What I learned from an Internet Troll
A few months ago, I had my first piece published for Scary Mommy. It was about the unexpected joys and loneliness of single parenting. I am a very mature, subdued, internal processor so naturally when I was checking my personal email at work and got the email that it would be published, my jaw dropped, I jumped over paperwork, fake flowers, goldfish and a hula hoop (I'm in children's ministry, guys, don't ask), bolted to the door like it was time for the local fire fighter's visit to our preschool, threw my hands up, tangling one of them in my hair that would've made me such a perfect Texan, and said yelled "SCARY MOMMY IS PUBLISHING SOME OF MY WRITING!" and waited for the applause that never came. Only one of my four coworkers in the office at the time even knew what Scary Mommy was, and the other three tried but pretty sure they thought what I was hoping would be my big break might actually be my big mental breakdown.
Jokes on them, I had that breakdown awhiiiiiilllleee ago.
They were all very supportive, of course, but hard to share that level of enthusiasm with anyone over anything that's not the birth of a child or winning the lottery, so I went to my family group chat and spent the next six minutes franticly explaining what Scary Mommy was and why this was a big deal.
If only I had a dollar for every time I've asked the question of myself: Why is no one meeting me at "potential of meeting single fire fighters enthusiasm" level?
(It probably does not need to be pointed out that the mature, subdued, internal processor sentence was laced with just a bit of my love language, sarcasm.)
A couple of days later I was in therapy, and in the days after the email but before my appointment, I had quite a few friends online or over text validate my enthusiasm because they are kind (and I'm sure my texts reeked of desperate for validation at that point). So, I was a little bit more humble and quiet when I told my therapist the news. "WHAT?!" she said, my anxiety assuming that she is internally judging my lack of excitement at this point, because anxiety never fucking quits, "OF COURSE I know what Scary Mommy is! Erynne, that's amazing!!!"
This. This is why I pay you. This is the reaction I needed and would have been worth the slight stumble over the hula hoop that my hip was still feeling two days later.
I've written some vulnerable pieces before. I joke about how the only piece of my life's work, or my calling, that I understand is that I'm supposed to just be my hot mess awkward self because it helps other people feel less alone in their own awkward hot mess. I joke about it, but it's true. I still have what Brene Brown refers to as a "vulnerability hangover" after I hit post most times, but publishing something for a blog that six friends read is a little different that a Facebook page that has a million followers, turns out.
Most of the feedback was positive. And truly, deep down in my core where my truth lives and anxiety can't reach, I know anytime I write it is for me, and if it helps one or two other people, even better. The jokes about the validation are steeped in some truth, of course, like any good coping mechanism. But really when you're the kind of person who unabashedly admits to checking your personal email at work at work, and straight up tells your boss over Zoom calls "I'm not putting the video on because I haven't showered or looked in the mirror today", how much do you really care about what other people think?
So yes, most of it was positive, especially when the initial post was published on one of their smaller, spin off Facebook pages. When it did well on that page, and was published on their main Facebook page. The positive was still there, but mixed in were some real life "put therapy into practice" opportunities.
I know, I know, you're not supposed to read the comments. And honestly, I did stop after about fifteen minutes, when the ratio of positive to negative felt like it was creeping to 50:50 and my anxiety felt like it was creeping to 100. The real trolls, the ones who just comment on anything, who you could tell didn't even read it, that didn't bother me.
The ones that got me? The ones that commented on how if I could refer to my ex-husband as a co-parent, then I wasn't a real single parent. The ones that commented that I wasn't a real single parent because I didn't have my kids 100% of the time. The ones that essentially said if I could find the joy in single parenting, I wasn't hurting enough. The worst one, that got to me - the one who said it was well written, but I didn't know what I was talking about and was whining, as her husband had died and I should be lucky that my children's father was still alive.
My friends. Bless them, and not in the condescending southern way. Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to be friends with a writer, an empath, a recovering codependent with OCD, who sends texts in caps far too often to be taken seriously. I texted some of them, the ones who know my story in and out.
"What else am I supposed to call him?! My kids will read this some day! HE might ready this today! That will only make things worse!"
"Don't they know, anyone who has to share custody wants their kids 100% of the time but they can't?! Don't they know the agony of having your children away from you, somewhere you're not sure if they're okay?"
Don't they know? Don't they know my pain? That's what I think I was really asking.
I didn't realize that was my real question until a few days later, once the excitement and the hurt had settled (and I stopped reading the comments at all), as I was scrolling through Facebook. I saw a post from a married mom about how she had to single parent that week because her husband was out of town.
And I was pissed.
I went through in my head (ok, so sometimes I CAN be an internal processor) all the reasons why she was not a single parent. Ugh, I thought, she has no idea.
The thing is, I did have an idea. I had an idea of how difficult it must be for her. I was a stay at home parent to two young kids when I was married, and my ex-husband worked out of town for 4-6 weeks at a time. It sucked. It was SO HARD. Some days, much harder than what I go through now. Some days, not nearly as hard. It was made harder by untreated anxiety and depression, and a shitty marriage, but of course few people knew that at the time. No one knew my pain.
And I think I realized there, as I sat in my anger, that I realized it was not anger at all. It was that I didn't feel seen. My pain didn't feel seen or heard, when I saw someone refer to themselves as a single parent who wasn't, I felt like my pain didn't matter. When some of those readers saw me refer to myself as a single parent and they didn't think I was, maybe they felt like their pain didn't matter, either.
That woman whose husband died, the woman whose ex abandoned them, the trolls who read it and commented "bull shit"? They all read my post about shared custody, and they didn't see my pain, what was written between the lines, but more so, their pain was not seen. Their hurt and fear and grief and loss and anger was not seen or acknowledged in my story, and I can only assume they felt that anger bubble up inside of them and it came out on the keyboard.
I think that's what it comes down to. Our pain, our hurt, it needs to be seen and it needs to be felt. I read something on Kristen Bell's instagram recently that said "This isn't the Pain Olympics." We need to stop comparing and competing with our pain. It just is. It just hurts.
Sharing our stories, reading each other's stories, there's beauty in that connection, especially when we see ourselves in someone else's story. But, we don't always. We don't always see ourselves in someone else's story, and what a practice in compassion and empathy to recognize that we don't have to in order for their story to still matter.
This is going to sound harsh, because the truth almost always is. But it isn't about you. The strangers on the internet? Their comments weren't about me. My feelings about seeing someone in a marriage refer to themselves as temporarily single? Also, not about me. And yeah, "they" say not to read comments on the internet, but it took me reading "bullshit" written bya troll someone hurting on a heartfelt piece for me to realize this truth.
Jokes on them, I had that breakdown awhiiiiiilllleee ago.
They were all very supportive, of course, but hard to share that level of enthusiasm with anyone over anything that's not the birth of a child or winning the lottery, so I went to my family group chat and spent the next six minutes franticly explaining what Scary Mommy was and why this was a big deal.
If only I had a dollar for every time I've asked the question of myself: Why is no one meeting me at "potential of meeting single fire fighters enthusiasm" level?
(It probably does not need to be pointed out that the mature, subdued, internal processor sentence was laced with just a bit of my love language, sarcasm.)
A couple of days later I was in therapy, and in the days after the email but before my appointment, I had quite a few friends online or over text validate my enthusiasm because they are kind (and I'm sure my texts reeked of desperate for validation at that point). So, I was a little bit more humble and quiet when I told my therapist the news. "WHAT?!" she said, my anxiety assuming that she is internally judging my lack of excitement at this point, because anxiety never fucking quits, "OF COURSE I know what Scary Mommy is! Erynne, that's amazing!!!"
This. This is why I pay you. This is the reaction I needed and would have been worth the slight stumble over the hula hoop that my hip was still feeling two days later.
I've written some vulnerable pieces before. I joke about how the only piece of my life's work, or my calling, that I understand is that I'm supposed to just be my hot mess awkward self because it helps other people feel less alone in their own awkward hot mess. I joke about it, but it's true. I still have what Brene Brown refers to as a "vulnerability hangover" after I hit post most times, but publishing something for a blog that six friends read is a little different that a Facebook page that has a million followers, turns out.
Most of the feedback was positive. And truly, deep down in my core where my truth lives and anxiety can't reach, I know anytime I write it is for me, and if it helps one or two other people, even better. The jokes about the validation are steeped in some truth, of course, like any good coping mechanism. But really when you're the kind of person who unabashedly admits to checking your personal email at work at work, and straight up tells your boss over Zoom calls "I'm not putting the video on because I haven't showered or looked in the mirror today", how much do you really care about what other people think?
So yes, most of it was positive, especially when the initial post was published on one of their smaller, spin off Facebook pages. When it did well on that page, and was published on their main Facebook page. The positive was still there, but mixed in were some real life "put therapy into practice" opportunities.
I know, I know, you're not supposed to read the comments. And honestly, I did stop after about fifteen minutes, when the ratio of positive to negative felt like it was creeping to 50:50 and my anxiety felt like it was creeping to 100. The real trolls, the ones who just comment on anything, who you could tell didn't even read it, that didn't bother me.
The ones that got me? The ones that commented on how if I could refer to my ex-husband as a co-parent, then I wasn't a real single parent. The ones that commented that I wasn't a real single parent because I didn't have my kids 100% of the time. The ones that essentially said if I could find the joy in single parenting, I wasn't hurting enough. The worst one, that got to me - the one who said it was well written, but I didn't know what I was talking about and was whining, as her husband had died and I should be lucky that my children's father was still alive.
My friends. Bless them, and not in the condescending southern way. Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to be friends with a writer, an empath, a recovering codependent with OCD, who sends texts in caps far too often to be taken seriously. I texted some of them, the ones who know my story in and out.
"What else am I supposed to call him?! My kids will read this some day! HE might ready this today! That will only make things worse!"
"Don't they know, anyone who has to share custody wants their kids 100% of the time but they can't?! Don't they know the agony of having your children away from you, somewhere you're not sure if they're okay?"
Don't they know? Don't they know my pain? That's what I think I was really asking.
I didn't realize that was my real question until a few days later, once the excitement and the hurt had settled (and I stopped reading the comments at all), as I was scrolling through Facebook. I saw a post from a married mom about how she had to single parent that week because her husband was out of town.
And I was pissed.
I went through in my head (ok, so sometimes I CAN be an internal processor) all the reasons why she was not a single parent. Ugh, I thought, she has no idea.
The thing is, I did have an idea. I had an idea of how difficult it must be for her. I was a stay at home parent to two young kids when I was married, and my ex-husband worked out of town for 4-6 weeks at a time. It sucked. It was SO HARD. Some days, much harder than what I go through now. Some days, not nearly as hard. It was made harder by untreated anxiety and depression, and a shitty marriage, but of course few people knew that at the time. No one knew my pain.
And I think I realized there, as I sat in my anger, that I realized it was not anger at all. It was that I didn't feel seen. My pain didn't feel seen or heard, when I saw someone refer to themselves as a single parent who wasn't, I felt like my pain didn't matter. When some of those readers saw me refer to myself as a single parent and they didn't think I was, maybe they felt like their pain didn't matter, either.
That woman whose husband died, the woman whose ex abandoned them, the trolls who read it and commented "bull shit"? They all read my post about shared custody, and they didn't see my pain, what was written between the lines, but more so, their pain was not seen. Their hurt and fear and grief and loss and anger was not seen or acknowledged in my story, and I can only assume they felt that anger bubble up inside of them and it came out on the keyboard.
I think that's what it comes down to. Our pain, our hurt, it needs to be seen and it needs to be felt. I read something on Kristen Bell's instagram recently that said "This isn't the Pain Olympics." We need to stop comparing and competing with our pain. It just is. It just hurts.
Sharing our stories, reading each other's stories, there's beauty in that connection, especially when we see ourselves in someone else's story. But, we don't always. We don't always see ourselves in someone else's story, and what a practice in compassion and empathy to recognize that we don't have to in order for their story to still matter.
This is going to sound harsh, because the truth almost always is. But it isn't about you. The strangers on the internet? Their comments weren't about me. My feelings about seeing someone in a marriage refer to themselves as temporarily single? Also, not about me. And yeah, "they" say not to read comments on the internet, but it took me reading "bullshit" written by
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