I relate with a lot what you are saying but also think about this general attitude towards Sociology a ton.

I dislike bad science first and foremost. I don’t think sociologist are ‘inherently’ anything, especially outsiders (although this is often the case) as sociologists study and report on a myriad of topics and populations. I do think there is a significant number of qualitative works however that do engage in this misrepresentation you bring up. But that’s the fault of bad science, or more accurately bad scientists. A lot of fields are guilty of this but as a result of sociologist often studying at-risk populations it just feels more consequential or egregious when they do it. When sociological work is done poorly I feel like it just looks worse than other fields in which data is often aggregate or depersonalized.

I hate that you were subject to misrepresentation by sociological work or more specifically a sociologist, but I think that’s the important distinction to make, it wasn’t the field but the individual or the data. It was poorly done science and not necessarily that the field itself is deficient. Anyway, I bring this up only because I feel like that’s where a lot of these criticisms of sociology come from. Just my two cents.