rat

hate to say it, but I've done exactly what this lady did on a smaller scale. I blew through 1000 dollars or so on booze from August to December as I spiraled through depression, alcoholism and grief after my grandfather died. Many times, I spent money on other people so that they'd join me, simply for the companionship of someone other than my memories as I drank.

Grief does really, really strange things to people, especially when death comes unexpectedly quick or out of the blue. It's easy for the rest of us to sit and judge someone if we've never experienced what she's gone through. And for me, it's easy to see how some of the things she did make sense. When was the last time anyone you knew just blew 30 grand to take TWENTY people on a Carribean vacation of their own volition? Or threw 15000 to a migrant worker so they could return to their country, and purchase a home, thereby making things better for their family there? I'm not saying those things make up for the excess, but people that generous are hard to come by these days.

Additionally, I'd like to point out that this woman was not only medicated (can't really get antidepressants without a prescription, which means you have to visit a psychiatrist in the first place) as well as drinking.

I'm not saying what she did was right, or morally reprehensible either. I'm simply saying, as someone who went through similar circumstances (my grandfather died of cancer, yes, but he was reportedly recovering at the time of his death, which hit our family like a bolt of lightning from the blue), and attempted to deal with sudden overwhelming grief in the same fashion, it's an extremely easycycle to fall into.

What I do find overwhelmingly off-putting by this forum and this community of which I've been a part for the past couple years, is the increasing occurence of people posting with an extreme superiority complex, taking potshots at people whom they've never met, whose shoes they've never walked in, and speaking from the vantage of internet anonymity. I find it disgusting, and completely against the published code of conduct of these forums. The entire point of this community is to be one of acceptance, discourse, and making an attempt to understand people from their own perspective not from our own. It's been one of the things I used to truly enjoy about this community, and something that has been alarmingly lacking over the last months I've been lurking. I think a lot of you need to get off your high horses, think before you post, and when in doubt take Hal's advice--don't like what you read, hit the back button rather than making snide remarks.

Know that some of what I say may seem snotty to y'all, but this community has been self-regulating to a good degree for the time I've been here. I'm not claiming to be better than anyone here, just that some of us out here see parts of this community becoming "just another web forum" instead of a special place we enjoy posting.

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