I’m posting this because it’s bothering the hell out of me.
I lost a friend because he felt that I didn’t give enough time to his
issues and the issues that were foremost in his life, and so I was
garbage. Nothing I said would change the fact that I put mental health
and advocacy for medical change and service dogs above other very, very
important issues and that made me ‘the bad guy’.The thing is…
just because I am not rallying and organizing marches and everything
else that goes with being an advocate for an issue, that does not mean I
don’t care for it. It does not mean that I don’t contribute in other
ways, less visible but still important.To quote Ever After: "I
used to think that if I cared about anything, I would have to care
about everything, and I’ll go stark raving mad.“ And oh how I have felt
that way, trying to fit in all the rallies, keep atop of every single
protest and every issue that was and is important. Until I finally just
shut down and didn’t do anything at all.So… if you see me
posting about mental illness, mental medical care, and education on
service dogs, it’s because that is where I can best help this world in
being a better place. I am still an ally to other causes, and I offer
what help I can, but this here, this is the place that I make my stand
to say “we need to make this right”. This is where I rally and do
endless educational posts, and work to make things better, because this
is where I can do the most good.I know it’s hard to hear that. I
know many will read this as me saying i don’t support other causes
(which is not true). It is just… this is the limits of my brainpower,
my health abilities and my education. This is where I can do the most
good.i think you and your friend just had some miscommunication issues and if you had talked out the other things going on in your life maybe you could have worked something out because i can understand where his anger is coming from when he feels ignored and i understand how you feel you have other things going on that he doesn’t understand and talking to each other could have made something work 🙂
Talking it out is what caused him to walk away. He wasn’t ignored, he was mad that I was being vocal about worries over mental health care. That’s it. He specifically said he wanted to ‘take me down a peg or two’. We weren’t in a conversation together about anything, he stepped into a conversation about service dogs and my thoughts on them, and started yelling at me that I was choctaw and needed to talk about the pipelines. In a forum about service dogs. In a conversation about service dogs. So no, he wasn’t ignored. He came in to an area about a different issue and got angry that I hadn’t made it about what he felt I should be talking about.
I be he’d get pissy if you were to step into a conversation about the pipeline and started talking about services dogs. It costs zero dollars to stay in your lane.