Well, here I am… in bed… fatigued in a way I haven’t been fatigued for a long time. But I’m happy and I’m allowing myself some time to write and not feel bad about not doing anything more today. Yes, I’m still trying to shake the whole productivity mindset that is so prevalent in our culture.
So… I returned to social media late last week… and almost had a panic attack in the process.. lol. I laugh to not cry. In all honesty, I simply felt overwhelmed. There were so many notifications on both Twitter and Instagram. I was included in long threads I didn’t participate on Twitter by people I didn’t know. One person decided to send me over 30 or so reels on Instagram in the month plus I was away… and I almost broke down and cried when I saw them. I had to take several deep breaths, try to use every tool into my mental health self-care arsenal, and delete the DMs I could to post the mini photo dump I shared.
I took a break from social media because I was overwhelmed by the amount of content — especially reels — so seeing that I was thrown back in without chance to test the waters really got to me. I lasted a full 24 hours or so before I deleted the app and didn’t log in again until today. And the only reason I logged in today was because news broke that Gustavo Dudamel is leaving the L.A. Philharmonic for New York and I wanted to see if any local friends would be interested in going to one of his last concerts before he left.
I don’t know if it’s my Addison’s, a product of my senses being overwhelmed because they’re trying to overcompensate for the lack of eyesight, or if I’m still not over the digital burnout, but I just can’t do too much all at once. I just recently discovered that the dehumidifier we got last year for our apartment — which we run all night and on rainy days because our apartment gets very humid very quickly — makes my nerves even more frazzled. Since we’ve had a couple of warmer than normal days, we haven’t needed the dehumidifier and the difference with the noise level is incredible. I’m less anxious and less fatigued (and I sleep better when we can afford to turn it off). If a simple machine that “only” causes that feeling of overwhelm on a white noise level physically and mentally tires me out, you can imagine what the sights and sounds of social media does to my system.
This isn’t new. In fact, it was worse. I was overly sensitive to noises when I first lost my eyesight. While I got little rest at the hospitals during my nearly month-long stay at two different ones in late 2020, getting home was worse. We live in a large apartment building with many children and lots of parties so I didn’t get much sleep. When my eyesight was worse — before recovering a bit more residual eyesight — kids running in front of our second-floor apartment used to make me very nervous because I never knew if it was an earthquake or a child running… unless the child was also yelling. Sounds make me jumpy, especially if I can’t identify what they were. I get startled even more easily than I ever have. It’s not fun. And, while I’m grateful I’ve gotten reached a point where I can stand a bit more than before, overwhelmed senses are still something I’m trying to learn to manage… and that’s a big part of why I decided to cut my time on social media.
The other part stands — a lot of people just look for reasons to argue and twist words and ain’t nobody got time for that. I was so angry when I saw that the Grammy winner for Best New Artist, Samara Joy, was dragged by fans of other Best New Artist nominees. The only thing the poor girl (and I consider her a girl because she’s much younger than I am) did was win. That was it. I think she had less than 150k followers on social media, which isn’t surprising because she’s a young artist in a genre that gets almost no attention these days (jazz). I’ve seen nothing controversial from or about her… and yet people chose to be absolutely nasty towards her. Some decided to insult her using racist slurs. Others decided to use very, ahem, colorful language to call her all these names that I won’t repeat. And seeing that type of unjust and vile stuff makes me very angry.
So, couple my very sensitive (to stimulation) system with my very passionate nature and… yeah, social media and I can only be infrequent acquaintances. My body has enough to deal with with my Addison’s, my chronic inflammatory skin, and every day stressors. I don’t need to add the utter craziness that exists on social media to the mix as well. Returning to social media only emphasized what a great idea it was for me to take a break… and why I need to keep my assigned social media days. My mental — and physical — health need it.
For the tl;dr crowd: I almost had a panic attack returning to social media and I’m keeping myself away from it as much as I can for the sake of my health. You know, just in case you were wondering how my first couple of days back to social media went.
And that’s it. A sort of quick update. I’m not feeling well today and I want to rest as much as I can sans light and sounds. I’ve had a migraine since Sunday and it’s still on its way out so I want to take it easy. I slept several hours yesterday and the only reason why I’m not asleep right now is because my neighbors are being loud. Thankfully, I definitely have things to offer this up for so the suffering won’t go to waste. Lol.
Oh! And shoutout to Mrs. G who kindly took my beeswax candles — which I ordered from Clear Creek Abbey’s gift shop — to get blessed last week when I couldn’t even sit up during my latest flare-up. She brought them over today and I’m so tempted to light one right now.
I hope you are all doing well!
As always, thanks for reading and God bless! 😊
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