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Internet debate gone horribly wrong - trauma, ruined conscience
I've made this post on other forums before and previously posted it on subforums dealing with trauma, but I suppose it qualifies as bullying to some extent, so I reckon this subforum is the most appropriate place for it.
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Hello, and thanks for taking interest in my topic. You're about to read perhaps the most absurd case of pointless mental trauma, entirely self inflicted.
There is a certain internet forum that I have been a member of for years. Said forum has a topic for debating things of taboo nature. Last December, I made the grave mistake of trying to partake in a discussion about racism. I made perhaps the worst post imaginable that completely failed to convey my point and also spoke ill of some groups of people. For the first time in my life, I got called a racist and some debate ensued, with one member clearly pissed off by my post. The debate ended and I did not think much of it because I knew what I had written there did was not what I believed at all. However, instead of clarifying my position, I decided to push the limits further. I wanted to debate immigration, multiculturalism and islam. I proceeded to write a post that I thought was convincing - what it was in reality was something akin to a manifesto, with me proceeding to speak ill of even more people and proposing absurd solutions that could never actually be applied in reality. The following debate was closer to a contest about who can come up with the nastiest insults to throw at me. People I had been friends with for years proceeded to call me quite awful things, bigot and such. The sheer volley of insults took my mental health through some serious stress. The debate ended with me dropping out of the forum. In the following months, the insults I received kept looping in my head and hampering my concentration. I wondered to myself when this would stop. It didn't - instead in late July, a politician made a very controversial claim related to multiculturalism that garnered widespread condemnation. At this point, my mental health could no longer take it and I broke down. The original reply to my first post, calling me a racist, looped in my head while I repeated to myself "I am not a racist". I could not eat or sleep properly for a week until I realized I had to go back. Said forum has a confessions thread. I made a post saying I regretted what I had done and clarified the point I had failed to convey with my first post. This broke the loop and I could sleep. From there on out, I started slow recovery, using the confessions thread as a tool of self-affirmation, to tell myself what I needed to do. The entire contents of the two debates circled in my head endlessly while I flagellated myself because I was the only one to blame for the whole mess. Eventually I realized I had to apologize to people and when each member accepted my apology, this greatly reduced the impact of the insult and I slowly climbed towards peace of mind. I proceeded to take up meditation and gym to give myself ways to anchor myself to the present. Eventually I realized I had to make amends to any and all groups of people I felt I had wronged. I made donations to organizations dedicated to helping them and sent their representatives personal apologies. These groups include muslims, Somalians and the Romani to name a few. This helped a bit. All throughout I have been participating in negative self talk and cursing myself for letting this happen, least of all because I am currently on my last year of university and need to be able to focus. Eventually I started feeling depressive and anxious, but I believe I have gotten over this now. I then realized I needed to stop avoiding any and all things that remind me of the event. I returned to the forum for the time being and started debating immigration elsewhere - I had understandably been avoiding it since it's what got me into this mess. I also realized I needed to make further amends. Just this week, I approached an imam and told him what I did and this upped my mood quite a bit, since I had created a positive experience. And this is where I am now.
Currently, I:
- participate in negative self talk for single handedly ruining everything for myself for absolutely no reason at all
- am able to stay in the present and keep an empty mind with relative ease, with remnants of the debates occasionally popping to mind
- have markedly diminished interest in activities I used to enjoy - playing video games and listening to music to name a couple
- obviously have trouble concentrating, but I have managed to get school work done fine as long as I focus
- have trouble getting excited or feeling strongly about things. I never was an emotional person to begin with, but at the moment, I am closer to a robot on autopilot.
I have talked about these things on the forum and with a friend. Just yesterday I asked for help on a forum dedicated to PTSD and they found it unlikely I suffered from it and possibly a wrecked conscience as a result of talking crap about so many people was the main cause of this.
For the time being, I will proceed to do my best to get hang of a routine and give myself things to distract me. I welcome all input and diagnoses that might help nudge me towards recovery. Compared to how I was before all of this, I would currently say I am about half way there. For the time being, I care about little else than being able to stay in the present and concentrate.
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It has now been a few months since I made this post and I have indeed made progress. I am still dealing with mild depression and most certainly will spend a good chunk of this year slowly recovering. What still mostly bothers me about this incident is the feeling that there are people on the internet who may think ill of me - one member in particular, who is no longer active on the forum. I can say I've changed my ways all I want, and even if it feels genuine, it still bothers me that a random person on the internet might think what I wrote here is what I actually believe. Chances are they don't even remember the whole incident, but it still keeps nagging at me. Is there anything at all I can do to help me let go, besides letting time do the healing? It has now been a full year and I wish for absolutely nothing else than to be safe in my own head.
I suppose what I learned from all of this is that I am terrible at handling rejection and cannot let go the thought that someone might think ill of me, nevermind dealing with direct insults.
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