http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/02/20/two-ships-pt-1/ 35 year old mother of two trying to live with panic disorder and depression without losing her sense of humor. Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:37:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/02/20/two-ships-pt-1/#comment-4055 Lived To Tell » The Ebb and Flow of Communication Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:50:49 +0000 http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/02/20/two-ships-pt-1/#comment-4055 [...] I received my first hate email from this site two days ago. I guess it is to be expected; I have been doing this for about a year now without any. This particular email made me very angry, and I logged out of my email account without responding. I wanted more time to think it over first and to decide if I should respond. This particular person didn’t attack my writing, they attacked my character. When Alex woke up and began to get ready for work I told him about this woman and what she had said about me. Hey broke into a huge grin and said, “Your first hate mail! That’s great. You should create a page on your site just for hate mail and post it there.” His idea was intriguing; I have seen other journals with hate mail and responses that have been quite humorous. It wasn’t the course of action I really wanted to take though. Instead I waited until I had calmed down enough to respond, and I did so with kindness.I did not hear back from her. This got me to thinking about email. My former best friend used to tell me that email gave people false muscles, like alcohol. He was of course commenting on the fact that there were things that I would never have said to him in person that I confided via email. An even more dangerous combination is email or the phone with the addition of alcohol. Obviously I am not the only one who has used a computer screen to hide behind while communicating. I do try, however, to ask myself if I would feel comfortable saying whatever it is I am trying to convey via email directly to the person’s face. [...] […] I received my first hate email from this site two days ago. I guess it is to be expected; I have been doing this for about a year now without any. This particular email made me very angry, and I logged out of my email account without responding. I wanted more time to think it over first and to decide if I should respond. This particular person didn’t attack my writing, they attacked my character. When Alex woke up and began to get ready for work I told him about this woman and what she had said about me. Hey broke into a huge grin and said, “Your first hate mail! That’s great. You should create a page on your site just for hate mail and post it there.” His idea was intriguing; I have seen other journals with hate mail and responses that have been quite humorous. It wasn’t the course of action I really wanted to take though. Instead I waited until I had calmed down enough to respond, and I did so with kindness.I did not hear back from her. This got me to thinking about email. My former best friend used to tell me that email gave people false muscles, like alcohol. He was of course commenting on the fact that there were things that I would never have said to him in person that I confided via email. An even more dangerous combination is email or the phone with the addition of alcohol. Obviously I am not the only one who has used a computer screen to hide behind while communicating. I do try, however, to ask myself if I would feel comfortable saying whatever it is I am trying to convey via email directly to the person’s face. […]

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