S
strngrnrth
Guest
I know Jesus said the slandered are blessed, but He also corrected people who put Him down and lied about Him. I have a question about how to handle slander.
Years ago, when I was a teenager, a mentally disturbed man asked me out and I said no. He started screaming at me that I was a snob and an elitist. I was eating out of garbage cans and hearing this.
I avoided him and went home to a room I was rnting. That night he talked to some of my friends. To avoid him, I went home again. I awoke soon and saw him standing in my room staring at me in a freaked-out fashion. I screamed at him to get out and he eventually did.
Meanwhile, a girl I had had a run-in with in a playgound when I was about twelve (she thought my sis and I were tying to keep her off the slide but we weren’t, we were inviting hr to join us in a game), started scowling at me in school and accusing me of “making fun of people” for being “poorer” than I was. That was as absurd as anything could ever be, because I was poor most of my life and I always sided with pooe people against rich people. Years later, I was in my twenties and had a drunken conversation in a bar after a very traumatic few years in my life and my boyfriend and I were kidding around tastelessly about stupid things. We didn’t know what we were saying. That’s one reason I don’t drink anymore. I don’t like being a moron. Two men in the next booth listened in.
Then these four met and began harassing me together. At frist I didn’t know they were serious. I ignored them. But over the years, they became more and more obsessed. I live where there are a very disproportionally high percentage of mentally ill people and drug abusers and we’re all pretty used to them and don’t let it scare us. But these people wouldn’t go away.
I tried confronting them, living in a way that disproved their absurd and sick accusations, and laughing it off. They broke into my hime and looked through my privat epapers and bragged about it. They gathered other people with no judgment about them and hung out in all the neighborhood hangouts and the corner store screaming ridiculous and sickening accusations at me. One by one, the large group they formed broke up. At least one seems to have committed suicide, I believe. One turned on the others when it finally sank in that they were using him. But damage was done. I can’t do as much good in my community because of this. I have trouble forgiving them though i know they’re mentally impaired. And I’m outraged that things like that happen around here all the time. If I could get them locked up they couldn’t do this to any other innocent people. I’ve lived it all down. But not everyone they attacked ever will. They are dangerous. How far is it OK to go to do soemthing about these impaired people? And is it OK to confront them forcefully? And what consttitutes forgiveness inthis situation? And is it OK that the society where I am is structured to let people do such things to people?
Years ago, when I was a teenager, a mentally disturbed man asked me out and I said no. He started screaming at me that I was a snob and an elitist. I was eating out of garbage cans and hearing this.
I avoided him and went home to a room I was rnting. That night he talked to some of my friends. To avoid him, I went home again. I awoke soon and saw him standing in my room staring at me in a freaked-out fashion. I screamed at him to get out and he eventually did.Meanwhile, a girl I had had a run-in with in a playgound when I was about twelve (she thought my sis and I were tying to keep her off the slide but we weren’t, we were inviting hr to join us in a game), started scowling at me in school and accusing me of “making fun of people” for being “poorer” than I was. That was as absurd as anything could ever be, because I was poor most of my life and I always sided with pooe people against rich people. Years later, I was in my twenties and had a drunken conversation in a bar after a very traumatic few years in my life and my boyfriend and I were kidding around tastelessly about stupid things. We didn’t know what we were saying. That’s one reason I don’t drink anymore. I don’t like being a moron. Two men in the next booth listened in.
Then these four met and began harassing me together. At frist I didn’t know they were serious. I ignored them. But over the years, they became more and more obsessed. I live where there are a very disproportionally high percentage of mentally ill people and drug abusers and we’re all pretty used to them and don’t let it scare us. But these people wouldn’t go away.
I tried confronting them, living in a way that disproved their absurd and sick accusations, and laughing it off. They broke into my hime and looked through my privat epapers and bragged about it. They gathered other people with no judgment about them and hung out in all the neighborhood hangouts and the corner store screaming ridiculous and sickening accusations at me. One by one, the large group they formed broke up. At least one seems to have committed suicide, I believe. One turned on the others when it finally sank in that they were using him. But damage was done. I can’t do as much good in my community because of this. I have trouble forgiving them though i know they’re mentally impaired. And I’m outraged that things like that happen around here all the time. If I could get them locked up they couldn’t do this to any other innocent people. I’ve lived it all down. But not everyone they attacked ever will. They are dangerous. How far is it OK to go to do soemthing about these impaired people? And is it OK to confront them forcefully? And what consttitutes forgiveness inthis situation? And is it OK that the society where I am is structured to let people do such things to people?
