This morning I woke up to my first ever hate comment in response to my latest post in the history of this blog. I am sharing a screenshot because I don’t wish to publish the comment:
This blog is more than 10 years old, so it is quite something that I haven’t gotten more hate comments before, since I tend to write about controversial topics. My writing is not that popular and it is pretty niche, most of the time most people don’t actually care about what I write. I think people tend to get trolls and hate comments when they reach a popularity threshold. I found myself wondering if this means I’ve finally made it on the blogging scene. I kid.
I guess I can understand why people simply turn off comments, or don’t bother to build it. But I love comments – I may not have the psychological space to respond to them in a timely manner, but I love them in general. In this day and age where people are used to instant messaging and status-based social networks, it takes a lot of effort to come to this website and type into a traditional online form.
Which is why I am also mind boggled that this person took the effort to leave this comment. They seem to be unable to tolerate the way I write about my life. No one is asking them to read my writing? I am not sure what is the sort of reaction they are trying to provoke? Shame? I had a ton of that while growing up. That I will read this comment and decide to finally pull up my socks? Wow thanks I’m finally cured.
I have never claimed that my story is unique or special, but the point of having a blog is to write my truth. When I was younger I really believed everybody felt like me, only to find out most people have never even once contemplated what it means to end their own life. There is inherent suffering in being human, but people will endure incredible suffering just to stay alive, because they want to be alive. To them, being alive is a gift.
Yet I struggle every single day. If this makes me a buttercup so be it. I’ve admitted multiple times on this blog that I am a very fragile person. It is precisely this fragility that makes it difficult to endure life, because I feel so sensitive to everything.
I’ve also endured this sort of comments from people supposedly close to me for my entire life. Do people really believe this sort of rebuke will make people like me have more will to live and survive? This comment is proving my sentiments right: that this world is hostile and relentlessly judgmental. If I was at a different place this could be a trigger for me to contemplate disappearing off the face of this earth. I mean, why bother to survive when people say and think such mean things about me?
Does this person feel better after saying this to a so-called buttercup? That a person is already admittedly weak and vulnerable, and that the next best thing to do to this person is to punch her down?
Honestly. I am not upset or even offended. I am just disturbed. I am fragile in many ways, but I am numb to these things because well, “training” from many years of enduring this sort of shit from worse sources because it fucking hurts to hear something like this from people I actually care about.
I am disturbed because who knows what else is being said to other people who are in an emotionally vulnerable state right now? This is unfortunately the world we live in. Though this person is not representative of the many kind and thoughtful people I interact with, it is also true that there are a ton of such people around, and bullying is still a thing.
I feel sympathy mostly, because I cannot imagine the process of becoming a person who genuinely thinks this is a worthwhile thing to do.
To the other buttercups like me: for what it is worth I think it is perfectly fine to be a buttercup. There is no rulebook in this world that says we have to toughen up and be thick like hide. This is the sort of insidious narrative that is causing so much unnecessary suffering in this world, because we are all afraid to be our true selves openly in this world. So we suppress and repress, and we knowingly and unknowingly hurt each other like this. In my opinion, it is better to be a weak buttercup that is mindful of the presence of the other buttercups in this world. That to me, is strength.