TW: there are passing mentions of suicide and eating disorders as well as one mention of graphic self harm. Please be safe.
Let’s sit down for a minute and talk about social media as honestly as possible. Everything I’m about to talk about is coming from someone who grew up with social media; it has always been a part of my life.
Let’s open the wound with some heart breaking truths
“…I mean we were 13 the first time we logged on to tumblr.com on the family desktop, downloading photos with the words ‘I want to die’ spelled out in pink cocaine cursive frosting. We watched looping black and white clips of blades ice skating across swollen wrists. We saw that screenshot of that girl from Skins, caption was something about how she didn’t eat for three days so she could be lovely. And suddenly all everyone I know wants to be is lovely.”
Blythe Baird
Probably one of my first experiences with social media was Tumblr. I remember logging onto the website on the old laptop my parents bought me in middle school and one of the first things I saw was posts and search prompts that spelled out depression and suicide. Weird right? How can social media actually effect mental health in a way that doesn’t involve bullying? I think that’s one of the main things that generations before mine didn’t -and some may still not- understand about social media. It doesn’t just have the capability to amplify the amount of bullying, but also our very own negative thoughts.
My experience with Tumblr back then was so very different from now. When you search triggering terms such as suicide, or key words like depression now, a notice pops up with help lines and an option to skip seeing the search results. When I was in middle school, you could scroll through hundreds of posts about people wanting to die, and even as mentioned in the quote above, videos of graphic self-harm on repeat.
The suicide ideation of this generation continued across platforms such as Instagram, and it was impossible to ignore. You see, social media in a society like this can glorify suffering. It is telling a 12 year old girl that she matters if she suffers. [However, this is not the same as assuming someone is seeking attention when they talk about their struggles and mental illnesses.] The fact of the matter is, in a society that already glorifies suffering, social media can make it into an aesthetic. It can become something that someone hopes to be or a group of people they want to be with. It is romanticizing mental illness. That might be the most disturbing thing that social media can do to ones mental health.
At least that is my personal experience with the negative side of social media
Let’s end with how beautiful it has made this world
“You can only fit so many words in a postcard, only so many in a phone call, only so many into space before you forget that words are sometimes used for things other than filling emptiness.”
Sarah Kay
Social media can truly be a beautiful place, it’s all about our mindset and the people we choose to be surround ourselves with. In the last 5 or 6 months I have been unblinkingly honest on social media. Not in the way of saying my opinion is right or anything to a degree of creating destruction, but by telling my truth.
What do I say? Well, I say whatever I’ve been feeling. If I had a bad mental health day, I say that it’s okay to feel down and not do something. What is important is taking care of yourself. Remember to eat, drink water, and get some sleep. Some days it’s hard to take a shower, brush your teeth, or take your meds. So I try to spread awareness by saying ‘hey, I feel this way, but I know this feeling will pass and it will for you too.’
If I had a good couple of weeks, I may humbly post about feeling happy. There is nothing shameful about saying how you feel, but when it becomes a dueling ground, it becomes unhealthy. You are 100% allowed to feel good about yourself and post about it too. You are valid and loved. I get an insane amount of love and support in my comment sections that brings me to my knees with gratitude and to tears with happiness. I recently posted about graduating and what the past four years of my life had looked like, and I had so many people telling me how proud of me they were, and how happy they were to get to see me grow and become healthy and proud of myself. I have surrounded myself with people who create a community that supports each other and loves unconditionally.
That is why social media can be so beautiful. We can choose to lift each other up and offer support to those who need it. Sure, a lot of people can get mean and start arguments, wreaking havoc on someone’s mind, but if we choose to block those people and start supporting each other, we can do this. This is a crazy life, and we need all of the help we can get.
As the quote above says, there are only so many words, and they don’t just have to fill the empty space. We can pinpoint our messages, make sentences filled with intent, and influence just about anyone. Social media is what we make of it. It can trigger us and make it feel like the darkness will never leave, or it can remind us of how beautiful the sunset is and how the light shines on every part of the earth in a different way. Simply beautiful.
Until we meet again,
Stan
Long Drives in the Dark 