the unfortunate power of negativity, dealing with blog comments

For the most part, my blogging has helped me. It has been a place to vent and analyze my thoughts and feelings. It has been a much-needed exercise in writing. It has allowed me to share a painful experience as well as the more joyous sides to life. I have received many amazing and thoughtful comments as well as great advice on how to continue my journey. I have been so grateful to hear that other people have experienced the same things or that they felt empowered reading some of my posts.  So with all the positivity that has been generously given, why can one person’s rude and negative comments negate it?

From day one, there has been one person, who continues to leave hurtful and sarcastic comments. He uses a fake email so that I can not respond and he has personally attacked me several times. He has said things that at times had me almost to the point of taking the entire thing down. And I sit and wonder does anyone else experience this? I have never left a negative comment of any kind on anyone’s blog because I think it is unneccessary and if I do not enjoy the content of their blog, I simply do not continue reading it. But this individual drops in every once in a while reads something and then berates me.

I suppose I should have expected this sort of thing and prepared for it but every time it feels as if I have been sucker punched. The main thing that saddens me is that this happens all the time in life and people such as myself, perfectionists, are incredibly susceptible to it. We can have a million people tells us that we are great and talented and it only takes one person to destroy all of it.  I recently had a writer for the NY Times tell me that he thought I was quite talented and that he wanted me to start working on a project so that he could take it to his editors and his agent. He read my entire blog in a couple of hours and said that he really enjoyed it, which I was more than flattered about. I was so excited and humbled by his comments and felt a great sense of accomplishment. But after reading this latest criticism from this anonymous individual I am left questioning myself again.

Why do we let people cause us such harm while they hide behind a computer screen? Why am I so bothered by what one person has to say about me? Why does this person invest any time at all in trying to harm me? I will never understand people’s need to belittle and judge others, it seems so contrary to what we are all trying to do. But I suppose this is what I should expect to deal with and hopefully by continuing to stay true to myself,  I will not let this person win.