Rumour Milling The Gossip

Gossip can make you feel like you are all alone

I get it, I really do. You have a concern and you want to share it, but creating an item of gossip, shared with even the most altruistic desire to show concern, is never the right thing to do.

I have lived under the cloud of rumour and gossip for the longest time. Stories told about me, and I know many of them and know there are more besides, are often the least reflective of who I am or what I am doing. Mostly they are just the bizarre fruits of overactive imaginations and ultimately benign, but any rumour can be used to inflict untold emotional harm in the hands of the wrong 3rd person.

Nobody's life is without challenge or vexation so if you have a concern about someone's life then the kindest way to deal with that concern is to start a conversation with that person. Once hearsay, innuendo, rumour and gossip are begun there is no calling it back. There is no "sorry" that disarms this practice and makes it ok.

Nine years ago, at the beginning of my single parent journey in 2009, I was assisting some primary school friends in the organisation of a primary school reunion. These planning sessions took place over a few drinks and a meal at a local club. We were a mixed bunch who formed a renewed bond and I was quite frankly reveling in the camaraderie and the very new sense of having a group I belonged to. At one of these sessions I decided to go to the bar and get a shout and one of the guys offered to assist me, as there were about 7 of us. This guy and I shared a laugh as we ordered and waited. As you can imagine we had a lot of shared experiences and nearly a lifetime to catch up on after 30 years. We got the drinks back to our party and thought nothing more of it and after we had pooled our efforts to date, discussed next moves and deciding on the next meet up as we continued to bring about a reunion of a class of around 120 people, men and women, who had dispersed, changed names, moved on, and even died, in the 30 years since we shared a playground. The very next evening I received a phone call, a screaming diatribe from my ex, from whom I was separated. The rumour was that I was planning a weekend away with an old school friend and this rumour had traveled the world and had come from a reliable source in the UK. When you consider I lived in the suburbs of an outer Sydney area in Australia, this is a remarkable feat. I was confused because it was so strange, such that the ensuing screaming at me about my supposed plans and my betrayals and perfidies hammered me, for how long I am unsure. Nothing I said was acceptable as I was just the worst person in the world and warranted the abuse and then some ... all because of a rumour, an item of gossip that circumnavigated the globe in a single day.

Now it is a good idea to come clean. I was, at this stage, being treated for a swag of mental illness diagnoses. Amongst these was Major Depressive Disorder, Adjustment Disorder, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and PTSD. Combating the ridiculous notions of clandestine lurkers on the periphery of a snapshot of a single event was not even a foot note of a notion of mine I needed to deal with, but there I was being screamed at over something that wasn't true, slumped, sobbing, in a corner of a room trying to communicate a truth that was never going to be heard, engulfed in an abuse scenario I was desperately trying to leave behind me.

The strangest thing about a marriage break up, especially one where one party, me,  is consumed with mental health issues, is that no one asked me my story. No one asked me what happened or why. By the time I was well enough to articulate my side, the story was already out, repeated, remarked upon, discussed in wide circles, expanded on, but not substantiated from my viewpoint at all. I realised that at such a late date my side was never going to be heard without an entrenched bias opposing it, so I stayed silent, hurt by the partisan treatment I had already been subject to. Family were already treating me like the person in the wrong. I had left a "perfectly respectable marriage" and I had "ruined everybodies' lives". No one even wanted to know that my leaving was the result of a choice ... Leave ... or Die ...

I ended up living with the idea that, in some quarters, a relative that was divorcing was worse than that same person being dead, a notion reinforced by the Catholic teachings of my youth even though I had long rejected those teachings. No one said this to me, but it was the idea, the imagining that grew inside my disordered brain. I had grown past my suicidal thoughts, healed at least that much, but deep down there was a self imposed knowledge that others thought I was better off dead. The fact that so few of my relatives communicated with me, included me in their life events, seemed to reinforce my belief.

There have been many instances of unsubstantiated rumour and items of gossip that have been brought to my attention. The affairs I had and that never happened, not during my marriage and not even in the 14 months after my marriage ended. I did begin another relationship, but that began in October 2010, long after my separation and declaration that I would never go back.

Now we come to the present day. Rumours still circle, gossip still circulates and the harm still impacts me. The latest being that my household is disordered and I am used and abused. Accusations being made that my loved ones are "dole bludgers". The fact is that my household is a co-operation of disabilities, mental illness, chronic health conditions, love and support. We are not perfect and we do have occasional bouts of disharmony, but we are trying to support each other in a society and a community that devalues us, relegates us to a position of supplicant and abuses us based on bias and mass media blame washing. We are ill supported by agencies marketed as being for that purpose. We are let down by Human Services that are anything but humane. We are cast in a light that paints us unfairly, but we are enduring and we are fighting and I, even if it has to be one melt down at a time, am not going to let these bastards win.

If you, dear reader, think gossip is harmless, then consider why you are not taking it to the person concerned? Think on the repercussions of what you say being expanded upon, suppositions added, innuendo applied and then brought to the person concerned, either from a place of consideration or, worst case scenario, from a place of abuse. How could your contribution to the rumour mill be used? Are you going to be responsible for the fall out? the harm?

Please consider rumour and gossip as a tool in the hands of a bully. Do not give up your power of concern and allow it to be used against people you care about. Please do opt for an open conversation with the person and not about a person.

We are encouraged to ask "RU OK?"
not
"Is he/she/they ok? because I heard ..."

 

Rumours and gossip isolate us from the truth