Last year, a lot of things started leaking out of me in the form of anxiety, stress and panic attacks. At this point in time, I remembered emotional abuse and neglect in my childhood, but not CSA. A few days before I contacted my T for an assessment appointment, I wrote to a newspaper problem page. I forgot all about it. Then, this weekend, five months after I wrote to them, my letter was printed. By the time I realised, there were hundreds of comments. The columnist's response was really helpful, but the comments are vile. I know they are just ignorant idiots on the internet, but they have really got to me.

I don't want to post a link in case the comments upset anyone else. It was in the family section of a UK newspaper. The gist of my letter was: my dad was suicidally depressed and my mum just ignored me and told me "well don't feel like that" and "just let it wash over you". I attempted SU in my teens and subsequently overheard my mum on the phone to a friend claiming she'd had no idea I was unhappy - despite the fact she knew I was SI-ing. When I tried to talk to her about it, she said: "Well, you know that was a difficult time for me." I was ignored, neglected, and miserable. I said I didn't know why it was all bothering me so much now, and I just wanted her to acknowledge that she had neglected me.

The columnist's response was brilliant. She said it would go a long way if my mum could just, even once, say it was hard for me too. That my mum ignored everyone's needs and I was constantly trying to become visible because I was invisible. That I was defined by other people and had lost my sense of self. But a lot of the comments are absolutely awful. I can just about see they are talking rubbish, but I think they've upset me because I feel like they're a representation of what everyone in society thinks.

The commenters seemed to think my mum had done her best and, unless there was any actual maltreatment, I had nothing to complain about. Because ignoring your child's unhappiness to the point where they attempt SU and then still refusing to acknowledge it, well, that's fine, isn't it? People seem to think that, if parents have done their best, that means they've been good enough. Some people said I should appreciate my mum doing the best she could, that I shouldn't have made it harder for her, that I should apologise to her. Some people said parents don't owe their kids anything. Loads of them said I should just move on and stop blaming my parents.

This is what I struggle with all the time. I constantly assume - because of transference, because of the messages I internalised as a child - that I should stop complaining, that I have nothing to complain about, that I should just get over it and get on with life, but I can't. I'm starting to believe my therapist when he says I have wounds that are painful, but these people have just taken my inner critic and shouted everything it tells me. I shouldn't have read the comments. I wish I hadn't. Hundreds of people, all shouting with the same voice as my inner critic.

I have T tomorrow, so I'm going to talk to him about it. The part of me that listens to him, the part of me that believes I deserve to heal, thinks this is just a sad reflection of how little people understand the legacy of any kind of child abuse, because what I described in my letter was abuse, because ignoring your child and refusing to comfort them is abuse, isn't it? That part of me thinks these people are lucky not to understand why I'm hurting.

But another part of me is saying: you see? You are nothing, you are pathetic, everyone else thinks you are pathetic.

Another poster was recently triggered by online commenters and I remember saying: they are ignorant idiots, they are wrong, don't listen. But how can you ignore it when it's your own inner voice shouting at you through hundreds of people?

I'm sorry this is so long. I really need someone to tell me it's okay to need to heal, it's okay if I can't just move on. I'm trying to trust my therapist, who has 20 years' experience, over all these commenters. I'm trying to remember that, even without CSA, my childhood was a lonely, miserable, cruddy one.

But now that inner voice says: see, there you go again, expecting people to feel sorry for you.

I need someone to tell me it's okay if I can't just get over it. Sometimes I really hate the world.