High achievers and perfectionists can be prone to insecurities...

High achievers and perfectionists can be prone to insecurities and lows far greater then most; they can be temperamental and/or oversensitive to normal day-to-day criticism. That may be happening here with you t4p. I haven't seen many posts that I would consider too bad on the level you describe. If it's getting on top of you, take a break.

The option you have taken here is to say "I'm done with this", then sit back and watch the praise flow in...'fishing for compliments' in other words. It's a viable way to pump the esteem back up after someone has said something nasty or untruthful about you, but not a good long term solution. One solution would be to allow yourself to get angry and verbally attack these guys back - nothing too much wrong with that. Who says you can't stand up for yourself? Another option, perhaps wiser, would be to desensitise yourself to criticism.