Day 23: A lesson I learned the hard way
I have been blogging since 2005. I started as a joke by writing down the stuff I did with my roommate back then. Mostly it was about us going to bars and talking crap. When I moved to the Netherlands in 2007, I started my first proper blog.
Back then I would write about anything: what we did that day, how it was to be pregnant in the Netherlands, later how it was to have a kid in the Netherlands, but most of all I wrote about society and politics. Soon enough I realized this was turning out to be a hard lesson for me.
I have always been open to foreign cultures and really curious about them as well. I think there is good in every culture and in every human being. This means I have always been with open arms what comes to people seeking refuge and migrating to the country where I reside. Writing about this though, lead a lot of people come to my blog and tell me some pretty horrible things. Unfortunately those weren't just some minor things, but those were seriously disgusting things of how they wished I were to die, and tortured and how they wished my family was to suffer.
I was never scared of those who were writing, because they obviously had much bigger problems. Anyone writing such things was seriously hurting inside. However, sometimes when I would receive 80 comments in a day and about 90% of them would be very negative, I started to have problems with my heart. My heart would literally flutter, because of all the stress and anxiety (and yes, I have had my heart checked and it's fine, so it was really stress-related). It was so not worth the trouble.
I stopped blogging publicly for a few years just to avoid the anxiety the overly negative feedback was giving me. I know I much rather leave those inflammable subjects to those with stronger minds and hearts. Mine remains too open and fragile to handle such negativity.
Looking back, this experience was incredibly tough for me, but it taught me a lot, too. It did not only thicken my skin and teach me about a lot how other people express their suffering, but I now understand much better the importance of choosing words and expressions. I have an instinct about what is something that might piss some people off easily. I know better now where to cross the line and when it's better to hold back. I know how to still get my message across without stepping onto too many toes.
In the end this harsh process of being so unapologetically ripped to pieces turned me into a more skillful editor. And as it turns, I have even gotten to the point where I can say I'm grateful I had to go through it to learn this lesson, as nothing else could've prepared me to be a much more diplomatic writer in such short time.
Back then I would write about anything: what we did that day, how it was to be pregnant in the Netherlands, later how it was to have a kid in the Netherlands, but most of all I wrote about society and politics. Soon enough I realized this was turning out to be a hard lesson for me.
I have always been open to foreign cultures and really curious about them as well. I think there is good in every culture and in every human being. This means I have always been with open arms what comes to people seeking refuge and migrating to the country where I reside. Writing about this though, lead a lot of people come to my blog and tell me some pretty horrible things. Unfortunately those weren't just some minor things, but those were seriously disgusting things of how they wished I were to die, and tortured and how they wished my family was to suffer.
I was never scared of those who were writing, because they obviously had much bigger problems. Anyone writing such things was seriously hurting inside. However, sometimes when I would receive 80 comments in a day and about 90% of them would be very negative, I started to have problems with my heart. My heart would literally flutter, because of all the stress and anxiety (and yes, I have had my heart checked and it's fine, so it was really stress-related). It was so not worth the trouble.
I stopped blogging publicly for a few years just to avoid the anxiety the overly negative feedback was giving me. I know I much rather leave those inflammable subjects to those with stronger minds and hearts. Mine remains too open and fragile to handle such negativity.
Looking back, this experience was incredibly tough for me, but it taught me a lot, too. It did not only thicken my skin and teach me about a lot how other people express their suffering, but I now understand much better the importance of choosing words and expressions. I have an instinct about what is something that might piss some people off easily. I know better now where to cross the line and when it's better to hold back. I know how to still get my message across without stepping onto too many toes.
In the end this harsh process of being so unapologetically ripped to pieces turned me into a more skillful editor. And as it turns, I have even gotten to the point where I can say I'm grateful I had to go through it to learn this lesson, as nothing else could've prepared me to be a much more diplomatic writer in such short time.
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