Coping with cyberbullying

I feel so hurt because I had said thank you for creating a video and misspell the person name and several trolls began harassing me and calling me name. I feel really hurt by this because I had ask you them to stop.

Oh, Buffy, I hate that you are dealing with this. Cyberbullying is the reason I have almost no social media presence. I came to PC quite frankly to save my life. It worked. You guys and gals are my strength. But I do almost nothing else that could be considered social media for just this reason.

There are so many people out there who hide behind anonymous usernames and think that gives them the right to behave in ways they would never in real life. This is what I mean when I say I don't endorse virtually any social media. I think it can often do more harm than good. Just my take.

I have a hobby and there is a quite popular site for folks that share that interest. Massive base of members. I have been on it for quite awhile and I actually amassed the third largest post count on the site. Tens and tens of thousands. Whatever. I contributed a fair bit, if I do say so myself. Recently, the person running the site censored a thread I started because the response to that thread would have made his sponsors angry (this site has tons of ads). So, after more than 200 views, there were miraculously zero responses to this thread on a very hot topic. How about that!!

I did not PM the owner. I did not raise a ruckus. I have principles and one of them is that my country was founded on free speech. Polite and appropriate, but free expression for all. I stopped posting. I PM'd my buddy, who has the most posts. Told him I was done. Deleted everything on my profile. Changed my avatar to a burning black hole. Changed my signature quote to: The best amendment is the first amendment. I logged out and that was that. Forever. 50,000 posts--goodbye!!! Poof!

I guess what I am saying, Buffy, is that sometimes our experiences steer us in a new and different direction. I don't know about your involvement in things like facebook and Insta-whatever and Snap-whoever. But if you feel you are being bullied, maybe it is time to take another look at what you can control. There are jerks on the internet, we know this. You and I cannot, unfortunately, control that. What we can control is our participation in some of these things. Maybe it's time for you to reevaluate what you really want to do with respect to all that.

Sending you positive vibes and support. It sucks. But maybe taking some action will help empower you. I often find that when I feel most vulnerable and helpless, action can get me out of it. And then, you might feel like you have more control. All the best--

Thank you for your kind words and support..

Good post.

I don't know if you ever tried simply saying ''thank you for your input'' to their mean statements. Bullies thrive on negative emotion. That response is bland and emotionless. They wouldn't receive much feed from that response.

I never thought about that.

Hugs to you Buffy - for all its positive points the internet can be downright cruel sometimes- or rather there are those who use the internet for cruelty. Why? Who knows.

It's good you shared your feelings here and hope that the positive responses will help you feel the world is a friendlier place after all.

Hugs to you Buffy. I agree, although the internet has many positive points there are some who use it for cruelty. I cannot understand why.

hugs

I wish that I knew. I.start having high anxiety that cause me to have physical health problem.

If you are by nature a kind and trusting person it can be very confusing and hurtful to experience this kind of behaviour.

Maybe it is better for your health to stay away from the online places you were bullied? No online stuff is worth your mental and physical health.

Stay safe!

@bpcyclist

cyber bullying is why I left social media in the first place so can understand why you don't have it.

basically I was in a discussion on Facebook about natural disasters, and someone came back with the line



hurt me so much I never even went back on the site. have no idea why they said it, unpopular views, I guess. but still..

I am a kind and trusting person because I have a lot of compassion for people. I agree that I have to stay off of self help video or at least don't post because of cyberbullies. I had to delete my YouTube account because of the harassment wen my playlist was attack and it was suggested that I either be harmed or I harm myself.

Last year I start being threaten and by early this year they retaliated against me and made false report against me and tried to banned me from YouTube.

One thing I would like to say.

You mention bullies as plural and 'they' but often it can be literally one person with multiple accounts trying to look like more people - they call it 'sock puppets'. I don't know if that thought may be helpful to you in recovering from your experience.

I discovered that when one of the trolls had reached out to me and admitted that she has used multiple account to bully me and had agree to delete her comment if I deleted mine when she realized how many people start harassing me and the stress she cause her sister after she read her comment to me. I had asked what I had done to her and she said I didn't do anything to her she just didn't like my comment so she start harassing me.

There's a lot of talk about cyber bullying with regard to children and teens (which is very important), but I never hear much about bullying adults. A year ago I had a breakdown because I was being harassed and bullied on a Facebook group. It was one of the most awful experiences of my life. There weren't any resources to turn to for help.

I'm very sorry that you've been victimized in such a cruel way. No one should experience cyber bullying.

I know because I been looking for help. I am adult who bully by teenager who suffer from a mental illness .

I also agree nobody should experience cyberbullying. Some of the bullies are extremely cruel and malicious. It can, and does, literally make people sick. (yes, its happened to me )

When there are no resources available to turn to for help it worsens an already sick and wrong situation.

Sometimes the best (and only) option is to ''delete'' account and run from the bullies. They are jerks, frankly.

I agree. I had to delete my YouTube account because of the harassment that start last year.

Thank you.

The first time I became a real victim had to do when in 2018 I post a comment on YouTube without being aware of the future consequences I would have. By September I was having a nervous break down because I was receiving death threats, called horrible names and out of retailigation by the beginning of 2019 a troll defend the troll who was harassing me and tried to have my YouTube account banned. It last into the summer of 2019. One of the trolls who was threatening me using different names had apologize to me only after she was threaten to have the police called on her for having other trolls to harassed me by her boyfriend when he showed her what other were doing to me long before she post a comment that was upsetting her sister who read the horrible comment she wrote to me that has cause her sister high anxiety. It was all because she didn’t agree with my comment on YouTube video and was really scared that she had pushed me to far into committing suicide. They said they had my IP addressed and threaten to call the police on me even though they were threatening me. Most of them were teenager and one a very lonely man who one day suddenly got a taste of his own medicine when he found himself a victim of being bullied and slander like he did to me..

There was no one I could go to for help. I had to delete my gmail account and start over again with a new account.