Tag Archives: stupidity

I know why Tyla loves my balls

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13

You’ve gotta love the people who have never experienced life. You know, the ones who are squeamish and don’t want to hear the “bad” stuff. Like the lady at Barnes and Noble.

Last week Nikki and I went to Barnes and Noble, because we are broke and proud. We like the free water, the scent of Starbucks coffee abrewin’ and new books waiting to be read, and we like the plentiful tables that allow us to sit and talk for hours without being asked to leave.

This was the second time we’d done this. We sat and talked about everything from college to grandparents, from boyfriends and to jobs, from the economy to problems and everything in between. The conversation was flowing nicely. We weren’t being loud or obnoxious.

I can’t remember exactly what we were talking about (it may have been something along the lines of elderly bed-wetting), when I heard an irritated voice not two feet from my ear.

“Oh, let’s talk about old people shitting the bed and–”

I didn’t hear what else she said. I turned my head and looked straight at the woman sitting right behind me, who was suddenly preoccupied with the book in front of her. “It’s life, lady. Pick another table if you don’t want to hear about it.”

“Mom,” her teenage daughter, so obviously the victim here, said. She didn’t look up from her own book.

The woman didn’t say anything else. I turned back to Nikki, satisfied.

“Oh! I have to tell you the cat story!” Nikki told me about a cat she’d found in a car. “Was she talking about us?” She whispered.

I nodded. “Like I said,” I rose my voice a little higher, “there are plenty of other tables if she doesn’t want to hear it.”

I like this new, brazen version of me.

I am (a little) self-righteous

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Nine Inch Nails makes me feel better. “I don’t feel anything at all,” Trent Reznor sings in “1,000,000.” The truth is, I do feel — everything. When Sarcastica wrote about a certain defamatory group on Facebook, I immediately felt like I had to have my say.

Sarcastica wrote that

Some of the stuff that was said was completely out of line, one guy commented on some girl’s photo saying “two words, down syndrome” and one girl was compaired to looking like a dead baby.

I immediately logged into the account I never use, because I wanted to report this group of people who think they have the right to be derogatory to people with physical and mental disabilities. I reported that group, and when I noticed that there was a mirror of that group, because the group owners had a feeling they were going to be deleted soon — gee, I wonder why? — I went there and reported that one, too. I joined the group long enough to write on their pathetic wall and tell them that they were low and should be ashamed of themselves, even though I knew well enough that I shouldn’t waste my time.

Still, when I get passionate about something, when something pisses me off this badly, I get so self-righteous. I feel the need to let the wrongdoer know that they’re being wrong, and even though I know it’s pointless and apt to start a flame war, I can’t help myself. As Trent Reznor sings in “Discipline” from The Slip, “once I start, I cannot stop myself.”

Perhaps this passionate aspect of me is a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. If I do something to Mike, like hang up on him, it’s nothing to me. I tell him to get over it. But if he or someone else does it to me, I get mad. I tell them how rude it is and it irks the hell out of me.

So I guess I need to learn how to focus this energy on Facebook trolls with low self-esteem, or maybe just keep my damn mouth shut.

Anyway, if you are a member of Facebook and disagree with the use of the C word and discriminatory, defaming and derogatory remarks towards others, please report this group and its “backup.” Please note that they also don’t exactly discourage racist remarks. People like this should not be allowed to treat others the way they do. I hate to bring any kind of attention to them, but I really feel that they should be booted. At the least, their little group should. Please remember that you should always treat others the way that you yourself would want to be treated and — as my mom loves to say — if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Period.

What’s so hard to understand?

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For the first time, I saw someone badmouth TWLOHA. (In case you haven’t heard of them, TWLOHA — To Write Love On Her Arms — is a charity devoted to helping people struggling with depression, self-injury and addiction.) In a thread on Absolute Punk announcing Renee Yohe’s book Purpose for the Pain, someone said

This ‘charity’ doesn’t make sense to me.

and someone else said

as sketchy charities go, I think this one is way up there and I don’t feel the need to support anything that they do. if the girl wants to write a book then fair play to her, she’s got an easy route to do so and a ready made audience. the poetry section looks dire though.

I’m not sure how TWLOHA doesn’t make sense, nor am I sure how they are sketchy. I’ve seen sketchy “non-profit organizations” (namely on MySpace), and they don’t do any sort of public speaking or any other kind of activity. The people at TWLOHA write blogs, talk to real people, attend concerts and speak in front of the audiences about depression/self-injury/addiction, sell merchandise and donate the money made to different charities, run internships, educate people about not only depression/self-injury/addiction but also other things (such as the crises in Uganda, other non-profits that are making a difference, and are currently campaigning to save 1-800-SUICIDE.

Now tell me, how does any of that sound “sketchy”?

Maybe I’m biased, because I’ve struggled with depression and self-injury, and I know people dear to me who have struggled with addiction (and lost the battle). Maybe these experiences make me blind, and my blind self is contributing to the scam that is TWLOHA. I don’t believe this at all. I haven’t seen or heard anything to make me question the people at TWLOHA and their intentions. I haven’t doubted for one second their passion for this cause. It makes me so angry to see people say such slanderous, stupid things. Maybe it’s because they’ve never experienced the pain of depression. Maybe they are some of the lucky ones out there who have never wanted to take their own lives. Maybe they think that people who cut themselves with deadly-sharp knives and burn themselves with cigarettes and lighters are just looking for attention. (Because hurting myself like that is gonna make me so fucking cool, right?) Maybe they think that this is a fad that’s gonna pass.

Depression, self-injury and addiction are not fads. I have seen first-hand, through myself and people I love, what these three things can do to your life. I have known the pain of self-hatred. I’ve lost a friend to addiction. I’ve almost lost family members to addiction. I’ve almost lost a best friend to depression. I’ve seen boyfriends become addicted to alcohol and several drugs. I’ve seen and heard so much about lives being destroyed. Every day I read posts on Letters of Love, and read letters and emails about depression. These are real feelings. You will never know what it is like until you are already there, and by then it’s too late. I am so sick of people judging other people. I am so sick of people who are depressed being put down by those squeaky clean members of society who think they are above everyone else. Of course they don’t “get” TWLOHA. Why would they?

These lyrics from the Flobots song “Stand Up” remind me of what we fight for.

Stand up, we shall not be moved
Except by a child with no socks or shoes
If you’ve got more to give than you’ve got to prove
Put your hands up and I’ll copy you

TWLOHA is mainly about helping people, about reaching out. This charity is the whole reason I started Letters of Love. It’s about reaching out to others and being there to listen. It’s not about fame or glory, or a fad. It’s not about attention. It’s about real people, with real feelings. I know; I’ve been there.

So when I see these comments, like

Eh. Anything having to do with TWLOHA makes me a little wary, to be honest.

or

This “charity” is pretty weird.. I think I read that only 10% (Maybe it was 25%, but still) makes it to actual hotlines and other resources… The rest of it goes to you know, expenses… like their house. and their bungalow. and their trips to the UK so they can spend 5 minutes reading a poem before Switchfoot goes on. It just seems ridiculous to me that everyone buys into it. And the fact that some of the money goes to faith-based charities irks me too.

I just have to laugh. If you don’t get it now, you never will.

We shall not be moved.