I started reading message boards on a variety of subjects back in 1997 (It wasn't a JW no-no back then!). This one is quite tame and politically correct. But one thing I've seen over and over again is that anytime a group of people interact, someone always comes along to "stir the anthill" by injecting something controversial or their own personal drama. It doesn't matter if the subject matter is something as mundane as how to quilt afghan blankets, someone still comes along asking about politics, religion, or relationship advice or drops in to troll and says afghan blankets suck. Someone (usually new) plays the protagonist role, there are then several antagonist and apologist regulars who argue back and forth. A few posters try to be "the voice of reason" and play referee, and what they say usually gets lost in the shuffle. If the board is heavily moderated, the thread is locked and if it's not, it usually devolves into a group of monkeys slinging feces at each other, and anybody else who happens to "walk by" the thread. Regardless, everybody gets worked up about it.
We should expect that more on boards like this one where the subject matter is often controversial to begin with, and where many of us have some lingering personal issues from being a JW. I dislike boards that are heavily moderated. As a kid, "peer pressure" was personified as the devil himself trying to make me do bad things, but now I realize peer pressure and peer reactions to your actions serves an important part of teaching you what is socially acceptable.
CE got a lot of sympathy, but she also got a lot of good advice. Because it wasn't what she wanted to hear, or in the tone she wanted to hear it, she took offense, when nothing really offensive was said. Several posters finally gave up and said "well, your just immature and will have to learn life's lessons on your own." It could have been said much more bluntly.
I think adverse peer reactions on message boards like this are good for an Ex-JW. Yes we want to show that people in the world at large are caring and accepting. But if you use faulty reasoning, or say something exceptionally immature, expect to get called out on it. This isn't just a problem with Ex-JWs, there are a lot of young adults entering the workforce who have no experience with rejection, or even people disagreeing with them. And it's not just me that sees this, I get remarks from coworkers including the manager that most of the fresh-outs in their early 20's have to have their hand held and get constant reassurance nowadays.
It used to be that we learned on the playground that sometimes our best wasn't good enough. Try as we might, with the skills and knowledge we had at the time, we came up short. Sometimes we made bad decisions. Sometimes we said stupid things. Did all of our parents, and grandparents develop low-self esteem because of that? No, it taught them to work and study harder, to recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and to move on from rejection or failure. It's sad if you have to learn that lesson on a message board instead of real life, but that may be the digital reality we have now.
On the flip side, many did have parents who were alcoholics, or abusive, or had some other problem. I believe CE said low self-esteem runs in hers. It's dangerous for anyone who says "well this runs in my family." It very well may, but people have the propensity of only living up to expectations and having self-fulfilling prophecies. Did you notice how she wears low self-esteem like a badge and mentions it in everyone of her posts? People who truly have low self-esteem don't advertise it like that, or show the backbone she did once people didn't tell her what she wanted to hear. I'm not sure she has low self-esteem so much as low expectations for herself, which is a problem all its own.
And finally, in my own experience on other boards, once you factor out the trolls, most of the immature "newbies" who get flamed, threaten to leave, but don't, and then slowly grow up as they start to realize the world doesn't revolve around them. Don't be mean, but don't temper or sugar coat the truth too much either, it's an important part of developing social skills and understanding how life really works.