I just wanted to say that you describe the experience of hurt so well. You put it down in phases, and I experience it exactly like that too. It’s like a shock to the system, I’m just stunned at first, then the hurt kicks in. :( I’m sorry you’ve experienced this. I hope you don’t feel deterred from this social platform. There are jerks on the internet but there’s also a decent community here and we want to try to lift each other up when we can. You’ve got this. And it’s okay to take breaks from the internet too.

You gotta get professional help offline.

You have a choice, you can always peruse a different place online, something that is more suitable to you. It sounds to me like you have coping issues, perhaps go to a DBT class and learn to better manage yourself and your methods of handling external influences.

Like others have said, take a break from the internet for a while. (After this particular post slows down and you digest what people here have to say, of course.)

On Lemmy, my habit is usually to block every controversial community that I can. If I see trolls that hang out in specific communities, I’ll usually block them before they get a chance to interact with me. My feed here is fairly clean, but it took a while to filter out the dozens of political communities. (Political communities are breeding grounds for controversy, so stay away from the comments if you can.)

If you game, stay away from any toxic gaming communities or disable all chat if you can.

You may feel like you are missing out on things the more you sanitize your interactions online. Don’t worry, you aren’t.

Its harder to filter for people who may randomly attack you online. Self-control is paramount: The second you read a word of something negative, stop reading that comment and block that person if possible.

Still though, blocking and filtering only goes so far. The internets can be a hostile place whatever forum you are on. When you are able, it just takes a ton of patience and practice to properly ignore what you read online.

Hey, so first, relax. And not in a “wow what a crazy overreaction what a weirdo” way.

Like in a “it completely doesn’t matter” way.

It sounds like youre likely ruminating on past interactions and letting that cycle paralyze you. I hate to tell you “touch grass,” but, go exercise. Find something fun to do. Go hiking. Or take up a hobby. Learn an instrument. Kick a hackey sack around.

I know it sucks. But hear me… When your brain is frantically figuring out how to handle your redlining heart and O2 levels, you will not be able to take the space to remember that thing someone said online. When your brain is getting frustrated that you keep messing up that riff at the same spot every time, you’ll find focus that drowns out this negative stuff.

There’s a lot I can say, but it’s all to sell you on something that’s a hard sell. Take my word for it, please. Find a big hill and go walk up it the next time your chest feels tight.

I tend to be similar. And what my therapist tells me, and what maybe you need to hear or realize is, you are living in your head. There’s a whole world outside of it. If being in your head is not treating you well, go focus on your senses. Go smell something nice. Go touch something fuzzy. Go listen to something pleasant. Go eat something delicious. And focus on it. Like for real, oomut of your head, focus on it. Take stock in what’s good.

If going online hurts you that much, have you tried not going online?

You definitely need professional therapy. In the mean time maybe stay off the internet.

It’s not as severe for me, but I agree with the sentiment. People who probably don’t even see themselves as mean are undeniably being that way toward complete strangers online - and it honestly baffles me. You say something, and because you phrased it a certain way or didn’t caveat every single point, people start doing mental gymnastics and arrive at this caricature of “the other,” then come at you as if all their assumptions are spot on.

Maybe I shouldn’t even say this so as not to encourage them, but yeah - it hurts. To them, I might just be a screen name, but they seem to forget there’s a real person with real feelings behind it. I know these people wouldn’t talk like that to strangers in real life - not just because they’d get punched in the face, but because seeing the other person’s reaction would make them feel mean too. Online, you can just drop a bomb and walk away, ignoring whatever damage you caused.

Saying mean things to people hurts their feelings. Shocker, right?

I can’t provide anything that you haven’t been provided by a mental health expert, but I can tell you to be extremely aware of those attacking you online. They don’t know you, they don’t see you, they just see text and reply in a way that they’ve been conditioned to reply through their own experiences online. Some people are extremely hostile online, I would know, I was one of them. The moment a real person was attached to a comment, I felt instant remorse of my actions. I once attacked a temporary =3 host and he personally replied to me in a non-aggressive manner, and I can honestly trace back my awareness of my actions online to that one interaction, it filled me with remorse and embarrassment, I had just personally attacked someone for no reason other than they exposed themselves on the internet to try and entertain an audience, and I could see I had made them feel bad about it, it felt horrible.

This is a degree of awareness that is either unusual for most people or something that will eventually happen to them but hasn’t happened yet, and this in no way reflects on you as a human being. Think about that whenever you feel attacked: they might lack the awareness of the impact of their actions, or they may be going through a rough time themselves, or they might just be assholes. None of these scenarios mean you are any less deserving of love and acceptance than anyone else, it just means we live in a world with a ton of people doing their thing and sometimes that’s a harmful action towards others.

Same thing with real life bullies. I admit I’m not as lenient on them because I had a horrible time in school due to bullies, and now I see they have grown to be grown up bullies (one of my school bullies literally became a right wing libertarian lawyer who leads a libertarian community that’s stealing aboriginal lands and suing my country for billions because the government doesn’t want such communities to exist), I do not understand it, I hate it, but…it’s still a problem with them and not with me. After years of feeling like I was unworthy of acceptance, of compassion or friendship, I found my people, I went to university and found my nerds, I grew up and went to work and found even more nerds, I eventually found a girl who vibes with me and we eventually found a bar where we found many people we like and we keep growing our friend circles with people who see us for who we are, who can have a nice time with us without the need to be hurtful to anyone (there’s always banter and it’s necessary to recognize banter for what it is, since under it there still is love). I’m currently writing this from said bar, surrounded by wonderful people and having changed my hateful self for a loving one. Loving myself has been a challenge and yet I’ve managed to get there, and I wish I could tell my teenage self we get there in the end.

Don’t let the negative experiences rule your world, even if your own mind tricks you into doing so. I remember sorta becoming addicted to the pain, not being able to fall asleep without reliving all the pain I had been keeping in my heart. It’s such a weird thing, but it was very real and I had to work very hard to overcome it, with medication, with friends, with reasoning and self awareness. It’s not easy, it can almost feel impossible, but it can be done. I, for one, believe in you OP, not because I know you, but because I didn’t believe in myself and I still pulled through, and I think if I could do it while rooting against myself at many points in time, so can you.

Allow me to quote a small fragment from the movie V for Vendetta: “even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you.”

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