Facebook Shock

I just logged onto Facebook for the first time in over 10 years. My account was always there, it was just frozen in 2008, the last time I did anything worth announcing to my social circle. At that point, I was thin, still performing, and still maintaining friendships. But I was also having a breakdown, one of many in my life, and seeking treatment for my longstanding mental illness. I was finally diagnosed (Bipolar II or Mood Disorder NOS, depending on who you asked) and medicated, a process that continues to this day.

Now Facebook never really appealed to me. I was not raised on screens and constant selfies and found the whole thing rather shamelessly narcissistic. I mean, the very idea of taking a picture of yourself was crazy to me- I was embarrassed for the people doing it. But we were entering a whole new era of social media, a world I chose not to participate in. As Facebook became more and more ubiquitous, I became more and more mentally ill. I was desperately calling my psychiatrist from random cities where Matt was working. I was raising and lowering dosages as per his instructions, sometimes trying different drugs altogether. I was struggling with my health, with my career, and definitely with my social life. I feared running into people I knew on the streets of New York in case they asked “what I was up to.”

So Facebook was just not something I could handle. It seemed like people only posted the good things, and I didn’t have any good things to post. I also had no interest in reading about everyone else’s good things, so I mostly avoided it at all costs. There was this one time in 2010 when I logged on for some reason- to grab a photo or look up some professional contact, when a little window popped up and someone started messaging me. They could apparently see that I was logged on and spontaneously started talking to me. Horrified by this event, I logged off for good, if nothing else, for fear of someone “seeing” me.

But now, having had the blog for 9 months or so, I decided it was time to announce it to my friends. The response from old friends has been lovely, but for the most part I still find Facebook horrifying. I think there’s something wholly unnatural about knowing the names of the children of someone you sang in high school chorus with 25 years ago. I mean, isn’t this the reason people have always found high school reunions so stressful? That feeling that you have to impress people who no longer have any place in your life? I mean, your actual friends, people you’ve stayed in touch with and whom you have a sincere (not purely voyeuristic) interest in can communicate with you in lots of other ways, from simple emails and phone calls to old-fashioned cards and letters.

When I logged on a few weeks ago, the first thing I saw was a woman I know in a bathing suit. That photo haunted me for days, making me feel bad about my body. The next time I logged on, someone “waved” at me. I panicked, closed the browser window, and slammed the laptop shut. Since then, I’ve had Matt disable whatever feature was alerting people to my presence, and I’ve managed to create a “blog page” where I can post a blog entry every day. And people have been lovely, sending me messages and “liking” the blog. But now there’s this pressure to respond, and that’s really not easy for me. Every “notification” from a different person brings up a wave of memories, embarrassments, regrets. I’m filled with shame for losing touch with the people I care about, and I feel rude not digging deeper into their lives, reading their posts, their statuses. But I’m just not up to that. I’ve replied to a few messages with great difficulty, but then I just scheduled a bunch of blog posts and haven’t logged on in over a week. Honestly, it’s a huge relief to not have that background noise in my life. I already feel guilty enough when my best friend calls me on the phone and I can’t pick up. So call me a Luddite, or just a social-phobe, but I cannot handle The Facebook. Because while I can see all the potential for good that it has, it’s also a huge source of mental clutter. I’ve decided that once-a-month visits are enough for me to stop hiding, but still keep it on my terms. That’s just all I can do right now. And maybe that’s enough for anyone.