Rants, Raves & Advice

Responding to Hate - Suicide & Depression

So I came home today, logged on to wattpad, and found that I had an unread message in my inbox. Usually I get lovely pms praising me for my work or thanking me for what I've written - recently I got a message asking for help concerning writing a story - but today I received something slightly different. 

Remember a couple chapters back when I wrote about romanticizing suicide and depression? I got an amazing response from that, so many people thanked me either privately or in the comments section, and others agreed with me and supported my opinion on the matter. Not once did I even think I'd get a pm, quite a while after posting the part, that read exactly this (this is a direct copy and paste except for the speech marks):

"I read one of your stories called Hybrid (great book - when are you updating) and I decided to look at other stuff that you write and i saw that u wrote about making suicide and depression romantic? well i read that and i think you're wrong. LiterallY no one writes about suicide as a good thing n if they do it''s because its character building. its giving a character a backstory. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and you feel like you can take that away. I like your stuff but you're wrong heree. Plus your lying about you being depressed because you said that depressed people dont talk about it and you did. Everyone can write about thwat they want. U can't tell people they're wrong because YOUR wrong. Your overreacting, calm down. No one cares. Cutting urself is stupid anyway."

I was going to respond quietly but I decided that doing it this way is better (no, I'm not going to say who sent this to me, because that's just cruel.)

Ok, first off, if you're going to send me hate don't try to butter me up first. Telling me you love my story but then trying to tell me that I'm wrong for what I'm writing and I'm taking away people's rights to have opinions due to me telling you guys about an issue that's both real and very, very true - yeah, don't do that. I don't tend to get angry, but get straight to the point if you send me hate - don't beat around the bush or say something like "No offence but"

Secondly, I never stated that people write about suicide as a GOOD thing - I repeatedly said that suicide is a BAD thing that people use in both real life and fiction as a tool to get attention or a boyfriend. And they DO - have you ever read that rubbish fan fiction about Justin Bieber adopting suicidal girls or One Direction buying sex slaves? i only read some after Parogar wrote something about it - and my god, there are MILLIONS of stories like that on Wattpad alone!

Now, there's a difference between being able to write what you want and writing about the wrong thing. If you feel that the only way to flesh out a character is to make them cut themselves, or throw them into a spiral of depression as that's the ONLY WAY TO GET THE HOT GUY'S ATTENTION, then honestly, you're really not any good at coming up with a well thought out storyline or dimensional characters. There's no point in having six million gorgeous, tall, slender, perfect teenage girls that hate their lives and want to die grabbing the attention of double the amount of hot, sexy, often tattooed studs that happen to be vampires sometimes - all the characters are pretty much one dimensional wannabies that happen to have appealing aesthetics and a troubled mind for no reason. 

And lastly - "Cutting urself is stupid anyway"?????? Cutting is a coping mechanism that is used by people as a way to deal with excess emotions, which are often anger and disgust, usually aimed at themselves. it's harmfula dn you shouldn't do it, but telling someone who self-harms that they're stupid will only lead to further self-loathing and cutting.

And there you have it. My response to hate.