Taboos and Vulnerability :: For Friends? Or only ‘the other’?

Makenna Held
Aug 8, 2017 · 6 min read

In an age that provides and demands limitless media options, most of it shared and created on supposed ‘social’ platforms. Due to the speed of sharing and searching, we’re able to consume (perhaps not digest) every single sad story about murder/rape/abuse/death and with ease. While simultaneously seeking out videos of kittens playing with puppies, and pumpkin eating porcupines for levity.

There’s a benefit to this. We actually know what’s going on in our world. We’re more ‘connected’ than we’ve ever been. But in any case? It’s a lot of media.

It seems to be causing a strange backlash on our personal relationships and how we navigate them within said ‘social’ media.

I’ve noticed a trend on social media in the way in which taboos and vulnerability get recognized and related to. Write a post on social media about vulnerabilities and taboos to a bunch of strangers? You get lauded for it. Write a post for medium on divorce? You’re called brave. Powerful. Respected. #meta

Try posting something vulnerable just among your friends? Cue the passive aggressive messages, the quick to respond private messages, the unfriend-ing, etc etc.

A famous author dies? Everyone shares, and reshares, and grieves together. Grandmother dies? A few sorry’s here and there, a sad face emoji in lieu of a like, maybe a short message of condolence. Brangelina gets a divorce? BEDLAM ON THE INTERNET!!! And #teambrad and #teamangelina hashtags abound. If two friends get divorced? Silence. Confusion. Attempts to not pick sides. Quiet convos amongst friends saying ‘what now?’

We’re thrilled to share the memes, we share the videos, we express the pain of people with zero real connection to ourselves openly and without qualms. We are super comfortable with the discomfort of ‘the other’. But when someone we know expresses pain? We’re frequently triggered into a space of distaste or complacency about it.

In essence, we’ve shifted the grief and pain of strangers into pornography, something to be gawked at and used to field our own grief. But that of friends? We shield ourselves from it.

Why?

Well, it’s simple actually. Facing the grief of those we love forces us to face our own. Facing the grief of strangers? We look at how good our life feels in comparison.

What do I know about this?

Eight months ago I announced to a small circle of family and friends that I would be leaving my partner of six years. We’d been married three years, lived in five places, and had traveled the world together. We tackled projects from renovations to house sales to businesses and more. And I was fundamentally unhappy, and had been for a long time. Perhaps unsurprisingly? I hadn’t ever been able to express that unhappiness to my friends.

And it took the dismembering of a few of my friends’ relationships for me to actually have people to talk to and give me space to question my own. Basically, until that time, I didn’t have anyone else with relationships on fire. It was that reflection of people I care about that made me reflect on my own situation. Turns out the dissolution of #brangelina didn’t force to to be self-reflexive. Color me unsurprised.

A few days ago, a full 8 months had passed since I had asked for a divorce, I decided to go ‘public’ so to speak. Up to this point, I had not posted anything specific about my divorce in any form. I had posted photos of my new life, waxed poetic about how life had been ‘really good lately’(❤’s, likes, haha’s…always abounding). I figured, in contrast, it made sense to post and say ‘Yes, by the way, I am in the middle of a divorce’ out loud. So…I did.

Cue the unfriends, the less than kind PMs, and a few passive aggressive messages here and there. The comments from people giving me credit for being brave? Near strangers on the internet.

The irony not lost on me, I’m airing my grievances about this to a bunch of strangers on the faceless void of the internet. Although, to be fair, I aired my grievances on my own Facebook first.

The point of all this? Taboos are funny. And there seems to be a tolerance issue when it comes to social media. When strangers talk taboos or have their public lives thrown open into the light? No worries. When you talk about taboos among friends? Shhhhhh, that’s for closed doors.

Some topics I’ve noticed aren’t acceptable for a person to talk about?

Photo by Catherine Just

Divorce (that’s just between the two of you). Don’t mention miscarriage. Mental illness? Forget about it. Sex? Never ever tell anyone you are or are not having sex. Abortion? That’s most certainly for behind closed doors. And dear lord, let’s certainly not talk about women’s oppression, the patriarchy, or rape. And don’t get me started on racism, that’s something we should just keep to ourselves too.

What we’re essentially saying to our loved ones?

Stop taking up space. Don’t talk so loud. Keep your laugh down, you’re in public. And public is not a place to share real stories. Those are to be hidden, sublimated behind close doors.

Constant messaging from those who are supposed to love of is juxtaposed by the seemingly voyeuristic nature of the lives we aren’t connected to. To say the least? The messages are mixed. God forbid we utilize social media to actually talk about our lives and thoughts. Share our ups and downs.

So, if social media is only to share the pain of strangers and to invite our friends to quizzes, then what’s the point of social media?

This question is of course rhetorical. But the thing I have been chewing on?We need to invite transparency back into our world. And why not utilize social media as the vehicle for doing so?

Listen, I’m not advocating for people to turn their personal social media into a platform to be the town crier. I get that discernment also matters. But…what if we could find a happy medium?

Listen, to be fair, I’m not a big believer that there are things we should and should not talk about. I believe we create taboos by not talking about the things that matter. And I think that should change.

There’s a lot of sociological proof that having people ‘know your business’ and ‘know your past’ keeps us safe, keeps us alive, keeps us compassionate. It humanizes our experience and brings light to the hard things.

It makes sure that people don’t suffer in silence, that the ‘community’ supports their people. When people don’t communicate their struggles and their darkness, we lose them. And sometimes, we lose them for good.

So what do I propose?

Radical compassion for those we love. As long as they practice wild openness and take RADICAL personal responsibility. What does that mean? It means that individuals who name, blame, and shame…Sure, give ’em hell. If someone posts something about grief, sadness, or something that is actually happening in their life where they don’t name, blame or shame? Send them love. See them. Like their post. Be kind.

The reality? In many ways, this life may be too hard for most of us to bear (Freud said so a few times), and perhaps rebuilding the world of community, especially the social elements of it, on a platform build for social interactions might help us support one another instead of tear each other down. And we might as well offer as much sympathy, empathy, and compassion that we offer random strangers on the internet. And just maybe, we can create a more connected and compassionate world.

Just my three dollars and sixty-two cents.

(Side bonus? We give strangers some of their privacy back, we reconnect to what’s actually going on with our own people and our own lives, and we rebuild our social fabric bit by bit. Even if it’s just a bit at a time.)

P.S. I get the irony that I once said marriage can still work, I actually don’t see divorce as a failure of marriage. I think divorce is important, and actually everything I said in that post still resonates as true.

Makenna Held

Written by

Writer. Speaker. Entrepreneur. Integral coach. PhD candidate at @EuroGradSchool. Feminist theorist in food studies, development & leadership. Owner of #lapeetch

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