How Social Media Ruined my Social Life: Generalized Anxiety

“Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized by persistent and excessive worry about a number of different things. People with GAD may anticipate disaster and may be overly concerned about money, health, family, work, or other issues.“ -ADAA.org
As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been a worrier. It was something that was out of my control. In fact, it made me worry even more that I couldn’t control it.
As I got older, the worry went from a small idea that snowballed into a catastrophic event. For example, I’d start off by thinking about someone I love driving. That would turn into them spinning out of control because someone hit them and them flying through the air over a bridge like one of those unrealistic action movies and “boom!” up in flames!
I know, pretty cinematic right?
I noticed that after a few life experiences and self image issues this “problem” started pouring into my social life. I’ve always been a pretty private person but social media was slowly, and silently, making me even more introverted.
This seems pretty backwards to most, but let me explain. In list form. Just because.
- I entered social media with preconceived underlying issues in about 2007 not realizing what social media would evolve into, or what that meant for someone with no knowledge of a growing anxiety disorder.
- Because I was so shy and reserved in person, I saw social media (back then MySpace, Facebook and Twitter) as a way to embody a personality I could only dream of having in “real life”.
- The more saturated social media becomes, the more it can detach you from things that are truly important.
- Naturally, you start to become aware of the fact that unfortunately, others do have an opinion about you and what you do. Even though this doesn’t really matter, and nine times out of ten people aren’t thinking about you the way you’re thinking about you, it starts to make you worry about things that are unrealistic. A trait of anxiety.
- Here comes the “snowball effect”. I thought that because I made decisions in my past, that millions of other people made and still do, I was being judged for them. Again, no one, I repeat, no one is thinking about you! I didn’t know how to make myself believe that so I started to do what I’d like to call detachment therapy.
- I became so afraid of being around people I knew or even meeting new people (I was once a social butterfly who could spark conversation with anyone) that the only thing I knew to do was detach, flee the scene, exit stage right left and orchestra pit.
- I deleted my Facebook and Twitter but Instagram didn’t get the boot until my daughter was born in 2016. Let me tell you, her arrival made the departure of everything else expedited.
- By the time I’d had my baby, I was so detached from social media and it’s antics that I was afraid to even announce to the world she was here. I didn’t want anyone to see her (no she isn’t funny looking, she’s beautiful and I’m not biased) out of fear that someone would find out where she was and abduct her as soon as I turned my head. See the idea to catastrophic event trend here?
- The more I didn’t post, the more I literally couldn’t post. Social media had become my only way to stay “connected” socially because I’d moved out of my hometown and my closest friends were now all over the country. Eventually, my instagram page was laid to rest too.
- After all these series of events, and some in between, I slowly started to become my only friend, besides close family and my boyfriend. I didn’t know how to go out and meet new people anymore. I was conditioned to think that the only way to find friends and a social life was through social media. My family and friends who live on theirs made comments that made me believe they thought I was awkward, depressed or even more laughable “anti social”. Go figure.
- I didn’t realize until a couple months ago that what I’d been doing was a cleanse from all the noise. I was allowing myself (even if it took over two years) to become more aware of myself, who I was, who I am and who I want to be.
My social life was hindered because I didn’t know how to separate the reality from the unrealistic. As a person overcoming anxiety disorder, I think the last thing you should do is overstimulate yourself with social media content day in and day out. This not only creates a shift in how you interact with others, but how you’ll act when its stripped away.
Contrary to belief if you’ve made it this far in this article, I’m not saying social media is bad. I’m simply saying too much of something is unhealthy. I’ve slowly been coming around to social media again. I’ve created a new Instagram and a Facebook where I’m trying out only adding family first. There’s a huge difference now than when I tried doing this just a few months ago. I literally felt like I was going to have a panic attack when anyone I knew followed me which actually bothered me so bad that I completely shut down my platforms again.
Self assessment is one of the first steps in the process to self recovery. If you don’t know what your issue is, how can you properly tend to it?
Taking a leap back into the world of social media is a big deal for me. I’m like a new kid at a school where everyone already has their set of friends and groups laid out. I’m making an effort to finally do the things I wanted to do but allowed fear, like so many of us, stand in my way.
Right now, I am in the process of creating YouTube content for this blog that I think will be beneficial and add value to the lives of others. I posted a few videos earlier this year which you can find here.
Here are some topics I will cover on my channel and the blog:
- Self help
- Motivation
- Minimalism
- Tech (specifically my journey of learning web development, design and some product reviews).
- Anxiety and how to combat it
- Positive talk to keep your energy levels high so that anything you want in life you will attract to you (Law of Attraction content).
- More
If any of these topics interest you, consider subscribing to my email list to be notified as soon as I post new content on YouTube, here on Medium as well as my website.
