The Facebook Killings

Do you have a Facebook account? Do you enjoy your account? Do you enjoy being on Facebook, does it cause you happiness? Does it cause you stress, resentment, anger, anxiety? Does it actually make you feel good about yourself and those around you?

When Facebook came out I jumped on board, it took me a while as I wasn’t huge into computers, I was busy living and taking care of my children. Once I got going with it though, I was addicted. I was stuck on letting everyone know what I was doing, what I was thinking, I had fun making jokes and sharing pictures and what not. Somehow though and it happened really quickly, I started using it for vague statements because my statements caused people to pay attention to me. I never realized just what a negative impact that had on me because I was already depressed and anxious and stressed out.

It’s taken me a very long time to try to remove myself from social media and trying to seek the wrong kind of attention. How many of you know about emotional abuse? Do you understand about bullying, manipulating, shaming, blame shifting and passive aggression? Do you know that you can go on anyone’s Facebook page and see 99% of the posts people make have some kind of negativity in them? Whether it’s trying to get some kind of attention, trying to get someone to feel sorry for them or just trying to get what I call “popularity” or straight up being mean. Did you know there are some out there that take Facebook seriously? There are some out there that want to “follow” you and actually get hurt and angry when they aren’t allowed to “follow” you or you unfriend them for numerous reasons? I used to be this way, I still kind of am depending on who it is that won’t let me follow them or unfriended me. Facebook reminds me of Junior High, it’s pretty much a he said, she said game of bullshit with passive aggressive comments, statements, bullying and anything else that is negative or something that junior high children do.

Do you know who I am talking about with the passive aggressive comments? Do you know what I mean? Those vague statements that are blatantly mean and then we throw a “just sayin'” at the end. Those posts that point out someone has done us wrong but we aren’t going to say their actual name we just want to make a vague statement about those kind of people, do you see what happens when we do that? People comment negativity, or we have those friends that know exactly who we are talking about because we have already text them the situation and how they hurt us so they add their own vague and insinuating comments to the post. I know I’ve posted some during my time on Facebook, I’m sure most all of us have.

Then there’s those us that are the victims, the ones that want people to feel sorry for us but we aren’t going to come out and just say why we need this attention because that would actually mean we had to take accountability for our own actions and figure out why we are a victim, so we just post something vague and again what happens? Comments roll in about what’s wrong? Can I help? I’ll pray for you! And so on and so forth. Do we end up staying a victim? Most of the time from what I’ve experienced, I did anyway.

Don’t forget the bullying and the arguing with strangers! Go on any public post and just read the comments. Don’t comment your own opinion because it’s almost guaranteed that you will get insulted for having your own opinion and you will be called names, you will be shamed and you will be contradicted to no end and all in all, NO ONE will listen or even try to understand your point.

Facebook is full of insecure relationships, relationships that have to constantly be thrown out there for the world to see, this girl was very guilty of that. Do you know what happens when we do that? Everyone knows our business, everyone knows when we’ve gotten into a spat with our significant other because the insecure I love you posts stop coming and out come the poor me quotes. Facebook causes more insecurity in relationships than it causes security. And what it does for friendships is even worse! I could probably go through many of my posts where I was out with a friend and we posted a picture and one of us comment about how much fun we are having and someone will be upset that they didn’t get invited or they aren’t part of the group or something that is meant to make us feel bad for not including them. Or even just some of my friendship quotes I post, they always manage to hurt someone’s feelings and they proceed to make vague, shaming comments on them. Facebook gives us a false sense of friendship and causes more drama than it does any good, because we all perceives things in our own way.

Facebook is the easiest platform to spread lies, hate, or anger and encourages us to become something we are not. I know all of us have a side we never let anyone see, Facebook makes it so easy to lie about our life and our so called happiness that those of us who actually know our life start to question our motives and our integrity because that’s not what we post on Facebook.

I know that my life was a mess before Facebook, but since I’ve had it and I’ve had it for 9 years now, my life hasn’t gotten much better, in fact I would say it’s gotten worse in some ways. I’ve done some serious cleaning of my account, I’ve removed those that serve me no purpose other than to take my posts as the truth even if it wasn’t and gossip about me, I’ve read passive aggressive posts from others that I can assume are about me because that is what social media does to us. It makes us paranoid, it makes us angry, it makes us feel guilty, it makes us feel bad about ourselves. I say this because I have made my own posts about things that have happened to me without saying any names just quotes or what not and some of my “friends” have actually contacted me about my posts and told me they think they are about them, even if they weren’t about anyone. I’ve spent the last year removing negativity from my page, removing those that never check on me in person or by social media and those that have never even talked to me period, and that was the biggest mistake I could have made because I picked and chose who was staying and who was leaving and of course those that got to stay didn’t even know they were chosen and those that had to go were extremely offended. But did anyone bother to ask me about it? No and I don’t expect it either because what happens on Facebook is the truth for a lot of us. I’ve seen friendships end over Facebook, a lot of my own and a lot from people I know and over the silliest of things.

Now I sit here and debate if I should have a Facebook account at all due to the fact that it is a seriously toxic program that does nothing but spread negativity through out the world, I feel like my choices in the issue are these, 1. I can delete my page completely and force everyone to actually contact me the right way to check on me, 2. I can have a “fuck you I do what I want” attitude and keep posting what ever I want regardless of what it causes, 3. I can use it to try to spread my story, my journey and how I’ve opened my eyes to a whole new world out there or 4. Make my account 100% public for those who want to follow along with my life and not hide who I am anymore. I’m leaning on a mixture of them all, I’m torn because I believe social media can help wake up the world. Facebook is not going to be the platform I tell my journey on, it is here on this website where I tell my story, my thoughts and my opinions, without calling anyone out other than myself and my own part in my life. I would rather just delete my Facebook and let everyone wonder where I went and actually see if anyone even notices or if they do notice would they actually have the balls to reach out and ask me where I went. But would that happen? I would ultimately win if I deleted my account because then no one would think they did something wrong, they would only have the truth as to why they aren’t friends with me on Facebook, if I don’t have a Facebook account at all then no one will be offended right? If only it were that easy!

I have no point to this blog today, it’s mostly just me venting because Facebook seems to be a huge issue for a lot of us including myself. I feel like Facebook gives us a reason to feed on negativity and gossip, “oh my gawd did you see what so and so posted, they must be going through a really tough time, maybe I should ask them, maybe I should call them and see if they are okay, nah I’m just going to follow the train-wreck on Facebook and talk to everyone I know about it. So and So unfriended me can you believe that? What did I ever do to deserve that? Why would someone unfriend me?” I could go on and on, only because these are all things I’ve either said myself or have heard from others.

I thought I was doing something good for myself by removing over 150 “friends” that never even talked to me on Facebook or outside of Facebook, I had been told that some of them couldn’t stand the things I posted because it either made me look crazy (judging me) or it made them feel bad about themselves or guilty about something(blame shifting). I was told I would be unfriended if I continued to post certain things (bullying). I spent months contemplating my decision to remove people from my Facebook, and one day I just did it. I took the pros and the cons and weighed them and ultimately it came down to this, this is MY page, these are MY posts, no one has ever actually came to ME and said I was offensive or hurting them in particular or even that they seemed concerned about the things I posted so I took all of those people that “appeared” to me to only be following me for pure entertainment of the roller coaster I was on and I let them go. That was a year ago. How many came to me and asked me why I did that? Out of 150 people only one did. One person had the balls to ask me why I removed her, and when I explained that Facebook should NOT be used to define a friendship she said okay take care and she has never talked to me again. One person had the balls and because she didn’t like my answer we aren’t friends. This is what Facebook does to people.

I’ve been on this self discovery/growth journey for almost a year and I have slowly stopped posting my victim posts, I don’t want to be a victim anymore, I’ve stopped trying to be passive aggressive, I’ve had that from everyone my whole life it’s time to break the circle, I’ve stopped being vague because I don’t want attention, and I rarely post stuff in my own writing anymore unless something in life has really upset me and it takes me days to figure out my own part in being upset before I write about it. Has it done any good? Not really, Facebook gives more of us reasons to personify a fake life, to lie to the world about who or what we really are for those of us who actually know them. I cannot bring myself to delete my account because the hold on it is so strong, isn’t that what “they” want? For us to be so distracted by Facebook (social media) that we can’t see the real problems in the world. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we used social media to wake the world up to the corruption and deceit that is really going on in this place we have to call home? Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to share beliefs to those that actually wanted to learn and grow and not be stuck in this web of chaos that social media keeps instilling in all of us?  Wouldn’t the world be a wonderful place if each and every one of us took accountability in everything that we do and feel? Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could all just openly display our opinion on something and instead of having someone contradict us they instead decided to research what we said or even just listen to it whether they agreed or not? Can you imagine what would happen if we only worried about ourselves instead of looking to see what someone else has posted and how it has offended us in some way? What if we realized that we are all entitled to our own opinion and feelings and it isn’t our job to tell anyone it’s wrong? How do we even know it’s wrong? What makes one more right if it’s just an opinion? What if we all reminded ourselves that we are all individuals and no one really knows anything anyway, this life is a damn guessing game and there isn’t one person out there who is above another.

What if we all stopped being angry and judgmental on Facebook and acted like compassionate human beings that took accountability for our actions and used social media to show the world that life truly is a beautiful thing if only we spent more time on our own shit rather than complaining about everyone else’s shit. What if……

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