Quote from HT.

"I have an idea, Atypical, about what you did that some others didn’t like. And then I didn’t like what somebody else did in response. What you did, which may or may not have been the problem for someone else, wasn’t a problem for me. And then what I did was apparently a problem for some others, which I didn’t fully understand going into it. I know for me something pretty deep got triggered. Maybe for the others, too."

Right-ee-oh. This is how I viewed it on the small screen. I was out and about skipping through the fields of Psychcentral that day and came to a sign that said NPD Forum.

If I were choosing a musical score to accompany me on this excursion it would be "if you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. "If you go down to the woods today, you better go in disguise."

Upon entering the field marked NPD I saw a group of teddy bears gathered together under an umbrella that said "if you are interested, let's start talking". Other talking teddy bears, what fun!!

I started listening/reading the conversations and came to a halt. The name of the game was "if you are interested, let's start talking" and yet someone had decided to block someone else and stop talking - after they had been given someone else's opinion and it appeared that this was not an area where all teddy bears were welcome because they didn't have an official NPD certificate so their opinions were not valid or correct in the eyes of some of the other teddies and of no use to them. One teddy got their pen and wrote bitter on another teddy bear! Then that teddy got her block eraser and rubbed that teddy out because they didn't want to feel invalidated or unwelcome or as though they weren't allowed here or weren't entitled to their individual opinion.

Then another teddy came along and said they had a sour stomach and that the teddy with the block had made them feel that way. Two teddies both saw bitter! They must be the eraser teddy bears Mum and Dad or their Doctors or their Teachers to be speaking to them that way!

Damn, this Teddy saw someone being singled out and attacked in a very precise manner. Very clinical. Very raptor-rapture like. HT bear was even making a referral to take it to the Higher Authority Sticky Place, you know, "Heaven" where the people in long white coats live, if all else fails! Egads, it must be quite serious!

What to do. The umbrella we're all sitting under says lets start talking. We're all triggered by authority figures. Or things that dare to remind us that we're only little teddy bears wandering through the fields to find which one feels right for us. If the fields are the mind then sure you're gonna encounter minefields that you step on from time to time and things go KABOOM.