Am I Done With Facebook?

A few days ago a feeling swept over me while I was in the middle of one of my anxiety attacks.  I have been having a lot of issues with my mental health lately.  My anxiety seems to be at its highest in a long time if not the highest ever.  My depression has had me in bed most of the time not able to function and not enjoying the things I used to.  Social media seems to be a part of the trigger for me in a few different ways.  I had to ask myself:  Am I done with Facebook?

As a work from home mom and now grandma of over 15 years now I have relied pretty heavily on social media and my computer to provide me a sort of social life.  I have missed not meeting someone at the water cooler for a laugh or knowing each of my coworkers and about their lives.  It is honestly the hardest part of working from home sometimes.  I miss that interaction with people.  I have made many friends I consider myself close to only on the internet.  They are people who I have never even met in person and I feel closer to them than some that are within geographical range to me.  I have been able to connect to past friends and family members that I would not otherwise have connected to.  The downside to this is the internet and social media has become an addiction to some of us.  We pass up on interactions with the real people in our lives sometimes and it is a shame.  There is also the realization that not everyone on social media is a nice person.  There are people out there pretending to be who they are not.  There are some who spew their negativity out to the world.  It can be hard to maneuver around and find the balance of it all.

Each morning I wake up and check my timeline to see if there is anything interesting or useful.  I long for pictures of our grandbabies who live 3 hours away from us.  I enjoy seeing my family far away and what they are up to in life.  I smile seeing friends share in the joys of their lives and sharing pictures of their children’s first day of school or their fur babies who they love so much.  I like going to some of the groups I belong to and seeing people supporting others.  I like going to my crafting groups and seeing others creations, tips and tricks and so much more.  These are some of the things that put joy in my day.  I check my timeline here and there depending on my work day and find much more of these types of things.

I share my life and things that relate to me or that I just feel like I want to share to in the social media universe.  I am open about my battle with my mental illnesses in hopes that others will know they are not alone in this battle.  I receive messages regularly thanking me for sharing my journey and sharing the various mental health related issues that I do.  I post funny things and things that I come across and feel the need or want to.  These things may or may not pertain to me but I just feel the need to share them.  I have always proclaimed it is my timeline and I will post whatever I please and I feel the same about others and what they share.

The downside to all of this is those other things that are not so smile inducing.  They are the things that trigger my mental illnesses or make me feel frustrated, sad or angry.  There are a few things that I have found lately that make me feel these ways.

Have you ever went to a star’s page or seen an article about someone and people are just saying the most negative and nasty things about them.  I often wonder if you dislike someone that much why are you wasting that much time and energy spewing your hate.  In the age of social media and the internet it has become so easy for people to do this.  They can sit behind a keyboard without anyone really knowing the real them and type away the ugliest and most opinionated things that are sometimes very hurtful.  It is really disheartening to see.  They have been dubbed “trolls” and “keyboard warriors” and that is part of the reason I love Taylor Swift’s new song “You Need To Calm Down” because she refers to this.  It is pretty depressing.

As someone with anxiety I worry way to much about pretty much everything.  Being in the small business and crafting world doing what I do I constantly worry about how I measure up and what others are doing.  Competition is healthy but it is also stressful.  In the business I am in more and more people seem to crop up doing the same thing and it is really hard.  I have watched loyal customers purchase from others when I have worked so hard to do things for them in the past.  I have seen others in my area with the exact same designs as I have.  I have seen others doing it cheaper than me and I get it because that was once me.  I used to be the one trying to be so affordable I was not paying myself enough for my time, expertise and supplies combined.  I still try to be fair but I have to value my work but it is super hard.  I have liked other’s business pages while I have watched them never touch mine, share it or like anything I have ever done.  Some of my family and friends have never shown an interest in what I do which is pretty normal from what I hear from others but for me it really makes me feel less than.  I have been criticized by people for various things in my business out of my control and it triggers my anxiety and my depression.  I love doing what I do but lately the fun has been zapped out of it.  I feel like my mental illness is keeping me from doing what I love to do but I also feel like trying to manage it all is feeding my mental illness like some sort of vicious cycle.

The political rants are way too much for me also.  I am not a political person.  I never have been and I never will be and I respect other’s rights to post about that or whatever they want to but all of the fussing about it makes my anxiety go sky high.  People can get down right nasty to each other when it comes to politics.

My overall mental health and feelings of inadequacy overall are huge issues for me.  I use my social media as a sort of small form of blogging.  I do not always make time to create a post like this with pictures and content but I can share things on my Facebook or other social media and it is therapeutic to me. It also gets me judgement from others.  I can post something generic and hear back from someone upset because they think I was saying something about them or someone else.  Maybe I was or maybe I wasn’t.  I don’t use names.  It is a way of getting my frustration out at the time.  I share a lot of stuff because it just speaks to me at the time not necessarily because it has anything at all to do with me or anyone I know.  I get criticized and questioned about some things that are just simple little posts and they get blown completely out of proportion.  It is upsetting to me and that is why after having an anxiety filled day and trying to work a busy work day the other day I considered taking a break from Facebook.  I have decided for now to try to lessen my time on it which I had already been doing.  I don’t want to deactivate because I still have business pages and such that would go away if I do and my grandbabies pictures live on there as do so many of my friends and family.  I am trying day by day to better myself and get myself out of this major depression I have found myself in once again.    I am going to try my best to find the good in each and every day and keep moving forward.  I am going to learn when things online bother me I need to walk away and immerse myself into something else.  The rationale part of me knows I have good things coming up in the future and good things around me and I need to focus on those.  Now if I can get my mental being to get with the program I will be golden.  Facebook you are not getting rid of my just yet!  There is always a rainbow after the rain!

On a sidenote to those who despite keyboard warriors like me give this a watch.  It is such a great song and can be found on her new album that just came out “Lover”.

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