I Was Militantly Strident Today...

and I don't mean that in a good way, as if there is one. Back when I was pregnant with Jay (the middle child) and Sam, I was active in pregnancy boards and later in parenting boards and I was always quick to avoid the dreaded MBF groups---the Militant Breast Feeders. While I was a firm believer in the benefits of breastfeeding and practiced it with all three of my children, I never understood how anyone could see the attack and belittle mode of "conversion" as one that would ever be effective. So today, when the issue of mercury causing autism came up, I was introduced first-hand to what happens when passion and reason clash.

Sam's friend, D., is taking swim lessons with him and D. is also autistic. D. was born the same week at the same hospital and was adopted by SIL's close friend, so we've known him all his life. We've discussed the autismy stuff before, but the topic of mercury/autism never came up.

And today, it did.

I'm normally a fairly rational, logical person who tries to think out answers and listen, then respond, but today, I was absolutely overbearing and just flat-out obnoxious. I don't know what came over me, but it was as if I'd been taken over by Bill O'Reilly's evil spirit or something.

When swim lessons were over and Sam and I were in the car, I felt ill. I just wanted to get home ASAP and go to bed. Or hide. Or cry. How very grown-up of me. Instead, I logged on and updated the template here and calmed myself down a bit and then thought about what the rational thing to do was.

Obviously, I have to apologize tomorrow. I was beyond rude. But I also need to gather some actual information instead of just saying, "The data is flawed" and, "That theory was never proven." And I also need to just take a step back and realize that sometimes it's better to keep some...battles?...in the cyber world and not IRL..or at least not in a friendship.