Something happened to me last week that left me reeling. I was so totally unprepared for it that it left me unable to sleep for about 3 days before I went against my instinct and confronted it head on.
I was the subject of a very negative social media attack. Not on purpose. But still it happened. The next week I saw that Notorious M.U.M and Queen Constrance (two Australian bloggers) were basically attacking each other… And lets not mention the US election…
This has left me wondering “since when has opinion become so highly offensive?” And when did it become ok to attack someone, without knowing both sides of the story, just because you happen to know one party involved? Does that make the other person emotionless or wrong? I highly doubt it…
I’m NOT writing this to blame the other blogger, or attack them in any way. Because that’s just not my style. We all have our battles and until we walk in each others shoes we’ll never know how hard these battles are. I am writing this to get the heaviness I’ve been carrying since it happened, off my chest.
I am not perfect – far from it in fact (just ask my husband and children!) And I nearly always say the wrong thing at just the wrong time – but I do these things by accident because I am human. I am always quick to apologise when I inevitably put my foot in it.
But what people don’t know about me is that I worry – a LOT! Especially about my daughter and her health.
We have 3 different doctors across various specialist areas. But she just wants to have a normal life. She wants to make little girl friends and go to Kindy and play and learn. This is hard for me as her immunity does not build with exposure to illness. Her body doesn’t really know how to deal with illness, simple things like the common cold can often see her in hospital. This is a very hard concept to understand unless you live with it – even our family struggle with it. And I get that! When we first started exploring my daughters health with her various health care professionals it was very frustrating and there was lots of head scratching and not very many answers.
But we do our best. Just like every other family out there with children. Because every child, no matter how healthy, has something that makes a parent worry about them. Because that is our job as parents!
What I am trying to say is, life is hard. There is often a reason things are said. Sometimes (as in this case) the words get twisted and peoples feelings get hurt. But often we are so quick to defend our “friend” that we up attacking someone innocent.
Its time for a change! Lets support each other!! All I ask is that we please remember that the other party involved has feelings too? How would you feel if the negativity was aimed at you?
Phew… think its time for a coffee now!