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How come Karen’s apology ends up calling Daisy and me bullies?
Daisy and I never said one single mean word to Patsy. Not one. Patsy never mentioned either of us except to say I (among others) was comfortable sharing.
So, use whatever yardstick suits you Karen but I didn’t see anything mean that was said to her at all.
Yes, I stuck up for you and Diane because I did not think you or Diane said anything mean. I do not think you and Diane were attacking her.
I said that to Patsy very nicely.
Yeah,
And everything I said was nice, too.
Right up until I said she was a man.
And damned if I wasn’t right, so I’d guess I’d better find something nice about that, too.
🙂
Just to clarify, the issue of Patsy possibly being transgender is not an issue for me in any way. If someone undergoes gender reassignment and becomes a woman and has the pain of living with a sex addict, as far as I’m concerned, she is a woman who has the pain of sex addiction in her life. If being a transgender woman means that they are not welcome on this site, that should be clearly stated.I don’t have broad experience with this, but I do have one transgender acquaintance and it wouldn’t even occur to her that she is not welcome in a place where women are welcome. She would need to be told that, because in her mind, she is all woman, and in mine, too.
I’m going to do just what Courtney asked not to! Apologies Courtney! You can say I told you so if this doesn’t go well.
I don’t think she called you a bully, Bev. She hates bullies and I know she adores you. I think she sees you and Daisy as more plain spoken is all she is saying as opposed to the more vulnerable sisters. That’s how I read it.
Oh come on, the she’s a man was not “she’s not welcome”.
It was “no woman would do that”. Period. JoAnn said something was weird, and that, to me was the one thing that was not shared openly, and clearly explained (to me) how this got where it did. Call that being biased, but testerone is a key hormone in aggression. You can run, take pills, get boobs, but you can’t hide. XY is permanent. How many men in abusive situations get Stockholm syndrome? Men come out swinging. That’s what Patsy did.
I didn’t even say it was bad. Just said it was the answer JoAnn was looking for. It wasn’t spoken to Patsy, either. She jumped into that one and claimed it. Patsy is the one who responded that being called a man was awful, the worst thing ever.
If you want to draw other conclusions, so be it. I was answering JoAnn’s direct request for our thoughts on the matter. It was not a judgement on Patsy’s sexual orientation in any way. I don’t care about that, if you’re good to your partner I don’t care if you love kangaroos. I have never cared.
But, if you come at me or mine, you will see me care.
LOL Teri! I was going to go against my own advice and do exactly the same thing:) NO WAY Karen called either one of them bullies or would ever imply that.
1. Because you’re not and
2. Because she adores youThis is not aimed at anyone in particular at all, except maybe Diane whose voice I always look forward to…but where is Diane to come in with a post that is transcendent?
I love you too Courtney and I feel a bit sick myself? I don’t think for one instant that Patsy was fake or transgender ( and what do I care if she is?) and I feel sick about her being out there thinking she was gang banged and abandoned because I didn’t intend to abandon her , no matter how direct I may have been….and now Diane ( who has never backed off no matter how rough it got ) has been really hurt and i do feel responsible for both of them. I am an open, honest kind of girl. I know that my opinions are sometimes too strong (even if they are correct- a certain amount of finesses is required?) I also know , I get many things wrong. i am not overly invested in winning and I would rather admit my fault than make a big deal out of someone that was hurt and alone. I don’t even know where Patsy is in all of this because I am not very technical and I don’t know if she can post or not??? 🙁 I have a feeling she was lost before I even got to read the thread and I am really sorry for that. If she was wacko…it would have come out eventually and worked out. I feel like I short circuited her…maybe because she decided to deposit ALL the rage she felt at him saying such terrible stuff to her so recently, here. But I could have easily borne that and she could have gotten support she needed. I wish I had been softer, in the end. I will probably do the same thing again BUT I HATE it when someone leaves and I feel especially bad that this was probably initiated by me. 🙁 I think I will just shut up and go to bed. Patsy…if you can still read…don’t quit over me? That would be foolish on your part. I am only one spoke in a big wheel of wisdom and experience that u can benefit from. karen xx
Now I KNOW we are in the twilight zone today!!! Im also going to NOT take Courtneys good advice 🙂 Bev, Im certain all Karen was saying is that you have her back, you understand where she is coming from, so if she thinks she may have gone to far, she isnt going to look at you to point it out.
HUGS!Karen–you CANNOT take the blame for this. You were trying to help.
I agree with everything you said, except the bullshit of any of this being your fault. I truly feel something odd was in the air today.Patsy didn’t quit over Karen, she made it really clear it was a “clique” problem. That is a group thing. Karen is certainly not at fault. Nor Diane. Patsy just wanted her statements about them to be the end of the discussion, and it wasn’t. That was not okay with Patsy. Patsy didn’t like a lot of things. It wasn’t just Karen, Diane, or any one person.
I don’t think anyone should be beaten up over this. I’ve come out swinging when I haven’t liked advice not perhaps to the degree that Patsy has but I might have been in a better place as I was further from D Day. I know the intention is always good but sometimes the delivery can sting and that is not anyone’s fault. I have apologised for lashing out even though I still believed a post was just too brutal. However, on balance I believe we are trying to do is communicate our thoughts and feelings without the advantage of facial expression, gestures and voice. Karen (just as an example) had she had the advantage of being with Patsy would probably have been holding her hand while she was saying those things to her. How different things might have been had that been the case.
I feel desperately sorry for Patsy. I look back 4 years ago and I remember I begged my husband to take me to the doctor to get an injection to make me sleep through the hell. I pleaded with him to take me to a psychiatric hospital. I have never felt a range of emotions so extreme as that time.
There is another woman in a foreign country alone and suffering unimaginable pain. Well it is not unimaginable for us but you know what I mean. How can we ignore that because in her grief and anger she lashed back at us? We are all bigger than that.Yeah, Karen. It was not you.
I really don’t know what it was about, but many people tried hard to show her support and empathy, and she just wouldn’t stop. She was like narc mom trying to get her kid over at my house on Saturday night.
Jesus Bev…what are you saying?? This is getting way out of hand and we are no longer hearing each other? I did not call you or Daisy a bully. Why would I ???? I adore Daisy and you and you should know that??? Its just that you and me sort of talk from the same ballpark…not always ( u have better diplomacy than me?) but in the general approach we are similar? I said what I said because I do TRY to be objective…I KNOW that I can get carried away in my opinion and my anger…especially when a woman is being hurt? I know i don’t always come across as well-meaning…even though most of the time I AM very well meaning? So sometimes, I do try to let the gentler, quieter sisters interpret me and I try to pay attention to what they say? I can ALWAYS relate to you and Daisy so I try to make sure I listen to ALL positions…even the ones I would not normally assume as my own. You and daisy are actually much better at this than I am….and hence you are both well loved and well respected. I am probably a bit
too direct for many people’s taste and I rub people wrong. I am fully aware that I am in a group environment and I accept the opinion of the group too. I was absolutely NOT pointing ANY fingers at you or my beloved Daisy…why would I??? I mean really Bev…why would I?? The answer is I wouldn’t. I would argue with you, I would disagree with you…I might even criticize you….BUT…i would NEVER accuse you of negative attributes because I don’t think you really have any? Someone else might think you are too much this or that……but not me. It is just one of those misunderstandings that occur with the written post and a high stress whatever. I love you Bev. I don’t even have to repeat that to Daisy because she already knows it. Sorry, you got caught up in all of this. You did nothing. Its my fault. Love, karen xxIt’s okay and I have had a stressful day anyway. It’s me being overly sensitive….
No worries and I hate the whole thing too. I still don’t think you said anything wrong and I certainly don’t think Diane did.
Karen it is not your fault either. FUCK. Let’s get our red panties on and have a drink otherwise SA is the winner.
UGH–please please Karen, this isnt your fault! And all of these misunderstandings are just horrible! Can we chalk this up to a bad day of cyber miscommunication?
I did order new red panties from Amazon and a package came today….maybe I should go see what it is and it may be the red panties ( hope they fit).
I already popped a top ( redneck/southern slang for drinking a beer).
🙂
Yeah…I agree with you Cat. I don’t like her approach to Diane but I feel sick at the idea of her isolated in Shanghai….. I wish to God now , i would have worded it all differently. It is not that my opinion is different …NOT at all…but it hardly seems worth all the chaos that has occurred and now she is out there and half our forum is upset and triggered. I should have kept my big mouth shut…it isn’t enough to be right…sometimes it is better to be quiet or at least gentle or maybe even silent.
Catherine, I responded to her posts, kindly and with honesty. I did not ignore her. Nobody who responded ignored her. Not the women in this thread.
Lynn is absolutely correct. This was not a problem Patsy had with Karen or with Diane. It was a problem with the group as a whole. If you go back and read carefully through the threads you will see that she disliked virtually everything anyone ever said here except for a very select few. My read is that she wanted to post whatever she wanted and did not want any advice or comments. Just a very generalized pity party. As we have said over and over, if you post here, you have to expect responses and you don’t get to dictate what those responses are. That is what she wanted to do.
I think it’s pretty clear that the transgender issue is NOT an issue for this group. It wasn’t that she is or is not transgender, the issue is whether she was deceitful about who or where she is. JoAnn has protected us from infiltration before and it obviously remains a necessity that she continue to do that. None of us want a man posting in our safe place! The use of the C word is a problem for many of us. It is a word that men use as a degrading, derogatory word against us. It is triggering. It is not a word that is ever used lightly here. It is necessary for all of us to be mindful of what is triggering or hurtful to the other sisters and most of the time we do a great job with that. One mention and it stops. I took down a video I rashly posted today as soon as Lynn told me it was a problem. That’s what we do here, we take care of each other.
That is exactly what I tried to express to Patsy and either I didn’t say it well or she just didn’t want to hear it. We’ve ALL been the new Sister. We’ve ALL struggled with fitting into the group dynamic and finding our voice here. Not one other Sister ever treated the collective Sisterhood as badly as Patsy did. Being new is not an excuse. Not at all. So many of us tried to ease her suffering, tried to help her, tried to give her comfort and she turned on us all. I wish her well. I hope she finds some help but I can not tolerate anyone abusing the privilege of being part of this group that isn’t just a group to me. You are my family. You are my lifeline.
Sorry, Karen, no more self-flagellation on your birthday. It’s all going to be just fine. We’ve all been through much worse. We all live and learn.
I still cringe every time Courtney tells her story about me telling her “are you listening to yourself”. I know she thanks me when she tells it, but I also feel like I should have been more gentle. Like so many people said today, none of us our therapists. We are walking wounded trying to help each other out.
Cut yourself some slack.
Do not worry about me girls. I can dish it out and I can lap it up. As mush as I am quite opinionated and direct…I am not very invested in being right or “winning”. I fucked up here…not intentionally…not at all. It is just one of those things that today is the day I have not been on as much as I might be. I could have eaten crow for Patsy…it would not have cost me much and it might have been enough to calm her down? Unfortunately, I just didn’t read it and my lack of response may have lit more of a fuel under her…. so she lashed out elsewhere. Now she had probably left us…and she needed us. I feel very bad and like I could have been so much more graceful…..but I don’t know how to undo it if she is not with us anymore. For what it is worth, I don’t think she was a plant or a fake or a transgender and i have called my H the C word many times…not recently and not other women but definitely him. It was the worst word I could think of so I used it. I am sure Patsy was the same.
I’m not suggesting that anyone ignored her or was not kind to her. It is her interpretation of it all but I believe we should put ourselves in her shoes. She needs help. Maybe all the help she needs at the moment is for us all to say ‘Fuck that he is horrible and you are lovely and you don’t deserve it.’
Help can come in many forms. It doesn’t always have to be a solution to her problems rather it might just mean acknowledging them and understanding her pain. It might be a long time before she is ready for advice and there is nothing wrong with that. We are Sisterhood of Support not Sisterhood of Solutions.
I said in a previous post that I am as guilty as anyone. My solution was for her to get out of China. I ignored what she had told us previously about her financial situation. I shouldn’t have done that, me of all people because I won’t even get out of my marriage. It was posted with the very best of intentions just as everyone else had the best of intentions but we could see that the advice was not taken well and she was hurting badly. Yes I still think she should leave but she can’t at the moment for her own reasons and she told us that. I should have apologised to her because I (unintentionally) added to her grief and distress. I should have offered some ways to help her stay sane while she sorts through this mess like sticking the Mont Blanc pen in his eye.
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