It has recently struck me how I am so scared to show too much of myself, even on this blog, because I worry about my mental health when trolls online come after me. I have also been struck by how many people have had their mental health seriously harmed by pseudo-strangers, from various people online to government officials to celebrities such as Naomi Osaka. And it has struck me how often I have been told and how much I have believed that if I choose to be a leader in a WoW guild, it is on me to be able to handle the fact that people will often be hurtful to me.

And I have recently started thinking, is victim-blaming like this ok if that victim chose to do things publicly, online? I’m not sure. Perhaps if the victim of the mental health abuse chose to become an online public figure in order to reap the benefits of it, but even that seems an awful indictment of our society, if we believe that there’s any reason for which abusing a person’s mental health is acceptable. But what about other situations like an athlete who just wants to play their sport, or a person who just wants to help their city and keep people healthy, or a person who just wants to make things good for her guildies? When the goal of the person is not at all to reap any benefits from being a more public figure, is it ok to entirely not care about their mental health and behave in ways that stomp all over their mental well being?

I think of all the accusations leveled at me over the years. I would say 90% of them weren’t actually my fault: I have not been a perfect person, but I have always done my best by people and always done it with honor and integrity. Most of the criticisms and accusations were more a reflection or projection of the person giving them. Perhaps they did not want to admit that they were breaking their commitment for selfish reasons, so they give a reason that sounds like they are right to leave, but also implies that leadership is terrible or even vile. They don’t really think about how the leaders in this guild will feel when being treated this way, they just want to feel ok about breaking their commitment and doing what they want for themselves. Or perhaps, they are frustrated with progression and just latch onto any weakness or failure in their raid leader (which anyone can always find, in all raid leaders), and talk about it like it is all because of the raid leader that we struggle. In fact maybe they could have done more themselves to make things better, and to imply that the raid leader should be to blame for something that is ultimately the collective responsibility of the entire team is harmful to the mental health of any raid leader who may be open enough to accept criticism, but people don’t think this far.

But how many times have I thought, and been told, “this is just how people are online”. Or told that as a public figure, or as a leader, people just need thick enough skin because of course they will receive all sorts of hatred and meanness and even slander. And now I’m really beginning to think, is it ok to say this is how things are and just accept that?

If I wore a short skirt outside and was raped, is it ok to just say “this is how people are, if you’re going to choose to wear a short skirt you should expect there are people out there who will rape you”? Of course that’s not ok. Then why is it ok to say “you choose to make yourself a target by putting yourself in a position where you are responsible for making others happy (by providing entertainment, or by governing people), so you should expect people will treat you without regard to your mental health”, and then just leave it at that? Both situations are reality, I do not deny that when I dress sexily vs when I do not, people are more likely to look at me with sex in mind. But in the first example this reality is something we do not just accept, we believe it is important to work against it. Then why do we just accept the second reality?

And the result of this wide acceptance that “there simply will be trolls online, this is how people are online”, and that it is on leaders and public figures to have thick skin… the result is that we have likely scared away many people who can do a lot of good for the world. Certainly, I think even in the microcosm that is my WoW guild, I can do a lot of good as a leader. But since I came back, though I did a large amount of the leadership work, I have constantly avoided actually taking on leadership mantles as much as I can. As a result, there were times I flat out chose to take a step back instead of continuing my work of keeping things good. And I believe that was a loss for my guild. To scare me away from contributing because I’m worried that when I contribute too much people will hurt my mental health (which actually happened even without me officially being in leadership, simply because people felt my contributions already meant I was a de facto leader)… to scare me away like this, how is this good for our community?

How is this a good way for human society to move forward? Not just me, I think of all the other small government officials who do all they can to help others, the talented people who want to put their talents out there and contribute to the world in their own way, and how many of them are scared away from contributing because our world simply seems to accept that harming these people’s mental health is just how things are? And so many people in our world think it’s ok to say whatever or write whatever without pausing to think about how the reader/listener will feel.

My WoW experience is but a microcosm of our new world, but I see the pain I go through out in the real world all the time. And as I gather more experiences, go through more anguish, I am more and more of the mind that we must drastically change how we think about some things. Gone is the world where our mockery, bashing, harsh criticisms won’t reach the ears of our targets and won’t hurt them. Now, as long as we put out words into the online world, we are holding the mental well being of another human in our hands, and more and more I feel we cannot continue being a society that is so careless about the affect our words cause. Our world has changed, we are so much more interconnected. This way of treating people as pseudo-strangers and not feeling a need to care for each other does not seem sustainable to me. There is too much needless hurt, there is too much needless anguish. It is time we rethink what we accept in our new world.