Facebook Depresses Me - Facebook Blues

[Hopeful1989]

I agree with you TLight. I keep this webpage on almost all day. I really only visit this site now because everything else seems so irrelevant. Nothing else deals with what I am dealing with. So I would like to thank everyone too. I have only been on here a few days but already I feel much better knowing there are people who get it.

 

[Nicolette]

FB is about social networking. Half the people who have hundreds of friends don't really know them but because they play the same game have added them to share game information etc. What you all miss the point of is that it doesn't matter how many other friends people have; it matters how good the friendships you have are. It's better to have one great friend than 100 slightly interested ones (and usually for self gain). It is also a place, like the forum, with less control where things can be misconstrued due to only having the written word to go by.

We use it to share family photos and keep in touch with family. I could add quite a few people but why do they need to know my business as I wouldn't normally tell them anyway?!

Hopeful..........your issue is not FB itself but its your current state with your illness. You are just continuing in the same fashion by isolating everything so you don't have to acknowledge your state. Why not invest that energy into something positive and using those things you are hiding from as aspirations in your healing - goals of things to achieve? Isolating is a coping mechanism. Fix the underlying issues and you will more likely be able to deal with a little more socially. Take care.

 

[Hopeful1989]

Thats easier said than done. Part of my anxiety is I worry that just by talking to me people will know I have PTSD and think I am crazy or something. I am not ready for that exposure yet. And I hate being fake and talking to people and being like "everything's great". And before I was diagnosed I had isolated people, I haven't talked to my friends in months. I know isolation isn't the best, but I feel safe, and I just want to feel safe for a while and not be reminded all the time that I'm too afraid to go outside.

 

[Nicolette]

Only you can change your perception of yourself and if you want to cope in ways which are not the most helpful then that is your choice. I hope you can move past this at some point and at least become a little more social. This site may help you.

BTW, no one is asking you to be fake either....that too is your choice.

 

[kers]

I can't do FB at all. I know that people's lives are not as perfect as I assume them to be, but I have friends who have let me look around on their accounts and everyone else's life seems so full. Mine is full of...work and therapy. It makes me obscenely jealous.

I also stay off because I am uncomfortable with having a named presence online. I am paranoid that somehow my real life and my online, open about PTSD life, will coincide. That's terrifying.

 

[Nicolette]

Fair comment Kers.

Hopeful1989...I am only try to help you look at things differently but still respect how difficult your illness is and how it can totally disable you.

 

[Hopeful1989]

I know, I am happy for your response. I like responses because it lets me know people are listening. I know that the ideal would be what you said, but I'm just not ready yet. I hope to be there soon.

 

[Nicolette]

Good for you!

 

[Mina]

I think you did a positive, healthy thing in deleting your account if it was causing you discomfort of any kind.

Well said, Anni. If FB makes you feel worse about yourself, Hopeful, then it's not a healthy place for you to spend time.

I have a FB page, with less than 3 dozen friends. I could add probably a couple hundred people I was vaguely acquainted with at some point in high school or college, as is the popular thing to do, but that seems so stupid to me. The people I've "friended" are or were those I actually consider friends, not just people whose names are in my old yearbooks...and I've ignored several requests from people I don't want knowing my business, or because I never considered them friends. And I also have a habit of shutting off the feed from people who post way too much about their kids, or their mafia or vampire wars or farm (I refuse to play any games, no thank you), or sometimes even my best friend who is a diehard baseball fan and constantly posts about it during games. If I don't want to see it - I don't have to! :smile:

 

[berka]

AHHH I FEEL THE SAME WAY!

My therapist has encouraged me to limit the time I spend on it and focus on myself for a change. But I just can't stop lurking at my friends having such beautiful, happy lives. The funny thing is they tell me that I'M the one who seems to be living it up....ha, if they only knew! It seems that most people put on a show to impress other. It's sad that a website can control my emotions....I actually get depressed if no one has commented in a while. It's sick!

I've actually stopped updating my status. It's all about baby steps :) I keep trying to think how it relates to my PTSD.....hmmmmm

 

[Jline]

I had FB for 30 seconds, my abusive ex got his children to contact me. He involved them in his stalking me even before the whole FB craze. I haven't had it since.

 

[Deleted member 5760]

JLine

Same thing happened to me. I had my account for two days and almost instantly I had people contacting me whom I really didn't wish to speak to. Some of them simply for the reason they weren't particularly 'friends' and I didn't want to create this long list of people who I'd feel obligated to communicate with regularly. So I hit 'delete' on my account and don't use it anymore.

It's such a craze though. I know so many people who are addicted. I even bought a shirt at Portobello Road Markets in London which says 'No I am NOT on f*(&ing Facebook'... hehe.. because it seems to be the obligatory second question when you meet someone these days.

'Got facebook?'