I spoke about a situation on here last month. We're now two months on.
I have a therapist and a trusted contact I speak to on a regular basis as a means of trying to find a way forward and proving to myself (first and foremost) that I won't go there again. What happened has happened and I can't change it. A complete break from social media is not the worst thing for me given how unhealthy my usage of it was.
I was already prone to catastrophising but it has increased tenfold. As mentioned in the above post, I changed my phone number because I feared I would be doxxed. I remain afraid that my address (which a few of my friends at the time had) will be posted online encouraging people to send me abuse. I don't work currently but I fear that if I did, someone will find my employer and try and get me sacked. These are people with 15k+ followers so people will follow what they say.
I don't wish to regurgitate everything that's in the above post, but there's no intention for me to gain sympathy or to play the victim, cos I know I screwed up. It took me a while though to accept the fact that, even though this is entirely my doing, I am allowed to feel sad about what has happened. I feel like I am grieving in a way, and that's okay.
I had no issue with those close to me (at the time) calling me out on my actions; that was the right thing to do. When total strangers are making it personal (much as I understand why given the situation in question), it's hard to really learn from that. Messaging me to tell me how much of an awful person I am is just sticking the knife in, plus when they say "we will never forget this" I'm not sure how that works in practice. Am I meant to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life?
I think the one that sticks out is where someone suggested that I'm not even actually autistic and I was making it up. That person doesn't know a single thing about me.
I hate pile-ons. I've seen it happen to people who did way less than what I did. I wouldn't want it to happen to my worst enemy, I don't believe it actually achieves anything. This does fly in the face of me saying that there have been some silver linings and that it did make me take the situation a bit more seriously, but I still don't want anyone else to go through the same thing. There has to be a healthier way.