Published on 12, July, 2020
You've probably seen it on social media. Thousands of people circling around someone to call them out, believing they are doing the right thing, without considering the potential wider impact.
Someone makes a mistake, the world is talking about them and begging them to make an apology. They make an apology and they get screamed at even more.
Those getting involved will be all "I would never have done that", ignoring their own mistakes which are likely to be considered reprehensible to someone.
Look up the story of Justine Sacco, as that's quite a big example. This goes into more detail: https://www.childline.ie/the-mental-health-effects-of-social-media-pile-ons/
I found myself in the middle of this last year. Two things can be right at the same time - the person has done wrong, but tearing them to shreds is not going to make it better. While some people close to me kindly called me out (and rightly so), others who weren't party to the situation were sticking their oars in. I think they enjoyed it. I couldn't do anything about it, I had to just sit there and deal with my life being on fire while others were throwing gasoline on it.
It was strangers validating every negative thought I ever had about myself. Suddenly I'm like "oh I am a piece of ***" and I had to deal with the fact that, for the first time ever, I was genuinely unlikeable. I had to sit with that and it was a very dark time.
There's been a lot of learning and stuff like that since. I'm a better person now. However, I've never dealt with it very well. I'm angry with myself and the world.
I'm lucky to have a therapist but I don't talk to anyone else about it. Whenever I have tried, they have either not understood or just been like "move on and forget about it", which to me is code for "just shut up". It's so frustrating because I don't think it's difficult for anyone to understand, but it's like no one wants to.
It doesn't matter how far away I am from it, it still haunts me. Ask anyone who has been in the same position and they'll say the same thing.
I never say anything to anyone that I wouldn't be happy about were it become public, I just assume that everybody is going to gossip. The only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them's dead. I've never been on fb or any of the others, pile ons are one of the reasons why.
One of the things I had to learn the hard way. I admit that I was very naive, but also I allowed people into my personal life who, instead of confronting me personally, decided to set the internet on me.
I've lost to many sets of friends over the years, luckily the internet has only happened since I decided I wasn't going to bother with friends anymore, or rather human ones. I think people look for a scapegoat and anyone slightly different, i.e autistic or something will b chosen as the scapegoat. There's still things where I've no idea of what I'm supposed to have done, being told, 'you know what you did' is no help at all.
Sorry you're having to go through this, its horrid.
It's arguably worse in this case because it was predominantly other autistic people who closed in on me like they did. You'd think they would be the ones who would understand the most about how traumatising this sort of thing would be, but I guess in the midst of enjoying seeing someone set fire to his own life, they forgot about that.