For many years, I tried hard to pretend what happened to me (and others) couldn't have... that maybe I was taking it too hard, that maybe it was sour grapes, or whatever. Anything else but blatant abuse. The nightmares never stopped though, and when I finally sought professional help, it was all too clear, and could not be denied any more. When I was married, I had told my husband Paul about it, and I won't ever forget the horrified look on his face when I explained rings, GM's and VR's. We didn't call them haircuts anymore, they were 'verbal reprimands'. A sad attempt to neaten up an ugly thing I suppose, or as Montigraph put it, spraypainting a turd?
I didn't have a facebook when I found fornits, so I had begun reading here. I read for several months before I plucked up the courage to introduce myself and such, and almost immediately, the crap began from certain people. I had chatted a few times with Ursus through threads, and felt like maybe I had found the right place to begin talking about my experiences. Like you said though, lots of truly nasty people would inbox me telling me things like suck it up, grow up, I was just being a little brat, I was a failure at Elan because I didn't try hard enough, and the like. At first, I ignored them, but than Paul and I decided the abuse was not worth it, and it was in fact just adding to the damage. When he deployed to Iraq, I posted only a couple more times but the same things were happening, only now I did not have my husband to cry to, so just deleted my posts and stopped coming. It was not worth it to me to post and than deal with the onslaught of bullshit. Seemed sort of like asking for grief by writing here.
When I made a Facebook, I started looking up other people I knew from Elan. I didn't find many, so I kind of stopped looking. After awhile, I looked again but found a couple of different groups about Elan. I spent a few weeks reading there and writing back and forth with other people even though they were not from my time there. Some were much older, some much younger and a few in between. Jeff W has been instrumental in me finding courage to come back here, but that is basically what the huge lapse in my posting here was about. Also, in between that time frame, my Husband was killed, and I was inconsolable for a long time.
Things these days are a little better, so I figured that I'd come back and hopefully begin or contribute to some discussions going on. I hope to be able to do so, either offer support, or find it which is what I wanted all along.
Going on what your last reply said, I can definitely understand now why you would be so incredibly wary. I will be more than sure to keep an eye out for those names and stay as far away from them as I can. I won't be bullied again into retracting anything I have to say, because I have learned that if my input is valuable to even one person, it is easy enough to just ignore the garbage.
I have seen some people face incredible adversity in trying to unload emotionally about Elan, I have had just a taste of it between fornits and facebook. Seems like you have had heaps, and it is incredibly unfair. I will never understand the mindsets some people have and why they choose to perpetuate the abuse, and in some ways, I am glad I don't. It is the definitive line between myself and them. There was a discussion on one of the facebook groups (I forget which one at the moment) and there was a woman there who turned out to be a staffer (can't recall off hand if she was former or current) who was being SUCH a bitch to anyone who posted anything remotely anti-Elan. It made my blood boil and if I coulda reached through the screen and slapped her, I'd have loved to. :blabla:
Sorry things got off to a rough start between us, but do let's move forward and work together. :peace:
Jae :shamrock:
