Thread by @abigaildisney

Thread: So here's my final word on the subject of the twitterati trying to be social workers for people they do not know. Child abuse is bad. I know this because once I was an abused child. Mostly verbal, sometimes physical. My parents were public figures. 1/

So I do know something about this. If anyone thinks I am taking the Conway family's problems lightly, then I would ask you to take this into consideration. There was nothing ok about what happened to me, and I wish I'd known how to help myself. If I'd had access to Twitter, 2/

I know I'd never have taken my issues to be aired in the public square because I was just too timid of a kid for that, but I can see how another kid might want to do that. Knowing the way my parents would have taken such a thing, there would have been hell to pay for sure. 3/

What we just saw erupt into public view was probably the worst day of each and every one of their lives. How would you like the worst day of your life, even if as a 16 year old you thought you wanted it public, to be public and google-able for the rest of your damn life? 4/

When she is in her 30's I suspect all of our speculation and arm chair analysis won't be all that welcome in retrospect and the idea that the whole world felt completely comfortable judging her and her whole family in all its complexity and dysfunction from their couches 5/

will begin to feel pretty shitty. You don't have to love or have any sympathy for her mother to see that all this advice and opining from the peanut gallery on steroids that is the twitterverse is just an amplifier for everyone's pain. 6/

If anyone is going to ride to anyone's rescue, it won't be on one of our comfy high horses, so why do we all have to weigh in on something so agonizingly awful? We're not "speaking out" against a social ill. Everyone agrees that child abuse is bad. 7/

If you want to "speak out" at least ask yourself about what, to whom, for what constructive purpose and how meaningfully first. Otherwise you're just another voice in the chorus, and no one wants the chorus weighing in on their suffering . Not you, not me, and not Oedipus. 8/

But here comes the most radical part of it all. I bet she loves her mother. I loved my parents and I still do. I might have lashed out from time to time because I was trapped in a web of anger and unpredictability for which I was blameless, which created incredible suffering 9/

For me and about which I am still processing even now at 61. You never leave that kind of suffering totally behind. It shapes you, it makes you, it even deforms you. BUT..... you still love your parents. It's crazy but there it is. In fact abusive parents are perhaps the 10/

first and best lesson in holding two contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time: I hate what I am experiencing but I don't hate these people. Look, we don't all follow Jesus--I'm not even sure I do--but he wouldn't have said this so many times 11/

If it weren't really important. You have to love everyone. I mean, EVERYONE. Even those that hurt you. I'm sorry, but even as ambivalent as I am about Jesus, I know that he was right about this. Because answering hate with hate, violence with violence, that's just 12/

A dead end street. My parents abused me. It was awful. It wasn't every day. I still think back on much of my childhood and smile. I still was raised with mostly an intact psyche and sense of self. I count myself lucky. I know others have it far worse 13/

Let's just all get a little humble about the power we have as a crowd. Let's all just think about the collective consequences of our individual decisions. One tweet might be harmless, but thousands and thousands can't possibly be anything but painful. 14/

We don't all have blanket permission to weigh in on everything and sometimes silence is the wiser choice. In an age megaphones and exclamation points, maybe try listening and curiosity. Let's default to kindness or at least if we can't do that, mercy. END