Are you referring to @chgoliz or to another awesome woman?
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That one was @chgoliz, and anyone else who is feeling the same frustration (@katherine, e.g.). I know we’re a place to talk, but any time a non-powered group member gets brigaded into silence or going away from a group, they are silenced in those conversations. And too many times it’s just too exhausting to fight.
Sucks what happened to you, too. Seriously, fuck this day.
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Thanks, guys!
Honestly, it was a long time coming. @LearnedCoward getting a 3-month time out (I think for defending me, in fact) and then getting multiple innocuous posts pulled all within a few days was the breaking point for me, but I know many got there a lot sooner (I am too much of an optimist sometimes) and I’m sure I won’t be the last. I’m grateful this place exists so that we don’t all lose each other, because honestly, there wasn’t anything BB was bringing to the forum that I wasn’t seeing in other places anyway; it’s the discussion with everyone that brings the information into 3-D focus, you know? And that’s what they’ve been choking off. Crazy. The community is the value-added part of the whole thing.
Anyway, I don’t even feel like it’s a Fuck Today for me (other than my toe not healing right) because I haven’t lost anyone I want to talk with. I just shed an old skin that needed to go, that’s all.
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hugs I just hate seeing the bastards win, you know?
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Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, bitches.
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And this, also. It is exhausting. I’ve been reading another thread here, Genderbender: Sexual Identity and Gender Identity, wherein a poster talks about possibly having to mute due to their constant explanations, even when genuinely and sincerely asked. And I appreciate their willingness to continue to explain, but I wholly and completely understand. I want to emphasize that I’m certainly not trying to equate experiences or even compare, but the fact remains: It is simply exhausting to explain over and over and over again, hoping against all hope that this time, this time … Well, we all have our breaking points, and we all deserve our safe spaces. By safe spaces I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, that would be boring. But I do expect that my voice matters. Voice is more than vocalization, it is fundamental to who and what we are.
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While I’m sad to see you leaving the Other Place, I’m definitely glad you’re here.
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I’m in the process of moving to Philadelphia area.
My neighbors wanted to buy my house, which really was a win -win situation for us both as it meant not having to prepare the house to show or deal with showing it, and we did not need to have a realtor involved, which left more money for us. It was a nice situation for them in a lot of ways as well.
But now my neighbors are backing out, which means that I am totally unprepared to show the house and should have had it on the market a month ago.
I’m not really mad at them as they have their own stuff going on and I get it, but I’m just feeling really unsupported right now as I was trying to prepare the house to sell all year and being blocked on it by my husband. He’s moved already (with his folks) and now I’m stuck with all the work that I had tried to get done all year now just scrambling to get it done.
I guess the situation with the neighbors made me feel like I was just worried for nothing and life works out and all that. But now I am back to being pissed that the house isn’t all ready to show.
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I finally found out a couple of years ago that summer SAD is a real thing, and it made so much sense. When the days get longer, and especially I have to deal with heat and humidity and bright sunlight, I get more irritable and agitated and uncomfortable, with occasional collapses into plain old depression.
Yesterday I had one of those. Which annoyed the hell out of me, since I’d had a fine day at work and a good performance review that will lead to a pay raise, my spouse’s medical issues are leaving her alone for a while, our dogs’ (gross) digestive issues seem to be solved, it’s our 13th wedding anniversary and otherwise everything in our lives seems to be okay now.
A doctor appointment yesterday afternoon didn’t go well though – they put me in the wrong room or screwed up some paperwork, so I waited for 80 minutes in a hot room while the doctor thought I wasn’t even there. And then she wasn’t reading my chart right and kept asking dumb questions – have I ever been on Metformin? Yes, for more than a decade until you switched all my meds 6 months ago which was wildly successful…
When I got home I had an “I can’t do anything, I’m going to bed at 6PM” moemnt that instead turned into a big ugly cry and a yell at the stupid injustice of brain chemistry. I’m back to a more normal grouch level today but I feel a lot more brittle. Can we just skip to about mid-November?
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I’m really sorry- that’s a shitty day (despite, as you mention, all the other good happening).
Remember: we can eat the whole elephant, but only one bite at a time.
We’re here if you need support.
ps please don’t eat elephants I hear they’re really very nice
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On the other hand you are amazingly supportive of everybody else here, I personally would be bouncing off walls in your situation.
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Depends…
Years ago I shared a house with an Irish history graduate*. After a year we learned his story; he had been destined for the priesthood and he found out he was gay. Because he was very thoroughly indoctrinated he went and told his supervisors. Their reaction? “Don’t tell anyone then.” Because he was such a sincere Catholic, he resigned from theological college and became a social worker instead.
But he told us that he had a conversation with a bishop - after he had left - and the bishop said this to him, IIRC: “Forty percent of my priests sleep with their housekeepers. Forty percent are homosexiuals. It’s the other 20% I worry about.”
It’s the difference, in fact, between being outside the tent and inside the tent, and the direction in which you are pissing. (You could could it astonishing hypocrisy; I couldn’t possibly comment.)
*irrelevant but explains my ongoing interest in Ireland.
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Thank you!
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Sounds about right to me. I wonder how the bishop placed himself.
In Catholic high school we were told the official stance was it was totally okay to be gay – so long as you didn’t act like it. And then we listened to a tape of a speech by a gay guy who thought he’d be destined for the priesthood until he found out he was gay. It was an awesome tape, because the guy was such a down-to-earth, relatable speaker. He would have made a great priest.
As with many of the uglier bits of dogma, our teachers made it clear how they felt about the topic without actually saying they disagreed with the church.
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Bishop speaking fairly freely to gay student, not too hard to guess.
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Meh, one could guess, but perhaps not accurately. I know some priests who have supported gay mem coming out of the closet, yet weren’t gay themselves.
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I don’t know. The church’s oficial stance on gay priests is that it’s “disordered” and not allowed, but their unofficial stance is the same as their unofficial stance on pedophiles: it’s okay, just don’t tell anyone.
I suppose it’s possible for a member of one disordered group to support another such group, but I’d imagine it would be complicated.
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It depends on how strongly a given person is into the dogma. In school they told us you can reject the capital-C Church and still be Catholic, which is a hard concept for a lot of people to wrap their heads around. But I’ve known a lot of Catholics, including clergy, who did just that. They’ve decided it’s better to do good than adhere to dogma – they’re just doing it quietly so they don’t lose whatever place of outreach they’ve managed to carve out for themselves.
Doesn’t make me want to return to the church, mind you, but I’m not willing to condemn everyone.
ETA: that’s not the official stance I was taught, BTW. Then again, the last time I paid attention to the church, J2P2 was still the Pope.
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That’s how I think exactly. Doing good and being honest with oneself is far more important than following rules one doesn’t agree with.
The whole “disordered” thing was Ratzinger’s doing. He did a lot of harm. Hopefully Francis can help walk it back. The thing is, even Francis isn’t doing anything unusual, revolutionary, or outside doctrine, he’s just trying to draw attention to the less dickish parts of Catholicism.
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