Fear and hurt

I am reading through my social media site (not FaceBook, but similar) while Live’s ‘OK’ is playing in the back ground.

I am not OK

The discussion, not surprisingly, is still about the awful things that happened recently. Mass shooting in ‘Pulse’. Devastatingly familiar arguments about guns.

with this TV in my face

“When someone breaks into my home…”

“Criminals aren’t stopped by laws…”

“If there had been just one person with a gun there…”

and liar after liar with nothin’ bout nothin’ higher

“I can’t believe anyone still thinks 49 people died”

I am on the outside

“It’s a hoax, look it up”

peerin’ in to your world

“No, the government hired crisis actors to make you believe this shit. Why do you keep believing the media?”

and all the boys and girls are singin’ save me

“I live around there. I’ve talked to people who know the kids after they got relocated after that supposed shooting. Sandy Hook mass shooting wasn’t real.”

save me from the one who only rapes me

I stare at my screen in shock. The Pulse shooting that left 49 people dead, the Sandy Hooks shooting that left 20 children dead, are said not to have happened at all. Just flat out denied.

take away my tv

I am stunned, because I have talked to this woman. This sort of conspiracy theory stuff isn’t something I would expect of her. She is the one raging against the xenophobia. She is the one volunteering at the refugee shelter. She is the one posting pictures at music festivals, hanging out with the queer crowd.

don’t want your fuckin’ recipe

Something tells me I should be getting angry at this. But I am mostly confused. People believe this sort of thing? I reach for Google. I pull up an article about a pulse survivor getting harassed. Because she is an intern at Fox. That’s proof she is something called a crisis actor.

It’s all decay, decay, decay

Fox? Isn’t that a network for viewers who are mostly pro-guns? Why would they be involved in some crazy hoax to take away gun ownership?

not today, today, today

I scroll down without a comment. A different conversation comes up. A horrible accident. A little baby boy got attacked by an alligator at a resort.

take away my tv

“Where were the parents?”

don’t want your fuckin’ therapy

“They should not have let the kid play there. There were “no swimming” signs”

It’s all decay, decay, decay

“I’m just saying, I would never let my kids get that close to the water when there could be alligators”

Not today

I know this lady. She has a newborn. I click the tab closed.

Not today!

I can’t get mad. I want to get angry about the comments I read. I would like to rage. Raving and ranting would probably make me feel better. Like I got it off my chest. Instead I feel just incredibly sad. I can not read malice in those posts. I can not read ignorance. What I read, is fear. A near debilitating fear.

One woman, who can see the good in any person, just can not deal with the thought this might happen. And so to deal, she has become convinced the bad thing just didn’t happen. That it was a play. Make believe. If she were to accept it to be real, that means she or someone she loves would run the same risk.

The other woman, still in the fear that comes with having a newborn, can not accept that what happened was an unfortunate set of circumstances. She has to blame the parents. It would never happen to her child, because she is not a bad parent. As long as she can think the parents were bad parents and did their child wrong, she can deny her child runs the same risk.

I’ve been thinking about denial a lot lately. And I’m suddenly seeing the damage it does to people and to communities everywhere. I don’t want to judge the people stuck in denial. I have been stuck there myself for too long. I’m trying to struggle my way out.

I don’t know what tools there are to combat denial. I have a feeling anger won’t do it.