My Toxix Relationship With Social Media in Current Events

I broke my silence on Instagram the other day. I had a clip of a pretty winter morning that I wanted to put out there. click here if you want to view it. I do miss social media a bit. I miss that connection to other people. My friends make fun of me because I have this habit of leaving and coming back. When they ask why I do it, all I say is that it becomes too toxic for me. I don’t explain myself any further but they will try and fill in the blanks with “yeah it can be too time-consuming” or “yeah people can be so annoying.” I do have individuals who just think I’m stupid and that I can just change my settings or whatever to find a balance and be happy. The truth is that there are no settings that will make me happy. Why is it all so toxic for me? It hurts my mental health. I am not as headstrong as I once was. It is really hard for me to look at images like this:

Most people can look at that image and not be phased. I look at images like that and I begin to hate myself. I’ve never had body image issues before and I am not very good at talking about it. In real life, people think that I am full of confidence but what they don’t see is that I am constantly comparing myself to every single person in that room and I am always falling short. Then I go home and feel embarrassed for ever leaving the house.
I also developed this habit of posting attention seeking selfies to get a confidence boost. However, as I would go like other peoples content I would compare myself to the images like the one I posted above. I would, of course, fall short. Beauty standards are so hard to reach. I would spend a lot of time editing my photos to make myself look nothing like myself. That was pretty depressing at the end of the day. I could never bring that guy from my edited photos anywhere. Due to that fact I developed some mild, crippling social anxiety. Then there is the part of social media where everybody is having the best time with their best spouse ever and are just so blessed etc and my life started to feel so empty in comparison. I wasn’t travelling. I wasn’t at parties. I wasn’t in a relationship. I really didn’t want to feel sorry for myself but damn, I become pretty pitiful pretty quick.

The last part of social media that is too menacing for me is actually being too connected to people that are “in my life.” Everybody wants to share their opinions and argue with each other and we’re all offending each other and it is just way too sickening. I want nothing to do with that. I can’t even imagine how much more miserable I would be if I was posting about something like… my veganism! Then having to argue with people in a comment section all day. I put up with enough of it in real life so no thank you.
Currently, I am sitting in my dark room right now. It is -41c outside and my muscles ache way too much to go to the gym. So I decided to workout in my room and hurt my muscles even more. My mind is now trying to convince me that I need to lose more body fat because my abs are struggling to come through. I don’t even think that I have body fat to lose? Ok, I am going to call that clinic on Monday and see where my status is on that waiting list for a therapist. Thank the gods I have not developed any unhealthy behaviours to cope with this shit. No drugs, alcohol or eating disorders… yet! It is not social medias fault for my mental health but it was a toxic relationship none the less and I don’t want toxic people, places and things to occupy any space in my life. Yes, maybe I am the toxic one in that relationship but I still had to break up with it. I do want to return when I have my mind in the right place but until then… I’m going to remain deactivated and logged out. My world has gotten pretty small but I’ve been feeling so much lighter. After the withdrawal and culture shock things are actually better this way for me. My name is Tom and I’m a social mediaholic. It’s been 14 weeks since etc etc etc

Last updated January 18, 2019