A woman admitted she suffered from “crippling anxiety” for months after being attacked online by thousands of strangers for a post declaring she was “never married” and “had no children” at age 37 alongside a euphoric montage of a solo trip
Emily Hart, now 38, has been a content creator for the last decade, and her Instagram account shows highlights of her adventures traveling ‘solo’ as a woman.
Despite the occasional troll, Emily was used to receiving generally positive comments over the years.
So nothing prepared her for the overwhelming vitriol she received in response to a cheerful photo montage of her travels, which she shared in October, with an overlay of text that read: “37 years. Never married.” Without children.’
Emily Hart, now 38, has been a content creator for the past decade, focusing on encouraging women to embrace “solo” travel.
However, he admitted his confidence was “shaken” after “months” of scathing reaction to a euphoric photomontage in which he declared: “37 years. I’ve never been married.” Without children’
After the horrible comments finally died down, Emily wrote an essay about the harrowing experience for Today.
As she explained, she had initially planned to share the less than 10-second post with a ‘long caption’, explaining, among other things, how she had never planned to get married or have children when she was 30. – and how, however, she “does not wait for anything or anyone to live.”
“But at the last minute, after a glass of wine in the airport lounge, I decided I didn’t need to explain myself too much (famous last words, right?) and simply captioned the video with: “I’m just living life. happily,” she continued.
The next morning, she woke up to find that her post had been sent to the algorithmically generated social feeds of “millions” of Instagram users, “and I woke up to hundreds of new comments, almost all of them hurtful.”
“Hundreds of comments an hour told me that I was pathetic and embarrassing and that feminism had tricked me into believing I was happy,” she recalled of the response she received.
“Mainly men, but also women, many of them with Bible verses and ‘kindness’ in their biographies, telling me every variation of ‘you’ll die alone’ and ‘no one loves you anyway’ they could muster,” he explained, pointing out the hypocrisy of many of those who expressed their hatred towards her, or rather, towards whoever they had imagined she was in real life.
A lot of the comments boiled down to the same general message of “You’ll die alone,” Emily described, as well as many making fun of her appearance or telling her “how sad her life is.”
“No children, not married and 37 years old, just a big boy with no responsibilities and who has never done anything useful, pathetic cow,” said one.
Emily noted that many of the cruelest responses came “mostly from men, but also from women, many of them with Bible verses and ‘kindness’ in their bios.”
A lot of the comments boiled down to the same general message: “You will die alone,” Emily described.
‘Sad. Something is wrong with her,” he added a second.
“Another tries to show that she is happy inside,” said a third.
To this day, she continues to receive cruel messages and emails mocking her appearance, lifestyle, and more.
‘For months after the post, I was nervous every time I opened Instagram. The application that makes up a large percentage of my livelihood had become something I feared,” Emily admitted, adding that she later told a mentor that she thought she was having a “crisis of confidence.”
“But I soon realized that the feeling I was trying to minimize by describing it as ‘nervous’ was much more: it was crippling anxiety and, in retrospect, depression.
“I didn’t sleep well for months. I had digestive problems, low energy, panic attacks, angry outbursts and my skin started to break out.
‘I was gaining weight and found some reason to stay home and isolate myself. “I attributed it to the winter and the lack of sunlight, but it wasn’t the lack of sun: I was broken,” Emily confessed.
Emily admitted that while the response threw her into a state of “depression,” she has since come out on the other side and can “realize the positives” of the viral post.
While in the past ‘sharing his life with others’ had been a source of ‘confidence’, now his life ‘had been belittled to the point that I couldn’t help but take on part of it without realizing it’.
Emily said she’s been to all 50 states and almost every national park in the US “completely alone,” adding that “her entire online brand is about inspiring women who travel alone.”
But, he emphasized, he never intended to suggest that the way he has been living his life is the “only or best way.”
She further admitted that while she tried to present an image of strength to her followers, the backlash for being proudly single and childless in her late 30s ‘shaken’ her.
However, she’s finally gotten to the point where she can “realize the positives” of the viral post: “I have thousands of new followers and many women have messaged me that the video I shared did, in fact, inspire them.” “.
‘So I’ll keep sharing, but with a bit of a shield, for now… I don’t want to get lost on the road again.’