Finding My Groove On Twitter

Finding My Groove On Twitter

It took a while for me to find my groove on Twitter. In general, I had not truly ever communicated too much on any social media platform until Twitter. So it took me a while to understand all the social media cues.

It also took a while for me to figure out what people meant by what they said when they commented something. I tend to take things at face value, but after my stay on Facebook, I learned that I needed to always read between the lines of a person’s comment. There always seemed to be a play on words. I didn’t get why people didn’t just say what they meant.

Sometimes, I’m not the greatest at comprehending people’s verbiage. So I tend to ask a lot of questions so that I can understand. In my experience, asking questions does not always go over so well with a lot of people.

Most often, some people on Twitter would misinterpret my questions as my being catty or sarcastic towards them. To be frank, I usually needed was clarification about something said so I could be sure to understand. I was genuinely curious if I asked questions because something about a person’s post intrigued me.

However, my genuine curiosity seemed to be taken the wrong way a lot of the time, and some of my posts seemed to really offend people even if those posts were mainly about my experiences. The first weeks of my postings presented quite a rocky start for me on Twitter, but I continued to post. After all, it’s my life, and if anyone was entitled to thoughts and posts about it, it was me.

It always baffled me how many people trailed my posts on Twitter just to lash out at me as if I had done something against them. I didn’t understand how posting about my personal experiences was actually an offense to others, but for many this was the case. Some people would even bring other tweeters onto my posts to argue against me and make themselves right in their own eyes about my experiences. I thought this was strange.

If I had been sharing my personal opinions that warranted debates, I could understand the point of view of others, but I was literally sharing my personal experiences with narcissistic types – people I knew. Although people are entitled to their own opinions and have their own experiences, their opinions couldn’t change what happened in my life.

I would just assume if a person didn’t like what they read about my experiences or couldn’t relate, they could just move on and never bother reading my posts again. Yet, for some reason, my personal life story seemed to spurn some people into taking stands against me. I could only sense that the people who read my posts took what I said the wrong way or they had become triggered by something that happened to them.

Neither of those things – their taking my posts the wrong way or their being triggered – had anything to do with me really. Yet, I always felt taken aback by how volatile some people would become with their words against me over something I stated as a personal experience I had with a narcissistic person. Shame on me for having lived to tell about it! 🙂

Learning The Ways Of Twitter

I could often feel people’s words as venom against me, and a few of the people who followed my posts would take to their pages to rant against me. Of course, that’s their prerogative to do so, but I didn’t understand why they even continued to follow me and even like my posts if they didn’t like me so much. I thought this was strange behavior, and eventually I would find that I would have to mute and/or block some of these individuals because they would release their venom onto my page to taint others against me.

I cannot control how people view me. Neither can I control the way people intake information that I would give about my life, but I could control what I was willing to put up from them. I wasn’t going to take anyone’s abuse or change my content despite the consternation that a few individuals had about my posts. In fact, a few people would attempt to tell me what they thought I should post about. I thought these individuals had a lot of audacity to believe they could dictate my words or my actions on my page.

Later, I came to realize that those particular individuals were simply trying to curtail and restrain my voice from speaking on topics that personally bothered and/or triggered them. The fact that I had quite a few tweeters who were bothered by my posts proved to me that I obviously wasn’t very good at verbalizing myself in a way that they could easily understand me. At least this is what I thought in the very beginning, but it turns out that for the most part, some people just didn’t like what I had to talk about concerning narcissists.

For many people who followed me, I assumed they had to become accustomed to the way that I presented information. Since I tend to proverbially “beat a dead horse” when it came to a topic, it was no surprise to me when some people complained to me about this aspect of my tweets. So, I explained to followers about my tendency to prolong explanations on topics because that’s just what I do to make sure I get my point across. I stay on a topic until I am done and no longer have anything to say about it for a while (pretty much like this topic concerning Twitter).

Yet, the more I talked about my experiences or explained a topic in this way, the more I seemed to annoy some people. Although I didn’t necessarily want to lose followers over the aspects of my tweeting habits, it was not something I could easily get away from doing since that’s how my neurodivergent brain actually works for me. I didn’t intentionally try to annoy followers or anyone who stopped by to read my posts. I was simply trying to educate through my posts based on the information I knew, understood and experienced about certain aspects of narcissists and narcissistic abuse.

Perhaps I tend to overexplain, but I do what works for me. Some followers always behaved as if they were entitled to have their own opinions about my posts, but their opinions weren’t going to change the facts I presented on my platform. It would be the same way if I went to their platform. I am entitled to my opinions about what they post, but I can’t change what they post. I wouldn’t even dare. Yet, I was stunned by the number of followers who thought they could bully me into “toning it down”, “speaking on something else”, or “taking it easy on narcissists because I don’t know what they’ve been through”.

There were a number of tweeters who unfollowed me claiming that I had really nothing new to offer them in terms of information on narcissistic abuse. There were some tweeters who hated that I shared my experiences because they claimed they felt triggered by them. Some tweeters were even quick to point out that I seemed to be complaining even though that was not my thing at all. I guess it was all about their perceptions about what I had to say. I don’t know.

There were still other tweeters who saw my posts as disorderly because I didn’t connect them within threads. Those are the ones who thought I spoke aimlessly. They regarded that many of my posts had no place on the Twitter platform at all. One tweeter even argumentatively posted that I needed to reconsider my presence on Twitter altogether. In response, I told that follower there were hundreds of pages like mine they could follow instead of complaining about what I posted on my platform. To my surprise, they remained a follower.

In fact, that particular tweeter would often subtweet about me from their platform. I saw this behavior as rather passive aggressive on their part, but at the same time, people are free to post whatever they want on their platforms. I never said anything to them about it, but I thought it was crazy how the person thought I either didn’t see their posts referring to me or that I didn’t know they were talking about me when they often quoted everything that I said, shortened the context of my name to “unchained” or “that voice” etc.

It was weird because it was as if the person may have not considered that I could see everything they had to say about me, but at the same time, I also believed they knew this and simply didn’t care. I pondered if they wanted my reaction, but instead of reacting to them, I just kept on doing me and posting about my experiences with narcissistic abuse. I think sometimes people believe they can control others subliminally. It was obvious to me I was an annoyance to this person and others like them – like a thorn in their side. I had to work on not ever being offended or not taking their sometimes very hurtful words personally.

For the most part, I just kept coming up with topics and posting as normal, but I treaded ground with those kinds of tweeters very lightly. Eventually, I ended up having to block such tweeters because they began spilling their verbal insults onto my actual posts as if they finally had reached their limits with me and could no longer hold themselves back. Specifically, at some points, everything about the Twitter environment reminded me a lot of my earlier experiences with Facebook except I had to deal with people I personally knew on that platform. I didn’t personally know anyone on Twitter.

Vulnerabilities Exposed

In fact, the more I was prodded by a few followers regarding my tweeting habits, the more I felt pressured to come out from underneath the masking of autism. One follower actually blew my cover and mentioned that I tweeted like an autistic person (whatever that means). I was grateful for that opening. I had to wonder if that follower knew and understood my struggles because they are autistic too. I don’t know. However, once I spoke out about my experiences as an autistic survivor of narcissistic abuse, many of my interactions with some followers changed for the better.

Some followers finally seemed to grasp that I was really being who I genuinely am with my tweets and that I say what I mean without pretenses. In my experience, some narcissistic types usually have a hard time with genuine people. Many don’t believe a person can be who they say they are and post what they say they mean without any pretenses. These types of people are often angered and triggered by people who are simply being themselves. So they will most likely complain about a person’s posts even though that person’s posts has absolutely nothing to do with them.

I was relieved when my posts began to make sense to many of my followers as to why I tweeted as I did. I grew tired of always having to explain myself. Plus, it was hard for me to create threads. I simply chose a topic and stayed on that topic with whatever I posted until I was ready to move on. I didn’t necessarily try to connect tweets, I simply tried to connect ideas that could stand alone in isolation.

Still, for some followers, however, displaying my idiosyncrasies in the way I tweeted was an issue. I could actually tell I bothered some people, in general, based on the way some commented that my posts made them genuinely angry because my posts didn’t make sense to them. So, to those followers I suggested they unfollow me or mute me. There was nothing else I knew to do.

In a way, I thought even having to suggest that a person unfollow or mute me was weird because they are the ones who decided to stop by and comment on my posts. I was minding my business. I didn’t comment on their posts. They commented on mine. This was a part of the drama of Twitter that I always found weird. I just didn’t understand the point of people following someone they didn’t even like. I didn’t get why people even felt it necessary to say something critical in terms of my personal experiences. To me, that’s just a crazy waste of time.

Specifically, I remember one person saying that he could tell me whatever they wanted to tell me about my life because it was on their feed. They said they would interject as they felt because it was within their right to tell me about myself and what they didn’t like about me. Yet, I was only on their feed because they chose to follow me. I figured anyone who follows a survivor of abuse is a survivor themselves, but I learned this was not necessarily the case. So, to my own surprise, I took this particular person’s rights away to tell me anything else by simply blocking them since they couldn’t manage to fight the urge to be mean and disrespectful to me.

I was also baffled by the number of people who misinterpreted my posts to mean something other than what I actually said in my posts. One person was so critical of a post I made regarding the topic of gaslighted victims of abuse that they went into a rant about me being a weak American. I was so confused and had to reread my post several times to determine how the person misinterpreted a post about victims of gaslighting to be a post about American politics. I never figured that one out, but I could surely feel the intensity of the person’s anger regarding my post.

The person simply misinterpreted my post based on whatever was on their mind about what I said without actually reading what I said. Yet, when I responded back to the person regarding what the post actually meant in terms of narcissistic abuse, there was dead silence. Interestingly, the person never responded to me in words again even though they continued to like my posts. They also didn’t apologize for being so rude and demeaning towards me. It was clear to me that something else must have been going on with the person, but I didn’t press the issue.

I had to shake that one off as I did so many other situations. I found it uncanny how many people would read into what they believed my posts meant without actually taking them at face value. I am not one to beat around the bush about information. Most neurodivergents tend to say what they mean and mean what they say. The need for someone to read into what’s said or what’s meant is the problem of the reader. This aspect of Twitter was always so annoying to me.

The Need To Always Defend Myself

Frankly, I don’t see any justification in badgering someone else over their life experiences, but I found this to be frequent on Twitter. It amazed me that so many people were offended by my experiences of abuse and even more offended by my right to tell it on my platform. If I don’t like something I read, I stop reading. I make the choice to scroll on to something else. I don’t even bother to comment on someone else’s life of trauma whether I relate or not.

With social media, though, I’ve learned not to assume that everyone thinks the way I do. That’s just not the way it is in the world of social media. Some people behaved as if they were entitled to saying what they wanted to say with their entire chest when they may not have even known what I was truly posting about. They didn’t bother to read any surrounding posts for context. They seemed only to be ready for me to defend myself about something they were stuck on and wanted to point out as if I was wrong about my own life.

There was also the one time that a tweeter told me that I got what I deserved regarding abuse. Their statement so shocked me that I was stung within my heart by it. I literally felt as if I had been kicked in my gut. I had to take a step back and consider what they truly meant by taking a look at their page. Once I got to their page to look around at their tweets, I discerned that the person had been coping with a breakup. So, they may have very well been projecting their stuff onto me unless they were just really cruel.

Another person commented that they were concerned that no one took me seriously, but when I looked over this person’s previous comments to me, I realized the person was speaking their own projections against me as well. I was not as concerned as this person seemed to be over how others felt about my tweets or how others perceived me. In fact, any time this person commented on one of my posts, their comments always seemed off in vibes.

There was always a feeling I sensed behind the person’s responses to me that just left me always feeling bad about myself. The person’s responses always seemed to come off as if the person was purposefully going against whatever I said about anything no matter the topic. I had to wonder why they even bothered following me if they didn’t like anything I had to say. I was also equally confused as to how someone who identified as a victim of narcississtic abuse was so harsh against someone else who also experienced narcissistic abuse too.

I reasoned that this person didn’t want others to take me seriously because they had an issue with me. I am not sure exactly why there was an issue when we had no real conversation with each other. Their comments to me were always combative in nature. Their responses to my posts often mirrored the responses of a few others who responded to me in the same way too … as if they were always trying to pick apart everything I said just to engage me in some type of battle. If I posted “up”, they were surely going to post “down” as a sign they were against me.

Those followers were the kind who contested something about my posts as of to get an argument from me. The sooner I figured this out, the better I was off knowing not to take their bait in responding. They seemed to always want to “fight”. That was never my purpose. When I didn’t respond, I could sense the anger within their responses to me in other posts which always leaned towards their responses being passive aggressive. They would also have debates with other followers underneath my posts.

Surprisingly, some of my other followers seemed to figure out that the disgruntled followers had a problem. Either they would respond to the disgruntled followers with comments to shut them down or they would ignore the disgruntled followers altogether. It was good when no one engaged with these types of followers because they had a tendency to derail my posts. Often I believe this was their point anyway. I wasn’t looking for people to agree with everything I posted, but I certainly wasn’t looking for battles with people whose main intent seemed to be to cause problems on my page.

This type of behavior always baffles me. My illusive assumption has been that all survivors and victims of abuse would stand in solidarity and support of one another, but this is unfortunately, not actually the case. There’s so much wishful thinking on my part that all survivors and victims of narcississtic abuse will live cohesively in peace because of the connection of similar experiences, but in the real world, this isn’t a true experience always.

In fact, may people remain loyal to narcissistic abusers and fail to see the harm these types of abusers cause others. I consider these types of people blinded by their own pain or blinded by soul ties and trauma bonds that keep them tied to toxicity, but many of them are also simply narcissists’ sympathizers, enablers, and flying monkeys. Some of them are narcissists themselves. So, it pains them to see themselves discussed in a negatively on any platform even though what I presented were my experiences.

In particular, I’ve stood alongside many of those who followed me on Twitter who’ve experienced abuses, but they stood against me no matter how much support I gave them and no matter how kindly I responded to them. Some of those people were actual narcissists, and no matter how much love and grace I extended towards them, they only became that much angrier and more passive aggressive towards me.

In fact, I felt that one follower blasted me out of nowhere all of a sudden over a post that had only to do with education about narcissistic behavior. The follower called me all kinds of disgusting and inappropriate names and accused me of things that weren’t true. They then took to their page to quote-tweet me with lies about me and then smeared me all over their page to others.

When I took to my inbox to DM them to try to understand what was happening, I realized that someone else had copied my username and mimicked me to them. This follower hadn’t been wise enough to realize that we had never even DM’ed each other before as there were no records of the conversation they mentioned we’d had, but instead of apologizing to me for their confusion, they continued on smearing me.

I had no choice but to take screenshots of this followers threatening posts and then report them to Twitter for continuing to harass me. After blocking them, I also reported the copycats who’d created versions of me using my profile image, all the information on my page, and even copies of some of my posts.

It was a nightmare for me, and most of the copycats who had taken on my name as theirs were males who were messaging others pretending to be me. One follower actually alerted me of this because they felt something was off with my usual language – not to mention that I didn’t use my DMs. They also knew that I am a woman, and the impersonator called themselves a man. So that was that. Fortunately, Twitter banned all the copycat pages.

More Twitter Drama

Specifically, there were a few select tweeters with thousands more followers than I could have ever hoped to have had following my platform by comparison. These followers seemed to purposefully make it a point to behave meanly towards me. I just didn’t get it. I assumed anyone following my account wanted to know more about narcissists and narcissistic abuse because they were either victims or survivors of narcissistic abuse themselves.

Yet, those particular followers would demonstrate their anger towards me regarding many of my posts about narcissists. They would comment that they must have been a narcissist because they did the very things my posts mentioned in terms of behavior. Despite my notation that narcississtic behaviors were something that all people tend to exhibit from time to time, those select followers came against me on the defensive, but I just let them continue to rant on about it. I didn’t want to argue which is what I believe they wanted from me.

I realized that allowing people to rant about my posts without interjecting or interrupting them with my thoughts was the best way to allow them to expose themselves. The more they ranted, the more they became undone. It was interesting to watch. A few followers would shut those annoying rants down, but most would steer clear of adding anything to these rants. I found it best to let my silence speak for itself. I never really had to say anything that hadn’t already been made clear in my original post. Plus, it was pointless for me to do so when those particular followers only seemed to want to argue anyway.

In actuality, though, I didn’t understand why some followers were so bothered by what I had to say when I would have figured myself to be a nonfactor in their lives. Towards the end of my time on Twitter, it appeared that narcissistic types were coming out of the woodworks against me. It was strange. Some of these narcissistic types were already followers and had followed me for a long time but had remained silent on my posts. Then it was like all of a sudden they were ripping me to shreds with their words, ridiculing my posts, and filling gup my DMs with nonsense.

In fact, a few of these followers had never interacted with my posts at all. So I felt blindsided when some of these followers began saying cruel things against me and my content. There were even a few tweeters that I had interacted with on a friendly basis. So I was not only equally surprised when their behaviors changed towards me for the worst, but I was also heartbroken when I realized that those same followers were truly never on my side from the start.

One follower came at me strong and basically told me I was wrong about something I had posted despite the post relating to my own personal experience. Then this follower took to several of my posts in a back-to-back fashion and word-blasted every single one of them as being incorrect or off in information. They were particularly bothered about a post on the topic of crying, and although I actually said that crying is a great release, I also indicated that everyone doesn’t do it.

Instead of reading my posts at face value, this person took to posting a long rant about how wrong I was about facts I presented about it. I wasn’t going to argue, but I did state my point based on my personal experience. Then I refrained from commenting anymore. To my shock, this follower couldn’t let things go and continued with comments regarding their dislike of what I had posted regarding the topic.

By a certain point of seeing so many comments bashing my posts from this follower, I finally responded “It’s fine to believe what you want, but that doesn’t change my experience or the facts about what crying can do for those that do it.” I assumed that my response was not what the follower wanted to receive from me because then they told me that I was being passive aggressive by saying “fine”.

I was dumbfounded because the follower took my words apart and out of context. I wasn’t about to play their games, but when I responded back with, “I’m not being passive aggressive. I said what I meant to say. Take it as you will. ‘Fine’ means it’s okay to believe what you want. I can’t change what you believe, but my experience doesn’t change just because it upsets you.”

I remember in the moments of that exchange with this follower feeling as if someone had pulled a rug from underneath me. I hadn’t seen this reaction from someone I thought I was on good and friendly terms with ever coming my way. I fought back the tears even though no one could see them. I felt hurt and confused … in a daze even. This follower had effectively made attempts to derail my topic for a bit. They even quote tweeted my post onto their page and then explained how I was completely wrong about my point of view.

I could sense their anger against me strongly, and I didn’t understand it. It seemed to be misplaced against me. I had wondered what had occurred that had set this follower against me, but when I thought about it, the dimly colored red flags were always there. I just refused to acknowledge them. I had hoped that his follower was just immature, but I realized that it was far more than that. They had been masking their narcissistic tendencies quite well, but I also figured that maybe I was misunderstanding them much of the time as a result of things getting lost in translation, but I knew this wasn’t the case at all.

Immediately after my response to this follower, there was strong and profound silence. They posted but didn’t respond to me. Oddly, I had only vaguely recognized four different people who were primarily associated with this follower. They had never once commented on any of my posts or engaged with me at all. Then, out of nowhere it seemed that they were having multiple conversations and interacting with my posts.

It was strange because they didn’t interact with me. They only interacted with each other. I was literally iced out of some of my own posts. Normally, when I’d see follower interacting with each other, I’d let them be because I didn’t feel that I needed to be a part of the conversation. Sometimes, it didn’t make sense for me to add anything if I didn’t know what to say, had nothing to say, or was out of the loop. I primairly saw this as a way for people to connect with common experiences. I didn’t have to be a part of every conversation.

Yet, I knew when games were being played against me by flying monkeys, enabling types, and narcissistic types. This was most often not the case with my followers, but from time to time, I did take notice when people would show up who’d never interacted with me before and still chose not to interact with me. That, to me, is weird, but I also realized this to be a tactic that narcissisitc personalities use against their targets for the purpose of bullying them.

To keep myself from being involved in drama, I shrank back from responding to any of these people because I didn’t want to be involved with any drama. It turns out those followers were all seemingly friends with the follower who had blasted me for my posts on crying and whatnot. So, I treaded lightly and moved forward with posting more of my content, but I was deeply gutted for about a week. I cried because that follower’s attack against me totally caught me off guard. I never saw it coming. I was flabbergasted how that person went from posting words of affirmation to me almost daily to not speaking to me at all.

In fact, this person seemed to make it a point to show me that they were angry with me. I would have to assume that it is because I openly disagreed with their stance about crying. I wasn’t rude about it in the way that I felt they were rude and combative with me, but I wasn’t going to back down and change anything about what I posted either. They were certainly free to say whatever they wanted from their own platform, but I wasn’t going to allow them to use my words to do it.

I suppose that because I wouldn’t play along with them on a back-and-forth rant, they gathered their flying monkeys to isolate me from their group, but I didn’t care. Then they posted about how they were going to create educational posts about narcissists from a different standpoint than what they had been seeing from “others”. I assumed the reference to “others” were regarding pages like mine. I’m not really sure and didn’t have a chance to find out because they later blocked me because I refused to engage with anymore of their rude response.

However, I thought it was strange that all of the sudden the follower’s followers began following me soon after I was blocked from viewing the follower’s tweets. I could have blocked them, but they hadn’t done anything to me besides play along with the follower when they talked about my posts. They weren’t necessarily rude to me either. I just noticed that they were always liking my posts and interacting with them. So, I decided to give a follow for a follow and did some investigating to determine if they were indeed flying monkeys of that follower who had blocked me or or just people who had been caught up with someone they didn’t really know about.

It turns out that the follower may have been an overall nuisance to those people as well because they didn’t seem to have anymore interactions with that follower either, but it was hard to tell since I was blocked. By that point, I no longer cared what they reported about my page. I simply continued to post about narcissists and narcissistic abuse. One of the followers even remarked how my explanations about various topics had greatly improved. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was being complimented or insulted, and I was too tired from all the game-playing to figure it out.

For the most part, those new followers began to fade into the background after all that previous drama died down, and I had made some new tweet pals with a common language of survival. I had to trust that they could see that I was not about drama or causing anyone any problems. I just wanted to use my platform to help others.

As was the norm, I had discerned from every single one of the narcississtic types I have dealt with that there are always some viable red flags that kept me cautious. It was to the point that I would often keep tabs of notifications of on those I suspected were up to no good against me to determine if I would need to block them in the future. This was usually almost always the case because something about them would rear its ugly head against me for some reason. Even though the red flags were there, I was still bothered when the truth about these types would be revealed to me.

Interestingly, all of the followers who attempted to bait me into drama had the same techniques. They’d goad me into discussions designed to entrap me into an argument with them about something I’d posted regarding narcissists. In fact, I took note of how they never actually seemed offended by any other content regarding narcissistic abuse. They were always offended by something I said specifically about narcissists.

When I speak of narcissists, I speak of someone who has narcissistic personality disorder, and the fact that I could be making a statement about traits didn’t seem to matter as much as about what I said about a person who was actually a narcissist. I always felt as if their offense was in the fact that I had somehow crushed their toes. would respond once with my stance and then try remain silent thereafter.

If the follower could not hook me into a discussion, then they’d openly ridicule me and blast me about a post … letting it be known they disagreed with whatever I had to say. If I didn’t take their bait to engage in an argument, then I was called a ‘narcissist or something worse. The follower would often take to their platform and subtweet about me. In this way, no one else could see their tweets but me unless we had mutual followers. Usually, they we had no followers in common.

I figured that if they subtweeted against me, it would be hard for me to prove that I was being gaslit or talked against unless I wanted to be petty and screenshot their words about me. I didn’t want to be petty. I didn’t want to argue. I didn’t want to be involved in drama. In the past, I would mute these individuals, but towards the end of my time, I became exhausted from the ridiculous onslaughts and immature behavior. So I blocked all of them.

More Disappointment

I was so disappointed when a follower I had red flags about proved me right about those red flags. I had hoped that by extending patience to them regarding their immature and narcissistic behaviors against me, I would be given a reprieve away from their off-putting behaviors. For a time, there was silence on their part. So, I had hoped that they would leave me alone with their projected nonsense. This didn’t last long, however.

Any time I made a post that they didn’t like, they were sure to subtweet about my post. A few times, they called me names like “delusional” and “crazy”. Again, I didn’t understand why this person even followed me in the first place if they believed I was so delusional and crazy. They had commented some other horrible things under one post, and it so upset another follower, that they shut the person down – letting it be known that their behaviors were no less than the behaviors of a bully.

Each time I had the desire to block this particular follower and be done with them, I would reason with myself that maybe this person was simply hurting. I did see a couple of their posts suggesting a breakup with someone. So I assumed that they were taking out their anger on whoever in an effort to relieve their own pain. So much for assuming. That was a big mistake on my part. I had even openly praised them for their helpful suggestions when I was going through a difficult time.

True to what I suspected of them, though, they proved themselves to be as narcissistic as I believed them to be. They couldn’t contain what they truly felt about me and and took a moment when I blocked someone else on my platform for being ugly towards me to join in to do the same thing against me. As a result of their continued bad behaviors on my platform, I wasted no time in blocking them on the spot. I was so done with them. Good riddance.

Twitter Heartache

That week had been a week from hell. It was as if all demonic forces had been unleashed via Twitter to attack me. If I thought there was going to be improvement after all the hell I’d been through, I was in for a huge awakening. Things only progressed to becoming a lot worse. I wondered what I had done that had ticked so any followers off. Nothing about my content had changed except that I had increased my output of information. Perhaps this was my own undoing. I don’t know.

One follower became so angry with me regarding my stance on forgiveness that they blocked me. Forgiveness was not even a topic I was discussing at the time. It was a topic that the follower insisted on talking about. In fact, from time to time, this follower would attempt to engage me in twisted conversations as if their hope was to bring me to their side about certain topics. I believe people are free to disagree with me, but I don’t have to change my stance to fit in with anyone else just as much as I don’t expect others to change their stance for me. Because I disagreed with this particular follower, it was a major problem for them.

I had been expecting this particular follower to explode with me at some point anyway. I had seen some very clear signs of them attempting to goad me with different topics in the past. I think great frustration came upon them when I refused to engage as much as they desired for me to do so. Instead of participating in their rants, I would simply “like” their comments and move on. I don’t care to debate especially when I know the other person already disagrees. In my opinion, it’s irrelevant to debate to change someone’s mind that’s already made up.

Sometimes I did enjoy discussions with this follower, but more often, they seemed to go on tangents as if they willingly desired to derail the topics I posted about. I was slow to catch on to this in the beginning, but I took note of it when others would come on board and stray away from that particular follower’s rants. Others would come and keep things grounded in a way that provided some relief. I think it was obvious to others that this particular follower was a troublemaker.

Other followers would post about similar experiences that stayed on topic, but this particular follower would always go off topic with long posts. I later realized their long posts were designed to cause others to get lost within the conversation so that they were no longer focused on my original posts. When I figured this out, I shortened my responses to the follower or responded by just “liking” their posts. I didn’t want to be caught up.

Most people stayed focused on my topics with their comments as well. There were no arguments even if there were disagreements. They also didn’t attack me for my posts. For the most part, most followers were sensible and respectful of what I had to say, and I always wanted to show my sensibilities and respect in return. I didn’t present information because I wanted arguments or debates. I presented my content as a way to educate and support victims and survivors of narcissistic abuse.

It was never in my nature to be rude to anyone on Twitter, but I wasn’t going to take anyone’s mean and negative attitudes towards me as if I deserved their mistreatment. I more than once suggested that people who didn’t even follow me to block me if my content bothered them so much so that they wouldn’t have to see it. It was interesting that more than a few took me up on my suggestion.

That to me is crazy when considering I wasn’t causing them an intentional problem, but it happened a number of times. In fact, a few people would come to my page to vent about my life story as if they knew my life. This was always odd to me. I’d think to myself and laugh, “If anyone should be mad about my life, it should be me. I lived it!” One follower responded so angrily towards me I assumed they would block me and be done with me, but they did not.

For a long time, I couldn’t understand a person’s anger towards me because I was telling my personal story. I couldn’t understand a person being offended by my story when I never intended to offend anyone. Yet, I realized that narcissistic abuse is such a delicate topic to discuss even when talking about myself and how narcissists and their abuse affected me.

Perhaps my posts were triggering even in the simplest of forms. Despite my decision to pull back on such heavy content for a while and only post educational information, some followers’ anger against me persisted even still. Some followers told me that Twitter wasn’t the platform for all that I shared, but I honestly couldn’t think of a better place at the time. In fact, I began to realize that the more I shared, the more I needed to share because my story was no longer just about me.

My story was not just about my experiences, but my story was also about others and their stories too. My voice is unchained for a reason, and Twitter was meant for me to share my story for the time that I decided to do so. Despite my story making others uncomfortable or even angry was not my problem. I didn’t tell my story to project onto anyone. I told my story hoping that others would understand and relate to it. For the most part, I have no regrets. I just wish I could have done with out so much drama.

I did find my groove on Twitter, however, and I am better for it.