I'm just saying that in general, it's my belief agents who act like this are either just plain callous, or don't want/know how to nurture an author's career when it doesn't blast into the stratosphere instantly.
This is my sense, too. Agents and editors do have the power to hurt an author in a peculiarly intimate way, when they start out as enthusiastic readers of our work and morph over time into unenthusiastic or even hostile readers. And it's especially painful to see their opinions influenced by how the market (which we can't control) has received us. But I don't think this transformation indicates any sort of evil master-plan on their part — legit agents are too busy for that. Essentially, the power to crush us is a power that we (authors) give them by really, really, really caring what they think (speaking from painful past experience here).
It means so much for us to find a sympathetic industry reader, and hanging on every tidbit of their feedback can help us improve. Until, for various reasons, the relationship stops being productive for either party. Then it's important to know when to move on. I totally second the imperative to take back control, but I think it's in our power always to be in control of how we see our work. When we let our faith in ourselves depend primarily on external factors, that's a problem. (Not implying there is anything easy about changing that! It's an ongoing struggle.)
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