Just wanted to say everyone, thank you for your advice. Really. (I'm making Pfrog's reply a whole separate post because I have a lot of ground to cover)

Pfrog: True, very true. Kids aren't really born with their self-esteem in the toilet. I'm going to have to work backwards with this because I think that a lot of people contributed.

2015: When I was first doing research on



I came across this webpage that just said awful things about survivors of abuse or people just investigating the possibility of abuse (as opposed to, y'know, putting the blame on the abuser where it belongs. It just makes me angry because there's...well, there's plenty of things wrong with the perpetrators of abuse, in all forms. But there is nothing wrong with the people these perpetrators hurt. Not a thing. So that webpage can take a walk in the eighth circle of Dante's Inferno in a snowsuit). Like I said in the parentheses, I don't agree with anything the webpage author said. That person's an insensitive tool. I guess I was too willing to believe there was something wrong with me because if I didn't, I was just running away or something.

2014: Tying into that issue, there was a certain...hot button issue that kind of erupted across the Internet (honestly, I think both sides are trash for different reasons. Yeah, I'm kind of a jaded person) and I had all these different people trying to speak for me. Who I am, how I should feel, stuff like that. Meanwhile, these same people were doing things I doubt I can even type because I'll just get angry. Suffice to say, they were terrible people, and considering my models for womanhood weren't good ones, I started losing some faith. It's pretty damaging, that sort of crap -- what it can do to your sense of self as a woman.

2013 -- Yeah, that was the year things just fell apart. An Internet friend I'd been having tension with for a long while broke things off because of a stupid squabble about shipping (it didn't help that previously, he was kind of...not treating me well. It wasn't like an ordinary debate; with an ordinary debate, you respect the other person. Most of our discussions seemed to involve him kind of mocking me or saying something inflammatory or accusing me of doing something I wasn't and me really, really trying to keep my cool. I will say I managed to maintain my disagreement-related boundaries pretty well, especially since I was a teenager. I was calm, I tried to be respectful, things like that, while standing my ground -- I can be pretty stubborn when I need to be. I just wish I'd gotten out sooner) and that shook things a bit. Then there was a fandom upheaval, I tried to get some people to back off of other people (because the thing is, it was like they actually went after other people's posts on Tumblr just to say they were bad people just because they had a different opinion -- even if that opinion was completely innocuous), got some support on this from people who were probably as sick of it as I was but also backlash, including someone getting angry I didn't reply to their post earlier because my Tumblr app kept crashing. And someone else calling me stupid, basically. And I was already in a bad place, lashing out at people (which wasn't a healthy coping mechanism) so I just...snapped. I guess it also didn't help that with the double whammy of that ex-friend I mentioned earlier and those people, I got the message that my opinions and beliefs were basically a joke and even that I was a bad person for having them.

And to make things more ridiculous, it was all over a fandom. I don't get what made them get so self-righteous over that. And yeah, I recognize the hypocrisy in there, but I guess I have a protective instinct in me. If someone's getting hurt, I want to help. That and I guess the people I mentioned forgot that there's actually a human being behind there.

2012 -- The friend who severed ties with me in 2013. That was when our particular brand of argument was really bad. (I wouldn't even call it an argument; arguments imply that both sides have something legit to be mad about. This guy was mostly a condescending tool) Also, my high school senior year, which mercifully came to a close.

2010: Had to transfer high schools thanks to certain disagreements with teachers. Also, going back to the theme of crying in front of people being humiliating, because I was just in tears in that office. Also, getting more lectures on How To Think And Feel As A Woman, including a pretty insulting comment from a critic I was growing increasingly irritated with about a female character being drawn curvy, like there was something wrong with that.
And nobody else seemed to see it. Which kind of added to my feeling of being "weird", I guess.

2004-2005: Got sent to the principal's office by my fifth grade teacher's assistant because she thought I was laughing at her when I wasn't. Ended up crying, adding another layer to just hating crying in front of people.

2000: That's my earliest memory of being treated awfully (I've been told of a case that happened in a daycare, but I have zero memory of it). It was a teacher, to be more precise, and it was the first day of my being at an elementary school (I went to a different school for pre-K and don't have memories of feeling awful. I do remember having a very heightened sense of guilt and empathy as a kid, though I don't know where it started, actually. Chronology's a bit difficult). It was during a fire drill, I grabbed my coat when I wasn't supposed to, and my first grade teacher literally got in my face and started shouting at me. I mean, maybe she was worried about me and was just expressing frustration and worry, but it still definitely terrified first grade me. I also have other memories of her making me cry, which was really embarrassing because I hate crying in public. It's almost like someone walking in on you naked or something. And then you get the people staring at you, and that makes it a lot worse. I know that when I was being made to cry in that class, the other kids were staring. It was a lot like a public shaming, in a way. In my class, I definitely got drawn to the fact that I was Different and New and Didn't Know The Rules. I don't know if that was my teacher's intent -- I'm not a telepath -- but it definitely hurt a lot.

So I guess I got the messages from others that I was stupid, cowardly, a bad person, weird, and what I thought and said didn't matter. Even if they did it unintentionally, it did leave a mark. I could stand up to those voices, tell them to go away. It would help.

There's definitely more I haven't really remembered, but I should be going to bed. I'll address everyone else in the morning too.