Hey Sarahsweets, I don't think you're a bad person either... but I'm also someone who gets hurt easily by bluntness (sorry!).

I hope you can take AmandaLouise's explanation to heart, I think she did a really great job explaining!

I *do* use the ignore list, so it surprises me that so many people are so against it. For me, there are a couple people that just... routinely... end up posting in ways destabilize me. Sometimes, it's people that I can't read without wanting to argue with them, which wouldn't be helpful for me or the other people on the forum and sometimes it's stuff that just feels hurtful, even if it's not meant that way, because of my own stuff.

I tend to be all over the place emotionally, and highly reactive to stuff. So, being able to filter out posts from people that routinely trigger me in that way is super helpful.

I've *never* put someone on ignore out of spite or to purposefully upset them or convey a message to them . It's always been out of self-preservation!

As an example of what I mean... this is not from the forums, but when I was researching who to do neurofeedback with, one of the people that I contacted was sort of sarcastic to me in response to my questions. His response literally ruined my day - I had felt fine before, and I just crashed, became very depressed, and ended up in bed crying. It's definitely very much an "over reaction" - in the sense of being not proportional to what was said - but that's where I'm at emotionally and what my brain does right now! This is really difficult to deal with, it feels like little things from the world can just be *devasting* at times, even when they're clearly not ill-intentioned. Thus, the "ignore" function feels a bit like a life-saver to me.

I know this doesn't really explain what happened with the person that you had been chatting with, but hopefully it gives some insight.

*hugs*