I haven't written in awhile, and those of you who know me best know I've been through a really rough time with my depression recently.  Ana has been wonderful -- and so have most of you -- and so I know I'll recover.  Ana wrote a typically exquisite and beautiful note of gratitude on her Beliefnet page.

 

Alas, I write today not to praise Caesar but to bury him.  So this entry will NOT be addressed to the 98.6% of you who have been amazingly, remarkably supportive.  And it will be a bit dark, befitting my current mood.

 

When one asks for support on Beliefnet -- a community where, no matter how well we know each other, we are still just abstractions on a computer screen unless we meet like Ana and I did -- one must acknowledge the reality that not all members will wish you the best. 

 

Some, in fact, will not only wish you the worst but actively try to foment it.

 

Ana's son, in the style (completely inexplicably to my mind) of most teen-agers, loves hip-hop music.  (Lil Wayne is his favorite ... ay yi yi.)  Anyway, besides "gangstas" and "hos" and "b*tches," one of the favorite epithets noted in hip-hop songs is "haters."  Those who will try to tear you down because they would rather do that than build themselves (let alone others) up. 

 

So with that in mind, let me write a short guide to the "Three Kinds of Haters" you may find on Beliefnet when you ask for help and don't (albeit only in rare instances) get what you hope for.

 

Type 1, the type that doesn't know any better, could be seen on my homepage until the Beliefnet moderators struck her comment down.  She is someone whose username expresses her complete devotion to G-d -- only her vocal and emphatic insistence on my being "100% crazy" in her comment (along with an incredibly snide graphic that all but said "eff-you") actually makes her the best argument for atheism this side of Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins. 

 

Really, when the problem is ignorance, all you can do is try to let the insult go and, perhaps, if you have the grace, use it as a teaching moment.  I told her that I hoped that I hoped her G-d could teach her to have a bit more compassion for those with chronic illness.  (At least, until she had my perfectly innocent response struck down as well, which tells you all about her "holiness.")

 

Type 2 is the "they should know better but they don't" type.  In the middle of my current crisis -- which I related in poignant, sometimes minute-by-minute detail on the Beyond Blue social networking group -- someone I'll call "M." took it upon themselves to take the cries of agony I related at my worst and dumb them (and thus me) down into dime-store proverbs. 

 

I can only conclude that the person thought, because I am normally, well, normal -- someone one would never guess had bipolar disorder IRL, in fact -- that I couldn't possibly be making existential cries for help out of true mental illness, but rather as some sort of joke.

 

Therefore such writings, the person concluded, were worthy of vicious satire in turn.

 

I enjoy satire and sarcasm as well as anyone (as Doxieman Blog readers well know) but not when it is done out of pure cruelty and malice rather than citing the follies of humanity from which we all suffer.

 

The sad part is, I truly considered this person -- who I met on Beyond Blue, and who represents themselves as having depression -- a friend.  No more.  If they cannot have empathy for others with the same disease, I have to assert my own boundaries for my own emotional safety.

 

Still, "M." has nothing on Type 3, which I will call "Iago" after the infamous conniver in Shakespeare's Othello. 

 

The person who indeed knows better, and that is EXACTLY why they plot and scheme and try to destroy.

 

"C." is someone who has been a member of Beliefnet longer than I have, and almost as long as Ana has.  "C." floats back and forth between heavy involvement and retreat from Beliefnet, at least as an active poster.

 

But this person is always lurking in the shadows.

 

"C." and I were friends for awhile, joshing about our mutual love of Barack Obama, when "C." did something which has happened to me on far too many occasions on Beliefnet -- using a Bnet e-mail account to send me extended, explosive, and manic tirades about what a horrible and evil person I am.

 

(Yes, I have manic depression too, but please spare me the excuse that the person didn't know what they were doing so they should be forgiven.  Besides the fact that anyone, even someone with bipolar disorder, has to take responsibility for their his or her actions ... well, even if you are in blind rage from mania you still have to decide BEFOREHAND who you are going to target your rage at.)

 

Fortunately for me, in most cases, people who have maniacally attacked me using Beliefnet have realized the error of their ways (eventually) and -- after often using some very personal, biting, and downright cruel words to intentionally hurt -- slinked away.  They will never be my friends again, but they have never flamed me again, either.

 

"C." will not slink away.

 

Oh, on the surface "C." did.  But "C." did something quite devious instead.  This person lurked (still lurks) in READING Beyond Blue posts, though not writing on the group.

 

Then, like Iago did with Othello to make him fatally jealous of Desdemona, "C." has been e-mailing people behind the scenes about controversial and thus potentially hurtful things said on Beyond Blue, with a note (indeed, often a mere hint, like Shakespeare's great villain with Desdemona's scarf), "That must have been said about you."

 

In other words, "C." is trying to set Beyond Blue members against each other using their own words.  Killing with kindness -- just like Iago -- all the way.

 

I've had enough experiences with Iago types -- particularly "R.," who many longtime Doxieman Blog readers know as the man who tortured me (or, to be fair, I let torture me) suicidally for two decades -- to recognize them. 

 

But I fear my fellow Beyond Blue members are willing to give one of their own with sociopathic tendencies the benefit of the doubt, because in our journeys from depression, we must learn to become more trusting and let down our guards. 

 

Not too much, though, or we lose our healthy psychological boundaries as well.

 

I don't think "C." -- or anyone like "C.", since no doubt there are other such types lurking in other areas of Beliefnet -- could even explain what motivates them (which is a hallmark of sociopathy).  To quote Iago himself, when asked after the fact why he plotted so horribly against Othello:

 

 

Pray that "C." never speaks word again in the way they have for many, many months now.  But somehow, I doubt that will happen.