Hi Pia! Do you have some advices to deal with 'this one opinion'?. When everyone likes your stuff and you are happy with it too, but this one person didn't like/said smth bad, and then you are in spiral that everyone's pretending and actually this one just had the balls to say the truth? I'm struggling and you are in this for a long time, so maybe you have some advices? Take care <3
It might help to know a little bit of science here.
Humans have what's called an in-built negativity bias. This means that when two things exist, one negative, and one positive, of equal weight, humans will biologically/cognitively automatically give the negative one a lot more weight. No one escapes this, and you're experiencing something extremely universal.
Human beings are also likely to think that negative words are more negative than often intended, and that positive words are less positive than intended.
Because this is in-built, it often requires conscious work to overcome. Many authors on AO3 as an example know the experience of one shitty comment 'undoing' how good all the previous comments felt. It only takes one person saying 'I really didn't like this story' for many authors to trick themselves into thinking this a) must then be universally true and then b) no one else actually likes the story or it doesn't mean anything to them, even when there's literally words right there that strongly suggest otherwise.
The first thing is to acknowledge your negativity bias and that your brain is kind of lying to you. It's doing this to try and protect you from harm, but in a way that's actually hurting you, because brains do stuff that don't actually help us all the time. The reality is that the vast majority of people do not waste their time and 'lie' in comments about how much they like something, because everyone has more important things to do in their life. They're only going to say something positive, for the most part, if they think what they've experienced is positive enough to warrant that. This is more and more true the less well you know someone.
The second thing is to then remind yourself that something negative isn't more true just because it's negative. This is also negativity bias in action! It feels more true, but emotions =/= actual reality - they're real in that 'they are very real and valid when I feel them, but I might not want to make big decisions about other people's thoughts and actions based on them, especially when negativity bias is active.'
And then the third thing is to just remind yourself that everyone is experiencing this. Right now thousands, maybe tens of thousands of creators - artists, authors, show-writers, poets, comedians, sports people, etc. are literally experiencing this right this second. Anon, all your favourite celebrities have likely experienced this (unless they're complete asshats who don't care about other people). Your favourite writers, artists, and more have experienced this. Would you tell any of those people whose works and creations you love, to listen to the few haters that come after them? Do you think they should go 'oh, that means everyone else is lying to me.'
Of course we feel pretty down sometimes. Because I have the ability to delete negative comments, if I get some hate, I tend to delete it. I don't want to see it again. It's my prerogative because my AO3 account and my Tumblr account etc. are 'my space.' When it comes to hateful book reviews, I...don't read my book reviews anymore and haven't for a long time. (I got misgendered too often, even in the nice reviews, so I just stopped).
And then create like a document or notes page or something to write down the positive things you've heard and actually reread them sometimes.
Sometimes negative comments are actually useful. Someone pointing out an incidence of actual racism (like, unintentional, but still happening) or something that is culturally offensive in a story can help us to consider editing the story or change the way we write about that subject. Someone saying they couldn't read a story because of all the typos, might get us to use some free editing software.
For the most part negative comments aren't worth your time. You can't make everyone like your stuff anon. People are going to hate your stuff. That's reality. It's completely inescapable.
But if more people like or enjoy or love your stuff, that's how you know you're on the right track. <3
If your goals in the world are to have most people enjoy what you do, you're already achieving that. One negative comment feels like a bit of a hit (or a lot of one), but it's a cognitive bias that's quite detached from reality. When you take it really personally, it's often a sign to just disconnect and reconnect with loved ones. Talk to a friend, hang out with a loved one, watch something you really love (and even remind yourself that some people hate that thing lol and you wouldn't want those people to stop what they love doing either because it means you couldn't watch the thing you love otherwise), get some rest. Our brains lie to us more and more loudly if we a) are tired, b) are dehydrated, c) haven't been eating or eating well, d) have certain mental illnesses, e) have certain chronic illnesses that cause pain or fatigue.
So addressing all of these factors can help a bit too.
And, I hate to say it, some of it's just practice. I've been doing this for long enough I've lost count of how many hateful things I've heard about my writing. They all still hurt. Some can ruin my day. Some will make me not write that day. Some still play in the back of my mind when I'm feeling really insecure. But they used to ruin my week or month so, like, progress. *sad smile*
But they're still not the majority of the people who talk to me about my writing therefore... negativity bias in action! Very interesting to know about, very horrible to experience!!
