Well I'm sorry, I didn't realize English isn't your first language, but I should have been cognizant of this possibility. (In my language community, it's more commonly used to mean "a cause of mental or bodily pain, as sickness, loss, calamity, or persecution." I think even this is broader than I generally hear it, it's rare that I don't hear affliction refer to a disease.) You also said they were "hysterical", which, unless you're using a quite different usage, generally refers to someone's mental health & their inability to manage their emotions; not something we should say about someone because they took the risk to share a painful experience in public.

TIt is common to dismiss someone discussing something they care about, on the grounds that they care about it; they created this account to talk about Musk, so we shouldn't be surprised that's what they're doing. They related something painful, so we shouldn't be surprised it upset them. None of this should be held against them or discredit them.

If you were in there shoes, and assuming everything they said was true - is there really a different way that you would have expressed it?