You find me this week, dear reader, the same old cheerful film critic I always was.

However, were you speak to me a few days ago, I would have described myself very differently. For last week I was the victim of that most modern of bullying tactics – trolling. I won’t say who, or why, or what was said, because frankly said party doesn’t deserve the attention. Needless to say an anonymous (of course) online wag took it upon himself to take me to task, along with several colleagues.

It was quite shocking and quite personal, and entirely unfounded (among the criticism was that an article of mine was ‘short’, something no journalist has control over), and left me despairing of my profession. My job is incredible – seeing films early and for free, meeting the people who made them, it’s all wonderful.

There’s a lot of day-to-day stuff revolving around that work, however, that becomes hard. Writing emails to editors, thinking up creative pitches, just getting anyone to read your article, let alone getting paid for what you do, takes a big effort and a lot of luck. So when you get through all that and someone hiding behind a pen name rips you to pieces for it, it knocks you back.

Some of it (a lot, actually) is my fault. I am incredibly thin-skinned with a decided lack of self-belief that believes someone, at some point, is going to say: “Hey! This guy’s an imposter! GET HIM!” As such, reading this comment sends me into a bit of a spiral.

Within 20 minutes I’ve flown into a panic, and decided I’m going to ‘quit’ journalism. My poor wife arrives home to find me pacing around the flat, talking at a million miles an hour and generally all worked up over nothing.

Some might say we should be able to take what we dish out, given critics are perceived as these nasty people out to get beloved film stars. I’ve never been that type of critic, at least I hope I haven’t – I’ve always kept criticism to a professional level and never gotten personal or petty.

But yes, it’s a reality of the world, specifically the internet, that the oh-so-misused platform of free speech means we can hurl abuse at anyone we like – no matter how vile, no matter how wrong. With a lot of coaxing, I got over my little psychological collapse, and am for the most part ‘over’ the whole encounter. Partly because I realise as your career progresses, the more people will perhaps disagree with you, but with a smidge of self-belief their voices shouldn’t matter. Seven years into the profession, I’m still getting to grips with the various bumps in the road that journalism throws up.

It’s perhaps fitting that I end on a line repeatedly told to me by Anwar Brett, a film journalist who helped me a lot starting out, and who very sadly passed away last week.

“Don’t worry – you’ll learn…”