"Dementors" and anti dementors are just as bad as each other

[Jingstohang]

I'm sick of seeing the self righteous "anti dementors" calling others dementors because they want to stick to the guidelines/social distancing/not licking walls.

If you don't believe we should all be totally back to normal yet then you're attacked as a dementor.

I think there's a middle ground of being sensible, taking precautions and being aware there is still risk. But the anti- dementor crowd think that's being hugely negative and living in fear.

I'm sick of it. Both extremes are as bad as each other.

Willow2017
extreme views are as bad as each other, and the tinkly laugh bullying attitude of the "anti-dementors" is as ridiculous as the hysterical lockdown-extremists.

I have suffered with depression for years and found it returning, and found the negativity and hysteria on here made it worse

Part of most treatments for mental health, and indeed for anyone struggling with negative thinking, is to label and challenge those thoughts

CBT, mindfulness are both approaches where you either name and label thoughts e.g. catastophising, black and white thinking, or let go of negative thoughts

Challenging and calling out 'dementoring' thoughts is a positive thing; it can be very damaging for people to listen to all that stuff especially during difficult times like the present.

Didn’t Donald Trump say something similar when Anti racist campaigners clashed with white suprematists?

The anti-dementor threads critically discuss the real rules and the government and media reporting and look for optomism. There is very little real rule breaking and the tone is quite tounge in cheek based on the most extreme hyperbole from early lockdown. The lovely thing about them is the range of opinions and no one shouted down from having a different stance. Plus random stuff thrown in like horrendous roundabouts of Britain/ Paris.

most of the local garden centres here specifically ban children. I guess that if I point that out that will make me a "dementor" 🤷

If you added "mauling little germ bags' then yes it would

@Jkslays

Didn’t Donald Trump say something similar when Anti racist campaigners clashed with white suprematists?

of course it does, it's just a way to call people you don't agree with. Which is why it is such a boring and cringey expression

Well i certainly disagree with the people who are just loving the chance to scream in CAPITALS at others for something they did which is perfectly acceptable under the guidelines because they are on a power trip they would never normally have the chance to be on or for putting out the wrong info and declaring it as 'fact' because Aunty Ethels second cousin's postman put it on FB so it must be true. Or those screaming that we need to stay in lockdown for years or WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Newsflash we are all going to die at some point.

Its disgraceful behaviour from adults on a support forum.

Factually pointing out that garden centres are excluding children. Not dementory.

Saying that garden centres should be excluding children because they are disease ridden super-spreaders, that can't behave and going around touching and licking everything. Dementory.

Quite a difference between the two points of view.

@Orangeblossom78

most of the local garden centres here specifically ban children. I guess that if I point that out that will make me a "dementor" 🤷

If you added "mauling little germ bags' then yes it would

On the other hand, if you added that it was unnecessary to totally ban children and that it made it harder for single parents to visit, it would be the kind of post that is on the anti dementor's thread

@Willow2017

of course it does, it's just a way to call people you don't agree with. Which is why it is such a boring and cringey expression

Well i certainly disagree with the people who are just loving the chance to scream in CAPITALS at others for something they did which is perfectly acceptable under the guidelines because they are on a power trip they would never normally have the chance to be on or for putting out the wrong info and declaring it as 'fact' because Aunty Ethels second cousin's postman put it on FB so it must be true. Or those screaming that we need to stay in lockdown for years or WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Newsflash we are all going to die at some point.

Its disgraceful behaviour from adults on a support forum.

But the thing is, it's often not those people who get called out as dementors.

But the thing is, it's often not those people who get called out as dementors

Who is it then? Do you have any examples?
I don’t recall using it as a term outside the anti dementor threads (except for when ranting to my husband) and haven’t actually come across it much on the forum as a whole. However I do tend to try and avoid dementor-y threads () as much as possible now.

@Drivingdownthe101

But the thing is, it's often not those people who get called out as dementors

Who is it then? Do you have any examples?
I don’t recall using it as a term outside the anti dementor threads (except for when ranting to my husband) and haven’t actually come across it much on the forum as a whole. However I do tend to try and avoid dementor-y threads () as much as possible now.

I now have a suspicion the posters doing the dementor calling outwith the anti dementor chat arent the same as the ones on the dementor chat.

You can do a search and you'll see quite a few instances of it.

I think my personal... well favourite isn't really the right word for it because it was utterly fucking appalling and not in the spirit of the site at all that it was allowed to stand... was that if you sent your kids back to school you needed to send them with their own body bag as well.

THAT sort of shit is why people started to cluster in one thread to have a break from the hysterical doom monger thought policing going on in the rest of the site. There are a bunch of people floating around every thread going (and they've tried on the one bloody thread we have going regularly) trying to piss on every sign of any hope we're getting to the other side of the shit show we're currently in. Fine if you want to run around screaming that we're all doomed constantly - but that was battering the fuck out of a lot of people's mental health who NEEDED to see some hope and optimism and a way forward rather than the absolute glee with which some of the usual suspects were relishing making everyone more and more and more miserable.

I think without the "anti" threads (and the dementor thing is no more than the other MN threads where people have joined together and then developed some form of nickname or another for repeated ongoing threads) there are a fair few of us who wouldn't have got through parts of this where mental health has really suffered - I know I was floundering and the rest of the site had become so toxic and no-go and doomy that it's been a bloody public service to have somewhere to chat, have a bit of a wry smile at the absurdities of it all and actually be supportive.

As well as the butter in coffee thing we had such gems as you mustn't drive in case your car spontaneously burst into flames... the take your body bag to school one... numerous increasingly hysterical fantasy scenarios about if you went to Asda for M+Ms you might asymptomatically infect Doris who asymptomatically infected Mary who then infected Dave who died from it but Dave was meant to have a child with Frieda who was destined to cure cancer and so you'd therefore killed a million people for some chocolate that melts in your mouth not in your hand. It got, and still is to some extent, fucking ridiculous and incredibly fucking nasty - as is this thread trying to shut down anyone daring to hold the view that we're coming out of this now and need to begin to unlock and that things all got incredibly bonkers on the internet as a whole.

Why are you so threatened by people holding a different opinion to you? Are you feeling uncertain or something as you seem incredibly eager to stop anyone else daring to speak - surely if you were in the right and confident about being so - you would welcome the counter argument (even if it's confined to one thread well away from you minding its own business) to show how right you are?

Well why don't you contest it on those occasions then?

I now have a suspicion the posters doing the dementor calling outwith the anti dementor chat arent the same as the ones on the dementor chat

I think this is probably true.

the tinkly laugh bullying attitude of the "anti-dementors" is as ridiculous as the hysterical lockdown-extremists.

What a ridiculous statement. And 'tinkly laugh'?

It's not 'bullying' to have a different opinion. If it were, I could call you out as a bully.

@Orangeblossom78

Well why don't you contest it on those occasions then?

I've reported posts for it in the past. As you can see from this thread, it's clearly up for discussion. I dont see why it's a problem.

Something odd I have seen is people calling the Anti-dementor threads "dementor threads' - seems to have got a bit confused!

For example someone had a cough, one posted said 'oh it is just a cough don't worry (when the other posters said get a test for covid)

It was mentioned 'oh someone has come on from the dementors threads look'

I've reported posts for it in the past. As you can see from this thread, it's clearly up for discussion. I dont see why it's a problem

Fair enough if you think it was used wrongly.

OP, you keep referring to this language making its way into other threads. Were you called a dementor on another thread? Perhaps your AIBU should have been ‘I said this and someone called me a dementor AIBU?’

I lurked on the threads at the beginning but haven’t looked at any of the recent threads. When they started, they were a safe port in the harbour of hysteria. More or less every post was that you were murdering someone. By reading the threads on here, I murdered countless people by ordering things online (mainly from small, independent businesses to try and keep them going). I definitely murdered someone because I dared to order takeaway (again local places, some of which are our favourite independent local restaurants that I want to still be open when all this is over). I definitely murdered people because my dog needed a walk I dared to walk past people with my dog on a lead and walking nicely to heel. It was also horrible to read thread after thread about going to help a vulnerable person and 90% of responses telling the OP to “stay the fuck home”, “what is so hard to understand about stay at home?”. These were people who were concerned about a loved ones mental and physical health and included the woman who wanted to see her friend who had the shit beaten out of her by her husband and the person who wanted to see their sister when they expressing suicidal tendencies.

At that point, my mental health was really suffering. I had to do a site visit about a month ago and was anxious to leave home, even though it was essential for my work and nobody else would be on site. The hysteria on here, on Facebook, the bad news stories that were only focussed on in the media, that there was no escape from the doom and gloom anywhere had my anxiety at unbelievably high levels. I’d started lurking on the anti-dementor threads before my site visit and they did me a world of good. They helped so much that I actually stopped at a M&S petrol station on my way back from the site visit, despite not needing petrol. I went into the shop, something I’d have done pretty frequently before lockdown, bought some non-essential lunch (we had stuff in). In visiting the shop, I saw the difference they’d made to the shop, erecting plastic shields, putting distancing in place and it made me feel a lot more comfortable. That tiny slice of normality went a long way to restoring my mental health and making me feel normal. It went a long way to making me feel a lot less anxious. Had I not been lurking on those threads though, I would have really struggled and probably be really anxious now about the easing of lockdown. I’m glad the hysteria isn’t going unchecked now. Reading those threads a lot of people are vulnerable or have a vulnerable family member but it’s about the balance between their other physical health, being active, their mental health and the risk of catching covid-19. We’ve been doing this for 3 months now, for some people the risk is much higher to their mental health and being told it’s against the rules (when actually that’s a strict interpretation of the rules anyway) isn’t what they need now. If I was closer to my mum, I’d be breaking the rules to hug her. I’d be making an informed risk assessment that we’re both low risk both of us having been working from home for 3 months and only going to shops and for daily walks. If someone tried to tell me I was breaking the rules for hugging my mum at the minute and that I was going to murdered people, I’d call them a lot worse than a dementor 🤷‍♀️

I think there's a middle ground of being sensible, taking precautions and being aware there is still risk. But the anti- dementor crowd think that's being hugely negative and living in fear.

Anti-dementors are the first sentence in that paragraph, sticking to the rules and being sensible!

Dementors are berating people for going to the now-open non-essential shops and that is hugely negative and living in fear IMO, and completely unnecessary. It should be possible to disagree about a topic without venom.

Our garden centre has a soft play, toys, crafts, food - they spend a lot of money attracting children and their pester-power on parents through the door and will be desperate to get them back spending!

@JaniceWebster

Willow2017 extreme views are as bad as each other, and the tinkly laugh bullying attitude of the "anti-dementors" is as ridiculous as the hysterical lockdown-extremists.

Nobody is bullying anyone on that thread nor anywhere else. We can have different opinions on that thread and nobody screams at you for it unlike the rest of MN at present. Those scaremongering and shouting that thier views are right whether they are facts or not are the ones bullying on here. Scaring people who are possibly vulnerable mentally or physically with nonsense 'facts and vitriolic abuse is not helping anyone but the person doing it who gets to feel some sick sense of pride in thier twisted posts.

OP, you keep referring to this language making its way into other threads. Were you called a dementor on another thread? Perhaps your AIBU should have been ‘I said this and someone called me a dementor AIBU?

Nah, I've not been called one, I have seen it though on threads. I've also seen someone being called overly anxious because they had a bunch of comorbidities and didnt want their family to go against current government guidelines.

@Drivingdownthe101

I now have a suspicion the posters doing the dementor calling outwith the anti dementor chat arent the same as the ones on the dementor chat

I think this is probably true.

I'd agree with that. The few occasions where I have seen the word dementor used in a general thread has been from names that I haven't recognised as usual "anti-dementor" posters from those threads. There are a lot of lurkers on them and increasing numbers of people feeling ready to emerge and say they've been reading ir skimming through for a while. They are fast moving and hard to keep pace with so there will be people that skim and don't interact on them (which is fine)

I think using the term dementors is unnecessary name calling and bullying behaviour. I wouldn't let my children call someone names and nor would I.
People have had different feelings about Covid, lockdown etc. and of course everyone's an expert and their way is right so therefore everyone doing it differently must be wrong.
I've been careful throughout lockdown, even though I've still had to go out to work, I have avoided shops, beaches etc. and followed the guidance to protect myself and others. That doesn't make me a dementor, they are fictional characters from children's books. Be kind doesn't even exist for some people, unfortunately.