Social media can be a blessing and a curse in equal measure when you
have mental health problems. On one hand, the words of support and the
connections you can establish with other people who suffer with similar
conditions can lift your spirits enough to function for another day,
saying that, the shiny, heavily edited versions of other people's lives
can make you feel inadequate, isolated and as if your life is empty and
boring by comparison. When I'm at my lowest, as I have been for the past
couple of days, I have a tendency to spend a lot of time aimlessly
scrolling through my timeline commenting on everything and anything. The
sense of suspended reality is often a welcome break from the veritable
shit storm of self loathing and anxiety that's in my head at the time.
I'm lucky enough to have a lot of extremely understanding and supportive
friends in this country and overseas, so when I do pluck up the courage
to explain that I'm struggling to function, it's never very long before
somebody says something kind. As trivial as it may sound, even the
simplest words of encouragement give me enough of a boost in mood and self
esteem that my levels of self hatred and that horrible sense of utter
hopelessness dissipates enough for me to get dressed or leave the house.
One of the weirdest things about depression and anxiety is that it can
attack you when you least expect it. Recently, I've been working towards
making a living from freelance writing. This always seemed something of
an impossible dream and after years of roles that left me unsatisfied,
unduly stressed and like I truly didn't belong, I have finally managed
to secure something that I can do from home for a wage that I can live
on. You would imagine id be extremely happy and usually, you'd be right.
Unfortunately, over the past couple of days all my brain could throw up
at me was "what if it all goes wrong?" That sense of seemingly
inevitable disaster hangs over everything I do. My medication quells it a
little bit as does talking things out with therapists and
friends/family. Unfortunately, the last few days have felt almost
impossible and if it weren't for the kind words on Facebook and Twitter
to remind me that I'm not some kind of friendless, hopeless loser as my
brain insisted on telling me, I'm not sure I would be functioning now.
The other side of social media is pretty dark. This unreality
masquerading as real life has changed the way we think and interact. Many people never mention the less positive aspects of life, the fact that social
events always contain good and bad elements or that the anticipation of
an event is often equal to or better than the event itself. If we
believed the Facebook version of our lives, we would be constantly
smiling in a sea of blissful joy, but we're not. Nobody is. The reality
of life is that we have moments of happiness and moments of sadness,
that happens to everybody, whether you have mental health problems or
not. When you feel at your lowest, scrolling through a timeline full of
relentless positivity and occasionally boastful status updates can be
difficult and damaging to your wellbeing.
Like everything, balance seems to be key but is often difficult to find.
I'll never be one of those people who shuns technology in favour of a
purely organic lifestyle. I enjoy computer games, online discussions and
other forms of digital entertainment too much. I also enjoy being
outside now and then, I've even climbed mountains for fun on occasion. I
do enjoy the break from digital reality that being outdoors and away
from a screen can provide. It's not conscious but something about
removing yourself from your usual environment allows you to think
differently. Perhaps there is something to be said for engaging with
things that don't involve staying indoors... Saying that, the discomfort
of camping outweighs the pleasure for me, so give me a decent bnb after
scrambling about in the hills and I'm golden. The disconnection from
modern life that periods away from social media provides can be useful
in that it allows you to interact with other people on a face to face
basis without filters or augmented versions of a certain reality. Work,
social life and my other interests do require an Internet connection,
though, so the idea of living without one makes me feel extremely
uncomfortable for obvious reasons.
The point here is that social media and other forms of screen based
distractions can stop us from actually feeling or acknowledging what we
are really going though. It's far easier to get lost in a Vice article
or a poll about whether or not David Cameron should resign than it is to
sit for ten minutes and actually allow yourself to feel what you're
really feeling, then make a plan to cope with it. The fact is, when I do
allow myself to stop and experience my thoughts and feelings without
distractions, they are mostly very unpleasant. This is the point that I
try to do something about the situation. Challenging the negative
thoughts as they happen can be helpful if you're feeling strong enough
that day but if yore not, a few kind words from a friend overseas or one
in a different city can be enough to get me through. One of the warning
signs I have learned to identify is spending hours on social media
procrastinating rather than doing anything of value. Invariably, when I
do sit for ten minutes after periods like this, the overwhelming emotion
I feel is fear. Not about anything in particular, just a huge,
crippling sense of anxiety that makes me sick to my stomach. Sometimes
it passes, sometimes I can talk it out or reason with myself, other
times I feel defeated by it and explain as much in a tweet or status
update. I don't have any solutions other than recognising patterns of
behaviour, trying to act on them and also trying to achieve a balance
between living online and in the physical world.
As always, this post was written in one go (on a bus as it happens) so I
hope it makes sense. Thanks for all the positive feedback people have
given me and if you do suffer with mental health problems, I wish you the
strength to carry on for another day.
