I Hurt Someone...

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Maggie Cummings

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I don't know how to say this except for saying I'm sorry I hurt you. I was trying to be stern and make someone understand that they must change the way they were caring for their tortoises before someone got sick, and in doing that I hurt a person. I didn't mean to do that. I had no intention in hurting someone. I won't say I was misunderstood, I will say I was too stern or too emphatic with my words. It is very hard to make feelings understood with the written word. Sometimes it comes off as TOO emphatic or TOO stern and that is what happened this time. I am sorry I hurt you foxboysracing. I am very seriously sorry I hurt your feelings. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I did mean to be stern, to make you understand that the way you were caring for your tortoises was not good for them. I did mean to make you understand you need to change the way you keep them, I did mean to make you take a look at the way you were keeping them and that you really needed to change. I did not mean to hurt you. I wanted you to understand that you had to change the way you were keeping them, that for the love of the animals you had to change. I meant to be stern, I did not and had no intention whatsoever to be mean and hurt you. It is hard with the written word to draw that fine line between stern and too stern/hurtful. I am sorry. I am very sorry. I don't apologize for my intention of making you see how you keep them is wrong and you need to change. But I do apologize for hurting you. I wanted to make you see I was not just blabbing some unimportant bad advice. But I did not intend to be mean. I will not ask you to accept my apology right now while your feelings are raw. But I will say I did not intend to be mean and I do intend on making as sincere an apology as can be made. I am seriously sorry I hurt your feelings, that was not my intent in the least and that does no good in making you care in a different way for your tortoises. I am sorry. I don't know how many different ways I can say that. I am not sorry for what I was trying to make you understand, but I am sorry for hurting you. I am sorry for hurting your feelings. I am seriously sorry for hurting your feelings.
 

tyler0912

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You should be ashamed!
Im joking im sure he/she took it the wrong way and i think you are forgiven after this thread ;)
 

jaizei

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I think anyone who has read your posts in the past knows that your intentions are good.
 

Torty Mom

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Very nice and heartfelt. She doesn't know you and that you meant well. I think you apologized plus some! I still love you!! Even if you like Kyle **cues barfing sound** :p
 

Jacqui

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I can't say I know what thread your even talking about and it doesn't matter. It takes great character and courage to make an apology thread. Says a lot about you Maggie that you did so. I do know what you mean about how hard it is to write things and have the exact intended meaning come out.
 

dmarcus

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Maggie I think what you wrote was just miss understood. It is very hard to put into words that someone may not be doing things in the best interest of there tortoise and not hurt there feelings. Hopefully the person will accept your apology and understand you were only trying to help...
 

ascott

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Maggie, you done good girl :D

I am sure that foxboyracing totally understands your intention and accepts your apology...in doing so only makes one a better person.

We all are passionate about our shelled buddies here. This forum has a great group of folks and I have become familiar with each of our quirks, as a family of friends should. I look forward to each and everyones own style and have come to depend on everyone being exactly who they are.....Maggi, I truly hope that you continue to be exactly who you are and continue to offer up the years of wisdom you have and please don't ever be shy in doing so.

foxboyracing, we all truly enjoy having new memebers. I enjoy all the new character each new and old member has to offer....your sensitive side will be awesome in the future to share with other members....I am sure :D
 

foxboysracing

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Maggie,
I sent you a message. I do accept your apology. I do know that your intentions were good. I do know that you only meant the best for the tortoises. I completely understand that with all my heart. I am not mad at you at all. I was hurt, not mad. It is just hard when you are doing your best and think you are doing what is right. To then have things so bluntly pointed out that are so "offensive". I had never read nor heard that you shouldn't mix species. THat was completely new to me. I had no idea. Now I know. I have taken care of it. :) The vet that I got my DT from gave me a list of foods for him. I was following that. I trusted that completely. I have found out that people on this site feed their tortoises differently. It makes sense, and I am open to that. I have changed things in his feeding already. I am always learning and willing and open to suggestions. I think it just hit me hard because I had had three or four comments right after another all pointedly telling me I was wrong. I have searched my heart trying to figure out why it hurt so bad. I think I have figured it out.... If I didn't really care about my animals, it might not have hit me so wrong. But, because I know that I give up hours a day prepping, feeding, nurturing, bathing, and loving on my animals it hurts when you are so criticized when you put your all into them. When you give everything you have for them. I understand that I was doing things wrong. Not in malice, or or from ignorance because I didn't care enough to learn about my animals. But, just because I didn't know enough. It just hurt for a bit. I will be fine. I appreciate your help. I am happy to chat with you again. I appreciate your advice. I completely and totally accept your apology. Thank you for your heartfelt apology. It means a lot to me. I look forward to talking to you again. Dawn
 

CtTortoiseMom

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I personally love Maggie's "straight talk". Her passion comes through in every post and it is obvious that she means well. If it was not for the swift action of this forum when we first got Princess Leia she would be pretty bad off and that would be a shame if it happened because someone was trying to spare our feelings.

Dawn- I do not know what post this is referring to but I am sorry your feeling's were hurt and commend you for bringing it to Maggie's attention. That is also a hard thing to do.
 

Tom

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Maggie, good for you for having the courage to risk hurting someone's feelings in the interest of helping them AND their animals.

Maggie, good for you for apologizing when someone feelings were unintentionally hurt.

Foxyboysracing, good for you (and your animals) for being open minded enough to accept new information that will better your tortoises live, and good for you for accepting Maggie's genuine apology.

This is a dilemma many of us face. Some of us have lots of experience over many years with a particular species or two and have learned that what the books, pet shops and vets have to say is mostly wrong. We know what IS right through personal hardships trial and error. We want to share this info with everyone to prevent them and their animals from having to endure what we had to go through to gain this information. That is the beauty of a forum like this. It GREATLY shortens the learning curve. We all LOVE new people joining our community and sharing their experiences and input, but its sometimes hard to figure out how much new info to blast a new member with and how soon. We all know that mixed species, or the wrong temps, or the wrong foods are potentially damaging to the animals that this person loves and is here to talk about and we want to help immediately, but sometimes the advice is not wanted or its just too much to absorb when they have their vet, pet shop and books telling them otherwise. I think it should be a given that most people want to do the best they can for their torts. Especially the people that take the time to join a forum like ours. I don't think we have any mean people here, and I think EVERYBODY here has the best of intentions. Its sometimes just hard to know how much to hit someone over the head with and how soon. Sometimes, I'll send a PM and ASK then if they would like to hear my opinion. This has opened more than a few doors and started several new friendships for me.

Maggie corrected me too when I first got my young gulf coast box turtle. I don't have a lot of Box turtle experience and she gave me some good tips. I appreciated her frank and no non-sense approach, and her clear advice immediately made my turtle's life better. Not everyone has a silver tongue and an abundance of tact and social grace. (I'm referring to myself, NOT anyone else.) But I think if we all keep in mind that we are good people here, who want to do the right thing and be as helpful as possible, it makes the medicine go down a lot smoother...

Happy torting everyone!!! :D:D:D
 

Guggie

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I think some of the brashness comes with having to point out the same things over and over. IMHO, most people are going to be shorter and more harsh the 20th time you tell someone that they're doing thing X wrong than the first time. That's just human nature.

I wonder if there's a solution to this. We have a "Oh No! White Stuff!" thread somewhere prominent that all new users can see it. Perhaps a section called "Common Questions / Issues" could be set up, where these general topics could be covered in detail. Then people could point to them when necessary. This would take care of one of my problems - I often read a thread and know something is wrong, but don't say anything cause I don't feel like I'm the expert. With this system, I could point them to the document(s) written by those experts.

Now, I'm not saying anything about Maggie, her knowledge, or her dedication. If we were to do something like I propose above, I would want people like Maggie these documents / guides. This is just a way to do so in a detached way, where emotion doesn't play a part.

BTW - I really respect both Maggie and Dawn for their posts above. Takes guts to apologize.
 

lynnedit

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Guggie said:
I think some of the brashness comes with having to point out the same things over and over. IMHO, most people are going to be shorter and more harsh the 20th time you tell someone that they're doing thing X wrong than the first time. That's just human nature.

I wonder if there's a solution to this. We have a "Oh No! White Stuff!" thread somewhere prominent that all new users can see it. Perhaps a section called "Common Questions / Issues" could be set up, where these general topics could be covered in detail. Then people could point to them when necessary. This would take care of one of my problems - I often read a thread and know something is wrong, but don't say anything cause I don't feel like I'm the expert. With this system, I could point them to the document(s) written by those experts.

Now, I'm not saying anything about Maggie, her knowledge, or her dedication. If we were to do something like I propose above, I would want people like Maggie these documents / guides. This is just a way to do so in a detached way, where emotion doesn't play a part.

BTW - I really respect both Maggie and Dawn for their posts above. Takes guts to apologize.



That is a good suggestion. I think they do post 'stickies', when something valuable comes up, but of course, there is different advice for each tort species.
It is hard when you are earnest, but new to torts, to absorb all of the information, sometimes conflicting, and get it right immediately. You can try very hard, and still find you are doing something wrong. It can be very discouraging.
People care so much about torts on this site, that they want to see the conditions corrected.
I think we all periodically have to remember where each group is coming from, and that any one who posts here loves torts.
I also commend Maggie and Dawn for being open and honest!
 
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