It took me several days to even set up the social media pages on both Facebook and Instagram. I realise that’s ridiculous, but it doesn’t make it any less true. And having achieved two posts on each, I’m exhausted. Physically and mentally exhausted. It feels as if that should be too much truth to admit outside of myself because of how ridiculous it is, but if I’m being real (with you and with myself), that is what has happened. I am wiped out. Utterly wiped out.
It’s not the writing because I can type for hours and not even notice I’ve been typing. It’s not even the learning of a new skill (having been such a social media recluse for so long) because I learn new skills every day and in nearly every situation – or at least that is how it seems. That is how I’ve survived for so long, after all. So, what is it? Why is it so draining?
What I have noticed is this: I feel the same as I do when I’ve returned from being at a social gathering. It is the same physical and mental and emotional exhaustion as I get after one of those.
I am now in a space by myself. There is no noise (except for the distant sound of the M20 which is louder than usual in my hearing probably because I’m heightened whilst exhausted). There is no (other) external ‘stuff’ coming at me. And I’m pleased about that. I don’t need information or noise or company or opinion or words or anything right now. None of it. I need for all of that to stop. I need my own words to stop too, but that never happens. 😂
Maybe that’s why I’ve been avoiding it for all this time (the social media thing), is it? The reality of being bombarded with all the suggestions Facebook and Instagram make to me of what ‘they’ as a non-real entity believe I will want to see or read or engage with. And then, because I’m like I am, I feel the need to clock on the x and say ‘not interested’ and request no more posts from those sources, but then I realise I could spend the rest of my life clicking on the x-es as there is so much that is ‘there’. The thought that the whole of the rest of my life could be spent clicking on the x-es in the hope that one day I might find something I could link to or even ‘like’, is, to be honest, quite disturbing. I do get that obsessive. It is possible I would do that to myself. Okay. Dawn, this needs managing. Maybe (after two days of semi-engagement with the social media thing) you are already seeing you need limits put on how much you ‘go there’. Do you? Like is necessary for a child, you need some self-imposed limits on how much you interact with it all before you become desensitised to what it is really doing to you?
And all of this is before anyone has even seen any of my posts which link to the writings on this site. Can you imagine how I’ll be if comments are made, or questions are asked, or judgements are given? Oh my. Is this a good idea? I really don’t know. But whichever thinking route I take, I will return to why I started all of this in the first place. Is there anything I can offer anyone from my own experiences or thinking that might have any chance of helping them in any way? I don’t even know. But it is an aim and a purpose even it only acts as helpful to one person on one occasion, whilst it is also acting as therapy for me. Right? For the rest of today, no more engagement with it. None. Except there’s the nagging need to check if anyone has even seen the posts. I can see I might become a bit obsessive about that too (too late). Oh my. What are we doing to ourselves?!
