Some background - I am diagnosed with autism and it can be hard for me to just “ignore” the awful things people can say to me when I’m online.
The latest thing someone said to me really got me feeling down and depressed. Honestly having darker thoughts because of it.
I have IBS-D, which means there is an insane amount of food I cannot eat - if I do eat the things I cannot, my intestines get shredded and I bleed like crazy. Honestly the list is massive and my diet has basically been chicken green beans and potatoes every night for the past 3 years. I have lost over 60 lbs, and currently weigh 130lbs as a 5.11 male. Doctors have been trying to figure it out but they haven’t been able to and say I may just have to live with it.
This person was calling me a monster because I eat meat, even though I have a medical condition that makes my diet extremely limited. Unfortunately meat is one of the only things that agrees with my stomach across the board. I’d like to be vegetarian but I literally will die from malnutrition and weight loss if I did try. I explained this to the user but they didn’t care.
I explained my autism to them, and that what they were saying was making me depressed and they just continued with saying how I was a monster and killing myself wouldn’t be as bad as killing all the animals I have to “enjoy” meat. They said my condition wasn’t an excuse and compared me to the “sexual cycle of violence” of dracula.
This user made me feel really sad and crappy. Afterwards I cried for a while but I don’t feel better.
The problem I have is that there are many people online who seem to get pleasure from being awful to others, and it gets to me every time.
Does anyone have any advice for handling these situations online? Often I hear people say you should just ignore these people and move on, but I end up ruminating on what they’ve said and it can make me feel bad for weeks on end. Sometimes I feel like I should just give up using the internet because of these people.
Chronic health problems are a psychological challenge at least as much as a physical one. I wish you all the best fellow beeple.
Everyone was dropping Reddit because of the CEO’s shenanigans but honestly I quit mainly because I couldn’t take the constant antagonism anymore. So my advice is to choose your communities carefully. In my opinion participating in a community is already supporting it and if bullying is accepted there then it’s not worth supporting.
Another advice: when the Internet started to be mainstream, common sense was to never reveal personal information in public forums. I don’t care what social media says, I think it’s still sound to maintain an air of mystery and be careful what you say about yourself.
Last piece of advice: Beehaw’s nice, so chill here for a while :)