The Great Face-cation Awakening

I could feel it coming for several months. Friend after friend had been taking these "face-cations", as they called them, and telling me how great it was to get off social media, spending time in real life fostering their real relationships. It's not that Facebook isn't real. I actually love it. I have friends all over the country, and the world, and social media is the easiest way to keep in touch with them. I get to read statuses, see pictures, and even comment on things. I get to read interesting articles, laugh at funny pictures, and have my mind challenged about things I might not have seen if it hadn't been passed around on Facebook.

But somewhere in the last five years, since I first started my Facebook page, it started becoming an hourly routine to check in on my news feed, or write back to people commenting on my posts. And those creepy, stalker-ish Facebook ads, and the lack of privacy was starting to get to me. I started feeling overwhelmed. But I loved keeping in touch with my friends, and I loved to write and blog, and Facebook was a great way to share those things. How else was I to disseminate information that easily?

I guess you could call it a kind of addiction. It starts feeding your insecurities, doesn't it? It did for me. Instead of seeking my affirmation in God, or spending time learning new things, or pursuing my hobbies, I was spending time responding to others, responding on the comings and goings of my life. Anyone can look good on Facebook. If you're good at certain things, you look even better. It's like a showcase of work for all your friends to see, like a portfolio of your best self.

One of the things I noticed most, was I was using Facebook to communicate with everyone. If I wanted to say hi to someone, I Facebook messaged them. If I wanted to invite someone to my house, or to something I was planning, I sent a Facebook invite. I didn't call them on the phone and say hi, or ask if they wanted to come over. I Facebooked it...all of it. I tagged people I wanted to see certain things. I posted pictures I wanted people to look at. I posted, re-posted, and shared anything and everything, for myself and for others. My Pinterest search for avocado ranch dressing even showed up on Facebook. Instead of sending pictures to my friends via email, I posted them on Facebook and tagged them. Facebook ruled my life, and I was starting to feel like it was all...fake.

Who am I, and who are these other people in my life? Am I a profile picture, a status update? Is the validation of my ideas, or my writings the sum of how many likes and shares I get on Facebook, or how many people comment? Are the friends in my life made more important by how much they respond to me on Facebook, or if they accept my Facebook invite or not? If I wasn't on Facebook would they still care? Would I hear from them if there was no Facebook connecting us?

I guess I'm about to find out.

I have struggled with depression and anxiety for several years, triggered by an accident I was in 10 years ago. It's something I wish my life was rid of, and for the most part, it is manageable. These questions about me and my friends started coming up, and I was finding myself going back to that insecure state...the place where nothing good comes from, and you end up doubting and hating yourself, and hating everyone else too.

My path had led me here. It was a progression, really. A progression of self. I would say to myself that I would rather have a small group of close friends, than a bunch of people who were just interested in liking my profile pictures on Facebook. But was that really the case? Did I honestly believe what I was preaching, or did I really care more than I thought, about those 700-ish friends I had accumulated on Facebook, and what their opinion of me was? The truth was a hard pill to swallow. I really did care what they thought. I cared too much. And that left me dealing with the ugly truth that my insecurities were stronger than I had let myself believe, and it was time to make some changes.

I started reevaluating the people I had in my life, and what kind of influence I let them have. I used the circle method of evaluation. The closest circle to me being the people I trusted implicitly. In looking at this group, I had too many people in there! I had given privileges to people simply because of their blood relationship to me, or the years I had known them, not the value of our relationship. The next group now had some new people from the previous ring, but were holding the people I trust, but not implicitly. They were close friends, but not the "inner circle". The last group was the fringe group, or acquaintances. I have a lot of these.

It's really no one's fault where they land in these circles. Some move around, but for the most part people are who they are. They either like you or they don't. You either trust them or you don't.  When it looked like I was going to be a substitute parent again, I summoned my closest friends to pray for me and the situation. Those people right there. They are trusted. They are few, but they are strong and close to me. I trust them to keep my private issues private, and to challenge my thinking if needed. I trust them to come to me and call me on the carpet if I'm totally screwing up, but I also trust them to love me without fail. That is a strong connection, and one I don't take lightly.

I'm a Cancer, so my friendships and relationships are extremely important to me. I am also fiercely loyal...and stubborn. If you lose a Cancer's trust, chances are you won't get it back. Burn them, and they're pretty much lost to you. They take relationships seriously. I take relationships seriously. So moving my friends from the closest circle to the next one down tore at my heart and made me feel guilty. Guilty for what? Protecting myself at the cost of someone else. Or so it seems it's costing them. In reality, it's not. If I have to set a boundary around them, they're probably using me in some way, which I guess in some way is costing them. But the cost is really mine. And I was feeling spent.

I've spent the majority of my life feeling like a walking carpet. I might as well have been wearing a sign that said, "Please, come take advantage of my available heart." Not really that catchy, but totally true. It was time for change. I was ready.

At least I thought so.

When one embarks on changing themselves, or setting boundaries when one has not done so before, one should be prepared for a battle. I was changing the rules. I was changing them for myself, but ultimately I was changing them for others too. I didn't ask anyone's permission, I just started making small changes.

Also, when one decides to start changing one's self, they should be prepared to make several mistakes. Changing myself was getting uncomfortable for me, and also for those around me. The old Marci wasn't going to allow people to talk to her "like that" anymore. The guilt trips, the pressure to be the one to pick up the mess, to fix the problems, to take care of everything, and then get used and have people resent her for being herself, and then feeling guilty for being herself. That was the old Marci. I didn't want to be her anymore. I was tired of being her. But everyone else in my life that I had let have these privileged positions in my life, REALLY liked her, and got used to treating her a certain way, and having her respond accordingly. And then here I went changing the rules.

Not only did I not like the old Marci, but now that these prize people didn't like the new Marci, I wasn't sure I liked her either! I was offending people. Maybe I shouldn't do this. Maybe I should just go back to the old me, the safe me...the unhappy me. She was liked enough, and she didn't rock the boat. She might not have been happy, but at least she was comfortable.

No.

God was changing me, growing thicker skin on me because of where he was taking me, and I knew it. But inevitably in this process, I was going to lose people. Given how much I value relationships, and how much I needed their approval in my life, the release of them was the worst kind of pain. But it had to be done. And not because I was forcing it. I wasn't asking anyone to leave. I was just changing me, and people were leaving on their own. I was being abandoned for becoming a better version of myself. Talk about disheartening.

And then there's Facebook. It seemed to only complicate what was already happening in my life. Now I had 700 Facebook friends in the boat I was rocking, and it was getting a little crowded, and more than a little uncomfortable. It was a mixed bag of people. Some really involved in my life and encouraging these positive changes, and others who didn't appreciate the changes, and sought to misuse, misunderstand and misinterpret everything I said or did, and throw it back in my face, as they called me every name in the book..."in love".

There's nothing loving about setting your own standards for people, and then criticizing them for not meeting them. We hold no power over another person when it comes to changing them. That's God's work. And best to leave it to him, as he knows the whole plan, and has no questionable motives towards us. People, on the other hand, have plenty them, along with expectations of every kind. It is simply impossible to keep everyone happy. And if you have the least bit of insecurity about what people think of you, social media can be a breeding ground for a special kind of anxiety.

Being prone to anxiety already, the massive changes to my life in the last several months, and the new changes I was trying to make to my self, I started to feel my old friends depression and anxiety come creeping back. I have felt this feeling before. I knew where this was headed. I feel like my insides suddenly took on de-cluttering my life like Floridians take on hurricane preparedness...simply and quickly. Facebook seemed like that $5 vase bought from Walmart. When packing one's things for evacuation, leave the vase, take the photo albums. I hope you get the reference. (Leave Facebook, take the friends!)

One of the best ways to help deal with depression and especially anxiety is to simplify your life. Too many things complicate life, and feel so overwhelming it's almost impossible to function even with simple tasks. If you can put some things on autopilot for a while, and remove unnecessary stresses, your chance of making it through the storm of d&a is more probable.

I've been off of Facebook for 2 or 3 days now. So far, I've been able to have a conversation with my best friend and one of my nieces on my lunch hour. I've put diligent effort into the novel I'm reading, I've gotten back to writing. I texted a couple of friends, had a couple of meaningful conversations, spent some time showing my cousin how to read sewing patterns while we went through the stash of patterns I have saved up, tended to my flu-ridden kiddo, and have baked another pumpkin pie, a batch of m&m cookies, and made some homemade ranch dressing.

And although my floors still need to be vacuumed, laundry still needs to be done, and I never got to finish "Pride & Prejudice" still in the DVD player, I feel like I accomplished a lot in my few days off social media. There's still more to be done, more things that require my time, but I hope by simplifying my life a little for just a few weeks, I can regain my grounding, and push ahead on all the things are part of my great big world.

*still practicing*