How to stop playing the Facebook Game

When social media just keeps punching you in the face with how you’re Not Winning At Life

Spoons Warning: This piece is over 3K words long. A TL;DR version for those short on energy is here.

Embarrassing Confession: On a Bad Health Day (and over 50 per cent of my days are such, just in case anyone from Atos is checking up on me) Facebook has the power to make me cry.

“I’m so grateful that the Universe has given me [insert amazing career/creative opportunity] and wonderful friends who have donated [insert enormous sum of money] to my Kickstarter so that I can follow my dreams…” the first post might say.

It occurs to me to wonder why the Universe isn’t doing things like this for me. Do I not deserve it? Am I doing something wrong? And why did the Universe decide to give me multiple chronic health conditions instead of [insert amazing career/creative opportunity] and wealthy family and friends? Again, is it my fault? It it because I haven’t read The Secret and am therefore not manifesting properly?

Moving on, next up is a pic of a big group of people I know, seemingly having a really lovely time at some social event. I haven’t seen or had contact with any of these people for months because I haven’t been well enough to socialise and they’ve all been… well, busy having great lives, I guess. The post has 80 likes and multiple comments underneath by attendees about what an amazing night it was and how they can’t wait for the next one.

It‘s getting a bit painful already, but I’ve started and as always, I now can’t put the bastard phone down. I haven’t seen anyone at all today, and have barely done so all week. I haven’t been able to talk on the phone either. It took me till late afternoon to get dressed and brush my teeth (massive triumph), and then I managed to stagger outside for a few minutes (one of my rules is that I have to get outside every day) and then it was back to bed. Looking at a text message hurts my eyes so even that has had to be kept to a minimum (FB also hurts my eyes and exhausts me, which is another reason why I need to TURN IT OFF). I’m feeling lonely and scared and excluded, and seeing this picture has poked at that. I wonder if the people in the picture noticed my absence — but then, why would they? I am absent from social events much more often than I am present. To most of the people in this group, I am only a peripheral member, and they have no idea of the enormous significance to me of the social events I do get to, because they are so rare. Those guys are practically my best mates, in my lonely, silly little head.

Next post: a link to the latest articulate, insightful, beautiful blog post that someone I know wrote in their lunch break as a hobby in between raising children, working full time in an entirely different field from writing and conducting multiple open relationships with gorgeous people. It can take me three months to write one mediocre blog post (like this one!) because of low energy, and writing is my lifelong dream, so this is quite a sting.

Then there’s a series of articles about the world falling apart in one way or another, which I can do very little about because I can’t even get out of bed, but it’s pretty sad and scary stuff. Then there’s a piece about some more awful things the Government is planning to do to people with disabilities which, as I’ve just lost my disability benefit and will soon have to deal with the massive energy drain of moving out of the home I can no longer afford, ramps up my omnipresent fear about my survival and sense of being a worthless drain on society a few notches.

At this point I must have become weirdly addicted to the jolts of anxiety and self loathing, because I keep on reading. For hours. By the end of it, my head and eyes are throbbing, my nervous system is so overstimulated I can’t sleep, and yeah, I’m crying. I did it again. I opened Facebook on a Bad Health Day. I have no one to blame but myself.

Admitting I’m a dick

There are a lot of things going on for me when I subject myself to this process. One of them of course is pure and simple jealousy, which really doesn’t need further explanation (sorry if I’m not the ‘good ill person’ you wanted me to be). Another is, I believe, a legitimate sense of grief and anger about the social exclusion that comes from being invisibly disabled, which I’ve written about elsewhere. But what I want to write about now is something else — something that might apply to a lot of people but that I’d rather not admit applies to me because I think it makes me a right dick… but that I’ve finally had to face, thanks to the cruel teacher that is Facebook.

I really, really want to win at life.

And it’s not happening. Not on society’s terms, not on my own terms. I’ve been fighting for a long time to win, and I’m failing at it. And I REALLY, REALLY DON’T LIKE THAT.

I’m not married and I don’t have any children. I don’t own my own home or a car (I can’t even drive). I don’t have a decent career, a face like a film star, money, power or… well, a great deal to write home about at all, really. Those are the things society tells me I should have by now if I want to be able to say I’m doing well.

I can draw some comfort from the fact that I have never wanted any of those things anyway. Growing up a queer social misfit, I certainly didn’t aspire to the same things as the straights. And when I hit a point in my early 30s when I realised that, as a disabled person trying to survive on benefits, those things were all pretty much beyond my grasp anyway, even if I wanted them, there was some humour in that.

But I want other things, things that on my terms would mean Winning At Life. Creative achievement. Queer community. Good hair and shoes. Everyone has their own list. And believe me, I really want to win this fight. I have always had a lot to prove. Having rejected mainstream ideas about what I should want in life, I have to prove that another kind of success is possible. Having experienced severe bullying at school, I have to prove that I’m worth something as an adult — that being the weirdo is a good thing, not shameful; that I can belong somewhere and find people who will accept and value me.

You might think that the fact that on a good day I only have about half the energy of a normal person would mean I’ve realised I just can’t compete in this game. But hell no, quite the opposite. Having been chronically ill my whole adult life, and having been erased and blamed and oppressed because of this, I have to prove wrong the people who said I was just lazy, crazy, a liar — rise above it all and do something amazing. In short, I have to have my happy ending. For life to just be tough and painful and for it not to get any better (or get worse) and then you just die… Well. I’m not down with that. NO THANK YOU.

I’m purposely putting this in childish, blunt terms, without doing the grown-up self-censorship I might usually do to convince myself this isn’t what I really think, that I know much better than that. The grown-up, ‘rational’ part of me might know better — but I believe it’s a myth that that part of the personality has control over most human emotion and behaviour. Is anyone OK with that concept of life, really? Or am I right in my suspicion that many people are fighting for their own happy endings, fighting to win at life, and these days reinforcing their sense of Winning At Life by performing it on social media?

Being status obsessed is a survival trait

For a long time, I couldn’t look at this element of my personality because of shame (and pride). Social status seemed like such a stupid, embarrassing thing to care about, and I was above all that (yeah, yeah, I know). So I pretended it wasn’t there, until Facebook smacked me around and made me cry, and I had a lot of time on my hands, and I had to admit it.

The fact is that human beings in general are status obsessed. It’s not a bad thing. It makes perfect evolutionary sense. We’re pack animals, and the higher your status in the pack, the more likely you are to survive when resources are scarce. The higher your status, too, the higher the status of the partner you’re likely to attract, and thus the higher the status of your children, the ones you’re passing your precious genes onto. Research has in fact shown that the higher your social status, the longer you live. I don’t see any reason for there to be shame in this, though sometimes it seems like it’s a dirty secret kept by the entire human race, coming in on the list of ‘Completely Fucking Obvious Human Dirty Secrets’ not far behind the one about the fact that we’re all going to get older and die.

And when you open Facebook and you see picture and status after picture and status about the great lives people are living, one of the things you’re seeing (among plenty of other things of course) is status display — because status by definition doesn’t exist unless others see it. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But when you’re chronically ill, when you’re trapped in bed and alone and frightened, when you don’t have any pictures of yourself looking hot to post, or any stories from drunken nights out, pictures of your children or your wedding, or announcements about your latest career success to share, it can really, really hurt. You can get so trapped in watching others perform success, that you can get overwhelmed by your sense of lack. I’ve often said that Facebook for me feels like standing hungry and skint at the window of Tesco, watching everyone I know filling their trolleys and knowing that no one is going to offer me anything. I’m sure disability isn’t the only circumstance in which Facebook can feel that way (especially as from some perspectives my trolley still looks pretty full).

Sometimes it feels to me as though that performance of life success (particularly from people who do a lot of ‘gratitude sharing’ on FB) is less about sharing and more a (kind of vulgar) showing-off of privilege. For example, ‘Yay me, I was born white and abled in a wealthy country that gave me free healthcare and education so now I get to live a really nice life for only moderate effort — check me out!’. And the ‘spiritual’ people? They’re sometimes the worst, the positive thinking crowd, sharing posts about how the only problem is the one in your head (bit ableist, that one). Anything is possible if you change your attitude. We all have it within our power to live our best lives. Blissfully in denial about how rigged the game actually is.

A friend of mine with chronic health conditions recently shared a Facebook post about having some quite dark feelings of low self worth and immediately received comments from people saying he couldn’t really mean it — he must have been ‘fraped’. His response (which elicited a small cheer from the depths of my duvet): ‘Fuck you, why can’t people share honest things on FB instead of just showing off how privileged they are?’.

There’s a way out

One of the things I’ve had to do as part of my health management is limit both the amount of time I spend on social media and the people who appear on my news feed. It is, after all, ridiculous for a grown adult to be crying at Facebook. Firstly, I have banned laptops and smartphones from my bedroom. If I am so ill I am in bed, then I am too vulnerable to be on social media. I recently reduced my friends list from nearly 400 to about 170 — leaving just people I interact with either online or IRL on at least a semi-regular basis. I actually feel happy (MAINLY) for those remaining people when they post about positive things happening in their lives, not least because I know that I am part of their lives too and they care about me (I could deconstruct that from a pack survival perspective but am just not going to do it to myself). When I am able to handle FB, I try to be honest about the struggles I’m having in life, partly because I need to avoid the game of performing success, and partly because I know that other people who are Not Winning At Life might appreciate knowing they’re not alone. When people I know post honest things about having a difficult time, I try to support them if that seems appropriate. I’ve ended up creating for myself a Facebook that generally leaves me feeling OK about life and myself, rather than sobbing in a heap. And to those who would suggest I just leave — a) I work on social media and I don’t have a lot of choice in what work I do and b) as someone who’s very isolated a lot of the time, I need that method of social contact, imperfect as it may be, and so do many other people with disabilities.

While status anxiety is human nature and reducing FB time is not going to cure it, I do think that social media is particularly emotionally corrosive for those who’re marginalised or otherwise not having the greatest time in the world. When I spend a lot of time on the internets, particularly when my own life/body/mind are not happy places to be, I can easily become so disconnected from physical reality that I forget that there are tangible things I can do to take care of and comfort myself. I am mouthing helplessly at a screen, at people who can’t see me and things I can’t touch, while neglecting what is real and has possibilities. My body hurts and so I leave it behind and escape online, and when I come back to it, it hurts even more. I don’t like my life, but if I spend all of my spare spoons gazing at other people’s lives, I can’t make *any* changes to mine. Sometimes it’s hard to stay present, and the internet really feeds into that. Once I’ve turned it off, here are some things I’ve found that have helped:

1. Community. Facebook is not real community, no matter how much I might want it to be. Its usefulness is fuelled by face-to-face contact in real life, and without that, I think it becomes destructive instead. Humans need to spend time in groups where they feel safe and accepted — it’s a biological necessity for normal operation of the nervous system. Any chance I get these days, I take part in community activities. Feeling part of a group switches off all the status anxiety because I have in front of me the experiences of eye contact and (hopefully) smiling faces that (it’s scientifically proven) affect me at a level below my conscious mind, telling me I am part of the group, and I belong, and am therefore going to survive. Obviously this doesn’t work if all the people you know are unfriendly swines. And obviously it doesn’t work if you are too disabled to get out or have groups of people in your home. But I find that even if I can only get out once a month and be part of a group, it makes a difference that lasts.
2. (Solo) gratitude lists (THAT I KEEP TO MYSELF). A daily gratitude list is powerful. I did this every day during the darkest period of my ME, when I was mainly bedridden, had no idea what was wrong with me, and was terrified and alone. The only one of those things the gratitude practice changed was the terror, but that was enough to help me not kill myself. The list usually had things on it like, ‘I have a comfortable bed to be ill in.’ ‘The cat loves me (kind of).’ ‘I had three healthy meals today’. ‘My family are all doing OK’. Thing is, though, that the second you feel inclined to start telling the world about all your gratitude for the big and impressive things (unless you’re in a forum where that’s expected), you’re performing winning at life again, and that’s really not what it’s about, guys.
3. Service. Again, this is a tough one for people who are too unwell to do much social contact, but when I talk about being of service to others, I’m not talking about anything big. Sending a text to a friend I know is struggling or sharing my experiences of chronic ill health because it might help someone else are often the most I can manage. But if I do that with intent, it changes the story (instead of, ‘we’re all fighting alone to win at life’, it becomes, ‘we’re all struggling but it’s OK because we’re all in this together’).
4. Slow, gentle and mindful physical activity. It is very easy for me to get trapped in my head and dissociated from my body and unaware of my surroundings. When I’m in that state, the voices that tell me I’m failing are all-powerful because I have nothing to hang on to that challenges them. It’s hard to be present in a body that’s suffering or traumatised, so go easy if either of those things apply to you, but activities like slow walking in the outdoors, qigong for people with health conditions (which can be done without standing up if you can’t manage that), playing an instrument like a drum, stroking a pet (or a partner), crafting (like obscene cross stitch, which has been at times the only activity I could manage) — they’re all things I’ve found help me.

I was a bit reluctant to share the suggestions above because I know that there are people with disabilities and health conditions who these things are not accessible to, and I also don’t want to act as though I’m an expert (as this blog post proves, I’m mainly just a status-obsessed dick). The things above might seem really obvious to you — but they weren’t to me and so maybe they aren’t to everyone. I’d be really interested in hearing what other people with chronic health conditions and disabilities have found works for them in terms of restoring a sense of worth and wellbeing that counteracts social media-induced self loathing.

And finally, when it comes to Not Winning At Life, there are really only a few options I have here. If I can’t succeed on society’s terms, or my own*, and I can’t stay in denial about it, and I can’t just accept my lot in life (because acceptance is a mystery I haven’t solved yet), my only options are to live in misery or find some way of moving beyond the game altogether. And shazam — the human search for A Meaning Of Life Other Than Facebook begins.

Sits back, waits for religious folk to come knocking.

*Apart from the ‘good hair and shoes’ bit, at which I am excelling.

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