Instagram permanently disabled all my accounts along with Facebook in one day… and then something unbelievable happened

I’m a social media manager. My entire livelihood runs through Instagram. So when it all disappeared overnight, I didn’t just lose accounts. I lost sleep, clients, and nearly my mind.

I still remember the exact moment it happened.

It was June 6, 2026. A regular Friday. I was doing what I do every single morning… checking notifications, scheduling content, managing client accounts. Coffee in hand, MacBook open, phone beside me. Completely normal.

And then my phone buzzed.

“Take action or lose access to social.mohit”

I figured it was a glitch. It happens. Instagram throws random errors all the time. I refreshed. Logged out. Logged back in.

Still suspended.

Okay. Fine. I’ll check my other account.

Suspended.

The third one.

Suspended.

And then my Facebook, the one linked to everything, gone too.

In under ten minutes, I had lost three Instagram accounts, my personal (@mohitrealm), my professional brand (@social.mohit), my creative page (@iammoryse) and my Facebook account. All of them. At once.

I just sat there staring at my screen.

How does an entire identity just… disappear?

Here’s the thing nobody tells you when you become a social media manager.

When you manage multiple client accounts alongside your own, Instagram starts watching. Every login, every device, every IP address, every linked account, it’s all tracked. And if something in that web looks suspicious enough, it doesn’t just flag one account.

It flags everything connected to it.

I was managing my own pages and several client accounts, all from the same Android phone and the same MacBook. Same phone number tied to multiple accounts. Everything linked inside Meta’s Accounts Center because, well, it seemed convenient at the time.

One of my client accounts, an inactive page called LWA, had apparently been flagged. I don’t know exactly why. It could’ve been irregular activity, an old violation, anything. But because I had linked that account to everything else on my device, Meta’s system treated all of it as part of the same suspicious network.

One domino fell and everything else fell with it.

The part where I started to panic

I want to be honest about this because most people in my position would put on a brave face online and tell you they “stayed calm and handled it professionally.”

I didn’t. I was devastated, dude.

These weren’t just accounts with followers. These were my proof of work. My portfolio. The place I showed potential clients to say, “This is what I do. This is who I am.” @social.mohit had content I’d spent months building. @mohitrealm was personal, a space I actually cared about and @iammoryse was a creative project I loved.

All of it, suspended. Just like that.

The first thing I did was open Meta’s Help Center. Which, if you’ve ever been there in a crisis, you already know is built like a maze designed by someone who doesn’t want you to find the exit.

I submitted an appeal. Waited. Got an automated response asking me to complete a video selfie verification.

Fine. I did it. They asked again. I did it again.

Then they asked for a government-issued ID.

I uploaded my PAN card.

They rejected it, apparently the image wasn’t clear enough, or the orientation was wrong. I genuinely couldn’t tell. The error message gave me nothing.

So I uploaded it again. This time physically holding it up for better quality, making sure the details were legible.

Another wait and another automated loop.

And then, the one that broke me.

One of my accounts came back as permanently disabled.

Not suspended. Not under review.

Permanently disabled.

I remember reading that message three times. Then I put my phone face down on the table and just sat quietly for a few minutes. Because what do you even do with that? There’s no appeal for permanent. There’s no “try again in 24 hours.” It just says: this account is gone.

The mistakes I made… and I’m not hiding from them

If you’re a social media manager reading this, please listen carefully. Because these are mistakes I made with full confidence that they were the efficient way to work. I was wrong.

Mistake #1: One device, everything.

I managed all my accounts… personal, professional and multiple client pages from the same phone and the same laptop. To Instagram’s algorithm, this makes every account look like it belongs to the same person running a coordinated operation. And when one account in that network goes down, the signal spreads.

Mistake #2: One phone number, many accounts.

My personal phone number was attached to multiple accounts across the board. This is a HUGE RED FLAG for Meta’s systems. A single phone number shouldn’t be the backbone of an entire account network.

Mistake #3: Accounts Center, the convenient trap.

Meta’s Accounts Center makes it incredibly easy to link all your Facebook and Instagram accounts in one place. And for a regular user, that’s fine. For someone managing multiple identities and client accounts? It’s a liability. I had everything linked. So when the flag hit one, it had a direct road to everything else.

Mistake #4: Ignoring inactive client accounts.

The account that triggered all of this… LWA, it was inactive. I wasn’t posting. I wasn’t monitoring it closely. I assumed inactive meant invisible. It doesn’t. An unmonitored account can accumulate flags quietly until the system decides to act on it. By then, it’s too late.

What I did that actually helped

Here’s where the story changes tone.

After the initial panic settled and I mean really settled, which took a day or two, I made a decision. I was going to approach this like I would approach a client problem. Methodically. Patiently. No emotional escalations, no spamming Meta with appeals, no losing my head.

Step 1: I unlinked everything.

Before doing anything else, I went into Meta’s Accounts Center and carefully removed the connections between all my accounts. I stopped the bleeding. I didn’t want whatever flag was on one account contaminating the appeal process for others.

Step 2: I escalated through Meta Verified.

I have Meta Verified on one of my client’s profile. It costs money, but in this moment it earned its value. Meta Verified gives you access to an actual support channel, not just the automated loop. I submitted a detailed escalation through that profile for my suspended profiles, explained the situation clearly and professionally and waited.

Step 3: I uploaded physical documents, not screenshots.

This is the detail that I think made the actual difference. When Meta asked for ID, I didn’t upload a digital file or a screenshot of my PAN card. I held up the physical card clearly to the camera. Good lighting. All details visible. No obstruction. A human reviewer looking at that submission would have no reason to reject it.

Step 4: I stopped flooding the support system.

Every guide online tells you to keep submitting, keep escalating, keep pushing. I think this actually works against you. Too many simultaneous appeals can make your case look suspicious or uncoordinated. I submitted once, clearly, and let it sit.

Step 5: I documented everything.

Every email, every error message, every response, I saved it. Dated it. Kept a clean record. When you’re talking to support, being able to reference specific timestamps and communication history makes you look like someone serious and credible, not someone panicking.

The emails started coming in

A few days passed. I checked my inbox every hour. Nothing.

Then on Jun 11, 16:04, I got this notification-

“You can use social.mohit agian”

I almost didn’t believe it. I logged in immediately. It was back. Fully intact. Followers, posts, everything.

I took a breath.

Moreover, on the same day, @mohitrealm got recovered too because it was linked with @social.mohit profile.

Then and I genuinely did not expect this, I got one more email.

@iammoryse. The permanently disabled one.

Restored.

I’m not going to pretend I didn’t feel emotional about that. Because I did. Getting back an account that Instagram had formally labeled as permanently disabled felt like a genuine miracle. It meant someone at Meta actually reviewed my case manually, looked at the evidence and made a human decision.

I got everything back.

What this week taught me (that nobody will tell you in a course)

I’ve been in social media management long enough to know that most of the real lessons aren’t in any curriculum. They come from the worst moments, the ones that strip away every assumption you had about how things work.

Here’s what I know now:

Your account network is a liability if it’s not managed with separation in mind. Every link you create between accounts is a potential chain reaction. Think about it before you link, not after.

Meta’s systems are automated until they’re not. The loop… verification, rejection, re-submit, is mostly handled by algorithms. But if you stay patient, stay clear, and keep your documentation clean, a human does eventually look at it. That human can override the system.

Permanent doesn’t always mean permanent. I know. It says permanent. I know it feels final. But if your account was wrongly disabled and you have the evidence to prove it, escalate calmly and persistently. It can come back.

Meta Verified is actually worth it if you’re a professional. I resented paying for it. After this week, I don’t.

Inactive accounts need monitoring too. You can’t set it and forget it. An account you’re not managing is still an account that can affect you.

And the last one, the one I think about the most:

Slow down on linking. We’re conditioned to connect everything because it’s convenient. Your personal account, your business account, your client accounts, all under one roof. It feels efficient until the roof collapses. Use separate browsers. Separate devices where possible. Separate emails. It’s more work upfront, and it might save you everything later.

A note to every SMM reading this

If you manage accounts for clients, please share this with them too.

Because part of what made this so stressful wasn’t just my own accounts. It was the ripple effect on the people whose content I was responsible for. That feeling of letting someone down because a system you didn’t build made a decision you couldn’t predict, that’s a specific kind of awful.

We can’t fully prevent it. But we can be smarter about how we structure our work so that when something goes wrong, it doesn’t take everything with it.

Build separation into your workflow from day one. Not as an afterthought. Not after something like this happens to you.

I’m Mohit Pandey, social media manager, currently back on all three accounts (@mohitrealm, @social.mohit, @iammoryse) and with a very different relationship to how I manage them.

If this story helped you, or if you’ve been through something similar, I’d genuinely like to hear about it. Drop a comment. Or find me on Instagram.

Just, make sure your accounts are properly separated before you do.

Follow @social.mohit on Instagram for more real talk on social media, content strategy, and what actually happens behind the scenes of this job.