I may regret wading in here, but I’m going to do it anyway. I hope that what I write will make some sense. I do not consider you my enemy, nor do I consider you my friend. I barely know you, Danna. However, I have watched this exchange, read the archives, and formed opinions.

I felt your statement regarding your diatribe against the Tabu writer, “Yes, I struck out, but it was like striking out at the universe to me. Not a friend,” was very telling. It echos your statement in the previous paragraph, “Yes, I was the first to attack. I wrote a very mean response to an anonymous person. A person without a name.”

From my reading of this, you seem to think that a mean attack (your words) on an anonymous person is somehow a lesser crime than attacking a friend. You are clearly upset that people who you thought were friends have attacked you. As you state, “I was attacked by writers who I thought were ‘friends.’ And if I wasn’t directly attacked by some, I was unfollowed or blocked. Or I could see that they ‘recommended’ the hurtful responses to me.”

I hope you will stop and think for a minute about this: Behind every anonymous name is a real person with a life journey you know nothing about. They may be cloaked behind a pseudonym for many reasons. Their life story might be too traumatic for them to share under their legal name. They might fear real life repercussions from sharing their stories and inmost thoughts. However, they are real, and they feel pain every bit as much as you or I.

You may believe that you treat anonymous people differently than you treat your friends, and you may even believe that this is OK. But, has it occurred to you that your friends might believe that all people should be treated with equal respect? Is it so hard for you to imagine that your friends, seeing your behavior toward anyone, anonymous or not, might infer that one day you will behave that way toward them?

You claim, “What is really troubling to me are the emails I received from H. Nemesis Nyx and Alexainie, who claimed they were my friends. They blocked me. I was told it was because if I could write something so horrible to this writer, then they did not trust my sensibilities (my word). They did not trust that I would not take the personal things they told me and hurt them with my knowledge. I understand those words, but I do not understand the logic.”

Is that logic really so hard to understand? I understand it completely. Friendship is built on trust. By attacking a woman who was attempting to demystify an emotionally-loaded, under-explained experience to help others, you lost the trust of many. People share their deep shit here. They need to feel safe. You showed your fangs, and they shut you off.

Ironically, you seem to continue to feel justified in having attacked the Tabu writer for what she wrote, but you continue to be upset that you were attacked for what you wrote.

Painful, isn’t it. Call it Karma. Maybe it will help you appreciate how the Tabu writer might have felt.

I am not blocking you. I save blocking for people who are repeatedly rude, ranting, off-topic or just creep me out.

Edited to reflect Danna Colman’s correction re Tabú seen in the comment section.