Trudy, unless JenK or anyone else asked me to speak for them, I would feel uncomfortable using them and their feelings to bolster an argument,
even if I knew what those feelings were. I think you are being honest here and I admire that, but it does involve speaking for someone else, and about a subject that is painful for them. I think there is too much possibilty of misspeaking and even MORE hurt feelings there.

OK, here's the deal: I intended only to take a few days' break, for deep breathing and to stop feeling crappy/hurt/guilty/etc. What ended up happening is much as Kat suggests; a combination of meatspace things followed hard on the heels of that day, none of which have anything to do with the board at all[1]. They, far more than anything else, have kept me away and will almost certainly continue to do so for the forseeable future.

So there it is, straight from the horse's mouth. I haven't read more than the last 20 or so preceding posts, so I have no idea how or if I'm relevant to the discussion at hand, but I hope this information is helpful somehow.

Also, my profile email address is good and I would love to hear from anyone with the inclination to be in touch, about this or just to say hello.

[1] In brief: I got a divorce. 80-90 hours of classes/labs/studying/clinicals per week is pretty standard right now. I've been feeling a bit crappy MS-wise. Yeah, and there's that whole divorce thing.

Here's an idea, go back and look at Elena's posts. She's not coming back for a good long time if ever.

Trudy, I'm going to assume (always a dangerous thing) that the deathmatch kerfuffle was the last straw, rather than the catalyst. To which I say, go back and read the posts when the objections were raised. Given that there were numerous responses at the time saying variations of "I don't see anything wrong with the death match posts in press", do you really think it even would have gotten to the voting stage? If it had happened when she was on vacation, would she even have known about it unless she went back and looked? People expressed their prefrences for the posts to stop. I know my response was several posts along the lines of "I don't see what's so hard about scrolling past". I'm fairly certain I wasn't alone in those sentiments.

Thaks, Jen! And we miss you.

As usual, what Scrappy said.

Even though she's Robin now.

Not enough "What Scrappy Said" t-shirts in the world...

Jen!

Not enough "What Scrappy Said" t-shirts in the world...

I know. What Robin Said is open to misinterpretation.

But then again, there's the whole Scrappy Doo thing that I don't even want to contemplate on a t-shirt for fear of misinterpretation. My numerous frog t-shirts are confusing enough to people who don't know me.

IJS

Hey Jen, I hope things are going well. Sorry we don't get to see you more often; I still have the Galapagos turtle by my computer.

This is awful. I think I know Elena well enough to know that she would be horrified at the thought of anyone speaking for her, and I definitely don't think she'd like being discussed, whether she's here or not.

Trudy, your heart is so big and it seems to me that you want to take care of everyone, but it's not possible and it's not a good idea, for your own sake as well as for theirs. I am hurting for you right now because this has got to be upsetting. I'd feel so frustrated right now if I were you.

You believe the atmosphere of the board has gotten rancourous. That this is a generally less kind and heartwarming place. The only solution is to do what you can to improve things every day. To be welcoming and warm, to give what you can, to call people on unkindnesses, and then to walk away if it ever costs you too much. You can't tell anyone else here how to feel.

I've heard some about the golden days of yore, but, you know, I joined the board in the middle of a kerfuffle, and I think we've had ebbs and swells ever since. It seems like this same kind of general frustration hit the board at this time last year.

I'd like to have been here for those golden days, but I wasn't. Still, I've been touched over and over again by the kindness of many of this boards members. You were one of the first, with the information you provided about albinism when I was in a panic about what it meant to my baby and with the constant cheerfulness and care you gave me. You're not the only one, and it hasn't ended. I don't know what to do to improve the ebb times other than not to add to the general feeling of distress and to do what I can to be kind to others as others have been kind to me.

We can't legislate kindness or sincerity or any of the other positive traits. It wouldn't work any more than legislating morality works. It just drives the ugly underground, ready to explode at the slightest provocation. Those are my feelings on this. We just all have to do the best we can and hope that more of us are up on any given day than are down -- and I think our best includes reaching out even when we're not so up, but I think this group tries to do that and very often succeeds.