Experience: I was an internet troll

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/06/experience-i-was-an-internet-troll

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Grace was a girl at my school. She had an Ask.fm account and would answer questions sent in to her, which would then appear on her Twitter and Tumblr accounts. She was in a dark place. She used to post pictures of her self-harm, using Instagram filters to make it look artistic.

She would write about how she was very depressed and people would send messages of support, like, "Don't worry, Grace, we're all here for you." But it wound me up: the way I saw it, she was doing it for attention.

At school, she had a lot of friends who would give her support. We weren't friends, but we had mutual friends. She was very outspoken and she used to give her opinion on things that I felt had nothing to do with her. It would annoy me when she'd talk about things in the news, things I didn't think she understood.

Then, at 2am one morning when I couldn't sleep, I anonymously sent her questions on Ask.fm. I asked if her family were proud of her and the stuff she was posting. I told her her parents must be ashamed, that she was attention-seeking – that no normal person wanted to see pictures of self-harm. I don't know why I took it upon myself. I knew it was cruel.

I was sick and tired of her getting all of this attention. And yet I would go on asking her all these questions that would generate even more, so I was fuelling my own hate. I kept on for about two months. Every time I criticised her, she would post screenshots and get more support, which would make me even angrier.

I'd only do this anonymously. I ran a proxy on my laptop so it would appear to come from another IP address. I didn't want to be associated with cyberbullying, but at the same time I couldn't stop. I didn't feel guilty at the time. I'd post something and then I'd go on to her Twitter feed and I'd wait, refreshing the screen until she answered. It was a rush, like watching the last five minutes of a football match. It's 1-1, your team's attacking and you feel the goal's going to come at any point, only the goal was a new tweet from her, replying to my messages. It was a visceral thing.

There were a couple of times when I was about to post and realised I'd logged in as myself and I'd get this sick feeling. I'd have no excuse if people knew it was me. My family would be ashamed of me, and rightly so. When I saw her at school, I didn't say anything to her.

Then around the time I was sending the messages, I noticed that she became very withdrawn and started missing school. One day, on the way home, a mutual friend told me Grace was posting suicidal thoughts, which she hadn't done before. I hadn't sent her a message for about a week, but I still had this thought in my head: you have contributed to this. I kept refreshing her Tumblr page, and when she stopped posting, I felt sick. The whole night, I didn't sleep. That was the point of realisation – I couldn't believe what I thought I had done. I went to school the next morning and she was there. I've never been so relieved. When I saw her, I knew it had to end. I'd learned my lesson at the expense of a teenage girl.

I have seen her only once since leaving school, in a photo on Facebook. She looked the same as before only with cleaner arms. The caption said something about the fact that she hadn't self-harmed in six months. I was happy to see it as things seemed to be looking up for her.

It never occurred to me to send a message saying sorry. I just felt that it had happened and I had to leave it alone, which I know makes me sound selfish. I closed the computer down and thought: I am never, ever doing that again.

• Names have been changed