Socially Obsessed

Around March/April of this year, I vowed to myself that I was going to take a social media break for the summer. My main focus was deleting Snapchat and Instagram and I think for the month of July I’m going to get rid of TikTok too.

The reason I wanted to forgo any social media for the summer was mostly because I felt burnt out from it. It sounds stupid and for anyone who looks down on Gen Z as internet-obsessed nothing I’m about to say is going to help that, but I was addicted to my phone and the social version of myself that I curated online. Every day I felt FOMO when I didn’t check on everyone’s profile every few minutes or I based my days around waiting for people to respond to me and once I took a step back and processed that, I felt pathetic.

Why was I allowing the likes on a photo or the number of messages I got every day or how many people watched my story to dictate my happiness? And even further, why was I allowing other people’s internet presence to affect what I thought and what I did?

I wanted to take a step away from the constant flood of information and oversharing and happy faces to reconnect with myself and who I was. I know that I’ve become more secure in myself these past few years but I know there is more room to grow in my confidence so why would I stunt that opportunity for growth?

I will admit that the first week was rough. I felt like I needed to let everyone know what I was doing and thinking and I needed to make sure I was on top of everything going on, but now I don't really miss any of it at all. I don’t miss thinking about who was going to see my story or who was going to like my post first. I don’t miss trying to get the best angle on a photo to impress other people. I don’t miss the constant anxiety that came from thinking about what I was “missing.” Because at the end of the day, there is so much more to life than the digital persona you create.

I probably sound like a pretentious idiot who thinks they're “too good” for Instagram, but I know that once my hiatus is over I’m going to use it again. It’s not about getting rid of it all forever, it’s about creating a healthy relationship with it and allowing myself to feel confident because I feel confident and not because someone else allows me to be.

If you can take a social media break, try to do it for a month and I promise you’ll be better off for it. Especially if you were glued to your phone like I was.

Why I Fear Being Pregnant

tw: mental illness, abortion, suicide, eating disorders

“Treating pregnant women with bipolar disorder is among the most challenging clinical endeavors.”

I was doing some research to write this piece because I knew that if I were to get pregnant I would be facing 9 months of hell, but that statement, “Treating pregnant women with bipolar disorder is among the most challenging clinical endeavors,” cut like a knife into me.

I have been adamant about not wanting children since I was at least 14. Every time someone asked me about it or the topic was brought up in conversation—which is odd that topic would even be prompted to a minor—I gave one of various reasons I had. One of the first reasons I started to hate the idea of giving birth was that childbirth itself terrified me. I read somewhere when I was younger about the mortality rate of pregnant women and felt petrified with fear. That was merely the beginning of a long list of reasons why I do not want to be a mother.

I am mentally ill and I don’t want to give birth to a child knowing they could go through what I have gone through. And I don’t care about the argument around, “well if you went through it too then you can better help your child,” because I can barely keep myself together despite all of the progress I’ve made, so why would I willingly put someone into a position where I cannot sanely take care of them and provide them the proper support that doesn’t traumatize and scar them? Not to mention that women with bipolar—and women with other mental disorders as well—are often required to go off their meds during pregnancy. There have been weeks where I have gone off my meds and I have wanted nothing more than to kill myself so how does one expect me to go 9 months without them?

Women with bipolar face more risk in postpartum than women without it. I would be more at risk to fall into a psychotic episode or mania or have a more intense relapse. Even if I did fine during the 9 months I carried a child, I would not be able to be a competent mother to that child.

Not to mention the physical toll pregnancy takes on your body. As someone who has struggled with body image and eating disorders for the majority of my life, I cannot imagine how I would feel after giving birth to a child. I can’t imagine how any mother who has struggled with accepting themselves feels after giving birth.

These are just some of the reasons I do not want to get pregnant and have a chili and these are just a fraction of the reasons millions of other women do not want children. The overturning of Roe v Wade specifically hurts disabled women, poor women, minority women, and mentally ill women.

I urge you to take action if you are able to and speak up. It shouldn’t be anyone else’s business what you do with your own body. It shouldn’t be up to anyone besides you what you do. Abortion restrictions don’t make abortion disappear, they simply make them less regulated and more dangerous for women.

If you can, use this link https://abortionfunds.org/funds/ to donate. We are watching our rights be stripped away as we speak so we need to take action now.

The Good Side of Nihilism

I could have a solid retirement fund if I had a dollar for every time I questioned what I publish on this site. One of the things that I have increasingly become more aware of is how I am perceived by others. Before 2019 I was very reserved in talking about myself and what I did and who I was. I felt the need to construct the “ideal me” and only present that facade to everyone and anyone I met. However after the pandemic took its toll and I crawled my way through high school, I became a borderline nihilistic cynic—my mother’s words not mine.

And while there is certainly a negative side to always seeking the worst in the world and constantly contemplating whether life is even worth it at the end of the day, there is also a slight beauty to it. After a certain amount of time the terrifying idea of “nothing matters” turns into a freeing life motto. There are certainly better ways to come to this realization than sending yourself down a somewhat neverending downward spiral, but that is how I came to this place. A place of contentment and a kind of unsettling peace—but peace nonetheless.

Nothing matters UNLESS you fuck up so tremendously bad that you ruin the rest of your or someone else’s life (and newsflash this doesn’t mean failing a class or losing out on a job. I’m talking about like murder and stuff like that). At the end of the day, you are only one person and any mistakes you make or anything pitfalls you succumb to isn’t going to matter in the long run as long as you make a conscious effort to fix it, atone for it, move past it, or even just forget about it. This isn’t to say that you can’t make an impact as one person or that the good things you offer the world are meaningless—well for the most part yeah—it just means that overthinking is an unforgiving poison and it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself of that sometimes.

I will admit that at the beginning of this newfound—for me—idea, I found it a little discouraging. What do you mean nothing matters? I have always worked hard and constantly strive to do my best and create things that leave the world better off, and now I’m realizing that none of it matters? And yes, this is probably something you’re thinking about right now, whether or not you should even bother trying because what if nothing you do ever matters. And I’m here to say, in my “profound” not-professional about-to-be college-sophomore opinion, there is some truth to that but there is also so much more.

There is so much more to doing good work and working hard and trying to do your best than just what you produce. By relieving a bit of the materialistic and existential pressure that we all put on ourselves to one degree or another, then we can in turn make better stuff. I can’t even count how many times my own head has prevented me from jumping into something I am interested in or want to try and all of those times are missed opportunities for change and for growth. If I had just taken a moment to remind myself that it’s perfectly fine if I mess up because there are more days and more opportunities and more people and whatever, then I probably have a lot more things to show off.

So back to me, overthinking nine out of ten things I publish here. I have spent so much time afraid of being vulnerable and open and honest because I was scared that people would judge me and laugh and criticize me for it, but the more I write and tell stories and meet people I realize that the only real reason I was afraid was that no one else around me was doing it. Coming to that conclusion made me promise myself that I would be that voice in every space I enter in order to make anyone and everyone else feel a little more welcome and a little more comfortable.

Am I still worried about how spilling every little detail of my life and how I think and feel will affect the way people view me? Yes, but I know that there is at least one other person somewhere who might come across something I’ve written one day and gain a little more confidence in themselves and that is all I hope for.

And Again And Again And Again

If someone told me where I would be right now, last semester, I would like to say that I would laugh in their face and tell them “No way,” but I know myself better than that. I would probably just look them in the eyes and sigh a sigh of acceptance and disappointment: a combination of emotions that are too close for comfort.

I am sitting in my room, starting a project that is due in two and a half hours that I have had two weeks to work on. I haven’t done laundry in who knows how long and there are more plastic bottles and paper dishes littering my desk and floor than contact lenses in my medicine drawer. In the last few months I have allowed myself to succumb to the painfully numb feeling of nothing. I though that my usual routine depressive episodes were bad but they are pitiful against this one.

I am plagued with apathy and disassociation. There is no motive in my actions and I aimlessly wander around doing mundane things that I don’t think I am fully aware or conscious of. I walked into a gas station the other day and bought peanut butter filled pretzels and didn’t realize that I was eating them until I was back in my car with the doors locked.

At least when I have gone into autopilot mode I have purpose in what I’m doing and I am doing things that I need to do. This is something drastically different. They are uncharacteristic things and random things and things that don’t invoke any sort of reaction or emotion. It’s like when you leave your Sims alone for too long and they start doing pointless things for no reason and for no one to see.

I was so excited last semester that I had avoided any big dips in my day to day life and I was actually finding balance and adjusting to my “normal”. Maybe it’s karma for not attending any church services since getting to ASU (minus the two time I went with my parents over winter break). Maybe this is just the universe telling me that I shouldn’t get too cocky and full of myself, I apparently needed a kick to the ego.

Whatever the reasoning is, I am determined to fight it because nothing is more motivating than spite. And I intend to prove myself wrong and break out of this insufferable cycle.