This post came to me over the last few days. On my birthday I had a horrid thing at work. I can’t tell you all about it but in short I had to defend a child from some people who were trying to attack him. I had to stand in front of the child and face down two people who were shaking with fury. They tried to grab the child, and several times it seemed that a punch was going to be thrown. Each time I had to be prepared to be the one in front of the child. I was, and I managed to talk the people down, and look after the child.
But I am a girl and I am five foot four. I was terrified. I am good at verbal sparring, but fists are not so much my thing.

But still, I would endure that trauma because without my getting involved something awful would have happened.

But what about the trauma we go through even though it doesn’t help anyone at all?

What about the trauma we choose to endure?

I do spend some time each day twirling around the internet. Not hours and hours but enough time to see what I need to, and more than I need to.

I don’t want censorship of the internet. I have listened to silly debates about how every part of the internet should be safe for children, and laughed. It should not be all safe for children*, it should not be all safe for work.

*I am not saying children should be harmed – you get that, don’t you? I just meant that some things should be grown up things.

For the blit, I look on the internet and spend time finding nice pictures, and then I spend an awful lot of time gasping and jumping past scary pictures. I know a lot more now about things that people can do sexually than I did a few months ago, and not one of these bits of knowledge has enriched my life. Sometimes when I see some of these pictures I feel a bit upset. I worry that this is what I am now, that I belong in their world with all their activities that make me terrified.

But then far worse than this for me is looking at blogs when they go a bit crazy. And it is not their fault – it is all down to me.
Not one person has ever grabbed me through my screen and said, “Come and look here or we will hurt your dogs!” But still I do it. I read the trauma, the nastiness, and the unkind bile that a very few blogs churn out. I am not talking about sexually explicit blogs, I am talking about the rage and unhappiness blogs where people say unkind things about one another.

I read the drama because I gasp, and to my horror I love it. I can’t stop looking. I read about unhappy people and unhappy relationships that will never be resolved. It is not the same as someone who has a rough time for a while. We all have a rough time sometimes. We suffer and recover, and such is the pattern of life. So I am not talking about brief suffering, I am talking about blogs that relish pain and misery.

Have you ever read a ‘misery lit’ autobiography? There have been a rash of these in the past few years. I read two and then realised that these were not going to elighten me, they were not going to help me understand the world any better, or make me able to have any impact on suffering. They were simply going to immerse me in pain for a while. Far better to read something like “The Railway Man“ by Eric Lomax, a harrowing but matter of fact account of a man who was a prisoner of the Japanese in World War Two. He describes his ordeal in the staccato phrasing of a soldier who has had to endure too much, and his approach to what happened to him, and how he learned to adapt to the existence of his tormentors years afterwards is a humbling read.
I have to learn that. I have to remember how if I want trauma I should pick up a decent book and read something with a bit of meat to it. It is absolutely my fault and no one else’s if I waste my time and mental energy on the kind of drama and people I would run from if they appeared in my real life.

Himself tells me very sternly never to get involved, and I do not. But I do read.

Then I realised that he may have a point. What am I drip, drip, dripping into my head? What message am I sending to myself?

I used to find it very hard when Himself would limit my reading of such sites. I felt it was a kind of oppression because I take my reading very seriously indeed, but I am starting to realise how much misery-blog reading costs me and how much I would rather read anything else, like this book I just finished which I loved, despite its rather dark content.

I think I also should point out I like happy books that uplift me, like this one.

I am going to have to write a post about books that I love one day, aren’t I?

I like to read often happy people, thoughtful people, outgoing people, people who spank, people who get spanked. I like thoughtful people, considerate people, and polite people. I love to read people who are in love or are aware of what love means to them. I like to read in places where I may be safe, that are run by people who keep calm and let me relax and feel a bit submissive if I want to. I don’t want to have to stand up for myself with all this. That is so important for me. I don’t want to force myself to toughen up and be hard in all this.

That was how I found Himself. He kept me safe. He came to get me from somewhere else and kept me safe. He did not even know me and he saw me having a hard time. He made it so that I did not have to fight or be awful. I love him for that.

I got the picture at the top of this post from this site here. I like that site, even though it is a bit pop-philosophy. That is ok. There are lots of wonderful places to go, just as there are places to avoid.

And to clarify, it is all my fault when I go to a site that is not good for me. People should write what they want and say what they want and I should develop the skill of clicking away. Except Himself is getting horrid strict about all this and I have less choice in the matter than I used to.

What about you? Are you insensitive to what you see on the internet? Does it have an impact on you? How do you stay away from the places that do not help you?
Have you found places that give you what you need? What do you need?

I am leaving this post up for a couple of days because it matters to me.

Would you like another?