Treve wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2019 7:55 am
Ridan_Remembered wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2019 6:27 am
Flanders wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2019 5:31 am
Maybe AP can sense evil?
Why does everything in our time have to be...you don't agree with me politically, so you're evil? I have my political opinions too, but prefer to keep them out of a horse racing forum I enjoy. Here, for me it's about the horses. That's it. Can we keep it that way?
But do your political opinions include torturing teenagers until they are traumatized enough to deprive themselves of human love and intimacy? Do your political opinions include saying an entire group of humans deserve to die and burn in hell just for existing? Because let me tell you as someone who is gay, just the notion of homophobia has imprinted me in such a way that now as a late 20-something adult I am unable to express any kind of physical affection love or intimacy. And studies show that is actually detrimental to human health. I'm socially handicapped, I've got the spontaneity beaten out of me - I will probably die alone because now just the thought of being intimate with someone gives me irrepressible anxiety for multiple reasons. And that's just due to the fear of being persecuted because my actions would've been misinterpreted. I can only imagine what those who have gone through conversion therapy must feel and be like. I have friends who are definitely very conservative and I am not, I'm capable of respecting them and their opinions even when I disagree with them. But their opinions don't actually include killing and torturing other people.
And notice you're the only one who is making it political and making a big deal of it. Everyone else was just joking around.
Whew, there's a lot to unpack but let's just burn the whole suitcase!
@Flanders, that's the problem with reading things in a flat medium like this. Discerning nuance and meaning can be very difficult. I didn't get that your comment about AP sensing evil was a joke. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
@Treve, you have me at a disadvantage because I could not respond immediately to your post above. I'm genuinely sorry for your pain and wish you only the best in finding joy, love and peace. As gently and kindly as possible, I would add two things. First, my response to Flanders was the opposite of political. It was a plea to keep politics out of this forum, at least out of the horsey parts of it. You see, you are not the only person who has experienced pain and trauma in their childhood. I sure did, thanks to an alcoholic mother who abandoned me when I was about 10 months old. I was passed from one relative and stranger to another until I was old enough to be warehoused in a working class Catholic boarding school. There I stayed 12 years until graduation from high school. I also was unloved and emotionally abused all those growing up years. Although my father kept custody of me, he was already 46 when I was born and was ill-equipped to raise a girl. So I would see him on weekends and holidays. That's it. Yet he was everything to me as a child. The nuns, on the other hand, were cold and abusive. When I was maybe 9 or 10, one of them said something so deeply cruel to me that it has stuck with me my whole life. She said I didn't deserve the father I had. How could she say something so cutting to a child who, in practical terms, was raised as an orphan?
But you see, Treve, being forced to basically fend for myself my whole life taught me a few things. For one, there are some 7.5 billion people on this planet today, and who knows how many more lived throughout history, and who will be born in the future. Every single one of those people will have pain and trauma of some kind in their lives. Every one. Even the elite can't escape. So I learned to make my way in life with head held high, facing the world with kindness and humor that might or might never be returned, but which gives my life value. The answer to a happy life is inside us, not out there in a world filled with people who have their own issues.
So circling back to what started this conversation, I once again request that we keep politics out of these horsey threads. Horses -- animals, really -- are my refuge. I hope yours too.
I guess I have my answer.
