Therapist happy about trolling confession..?

[ALittleUnwell]

I’m a survivor of abuse. My father has borderline personality disorder and he was very cruel to myself and my siblings. We grew up in an environment where we were heavily criticized and often compared to each other. This made for us growing up very insecure and we bullied each other trying to win an impossible competition.

I was bullied often at school. But as I got older I realized how screwed up my family situation was and started to calm down but felt guilty about how I treated others. I also stopped trusting people because of the combination of abuse and bullying and started talking to others as if it was all a business transaction. I just try to get through conversations as quickly as possible.

So this is awkward to say on an online forum but, I confessed to my therapist that I have a tendency to troll people online with the hopes that she could help me stop this bad habit but she was actually happy about it. In fact she was even smiling about it.

She said “Are you mean to them?” and I said yes. And she said “Good! That’s the real you! That’s how you express yourself!” grinning from ear to ear.

I am a bit confused by her reaction and I hope someone could help me understand her reaction as she is going on vacation and I won’t get to discuss it with her for awhile and it is absolutely driving me crazy.

Why on earth would it even be good to be a trolling jerk online I don’t know. To be clear I have not done this on mumsnet if any of you were curious. I mostly victimize people on reddit.

I think she means it's positive that you have an outlet, not that it's a healthy one. It's great that you were open, hopefully you can work with her to find a healthier outlet for your issues.

I can only assume from your post that you suppress your needs and silence your voice so much in real life that having an outlet, even an unpleasant one, is a positive indication to your therapist.

If I were you, I'd speak to your therapist about your confusion at your next session. Say what you've said here, you need to understanding her reaction. Objectively, I wonder if she'll then work with you to find healthier and more moderate forms of expressing yourself and help you move away from trolling.

On a separate note, I had no idea that people who troll might be doing so from this sort of place and its a useful lesson in empathy so thank you.

Thank you for the reply. I suppose that makes sense since talking to people in person is just too stressful now. I anticipate others getting upset, offended or insulting me because I’m very socially inadequate in person so I suppose it is only natural that I would turn to the internet.

Although you don’t have to empathize with trolls. We tend to exploit other peoples weaknesses and vulnerabilities. lol. Even if we have a sad story on the other side of the keyboard we aren’t really expecting compassion and understanding so you don’t have to show us understanding. lol. There is never a good excuse to be an ass to a person. Mental health issues or not.