I've spent a good chunk of my life - too much of it - being a victim of other people's displaced anger, mental health issues, addictions, and bad choices and I see that mirrored on social media more often than I care to admit as far as the choices people make to engage in unhealthy behavior, negative actions, and take that out on others - or even worse - suffering themselves from a steady diet of negativity and abuse. That cycle needs to stop. You can stop it by choosing not to engage in it.

The bird can be left behind. The firehose can be unpinned. The choices you make going forward can be about safeguarding yourself and being your best self, your brightest self, for the betterment of others. There are no battles to be won against madness, cruelty, and abusive people ... you only give them power over you and you deserve better. CoSo, like any community, is full of good and bad elements. It will become what you choose to take in and what you choose to put out into it. You decide.

Engaging in a war of futility doesn't make you brave. Sacrificing your light against an endless tide of darkness only means you have less for the people who deserve that light most ... including yourself. The refugees will keep coming and they will bring their trauma, their baggage, their evil ... but you don't have to engage with it or give it power over you. We all know the trick to defeating monsters ... or maybe you have forgotten. Turn away. It's really that simple. It's a choice.