Perpetuating Hate

As I've scrolled through Facebook over the past couple of days, I have become extremely disheartened by the amount of hate I have seen towards an entire group of people. What I really saw was fear, but hate nonetheless. In the immortal words of Yoda, "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." 

It truly saddens me seeing the internet, my beautiful internet, used as a platform for hate. Apparently I process things in fiction, because I couldn't get Theoden out of my head. "What can men do against such reckless hate?" I tried to tweet out some love for people who are being affected by bigotry, knowing it wouldn't really do much, but also needing to try to tear down some of the hate with love.

It wasn't long after sending out my string of tweets before I started feeling convicted about taking offense to social media being used as a hate medium. The impact of my words on social media, particularly Twitter, have been on my mind a lot lately. For several years now, I have used Twitter as a way of processing my thoughts. As someone who had previously done all she could to hide every feeling she ever had, I thought this was a good thing. And it was good. For me. It makes me feel better, more level, than suffering in silence. It feels true. It feels like I'm being honest about who I am, showing the world all my flaws and fears and discouragements and hoping they will still like me. Things like, "I always thought I was the only one who thought that way until you tweeted it!" have gone to my head. I always imagined that sharing my thought processes was helpful to people who shared my struggles.

But the truth is, I have used social media as a platform for hate. I have used it to hate myself. I have used it as a way of saying, "Look at all this junk I have in my brain. See why I can't get anyone to love this?" I have subjected people to my deepest thoughts of self-loathing, perpetuating hate. I have processed thoughts in a way that I thought would sound hopeful, but just sound negative to those whose minds don't work the way mine does. 

Words mean a lot me. I pride myself on speaking the truth. Well, the truth is that I don't place a high enough value on how those words are perceived by other people. I am a very reactionary and passionate person, and that leads to words that don't need to be said. That's something I'm working on, but deeply struggling with. 

Negative words have a bigger impact on people than positive. For every ten positive/neutral things I say, I know my negative ones will be the ones remembered, whether I meant them in a negative way or not. 

I honestly don't know how to process emotions. That's what brings you this post and pretty much every other post I've ever written. I thought that I had learned a more productive way to process my emotions, but it turns out I didn't. I don't want my metal illness and my struggles to be the mark I leave on the world. I will not pretend to be okay when I'm not, but today I commit to stop perpetuating self-hate in my life and on my social media. I'm not sure where I'll take my processing of thoughts, but I will figure it out. I hope you and everyone in my life can be patient with me. 

Thank you to everyone who has made me feel less crazy and less alone through the years. It truly means the world to me and has gotten me through some very difficult times. I'm sorry I abused you as my friends and my audience. Thank you to everyone who has shown me love and patience. You're truly gems.