Mark and I have both felt affected by comments online recently, not necessarily ‘trolling’ but negative comments that just aren’t needed. I also know that we aren’t alone, as many people experience negativity online – it doesn’t matter who you are.
We’re very lucky that the people we interact with on a daily basis are all lovely and really build us up and support our blog. However, there are always going to be people that don’t support you and it’s hard to ignore their comments. These are some of the best ways we’ve found to deal with the negativity.
In this Post.....
Talk about it
The other night, I saw a comment that really affected me and not in a nice way. So I immediately said to Mark “this has made me feel really shitty” and just by saying that Mark was able to talk to me about it and help me feel less shitty. Likewise if Mark sees something that affects him he’ll tell me and we’ll talk about it.
We’re very lucky that we blog together so we know what the other is on about, but it’s important to speak to people regardless of whether they’re in a similar position to you. If they care for you and they are there to listen, then that’s the main thing.
Switch off.
If I see anything that affects me negatively, then I close all of my social media and try to take my mind off of what’s bothered me. It’s always good to have a break from social media if you can, because it makes you understand that the words on the screen that have effected you can’t have the same effect if you don’t look at them.
Big picture it.
If something really affects me, and I can feel myself starting to spiral then I try to look at the big picture. I think about the person or people who have said the words that have hurt me, and I consider why they’ve made the comments. I consider that these people are different to me, and that’s okay. I’m happy with who I am as a person, and I shouldn’t let someone who doesn’t matter to me personally have an effect on me.
But I also want to say that I know it’s not that easy for everyone. There have been times where I’ve seen something and no matter how much it upsets me, I keep looking. Having been bullied when I was younger, I know first hand how hard it can be to just “ignore” someone’s words (especially for any young readers that might be reading this).
That’s why my top tip was to talk to people. If you share your feelings with someone you trust, even if they are unable to solve the problem it still means that you aren’t keeping the negativity to yourself. If you feel that you don’t have someone that you trust to talk to, then please feel free to comment below or if it’s a more private matter then please contact us using our email (can be found on our contact page) or our Instagram.
There is always going to be negativity, online and offline, but it’s about finding ways to deal with that negativity.
So sorry to hear you have received unnecessary negative comments on your blog. You have a great blog. It’s good that you both can talk about it, as it does really help.
I know of another blogger who has really had horrible comments. I had not seen them myself, like I wasn’t aware you had received negative comments. But comments received were really bad and unsupportive. But luckily, she has really supportive bloggers that outway her negative comments. Let that be the same for you always, like yiu have now in kind bloggers.
That’s so lovely of you to say, thank you! It’s difficult to ignore negativity sometimes, but it’s definitely important to try and do it when you can, and the fact we have a bigger amount of lovely people that read and interact with our blog makes the negativity seem far less important
Yes, negativity can be hard to ignore. But I am glad you have more positive than negative.
I love this post. I was admin on a due date baby group and one mum asked some advice on cry it out. She had been at it for 2 hours or so. She picked her baby up because he had been sick. Thats how I read it. I cried, I felt sick and I felt uneasy. Unfortunately I wrote as I think and I had commented how I felt sick at the thought of a baby only being picked up as he was sick, I also gave advice. This obviously wasn’t the case, he wasn’t laid or forced into his cot to cry for 2 hours either. I apologised profusely publically in the group but the aftermath of my comment made me spiral into depression. I was constnantly abused via messenger, it followed me onto instagram, twitter and somehow onto whatsapp. I had many message requests and I was close to jumping in the car and dissapearing. I removed all of my social media accounts. Took a couple of weeks off and then tried again. Social media can be the most wonderful thing, but also things are interpreted in different ways and its now so important that I understand this. Your post is wonderful! And I hope many others read it because they too will begin to understand why its important to take a break when needed.
That sounds really hard, I’m sorry you had to go through that 🙁 I think sometimes with typing things online, people don’t always get the tone of how you’re saying something and so it can make miscommunication very easy – BUT regardless of that it doesn’t mean that you deserved abuse and nasty comments. I’m glad you’re feeling better after some time away from being online, and hopefully it will be a more positive experience for you this time round ❤️