Second Life to escape from stress?

I felt powerless some days, and feeble, not being able to diffuse certain situations, getting my hand or head bitten off some days if I tried to be a peacemaker. Moderators were sparse and not all that fair back in the day, and I think some even must have got off on seeing the wars that went on.

As I say, these forums seem much kinder. This thread feels like a safe place to offload and properly talk, like a grown up, it has helped me to settle back into my little corner of Second Life (which is basically the bottom of a Linden ocean and part of a Linden road where I tend to unpack and get changed and get annoyed about how appalling everything does not fit my avatar.  It is like being a noob all over again.  

[Beth Macbain]

My hater left a message for me on my blog yesterday telling me she hopes someone slits my throat and decapitates me.

Yes, these forums may be much kinder than they used to be because the psychotic forumites just move on to other ways of communicating with people since they know they'll get banned from here if they go too far across the line. 😒

 

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

sounds like a few of us have people taking their issues out on us

[Marigold Devin]

49 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

My hater left a message for me on my blog yesterday telling me she hopes someone slits my throat and decapitates me.

Yes, these forums may be much kinder than they used to be because the psychotic forumites just move on to other ways of communicating with people since they know they'll get banned from here if they go too far across the line. 😒

 

Well, that was truly shocking to read, and sadly you are right that it is only these and some other forums that have managed to reign the abuse of others in, even if it has meant less "fun" to some of the more controversial and obviously very bored individuals who I have actually heard complaining about too much moderation.

I may have been (was!) involved in some derailment threads in days of yore, but nothing I can recall as being threatening or intimidating, and I cannot understand the mentality some people have of pursuing people to harm them, mentally or physically. I might hug someone into submission from time to time (definitely in real life), and that satisfies me far more than watching someone bleed or cry at my expense.  

Internet laws are changing all the time, they are losing their anonymity, although obviously not nearly quickly enough. I would gladly give my DNA to the police without being asked, I would gladly register with an official body my computers in various places. I do nothing at all that makes me feel afraid of being tracked and traced by official bodies. This needs to happen really, but people fear the Big Brother of 1984 fame. Protection and prevention should be key, not spying.  

 

[Pamela Galli]

58 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

My hater left a message for me on my blog yesterday telling me she hopes someone slits my throat and decapitates me.

Yes, these forums may be much kinder than they used to be because the psychotic forumites just move on to other ways of communicating with people since they know they'll get banned from here if they go too far across the line. 😒

 

I do recall your hater but forget which troll it is. Is it the one currently posting?

[Pamela Galli]

1 hour ago, Marigold Devin said:

I've said recently, on another thread, after taking a longish break myself from these forums, only popping in briefly now and then, and not having the mental or physical energy to deal with things until a few weeks ago, I feel like I have come back to a much kinder world - meaning these forums.  Back in the day, while I can't remember specifics (I have chosen to forget a hell of a lot of relatively recent stuff), I know there were certain "characters" on the forums who knew how to push people's buttons, and while I was pretty lucky, the worst thing I was ever called by one of the particularly vinegary now ex-forumites was "a tree hugging green person" (because I favoured the Emerald viewer), some of the threads got unreasonably personal and nasty, and they gave me real life indigestion, which led to a real life ulcer. Who needs that kind of stress in a virtual world - don't we all come to Second Life to escape from stress?

I felt powerless some days, and feeble, not being able to diffuse certain situations, getting my hand or head bitten off some days if I tried to be a peacemaker. Moderators were sparse and not all that fair back in the day, and I think some even must have got off on seeing the wars that went on.

As I say, these forums seem much kinder. This thread feels like a safe place to offload and properly talk, like a grown up, it has helped me to settle back into my little corner of Second Life (which is basically the bottom of a Linden ocean and part of a Linden road where I tend to unpack and get changed and get annoyed about how appalling everything does not fit my avatar.  It is like being a noob all over again.  

So glad you are back Marigold. Wish some other great people who were driven off would come check out the community that members and mods have together created. If someone drops by just to harrass or name call, the mods take care of it. And we say something when we see something. Because this is out community and we have invested a lot in it.