I seem to know a lot of new parents these days. It is strange for me as my children are both in school now, and even though these new parents are my peers, I feel somewhat like an old lady. Which of course leaves me wanting to hand out advice to all these new parents when they start to stress about this and that. I try to keep my mouth shut though. No one really wants un-asked-for parenting advice, and I respect that. I never listened to it when I was a new parent and I don't expect anyone to listen to it from me. But I do realize that I have a unique perspective on parenting sometimes, and I feel that it's worth sharing anyway.
It seems that the "correct way" to feel as a parent is as though we want our children to be dependent little babies for eternity. We stress ourselves out when it's time to bring them to day care. We fall to pieces when they get on the school bus. And our kids, no matter how young, pick up on this. What do they think? Do they end up feeling guilty for growing up? Why do we want our children to be dependent little babies their whole lives? And I must ask my self from time to time, am I a bad parent because I don't feel that way?
Maybe I am just not a "baby person". Maybe it's like being a "dog person". You either are or you aren't. But I never got all crazy about daycare, or all weepy about the first day of school. I don't want my kids to stay babies and I don't spend a minute wishing they they would not grow up. I look forward to them growing up. Instead of hanging on to passing time in vain, because time is going to pass whether you like it or not, I enjoy each stage of my children's lives for what it is. My kids aren't babies anymore, and I am fine with that. My son is 11. I get to watch him start to discover his identity separate from me. That doesn't scare me. I know I've been a good and attentive parent. I have confidence that he will find his way and the less I impede him from that the better off he will be. I get to watch him figure out friendship, and relationships with girls, and what kind of person he wants to be in life.
My daughter is 5. I get to watch her develop her personality in a different stage. I get to watch her figure out what is socially acceptable and what is not (with my guidance, of course). I get to watch her try on different attitudes and figure out what works for her. I get to watch her take her very first steps of independence.
With both of my kids, I didn't cry on the first day of school. I didn't look at it as my children stepping away from me. They will always be with me in some capacity. I looked at it as them taking their first steps into the big wide world outside of the home, and I am excited for them. I don't look to the past and wish to go back in time. I look forward to the future. I look forward to my son's first school dance, or helping him through his first heartbreak. I look forward to seeing my daughter's intellect develop as she gets farther into school. I look forward to being a constant and positive presence in their lives through all their developmental stages.
And I might sound like a bad parent now, but I enjoy not having dependent little babies. I enjoy that I don't constantly have a newborn laying on my chest, or a baby constantly on my hip, or a toddler constantly underfoot. I like that I can take some time for myself and not have to feel guilty over it. I like watching my children's independence blossom. I like that my son can help with the dishes and the laundry. I will like it when my daughter is big enough to reach the cabinet and get herself something to eat. Ok, maybe I really am not a "baby person".
But the point is, don't get so caught up in wishing time would stop and leave your cute little infants that way forever. Because for one thing, it's never going to happen. For another, when we spend our time in the past, we don't see the present for what it is and we don't look to the future for the good things time will bring. Get too caught up in wanting your babies to stay babies forever, and your children end up finding their identities and reaching amazing milestones right under your nose and you will miss it. And just like you can't get those "baby days" back, you won't be able to get those days back either.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
The Reality of Our Health Care System for Those Who Slip Through the Cracks
In August I received a notice from the New York State Department of Health and Human Services telling me that my family would no longer be covered by the Family Health Plus program. Family Health Plus is a state run program designed for people who are working, who are not eligible for other government assistance such as food stamps, but cannot afford the high premiums of health insurance through their jobs. In anticipation for President Obama's health care reform, Family Health Plus cut their income requirement in half. Under their new guidelines a family of four must have an income of $2,458 dollars (before deductions) or less to qualify for this program. What family of four lives on that kind of income without government assistance such as food stamps and medicaid? I was informed that as of September 1st myself, my husband and my children would no longer have health insurance.
At about this same time, I developed a pinched nerve in my shoulder. No big deal, right? Happens all the time. It hurts, but it heals and people move on. Only, for me it did not heal. Over the span of one week it got worse. Much worse. During the last days of having insurance I went to an urgent care clinic. After 2 xrays they told me that it was not a bone issue, that it was muscular. They gave me some pain medication and a mild muscle relaxer. Their advice was that if the situation did not improve in 5-7 days to see a doctor. I laughed and told them that by then I will not have insurance so that is not an option. They shrugged and sent me on my way.
I returned home and took my medications. I was on hydrocodone with ibuprofen for pain and it worked at first. I was not able to sleep in my bed, so I slept on the recliner in my living room. One morning about 6 days after my my visit to the urgent care clinic I woke up in excruciating pain. Over a 4 hour span of time I took 5 hydrocodone pills that did nothing to stop the pain. All I could do was sit in my living room and cry. My husband, at that point had enough of watching me suffer. He called in to work and took me to the emergency room. After over an hour of sitting there trying not to make a scene by writhing and crying in pain I saw a doctor. She gave me a shot of morphine and prepared me for xrays. The morphine did not even touch the pain.
After 7 xrays I went back to the waiting room and sat there for a while. Eventually the emergency room doctor came out and spoke to me quietly among all the other people sitting there. She told me that I have degenerative arthritis in my neck. This was putting added pressure on the already pinched nerve and that it would not heal on it's own. At the very least I would need physical therapy, but more likely I would need surgery. I needed to see a neurologist, but she knew that I could not because I had no insurance. It seemed as though she might just start crying with me as she told me there was nothing else she could do for me.
The next day a nurse called me to check up after my emergency room visit. We spoke about my situation and she became somewhat alarmed. She exclaimed "Well, you have to do something!" To which I responded that I was aware of this and I asked her what she thought I should do. She had no answers for me. She gave me a phone number for a clinic that helped people with no insurance. I called. They told me they were so inundated with patients that they could not help me. They transferred me to an outpatient clinic. The woman on the other end of the phone had no idea why I was transferred to her because she could not help me either. She transferred me to another person who was equally confused as to why I was calling her. She transferred me to another person who was not in the office. Her voice mail stated that she calls people back within 24 hours. Here it is 6 days later and I have not heard anything from her, because she could not help me either.
So here I am with no options. I am still taking my muscle relaxers and ibuprofen, but I am still in pain. And by tomorrow I will be out of medication. If I return to the emergency room, I will not be able to receive any more pain medications. This practice of denying people pain medication is to keep pill addicts from being able to feed their addictions. The idea is that treatment is the only thing that will solve the problem and pain medication is not the answer. I get that. But what am I supposed to do?
To get health insurance through my husband's job would equal the cost of our car payment. My family is stretched to our financial limits. To cover this cost, we would have to give up our car. I was waiting until both of my kids started school on September 4th when I would be able to get a job to improve our situation. Now I physically cannot get a job. But since I cannot get to a doctor for an official diagnosis, I cannot go on disability. I am left with this pain and absolutely no options.
In order to get health insurance I have a few choices. My husband can quit his job and we can go on full welfare. I can get a divorce. Or I can have a "welfare baby".
People tell me that once "Obamacare" takes effect that I will be able to get lower cost health insurance. With Family Health Plus I had no copays and a minimal cost for prescriptions. With how financially strapped my family is, we needed that. Now the best I can look forward to is $250 dollars a month for health care, and this is only after January when the health care law goes into effect. So what do we do from September until January? And once these changes are in place, if we don't find a way to pay that $250 a month, we get fined. If we don't pay the fine, they take it out of our tax return.
It's not like we're sitting here with a bunch of extras claiming poverty. We don't have cell phones. We can't afford them. We don't eat dinner in restaurants. We can't even afford to go to McDonald's. With my husbands bi-weekly paychecks, we spend two weeks of every month unable to properly feed our children. And there is no help for us. None. We get no help with food. We get no help with school supplies for our kids, or clothing for them. Each of my children have 3 school uniforms and that is it. Not even enough to get through the week. There are now three classes in American society. Upper class, below the poverty line, and screwed. My family has never done so badly in our existence than when we made the jump from below the poverty line to the "middle class", otherwise known as screwed.
This is the true story of our economy, and the changes our president is making. This is the true story of the families that fall through the cracks. This is the true story of what has happened to the so called "American Dream". And I know we are not the only ones who suffer like this.
Please share my story. Please help me speak up for not only my story, but the stories of so many others who are dealing with the same troubles that I am.
Thank you.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
The Walking Dead, and the Daryl Dixon Fixation
So, it's no secret that I love The Walking Dead. Like, I've never felt this way about a t.v. show kind of love. I watch each episode like it's an event. I wait with baited breath for every sneak preview, spoiler alert, or next season trailer. I love the characters, I love the settings, I love the zombies and I even love the soundtrack. But what I can't stand is this sexual icon Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) is becoming. It's making the whole thing take on this cheese factor that quite frankly, I am not comfortable with. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not blind, or a lesbian. I know that Norman Reedus is an attractive guy, and that he makes Daryl Dixon a rather sexy character, all with his crossbow and motorcycle and shit, but seriously. "Mrs. Daryl Dixon" tank tops? Seriously? Yes, those actually exist. And there are massive amounts of my fellow females who comment that they would want one of these shirts.
I think I would have to put real effort in not punching someone with this shirt on
Sexy magazine covers, and a hard core female following. It seems that Daryl Dixon is the new main man of The Walking Dead. His popularity has well surpassed the intended front man of this apocalyptic scenario. Where are the throngs of women lusting after Rick? Now that Shane's gone and that conflict has passed has Rick lost his bravado? When he had his mental breakdown, did he suddenly become damaged goods? I will be interested to see how these two character arcs play out along with the obvious female preference for Daryl Dixon. I wonder if he will get killed off just so we can all hear the collective "NOOOOO!" when it happens!
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Hey, baby. Like my crossbow?
Sexy magazine covers, and a hard core female following. It seems that Daryl Dixon is the new main man of The Walking Dead. His popularity has well surpassed the intended front man of this apocalyptic scenario. Where are the throngs of women lusting after Rick? Now that Shane's gone and that conflict has passed has Rick lost his bravado? When he had his mental breakdown, did he suddenly become damaged goods? I will be interested to see how these two character arcs play out along with the obvious female preference for Daryl Dixon. I wonder if he will get killed off just so we can all hear the collective "NOOOOO!" when it happens!
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Monday, July 15, 2013
Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman: A Trial That Gripped an Entire Nation
Probably the hottest topic in the news and the media right now is the George Zimmerman trial and subsequent acquittal. I must admit, I fell head first into this one. I ignored housework and skipped trips to the store as I sat riveted, on the edge of my seat through almost every day of this trial. I watched the live feed from the courtroom during the day, and just because it was interesting, when court adjourned for the day I would catch some of the mainstream media coverage to see how they were spinning things. It was very interesting to say the least. Based on this dual coverage and what I have seen this is MY opinion. This is what I think happened. Agree with it or not, it's just the opinion of this humble blogger.
I think the acquittal was a miscarriage of the stand your ground law. I believe that the stand your ground law was intended to protect people who have no other option than to use deadly force. If it is proven that there were multitudes of options that could have been taken besides the act that resulted in the loss of life, that stand your ground should not apply. This protects the general public from cases like this, where no one truly knows how things went down because the only other true witness is dead. It protects the general public from the possibility of a over zealous home grown crime fighter going around starting altercations and shooting people over them. It protects anyone who is perceived as a threat when they are merely going about their daily business.
I think George Zimmerman lied. He got tied into multiple lies during the trial. The fact that the jurors appeared to ignore this is something I wonder about. I think that he did start the altercation. I think that he reached out and grabbed Trayvon Martin's shoulder in an effort to detain him until the police arrived. I believe that he wanted to be the neighborhood hero and didn't want to let another one of those "fucking punks" as he referred to them, get away. Trayvon, feeling threatened made just another one of the bad choices that ultimately led to the tragedy of him losing his life. But this is purely my speculation based on what I have seen. I think that George Zimmerman should have been held responsible to some degree for the death of an unarmed teenager that he profiled and instigated and then killed. I think that the fact that those parents, friends and family members of Trayvon Martin had to exit that courtroom for the last time knowing that their son was officially ruled in a court of law as causing his own death is a tragedy.
Now, as many people in our nation struggle to accept the verdict the conversation of race takes the font page. People are outraged at the way in which Trayvon Martin was profiled by George Zimmerman, and now it's as if every young black man has to be in constant fear for their life. Perhaps there is something to that. Young black men are one of the most discriminated against groups in our society. I think that youth in general is discriminated against in our society as the culture of violence becomes reflected in the children who grew up immersed in it. But I don't think that standing somewhere with a sign in protest is going to do anything about it. Just like any other social problem, the solution lies within. The culture of violence needs to change. The positive needs to outweigh the negative. And maybe that's not fair, but like my mother always told me "life isn't fair". Sometimes you just have to deal with it. If you are a young black male and you are sick of being profiled as a criminal, then do things to help your fellow young black males from ruining your reputation through their behavior. Do something in your community to help change the opinions of others. No, it's not right to have to try extra hard just to make people think that you are not a threat to them, but if it's the way it is, how else are things ever going to change? Change comes from within.
I think that the attention and emotion that became devoted to this trial is because somehow, those who were outraged by all this got it in their heads that if George Zimmerman was convicted it would somehow bring Trayvon Martin back. Maybe not logically. Most everyone logically knows that there is nothing that can do that. But some illogical place in so many people's minds started to believe that if there was a conviction it would somehow undo what was done. I admit that illogical part of my brain wished for the same thing. Maybe it's because I am a mother. Maybe it's because my son has brown skin. But my heart goes out to this family, and I have shed tears for the loss of Trayvon Martin when I viewed the gruesome photos that were displayed in the courtroom. Those last photos that will ever be taken of him. He was a kid. He didn't deserve to be profiled. He didn't deserve to be followed. And he didn't deserve to lose his life.
Some say that Trayvon Martin was a thug, but I don't think so. I think he was a typical adolescent trying on different personas as all adolescents do. I think the persona he was trying on at the time of his death was directly related to the culture he was living in as a young black male. It may not have, and seemed that it would not have been the path he ultimately chose in life, but I guess we'll never know that now.
From where we stand right now, what's done is done. The jury deliberated and decided that no crime was committed. George Zimmerman walks free and there's nothing that can be done about it. So we all kind of sit here with a collective "now what?" as the family and friends of George Zimmerman celebrate, and the family and friends of Trayvon Martin continue to grieve, and the rest of us go back to life as usual.
I think the acquittal was a miscarriage of the stand your ground law. I believe that the stand your ground law was intended to protect people who have no other option than to use deadly force. If it is proven that there were multitudes of options that could have been taken besides the act that resulted in the loss of life, that stand your ground should not apply. This protects the general public from cases like this, where no one truly knows how things went down because the only other true witness is dead. It protects the general public from the possibility of a over zealous home grown crime fighter going around starting altercations and shooting people over them. It protects anyone who is perceived as a threat when they are merely going about their daily business.
I think George Zimmerman lied. He got tied into multiple lies during the trial. The fact that the jurors appeared to ignore this is something I wonder about. I think that he did start the altercation. I think that he reached out and grabbed Trayvon Martin's shoulder in an effort to detain him until the police arrived. I believe that he wanted to be the neighborhood hero and didn't want to let another one of those "fucking punks" as he referred to them, get away. Trayvon, feeling threatened made just another one of the bad choices that ultimately led to the tragedy of him losing his life. But this is purely my speculation based on what I have seen. I think that George Zimmerman should have been held responsible to some degree for the death of an unarmed teenager that he profiled and instigated and then killed. I think that the fact that those parents, friends and family members of Trayvon Martin had to exit that courtroom for the last time knowing that their son was officially ruled in a court of law as causing his own death is a tragedy.
Now, as many people in our nation struggle to accept the verdict the conversation of race takes the font page. People are outraged at the way in which Trayvon Martin was profiled by George Zimmerman, and now it's as if every young black man has to be in constant fear for their life. Perhaps there is something to that. Young black men are one of the most discriminated against groups in our society. I think that youth in general is discriminated against in our society as the culture of violence becomes reflected in the children who grew up immersed in it. But I don't think that standing somewhere with a sign in protest is going to do anything about it. Just like any other social problem, the solution lies within. The culture of violence needs to change. The positive needs to outweigh the negative. And maybe that's not fair, but like my mother always told me "life isn't fair". Sometimes you just have to deal with it. If you are a young black male and you are sick of being profiled as a criminal, then do things to help your fellow young black males from ruining your reputation through their behavior. Do something in your community to help change the opinions of others. No, it's not right to have to try extra hard just to make people think that you are not a threat to them, but if it's the way it is, how else are things ever going to change? Change comes from within.
I think that the attention and emotion that became devoted to this trial is because somehow, those who were outraged by all this got it in their heads that if George Zimmerman was convicted it would somehow bring Trayvon Martin back. Maybe not logically. Most everyone logically knows that there is nothing that can do that. But some illogical place in so many people's minds started to believe that if there was a conviction it would somehow undo what was done. I admit that illogical part of my brain wished for the same thing. Maybe it's because I am a mother. Maybe it's because my son has brown skin. But my heart goes out to this family, and I have shed tears for the loss of Trayvon Martin when I viewed the gruesome photos that were displayed in the courtroom. Those last photos that will ever be taken of him. He was a kid. He didn't deserve to be profiled. He didn't deserve to be followed. And he didn't deserve to lose his life.
Some say that Trayvon Martin was a thug, but I don't think so. I think he was a typical adolescent trying on different personas as all adolescents do. I think the persona he was trying on at the time of his death was directly related to the culture he was living in as a young black male. It may not have, and seemed that it would not have been the path he ultimately chose in life, but I guess we'll never know that now.
From where we stand right now, what's done is done. The jury deliberated and decided that no crime was committed. George Zimmerman walks free and there's nothing that can be done about it. So we all kind of sit here with a collective "now what?" as the family and friends of George Zimmerman celebrate, and the family and friends of Trayvon Martin continue to grieve, and the rest of us go back to life as usual.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
The Zombie Apocalypse and The Appeal of Broken Taboos
So it's the 4th of July, and I have nothing to do. Among parades, picnics, and parties I find myself with no car and no plans even if I had one. What is left to do but to kick back and watch AMC's Walking Dead marathon and Season 4 preview weekend? Of course, since it's my favorite television show, I have seen ever episode countless times. But I still watch it anyway because even though it's nothing new to me, it's still better than most of the other pointless shit that's on every other channel.
And I think to myself..."Why do you suppose that the zombie apocalypse is such a popular theme in our media, such to the point that it is the subject of a mainstream basic cable network television series?" Well, many from psychologists to fellow bloggers have speculated on this. Explanations posed thus far have spoken of political unrest, global warming, and increasing idea that the end of the world is near. These theories might explain the recent move of zombie themed movies and television shows from the usual low budget horror flicks, but the theme of the zombie apocalypse has been around long before the current social climate. So some part of why we are fascinated with an end of the world scenarios where just surviving is not treacherous enough, but there are flash eating undead walking about has to be more primal than that.
I think that the idea of the zombie apocalypse is so fascinating because it breaks one of our society's great taboos. Death ritual. In the United States death is much different than in other parts of the world. We take extra care to separate death from life. We usher our dead off to strangers who prepare them for their last viewing, for their burial or cremation. We separate our dead in morgues, far away from the living as if death is somehow contagious. We view those who deal in death for a living as strange. We separate ourselves from death, even when it happens to our loved ones, as much as possible. The zombie apocalypse breaks this taboo.
The zombie virus appears in many different ways. But the result is always the same. Uncontrollable death. The dead rise again, and turn others into zombies. The virus spreads and is unstoppable despite medical and even military efforts. Death overcomes us and becomes part of our every day lives. Out in the open at all times. Death goes from something that happens to other people, to something that happens to you...repeatedly. It becomes such commonplace that the death of a loved one no longer stops your world and becomes something that just happens. Like the sun rising every day. It becomes impossible to tuck death away in a corner as if it doesn't really exist. I imagine it must be like Europe during the years of the plague when death was such a part of life that it reflects in much of the popular art of the time.
The zombie apocalypse is to fascinating to us because it breaks one of our most fundamental taboos in such a way that no one can ignore it. The destruction of our death ritual taboo is both frightening and fascinating because it would change not only our world, but ourselves in irreversible ways. There would no restoration of life as usual. Not only the world, but human life would completely cease to exist as we know it permanently and the idea of that is attractive to a lot of people.
And I think to myself..."Why do you suppose that the zombie apocalypse is such a popular theme in our media, such to the point that it is the subject of a mainstream basic cable network television series?" Well, many from psychologists to fellow bloggers have speculated on this. Explanations posed thus far have spoken of political unrest, global warming, and increasing idea that the end of the world is near. These theories might explain the recent move of zombie themed movies and television shows from the usual low budget horror flicks, but the theme of the zombie apocalypse has been around long before the current social climate. So some part of why we are fascinated with an end of the world scenarios where just surviving is not treacherous enough, but there are flash eating undead walking about has to be more primal than that.
I think that the idea of the zombie apocalypse is so fascinating because it breaks one of our society's great taboos. Death ritual. In the United States death is much different than in other parts of the world. We take extra care to separate death from life. We usher our dead off to strangers who prepare them for their last viewing, for their burial or cremation. We separate our dead in morgues, far away from the living as if death is somehow contagious. We view those who deal in death for a living as strange. We separate ourselves from death, even when it happens to our loved ones, as much as possible. The zombie apocalypse breaks this taboo.
The zombie virus appears in many different ways. But the result is always the same. Uncontrollable death. The dead rise again, and turn others into zombies. The virus spreads and is unstoppable despite medical and even military efforts. Death overcomes us and becomes part of our every day lives. Out in the open at all times. Death goes from something that happens to other people, to something that happens to you...repeatedly. It becomes such commonplace that the death of a loved one no longer stops your world and becomes something that just happens. Like the sun rising every day. It becomes impossible to tuck death away in a corner as if it doesn't really exist. I imagine it must be like Europe during the years of the plague when death was such a part of life that it reflects in much of the popular art of the time.
The zombie apocalypse is to fascinating to us because it breaks one of our most fundamental taboos in such a way that no one can ignore it. The destruction of our death ritual taboo is both frightening and fascinating because it would change not only our world, but ourselves in irreversible ways. There would no restoration of life as usual. Not only the world, but human life would completely cease to exist as we know it permanently and the idea of that is attractive to a lot of people.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Social Media Anxiety Disorder: How to Know When it's Time to Step Away from the Computer
Social media. We are all involved in it in some way. Some of us spend hours on end attached to sites like Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. Others stick to email and chat rooms. But no matter who you are, chances are that you participate in SOME kind of social media. What is just now being investigated is how these forms of constant social contact effect not only those with predispositions to social anxiety but those who have no history of mental illness until they spend too much time on social media sites.
I mention facebook the most when I refer to social media because it is the social media site that I happen to use the most. I also believe that it is one of the worst culprits of social media anxiety disorder. Facebook literally lays out a timeline of perpetual one-upsmanship where each person can paint their life in the most wonderful light whether it really is or not. If you are on the side of having that fabulous life to share with everyone, good for you. If you are one of the majority of people out there who struggle in life, it sucks to be you.
But no matter what side of the coin you are on, it seems that many of us are powerless to fight the digital age of friendship where esteem is held in "likes" and "shares". It drives me insane sometimes that people are no longer expected to practice basic social manners because so many of us do all of our socialization from behind a computer screen.
So how often do I participate in social media? Constantly! I am a rather isolated stay at home mother. I spend entire days on facebook. Most days, it's my only adult conversation and in a way it is like having constant conversation with those I frequently interact with and I truly enjoy that. These days I use social media as a method of furthering my goals. To promote my Etsy shop, and to promote my free lance photography gigs. To post these blogs so someone other than myself reads them. Now I deal with a whole new social media dynamic and that is the self righteous anti-social media snob. People tell me all the time that I am on facebook too much. It's kind of like those people who are so much more enlightened because they don't have a television. I don't know how many times I have heard someone exclaim to me "I barely even go on facebook anymore" as if their life has reached some kind of higher status than mine and they no longer have to deal with communication with all the poor schmucks who have such pathetic lives that they have to resort to facebook for social interaction. I end up defending myself because people think of me as some kind of freak spending all my time in a dark room choosing not to live, but to be a pathetic computer addicted loser. At least I know that this is not how things are at all. Social media has a purpose in my life, and I used it for that purpose. But there was a time when I went through a serious bout of social media anxiety disorder.
It was just a few years ago, and I was living far away from all of my friends. I was not making new friends where I was living and my only social outlet at all was on facebook. Day after day I would look at everyone's pictures of their fun times. I would read their statuses of how fun last night was or how they were looking forward to this event or that. And I could do nothing but sit there and absorb it all knowing that I had no one to hang out with. That I had no event to look forward to, or pictures of great times with friends. Eventually it was like it started to literally eat my brain. I had no social concept anymore. I became morose and lonely. I started to take it out on my own self-esteem. Suddenly it was not that I was isolated. It was not my situation. It was me. I was forgotten. I was unliked. I was unworthy of the friendship that I saw everyone else having but could not forge for myself. I came to believe that everyone around me was creating and maintaining these connections with their fellow human beings. Connections that I had ceased to be able to make.
I became a stalker because on facebook it's hard not to be a stalker. It kind of comes with the territory. I started making note of the people who would "like" my posts and those who never did. I started making note of those who would comment and those who never did. Eventually there was this sick kind of tally in my head where I started to measure who really cared about me and who didn't by who was present, not in my real life, but on facebook. Maybe it was because there were so few people in my real life. Living in a town where it seemed impossible to make friends didn't seem to help much. I would run into old friends from high school. New people through my kid's school and in our giant apartment complex. But none of them ever wanted to actually hang out with me, or talk to me. The only time we interacted was on facebook. Of course this only furthered my feelings of inadequacy. My old friends weren't talking to me in real life, and my new ones weren't either. I remember sitting there in lonely desperation thinking "What the hell is wrong with me?!"
The worst part became when I started to use social media to express my extreme loneliness and despair. In my mind I was desperately reaching out for companionship. Or at least for someone to acknowledge my loneliness. In reality I was coming across like a whining needy fool. And then people started to defriend me. Of course, since I had all these running totals of facebook social interactions in my head, I knew whenever someone defriended me, and it made things so much worse. What? Did I have some kind of social plague that sent people running for the hills? I guess in a way I did. But it was a self induced plague.
Eventually I ended up losing my two best friends for good. Although we are trying to repair our friendships now, almost 3 years later, they will never be the same. We may never even get past the acquaintance stage of things. Social media anxiety disorder cost me my dearest friendships. And it cost me myself for a while there.
Social media anxiety disorder is a real thing. As the years go on, I hear more and more people describing the same things I went through when I was in the throes of it. The best way to describe what causes social media anxiety disorder is that you are judging your everyday life compared to everyone else's highlight reel. Sometimes it's like facebook is just one giant contest to see who has the best life. And the more people post those fabulous highlights, the more we forget that they have bad times too.
So if you are going through any of what I have described here. If logging on to social media websites causes you to feel worse about yourself and your own life, find something off of the computer to do. Find a different hobby. Instead of facebook messaging your friend, call them. Make plans to see people in real life. The most important thing is to acknowledge that it exists, because only then can you make efforts to change it.
Because in the grand scheme of life, social media is just words on a screen. There's so much more to life, but sometimes we forget that. I know for a long time I did.
I mention facebook the most when I refer to social media because it is the social media site that I happen to use the most. I also believe that it is one of the worst culprits of social media anxiety disorder. Facebook literally lays out a timeline of perpetual one-upsmanship where each person can paint their life in the most wonderful light whether it really is or not. If you are on the side of having that fabulous life to share with everyone, good for you. If you are one of the majority of people out there who struggle in life, it sucks to be you.
But no matter what side of the coin you are on, it seems that many of us are powerless to fight the digital age of friendship where esteem is held in "likes" and "shares". It drives me insane sometimes that people are no longer expected to practice basic social manners because so many of us do all of our socialization from behind a computer screen.
So how often do I participate in social media? Constantly! I am a rather isolated stay at home mother. I spend entire days on facebook. Most days, it's my only adult conversation and in a way it is like having constant conversation with those I frequently interact with and I truly enjoy that. These days I use social media as a method of furthering my goals. To promote my Etsy shop, and to promote my free lance photography gigs. To post these blogs so someone other than myself reads them. Now I deal with a whole new social media dynamic and that is the self righteous anti-social media snob. People tell me all the time that I am on facebook too much. It's kind of like those people who are so much more enlightened because they don't have a television. I don't know how many times I have heard someone exclaim to me "I barely even go on facebook anymore" as if their life has reached some kind of higher status than mine and they no longer have to deal with communication with all the poor schmucks who have such pathetic lives that they have to resort to facebook for social interaction. I end up defending myself because people think of me as some kind of freak spending all my time in a dark room choosing not to live, but to be a pathetic computer addicted loser. At least I know that this is not how things are at all. Social media has a purpose in my life, and I used it for that purpose. But there was a time when I went through a serious bout of social media anxiety disorder.
It was just a few years ago, and I was living far away from all of my friends. I was not making new friends where I was living and my only social outlet at all was on facebook. Day after day I would look at everyone's pictures of their fun times. I would read their statuses of how fun last night was or how they were looking forward to this event or that. And I could do nothing but sit there and absorb it all knowing that I had no one to hang out with. That I had no event to look forward to, or pictures of great times with friends. Eventually it was like it started to literally eat my brain. I had no social concept anymore. I became morose and lonely. I started to take it out on my own self-esteem. Suddenly it was not that I was isolated. It was not my situation. It was me. I was forgotten. I was unliked. I was unworthy of the friendship that I saw everyone else having but could not forge for myself. I came to believe that everyone around me was creating and maintaining these connections with their fellow human beings. Connections that I had ceased to be able to make.
I became a stalker because on facebook it's hard not to be a stalker. It kind of comes with the territory. I started making note of the people who would "like" my posts and those who never did. I started making note of those who would comment and those who never did. Eventually there was this sick kind of tally in my head where I started to measure who really cared about me and who didn't by who was present, not in my real life, but on facebook. Maybe it was because there were so few people in my real life. Living in a town where it seemed impossible to make friends didn't seem to help much. I would run into old friends from high school. New people through my kid's school and in our giant apartment complex. But none of them ever wanted to actually hang out with me, or talk to me. The only time we interacted was on facebook. Of course this only furthered my feelings of inadequacy. My old friends weren't talking to me in real life, and my new ones weren't either. I remember sitting there in lonely desperation thinking "What the hell is wrong with me?!"
The worst part became when I started to use social media to express my extreme loneliness and despair. In my mind I was desperately reaching out for companionship. Or at least for someone to acknowledge my loneliness. In reality I was coming across like a whining needy fool. And then people started to defriend me. Of course, since I had all these running totals of facebook social interactions in my head, I knew whenever someone defriended me, and it made things so much worse. What? Did I have some kind of social plague that sent people running for the hills? I guess in a way I did. But it was a self induced plague.
Eventually I ended up losing my two best friends for good. Although we are trying to repair our friendships now, almost 3 years later, they will never be the same. We may never even get past the acquaintance stage of things. Social media anxiety disorder cost me my dearest friendships. And it cost me myself for a while there.
Social media anxiety disorder is a real thing. As the years go on, I hear more and more people describing the same things I went through when I was in the throes of it. The best way to describe what causes social media anxiety disorder is that you are judging your everyday life compared to everyone else's highlight reel. Sometimes it's like facebook is just one giant contest to see who has the best life. And the more people post those fabulous highlights, the more we forget that they have bad times too.
So if you are going through any of what I have described here. If logging on to social media websites causes you to feel worse about yourself and your own life, find something off of the computer to do. Find a different hobby. Instead of facebook messaging your friend, call them. Make plans to see people in real life. The most important thing is to acknowledge that it exists, because only then can you make efforts to change it.
Because in the grand scheme of life, social media is just words on a screen. There's so much more to life, but sometimes we forget that. I know for a long time I did.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Why Do I Keep Writing an Unsuccessful Blog?
Part of being a self proclaimed "Type A Underachiever" is the underachiever part. Despite any talents and motivations I may have, my life thus far has not held much success for me. I know I want to write at least one book in my lifetime, but I have yet to even zero in on a topic. Although I have been mostly successful as a student, I have no career. The last job I held was at a gas station about 5 years ago. This blog now makes my 3rd unsuccessful blogging venture. Unless I post my entries to facebook I get about 4 views per post, and I have yet to inspire a single comment out of any viewers.
I used to get upset about my lack of internet success with my blogs and such things. I think of one guy on the internet who appears to be the "go to guy" when it comes to psychology. I am not being critical of him, and in fact I have found many of his ideas worthy of further examination. But in some comic book style alternate universe, this guy is like, my arch nemesis. He is more than 10 years younger than me. He has a successful blog, he writes books, he has a strong online following. He has all the success that seems to be perpetually out of my grasp despite my best efforts. For a long time I thought I was just doing things wrong.
But today when I was in the shower, where I do some of my best thinking, I started to realize that I was looking at things completely wrong. I am not successful on the internet, because it is just not my thing. I am not about reaching faceless masses on some grand scale, and my success or lack thereof in my online endeavors says absolutely nothing about my ability to help people. I was not meant for it. I was meant to reach people in real life. I was meant to get out there, and make real connections with real people.
Part of what comes along with big internet success is that it makes you more of an "armchair psychologist" than anything else. It removes you from the origin of the field- working closely with people on a one on one basis. One thing that I can say I did not like about that internet counterpart that I previously mentioned, is how he reacted to me when made a comment on one of his posts. He automatically took the stance of a teacher. I could not help but feel (I will admit, perhaps unreasonably so) a little insulted. I was sharing some of my life experiences in hopes of sparking a conversation about the topic, and this young guy who could not have studied psychology any longer than I have, reacted to me as if I was just another lost soul looking for advice. I speculate this is also because of the nature of internet success. When you sit atop a mountain of faceless names who follow you, support you, and give you endless positive feedback it must be really easy to think of yourself as the perpetual teacher and every person you meet in that forum to be a willing student.
You see, to me it does not matter if I reach 4 people with this blog or 4,000. I am not out to be a great teacher. I am just a person like everyone else. And just as everyone has certain "gifts" in life, one of mine is the ability to communicate. Even if I never achieve some great internet success (which at this point it is pretty clear that I won't, and I am totally fine with that) if I can just reach that one person who needs words for their own feelings but cannot find them. If I can reach that one person who no longer feels alone because of what they read here. If I can reach one person, even if I never know who they are, who is helped in any way by my efforts, that is what I am here for. That is what is in my heart. That is my purpose in this life.
So no matter how many, or how few readers I have here, I will continue to share my thoughts and ideas. Because for me, success is not measured in the numbers of people you reach, but in the quality of the connections you create with people you touch.
I used to get upset about my lack of internet success with my blogs and such things. I think of one guy on the internet who appears to be the "go to guy" when it comes to psychology. I am not being critical of him, and in fact I have found many of his ideas worthy of further examination. But in some comic book style alternate universe, this guy is like, my arch nemesis. He is more than 10 years younger than me. He has a successful blog, he writes books, he has a strong online following. He has all the success that seems to be perpetually out of my grasp despite my best efforts. For a long time I thought I was just doing things wrong.
But today when I was in the shower, where I do some of my best thinking, I started to realize that I was looking at things completely wrong. I am not successful on the internet, because it is just not my thing. I am not about reaching faceless masses on some grand scale, and my success or lack thereof in my online endeavors says absolutely nothing about my ability to help people. I was not meant for it. I was meant to reach people in real life. I was meant to get out there, and make real connections with real people.
Part of what comes along with big internet success is that it makes you more of an "armchair psychologist" than anything else. It removes you from the origin of the field- working closely with people on a one on one basis. One thing that I can say I did not like about that internet counterpart that I previously mentioned, is how he reacted to me when made a comment on one of his posts. He automatically took the stance of a teacher. I could not help but feel (I will admit, perhaps unreasonably so) a little insulted. I was sharing some of my life experiences in hopes of sparking a conversation about the topic, and this young guy who could not have studied psychology any longer than I have, reacted to me as if I was just another lost soul looking for advice. I speculate this is also because of the nature of internet success. When you sit atop a mountain of faceless names who follow you, support you, and give you endless positive feedback it must be really easy to think of yourself as the perpetual teacher and every person you meet in that forum to be a willing student.
You see, to me it does not matter if I reach 4 people with this blog or 4,000. I am not out to be a great teacher. I am just a person like everyone else. And just as everyone has certain "gifts" in life, one of mine is the ability to communicate. Even if I never achieve some great internet success (which at this point it is pretty clear that I won't, and I am totally fine with that) if I can just reach that one person who needs words for their own feelings but cannot find them. If I can reach that one person who no longer feels alone because of what they read here. If I can reach one person, even if I never know who they are, who is helped in any way by my efforts, that is what I am here for. That is what is in my heart. That is my purpose in this life.
So no matter how many, or how few readers I have here, I will continue to share my thoughts and ideas. Because for me, success is not measured in the numbers of people you reach, but in the quality of the connections you create with people you touch.
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