Samicat, I have never been against any particular race. To grow up in Western Europe and read about topics like how black people were treated in USA, made me feel sad and ashamed about how they (the black skinned) were treated. There were other population around, I felt for, as well.

When it comes to gender, I did walk in the 8th of March demonstrations years ago, because it was important to me to show that I didn't accept to be treated in a lesser good way then men because I was a woman.

Now I am sick and weak (have several physical disorders) and I am older with little energy. So I let the younger people protest for themselves and live well with that my time has passed.

Your question is not so easy to answer, as you perhaps think it is. Because it touches around what is most healthy for a person with some kind of mental illness. I think that the question has to be linked to the fact that we all are different. Some people will become worse of protesting all the time. For such I believe it would be wise to pick the cases they want to fight for and, for their own health's sake, learn to let other topics go and find more healthy ways to cope with them.

There are also values attached to your question. May be you and I have different values with regard to some topics. As far as I have understood it, you met this person in your writing group. To me it is very important that all the others in the group feel well. If there was one person in a group I participated in who overlooked me, I would have pretended that I didn't notice and been in a forgiving mood (inside myself). If the person would be so demonstrative in her behavior toward me that all the others noticed it, I would have said something. What would have happened next, would have depended on what answer I got. In an extreme case, I would have been very clear about that I am not someone to play with.

When it comes to my answer to you, I gave the answer I gave because I thought it could be one of many ways to overcome this situation for you, with the knowledge I had about the situation then. I took the time to care about you ... We forgive for our own sake, not because we want to be kind to the other. The premise for forgiveness is always that something wrong has been done.

There is evidence that forgiveness can help some people included people with bipolar disorder. (Robert D. Enright & Richard P. Fitzgibbons, Copyright 2000 by the American Psychological Association).

Since you asked if I would have given that link in other situations, I suppose that you didn't like it. I am sorry that you felt it that way, but hope that if others read it, that they probably can find some value in it for situations in their own futures. Forgiveness has to be of one's own choice, not as an automatic response without meaning.

May the rest of your day be good, Samicat!

We all participate here in the hope of getting and giving support. Sometimes it can happen that the support we give is not appreciated. So it is here and so it is in life in general. Now that I am aware of how you feel about forgiveness I will never take that topic up with you again. Thank you for letting me know!