transemacabre | Note to flist: personal issues

I have just defriended a person that was on my flist for reasons that I would like to discuss more fully with all of you. This person, whom I friended because we had fannish interests in common, posted about their self-injury. This sort of thing has reached the breaking point with me. I am here for fannish enjoyment. I am not your counselor, I am not responsible for your well-being, and I am not going to sit here and have to look at post after post about y'all cutting, starving, drugging, or otherwise harming yourselves.

If you wish to post about such things, then you are welcome to do so in your own lj which is defriended from mine. I am tired of this drama and I simply am not going to put up with it anymore. I have personal problems of my own but I do not post them here for the public or my friends to see. If I have to be a bitch to protect myself from the pain you are causing yourself and others, then so be it. This lj is a very special happy space for me; this is where I go to play and relax and laugh. Do not take a dump in my goddamned sandbox.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm not sure what it is about blogging, but it does seem to encourage an alarming degree of exhibitionism in some people, emotionally, and also physically (people posting naked pics of themselves, & c.) The notion of privacy and private life – that some things are not for sharing – seems to have disappeared in some sectors.

I think a lot of it is exhibitionism and attention-whoring, and some of it's just plain thoughtlessness. I mean, counselors get paid to listen to them talk about their crappy lives, we don't. There is a time and a place for personal issues, and my lj friends page isn't it.

I can understand posting personal stuff on a "friends only" filter, but I'm amazed at the things I come across in public posts when I'm just randomly browsing the Internet(like yesterday, when I encountered a post by someone who felt the need to let the world know she spent the weekend fucking her boyfriend). As

mississippienne said, a lot of it is attention-whoring. But I also think it's an attempt by some people to appear "cool" or "edgy."

I don't understand this contemporary use of "edgy". I grew up understanding it to mean "nervous", as in "on edge".

Totally understandable. I defriended someone a while ago for the same reason. I was depressed as hell myself at the time and reading her daily posts about refusing to see her therapist and cutting herself just...was not something I needed. I'm totally willing to be emotionally supportive but there's only so much I can take/give.

My general rule is, if someone asks for advice, I'll try twice to give it to them or counsel them as best I can. If I see that they really aren't taking any steps to better their situation, that's it, I'm done. I'm not interested in telling you what you want to hear. Either fix or learn to live with it, I don't fucking care which.

That is, of course, assuming you are the fount of all wisdom and worldly advice… ;-D

LOL. Well, if you talk about a problem in a public place, such as your lj, or bring it up with me on AIM, I can only assume you are soliciting help. That I don't mind giving. But I don't much like just soothing someone's nerves over and over again. That's one of the reasons I don't post about my own personal problems here; if I need advice, I'll ask through AIM or email.

It's not something I can really understand psychologically. I've been in low spirits sometimes myself, but have worked through it. And although it does nothing for me personally, I can understand why, for some people, the pain/pleasure thing might work on an s/m level, but I just can't get my head around this kind of self-harm. It's like religious self-mortification: I just can't see why anyone would believe they were so bad they had to punish themselves.

Unless I'm actually having sex with you, I don't want to know anything about your psychosexual issues. There's a reason you're supposed to warn for kinks like BDSM and breathplay and anorexia and the like in fics -- because it grosses a lot of people out. If people could apply the same level of consideration to their internet personas that they do to their fanfics, teh intarwebs would be a much nicer place.

There are people who considered anorexia a kink? That's just all kinds of disturbing (and I say this as someone with some degree of experience with eating disorders).

Exactly! I know that people like that exist – so to that extent I can acknowledge why some might do weird stuff to themselves – but to have someone spilling their soul about it in a non-fiction way is… as you say, gross.

I think that's completely reasonable. I mean, I blog about my personal life to a certain extent, but sweet fancy Moses, no one should be expected to put up with that kind of blather. That person needs professional help, not an audience on lj.

And weirdly enough, I very recently read an article (http://jezebel.com/5125522/tell-me-more-why-do-we-overshare) about over-sharing. Hm. Epidemic?

(Also, this is the first time I've been able to actually use this icon. I am stupidly overjoyed.)

That's a good article. I wonder if there's a tendency nowadays for people to accelerate into presumed intimacy far quicker, rather than let friendships grow and develop? Things people might only have talked about with long-established friends now get fast-forwarded to first meetings.

I'm all for posting whatever you want in your own blog, but I definitely agree with defriending once it's too much. It's one thing if it's ranting because your friend said something nasty or if your dog dies, but once it gets into self-inflicted pain like drugging and cutting, I don't want to hear it. It's not really my problem.

That's a really pissy-sounding way of me saying I agree with you. XD

Yeah, there's personal stuff I would like to know about y'all -- such as a funny thing you overheard in class, or how your weird neighbor Mrs. Jenkins dresses her poodle up like Tim Curry's character in It or something. But self-harm and drugs and the like -- I didn't sign on for that. I'd have gone into psychotherapy and get PAID to listen to it if I'd wanted to.

How many levels of flock was it under? *is curious* Or was it public?

I think there's a certain level of disconnect between the public (or semi-public, if it's flocked) nature of ljs and some people's perceptions of them. It's called a "journal," so some people post the same kind of deeply personal things they'd put in a hand-written journal, without necessarily thinking about whether their flist really wants or needs to see them. And for things like self-injury or eating disorders, there are people who really need *not* to see discussion of that kind of thing, because it can be triggering (I know there's a limit to which I can be exposed to discussions of diets and weight before it makes me twitchy and I start thinking things like "Maybe I should skip breakfast today, because I ate dessert last night" again).

On the other hand, I've been guilty of personal information TMI myself before, probably, because I've occasionally used my lj as an emotional safety valve for panic attacks/ranting/etc.

It was flocked.

There is a lot of content that can be triggering (I have a hard time reading about child molestation or rape, for example) especially when there's no warning whatsoever, just "OH HAI people think my cuts are a shark bite LOL LOL".

Maybe you could ask the person to take you off his/her friends filter? (if you've friended them for fannish reasons and want to keep reading non-personal fic/meta/icons/whatever posts)

On the other hand, if their posts have been annoying/stressful/triggery enough that now just seeing their name makes you flinch or grind your teeth, ensuring that you won't see mystery TMI person's name on your friends page anymore at all is probably the best option.

Note to flist: personal issues

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