Overexposed: When Social Media Leaves You Feeling Raw

Social media is an important modern tool, but it's not without its emotional pitfalls. Practical? Yes. Draining? Undoubtedly.

I share my uneasy experiences navigating Instagram after being off the app for many years.

Do you push through the anxiety of social media, even when it feels raw?

Want to share your own story anonymously? Record a voice memo and email it to openheartshiddentruths@gmail.com.

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Transcript

Intro

Speaker 0:14

This is Shamron, and you're listening to Open Hearts, Hidden Truths. So I've been struggling recently when it comes to social media and posting on social media and sharing and everything that social media entails. I've been struggling with that. I recently reactivated my account after being dormant for about eight years. Seven years maybe. I am not enjoying having my IG reactivated. The show is about authenticity. The podcast is rooted in authenticity. And posting on social media for me feels like the antithesis of that. But it feels inauthentic, inorganic. Like I'm not being true to myself or like I'm betraying myself. But I don't like sharing. So balancing my emotional well-being with the practical side of things, because there's a very very big practical side of this for helping to grow the show and and to connect. And but you have to do it. But it's finding out how to do it, what works for you. That's been a little bit of a struggle. I start overanalyzing everything, overthinking everything when I post. I've struggled with anxiety and panic attacks for most of my life, especially my adult life. And it's gotten a lot better recently. The last several months, I've seen a big, big change in my anxiety. This is prior to posting on social media and starting that back up. But since I've started it back up, my anxiety levels have definitely accelerated. I've noticed a change in my sleeping patterns. I'm not sleeping as well. I just feel more anxious. And I'm not even sharing that much on social media. I mean, the whole podcast, yes, I'm sharing. I'm sharing a lot. That feels more natural to me than posting it on social media and doing teasers and just all of the ins and outs that social media entails. I've learned to not fall down my rabbit holes on social media. I don't do that anymore. Certain profiles and certain people that I used to, I would say, spy on, I don't do that anymore. I realize that there's no good that can come of that. Only bad things come of that. Things that just don't feel good, so I avoid them. But it's just in general the whole sharing, posting element that feels disgusting. I want to take a long hot bath after I post each and every time and scrub my skin off. I want to bathe in a giant vat of hydrogen peroxide to douse my body with rubbing alcohol. It just feels so gross. I posted something the other day and uh a story, and I saw that someone from my very, very distant past had viewed it. And I don't have any any feelings about this person one way or the other. I'm indifferent. But it still felt weird. It still felt weird. People lurking. You don't know who's lurking. People from your past, people who knows? Who knows who's lurking? Or spying as I like to call it. And then you have all these anonymous accounts, burner accounts. And that's their choice. That's how they choose to engage with social media. There's nothing wrong with that. But that feels weird too. Like, why are you hiding? Why are you hiding behind some obscure avatar? Who are you? Why do you feel the need to hide your identity? But yet you want to spy on me. You're curious about me, but you don't want me to know anything about you. That's part of it. That's what I signed up for. But I'm struggling with it. Recent social media study showed that 60% of people feel worse about their lives after viewing others' posts on social media. 93% of social media users reported having privacy concerns on these platforms. Obviously, I'm not alone in having these strong feelings. All the data indicates there are millions of other people out there who struggle too. But it's just me balancing that, knowing that I need to be posting on social media. Not to brag, not to try and get validation and likes, but because it's a helpful tool in growing my show. Period. And balancing that and trying to make it work for me, and trying to make it work in a way that agrees with me, that doesn't disrupt my sleep, that doesn't spike my anxiety levels. I like to look at social media for me as just a distribution platform. That's it. It's just a place where I can spit out my content. IG has a more refined, slick feeling. TikTok just feels really cheap. It feels like a budget app. It feels like, I don't know, like a cheap fast food, disposable. So I logged on to my sad, sad TikTok account the other day. I just wanted to see if there was an update with my ticket. I submitted a ticket with TikTok because there's been a glitch with my account where that I cannot add or edit my link. I can't put a link in there that leads to my to my show, to my podcast hub. I've had this issue now for over two months. Says the ticket is still in progress. No updates. I have this lemon eight link that I cannot get rid of. Even when I make a new account with TikTok, I can't get rid of the stupid lemon eight thing. It's toggled off. I don't know how it got linked to my account in the first place. So I can't edit it and put my own link in there. So it's really useless. Every time I try to make a new account, that lemon eight thing just follows me. Like a monkey on my back, I can't get rid of. But it would still be useful to have it. So I'd like to get it back. I'd like to get my account back in working order so I can work on growing that and doing something with it. I don't even view my friends post on IG. Very rarely. Occasionally, I'll look at a story. I don't care. I don't care what they post. Because I know if I want to know how they're doing, I'm just gonna text, I'm gonna email, I'm gonna call. I'm gonna reach out to them in a real way. I'm not gonna look at what they post on social media because that's not gonna tell me anything. Another thing that really bothers me with the IG algorithm is that anybody you ever interacted with comes up on your screen. People that you don't want to see. Not anything personal either. Just people you have no interest in seeing. And yet that algorithm just throws their face right up in your face, and you have to look at them every chance you get. Just all these really creepy algorithms. Just getting used to all of this stuff again. After being out of the loop with my own posts, it's challenging. But I want to make the process work for me rather than against me. I'm going to continue reframing how I look at social media in order to do that. It's all about how you frame it, how you process it. It's just a distribution platform for me. And if people want to lurk, let them lurk. Let them. Who cares? It's all a choice. I'm choosing to put myself out there. They're choosing to not put themselves out there and to hide. It's neither good nor bad, it's just a choice. But it's just this overall feeling of ick that is very difficult for me to shake. So do you struggle with social media? And if you struggle with social media, specifically, what do you struggle with? Do you struggle with receiving likes and comments and validation? Does that make you feel anxious? Is that what you're seeking? Or do you struggle when you see others' content and their seemingly perfect lives? And the braggados, or all of it? What part of social media bothers you the most? I'm definitely most affected by the invasion of privacy. That admittedly I am choosing, I am choosing to put myself out there. So if it bothers me so much, why do it? Why do it? If it bothers me so much, why am I complaining? Why do it? Because the desire to connect outweighs the desire to be quiet and to run and to hide. If I want to connect, I have to put myself out there. That's the only way. That's the only way. And I know that. So I'm just gonna grab life by the balls. Okay. I'll jump on for the ride. Let's see where it goes. Let's see how crazy this can get. What are you feeling? Talk to me.

Speaker 11:42

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