I think it’s time to share.

1. After obsessively posting about and telling literally everyone, not a single soul showed up to my child’s birthday party. We sent invites to her class, I created an event on Facebook which I shared repeatedly, I told people numerous times and verbally invited them. Most people said they’d try to come, said “maybe” to the event invite. One person messaged in the middle of the party and sent a gift but had “more important” things to do. No one else messaged or called or even said anything when I saw them in person. We paid a lot of money and no one came. Except my sister and her crew and I will be forever grateful to her. My baby had fun because of them. I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps I was the reason no one came. So I needed space from the people who swore they would have been there.
2. I’ve spent way too much time falsely believing that I could find acceptance on social media. I found myself spending more time trying to think of posts that would make people like me than I should have. I like making people laugh—whether or not it’s at my own expense. My brain believes that it means they truly like me when in fact they’re just laughing at me. All I’ve ever wanted was to have friends and for people to like me. But perhaps it’s not my fault if someone doesn’t like me. They don’t have too.
3. HATE: hate on each other, hate on one’s personality, beliefs, hating people for things they cannot change about themselves. people hating other people for their political affiliation, for their actions, for their way of life. Hate hate hate. Hate is poison and gets us absolutely no where.
4. Scams for views: On Facebook, if you have a page, the more likes you get the more/easier you get seen. I have a Facebook page as my readers well know. I can access how much my page has be viewed. Views lead to new views. Views equal money. Nefarious pages post scams or clickbait in order to gain views. I’ve gotten pretty ok at spotting these. There are several people on my friends’ list that share these without a second thought.
5. “Friends” People who have added me on Facebook, but barely speak to me in real life. Heck most of them barely spoke to me o Facebook. There’s a list, to be honest, of those people. I’ve begun the “don’t speak first” protocol to determine whether I’m a reality friend or a Facebook friend. It’s been leaning pretty exclusively to Facebook.
6. My mental health: I have lost a lot of friends without even trying. They’ve just disappeared. Not in reality. No they’re alive. They’ve just decided to make a new Facebook and not re-ad me. Or they just ignored me completed despite a direct message, so I was done. This is the “Don’t Push Where There is No Pull Protocol”. If you try to be a friend and they don’t reciprocate, give up. Dwelling on whether or not someone likes you or their lying is absolutely damaging.

Regrets?

A few. That the people that actually cared about what I did on Facebook are missing me. That I don’t get to see when my sister posts or my friend’s babies are posted. My my family. That all the people who have their own Pages for their small businesses don’t get my attention anymore.

But because I use a dummy account to access my Facebook Page, I can search for certain things I want to see. My Kid’s school page, her daycare—though they don’t post her anymore. I can still view my Friend’s pages. I don’t like them with the Dummy, because I don’t want it to be found. Dummy has no friends and she likes it that way.

I can’t say my mental health has improved immensely. I probably have several undiagnosed issues. But I don’t go to a doctor when I feel like I was hit by I was struck by a BUS. But I can say that it hasn’t helped.

Well, the kid is rubbing her eyes and I’m yawning. So time for bed.

Gonna try and be more consistent. It’s been bonkers lately. Goodnight!

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Thanks for reading

-c