April 30, 2007
Thinking Blogger, Thankful Blogger
Well, I meant to get this post up a few days ago but got triggered into yet another major dissociative meltdown and everything just gets put on hold when that happens.
I want to tell you, however, how you thoughtful, validating bloggers helped me turn a negative into a positive. As some of you may know, I had a blogger come on to my blog and start commenting to me and other readers in a way that left me feeling attacked and invalidated. I told the blogger that I didn't want my comment section to become a huge debate forum, so I continued the conversation with them via e-mail. The last e-mail I got from them felt downright hateful and cruel to me. This was difficult timing for me as I was just in the middle of working with my T on devastating feelings of isolation and loneliness...and that feeling that nobody can be trusted.
For a while I felt quite sorry for myself that this blogger with whom I had been acquainted for some time seemed to turn on me. But some of the things they said to me caught my attention. It wasn't anything about parts, abuse, recovery or anything like that. It was technical blog stuff.
This blogger made an accusation that I did, indeed desire an online debate; that I was lying about that. They said that I could have _____ them whenever I wanted if I hadn't wanted a debate. I can't even remember what the term was and the e-mail that contained it was too painful for me to keep, so I quickly deleted it. But, I assume the term had something to do with blocking a reader/commenter.
I've admitted this several times: I am very un-cyber savvy when it comes to anything technical on my blog. I've warned viewers that they have to go to my dot com site: www.survivorscanthrive.com to get any kind of pretty pictures and the like.
It's embarrassing to me that I haven't been able to include pictures on my blog or those neat little buttons or a blogroll, or the Blog Carnival widget, so that readers can easily link and submit to our Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. I decided, ENOUGH! Looky, looky, over at the sidebar. I finally figured out how to get the Blog Carnival widget up there, and it's not stretched across the blog posts. Yippeeee!
Do you notice something else new over there? It's a cute little button for The Thinking Blogger Awards. Let me tell you how that came about. In addition to my new found determination to get more technical-savvy on this blog, I decided my link updates were way overdue as well. Weeks ago, my friend Keepers e-mailed me to tell me that she had nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award. I thought that was way cool and I wanted to put up a post thanking her for it, but was embarrassed that I didn't even have an updated link to her on the sidebar.
Then, I found out that somebody else that I had a faulty, old link up to--Beautiful Dreamer--had also nominated me for the Thinking Blogger award. Wow! I'm really starting to feel the love now...and the appreciation and validation. *warm fuzzy*
So, I decided to get up off my butt and update those links. I also like to provide reciprocal links to blogger folks. Now, I don't have any kind of tracker on my blog. So, if you don't leave a comment, I don't know that you've visited here. I am savvy enough, however to know how to use Who Links To Me and Technorati. Yeah, it's embarrassing: I couldn't get the Technorati button to show up on my template either...but now that could change! ;) So anyway, I went to Technorati to see who had recently linked to me and see if I thought they were a good reciprocal link fit.
Guess what? I found another blogger, Feminist Nation, who had also nominated me for The Thinking Blogger award! Wow! Just when I was starting to think that I was, indeed pathetic, that nobody got anything helpful from my blog, and that there really was no meaning whatever for my abuse, I see that I stand corrected. Thanks, guys! I really needed that.
Since The Thinking Blogger Award is actually a meme (yes, I even know what that means) I will tag some thinking bloggers I appreciate and that will be my next post. For now, go check out all the new links on the sidebar and give these bloggers a good look-see.
I want to tell you, however, how you thoughtful, validating bloggers helped me turn a negative into a positive. As some of you may know, I had a blogger come on to my blog and start commenting to me and other readers in a way that left me feeling attacked and invalidated. I told the blogger that I didn't want my comment section to become a huge debate forum, so I continued the conversation with them via e-mail. The last e-mail I got from them felt downright hateful and cruel to me. This was difficult timing for me as I was just in the middle of working with my T on devastating feelings of isolation and loneliness...and that feeling that nobody can be trusted.
For a while I felt quite sorry for myself that this blogger with whom I had been acquainted for some time seemed to turn on me. But some of the things they said to me caught my attention. It wasn't anything about parts, abuse, recovery or anything like that. It was technical blog stuff.
This blogger made an accusation that I did, indeed desire an online debate; that I was lying about that. They said that I could have _____ them whenever I wanted if I hadn't wanted a debate. I can't even remember what the term was and the e-mail that contained it was too painful for me to keep, so I quickly deleted it. But, I assume the term had something to do with blocking a reader/commenter.
I've admitted this several times: I am very un-cyber savvy when it comes to anything technical on my blog. I've warned viewers that they have to go to my dot com site: www.survivorscanthrive.com to get any kind of pretty pictures and the like.
It's embarrassing to me that I haven't been able to include pictures on my blog or those neat little buttons or a blogroll, or the Blog Carnival widget, so that readers can easily link and submit to our Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. I decided, ENOUGH! Looky, looky, over at the sidebar. I finally figured out how to get the Blog Carnival widget up there, and it's not stretched across the blog posts. Yippeeee!
Do you notice something else new over there? It's a cute little button for The Thinking Blogger Awards. Let me tell you how that came about. In addition to my new found determination to get more technical-savvy on this blog, I decided my link updates were way overdue as well. Weeks ago, my friend Keepers e-mailed me to tell me that she had nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award. I thought that was way cool and I wanted to put up a post thanking her for it, but was embarrassed that I didn't even have an updated link to her on the sidebar.
Then, I found out that somebody else that I had a faulty, old link up to--Beautiful Dreamer--had also nominated me for the Thinking Blogger award. Wow! I'm really starting to feel the love now...and the appreciation and validation. *warm fuzzy*
So, I decided to get up off my butt and update those links. I also like to provide reciprocal links to blogger folks. Now, I don't have any kind of tracker on my blog. So, if you don't leave a comment, I don't know that you've visited here. I am savvy enough, however to know how to use Who Links To Me and Technorati. Yeah, it's embarrassing: I couldn't get the Technorati button to show up on my template either...but now that could change! ;) So anyway, I went to Technorati to see who had recently linked to me and see if I thought they were a good reciprocal link fit.
Guess what? I found another blogger, Feminist Nation, who had also nominated me for The Thinking Blogger award! Wow! Just when I was starting to think that I was, indeed pathetic, that nobody got anything helpful from my blog, and that there really was no meaning whatever for my abuse, I see that I stand corrected. Thanks, guys! I really needed that.
Since The Thinking Blogger Award is actually a meme (yes, I even know what that means) I will tag some thinking bloggers I appreciate and that will be my next post. For now, go check out all the new links on the sidebar and give these bloggers a good look-see.
Labels: links, support, Thinking Blogger, validation