Why can't I access replies/see my own comments?

I can comment just fine (as in enter them, don't know if they're showing up for the reasons below), and I can sometimes see my comments and associated replies by linking to the original post and scrolling down to do a visual search to find where my comment ended up. However, more often than not, I can't find my comments at all, and following the link to a comment or comment reply from my personal comments page fails to load any comments at all. Same for messages I receive saying I've been replied to - won't load comments if I link directly from there. I've been a commenter for less than 3 days and I'm really excited about it - but it's busting up my day having all these replies to my comments that I can't view!