Ahhh, nature is healing. Randos on the Internet have been reaching out to let me know that I’m everything from uninteresting to a narcissistic drama whore, that I don’t deserve to have children, that I deserve to watch said children die (yes, they really say this), that I’ve murdered children, and also I’m ugly.
Good lord, what did I do? Probably some combination of starting this substack and tweeting recently that I was upset that my kindergartener was asked by her teacher to wear a mask in school for 6 hours because she had a slightly runny nose from allergies (the pollen is potent this year with all the recent rain, y’all).
Twitter is weird because sometimes I feel like I share really poignant insights, and they get lost to the void of the Internet, maybe with a handful of likes. Other times something I say will go bonkers, and people with nothing better to do feel it’s not only their right, but their duty, to viciously attack me.
In this particular instance, I shared my frustration on Twitter that my child was masked at school with no attempt to contact me about it, after I had mentioned a couple months ago that I didn’t want her wearing a mask at school.
If she is actually sick, she can come home where she belongs until her symptoms clear up. It shouldn’t be a newsflash that 5-year-olds get runny noses from time to time, but it doesn’t mean that they are sick.
Anyway, the matter was easily solved with a polite chat with her teacher, asking her that she not mask our child under any circumstances. She apologized, said that she would not, and we moved on.
I want to make it abundantly clear that her teacher is lovely, and Arya is having a great year in kindergarten.
My point was and is that it is frustrating to live in an area where so many people have bought into the propaganda that masks works, that they cause no damage to children, and that it is in any way acceptable to ask my child to cover her beautiful face with a dirty piece of fabric, or a tiny surgical mask filled with microplastics.
Within hours of tweeting I had to turn off my open DMs on Twitter because the vitriol spewed by strangers on the Internet was insane. Then they found my Instagram and flung hate-filled messages at me there too. And there have been comments on this substack too.
I’m deleting the ones I catch. You know why? Because it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want. The fantastic thing about life experience — at least for me so far — is that I’ve really started to understand that I have nothing to prove to anyone.
I’m not sharing my story to *prove* anything. I’m sharing it because I couldn’t find a therapist for three years that would meet in person unmasked. (I really can’t decide if that’s a joke or if I’m being dead serious, but the truth is probably that it’s funny because it’s true.)
When I sat down to write this post, I had visions of pulling screenshots from the literally hundreds of mean tweets and messages I got. But I’m not writing for the people who need the proof. I’m writing for the people that have had it happen to them, to let them know that they aren’t alone, and that they can be strong and stand up for their children and themselves.
We have been ramrodded into complacent submission as a whole during this covid debacle, which is why it probably hit me so hard. I spent a good portion of my life being forced into radical submission by having a bible beat over my head, being told I couldn’t participate in my world unless I followed made-up rules, because erudite men knew what was best for me and my life.
When I finally had enough and said I’d see those men in hell (I kinda went out in my own personal blaze of glory — maybe I’ll tell that story someday), a LOT of people were mad at me. Men and women alike. It didn’t matter — the ones still submitting to “the rules” were BIG mad. According to some of the comments I deleted here already, there are STILL people mad that I left a cult and a marriage TEN YEARS ago.
Yes I’ve written about divorce here, mostly in my very first introductory post on this site. Because that post was literally a summary of my adult life, half of which so far was spent in a bad marriage. I mention it here again to provide context.
I don’t dwell on this shit. Life is too short. My ex and I have a very functional relationship now. He’s not a bad person. We just had very different visions of what we wanted our lives to be, and they were ultimately incompatible.
But back to the comments. I wrote about surviving divorce and my faith evolution back then, and I got some of the worst comments ever. I left every single one of them up. I wanted people to see the things that others said to me, mostly because it made them look bad. It’s really hard to defend yourself when you write that a mother deserves to watch her children die in front of her because she made a life choice you don’t agree with.
That was then and this is now, and those comments are getting deleted.
Hate has no home here.
Your Comment Has Been Deleted
Until 2020, I never really delved into Twitter except when there was some breaking news. Although I knew I was being ghoulish most of the time. But since then, it's been the best signposting to articles that I want to read that the mainstream media seem to ignore. Weird that.
So great respect for those like yourself who stick their heads above the parapet knowing that someone will take pot shots at you. The other thing I've learnt is that Twitter can be toxic and taking a break from it occasionally is probably best for ones sanity.
The illogical stance many have taken over masks & vaccination of children beggars belief. Of course a parent wants to protect their children. We get that. My friend is manager of a nursery in the UK. She's observed clear problems over the last two years with development and behaviour of toddlers. I don't need scientific articles and studies to know what's really happening. The abandonment of "Do no harm" with the vaccine in children horrifies me.
It shows the power of the mainstream media and large corporations behind it to brainwash and direct society wherever it wants.
COVID was unknown and scary in the first few months of 2020 but the truth about IFR etc was known. Weak leaders across the planet abandoned planning under pressure. Pressure applied primarily by the media fuelling a social media frenzy. But no, we carried on with the madness of lockdowns, masks and furlough.
Old codger observation, for what it is worth: There was a time when we would share our frustrations with our spouses or close friends. We'd talk things through, they'd offer alternative views, we'd feel better, and we'd move on with our lives. Social media, and particularly Twitter (the infinite number of monkeys on steroids) allows us to share those frustrations with a whole lot of people who don't know us. Instead of helping us resolve whatever is bothering us (like our spouses and friends used to do), those strangers are eager to tell us how wrong we are, how stupid we are, how evil we are, etc. - whatever they can do besides help us solve the problem. So, instead of moving on, the problem (which, in the case above, was resolved between parent and teacher), becomes a major Twitter war. The simple solution seems to be to stay off Twitter. I agree that Substack comments sections are also prone to devolving into pettiness, but not to the degree that Twitter does. I have started a journal in which I post everything that I would like to share on social media. However, I don't share it because at this point I could give a crap about what other people think and I am tired of, for example, posting a cartoon that I think is funny and then having to read a bunch of idiotic comments, many from alleged "friends." I'm too old for this and have better things to do. If people thought about it, they'd realize that they do, too. Now I'll sit back and wait for comments.