Social Media Disinterest Syndrome

I have now come to believe that social media is extremely detrimental to my mental health.

Tweets with questions and clever thoughts get no response. Instagram posts where I try to say something honest and, in my mind, important, get no response. I try to be involved. I use the hashtags I think will send the tweet or Instagram pic to a community of people who would be willing and maybe even excited to start a conversation. Nothing happens. 

I call the feeling I feel when there's no response: Social Media Disinterest Syndrome. It's a heaviness. I can feel its weight depress upon my body. I can physically feel it change my mood.

Popularity has always been a desire. Crucify me if you want to. I wasn't popular in high school. I was the queer, the faggot, the joke. I was friends with some of the popular kids, but I never ascended to their ranks.

Why should this still matter to me? I don't know. I keep asking myself that question. I've been out of high school for 30 years and that past should have no relevance for the adult I've become. But try as I may to fight it, it does. I suffer from a lack of confidence and an inability to validate myself. I fear my own opinion being the wrong opinion. I fear criticism of said opinion and the confrontation that could follow. Could. I'm living in fear of something that hasn't, and mostly doesn't, fucking happen.

I want to be seen, but I want to hide more. I want to lift up my voice in protest but I want to remain under the radar.

Twitter and Instagram are reminders every day of my lack of popularity and an apparent inability to connect with people. And when I think about connection I am reminded that I don't connect easily IRL either.

Social Media Disinterest Syndrome affects me every day. Yet I keep putting myself through it, hoping this day will somehow be different. If you're reading this, and you clicked on the link via Twitter, then you already realize I'm putting myself through it again today.

How many of us hope that strangers will validate us and fulfill our cravings? I know I'm not the only one. Likes and retweets and even comments create a dopamine effect.

More often than not I wish for the courage to leave my phone at home, or at least in my bag, and to disengage from all of it. I just want to deactivate it all like I deactivated my Facebook.

Maybe I'm too old. Maybe I'm out of touch. Maybe I'm not as clever as I think I am. Maybe I'm just not that interesting.

Maybe my expectations are just too high. This always leads to disappointment.

Social Media Disinterest Syndrome is a real thing for me. I am living with it...or surviving it. I don't know. It's exhausting.

Without the Work, Nothing Changes

I have to do the work. I don’t want to do the work. But I have to do the work.

It was suggested to me by my therapist today that I want someone to do the work for me. Ouch. The truth hurts.

It doesn't come easy for me this change that needs to happen in my life.

When my therapist says, “Baby steps,” I get so frustrated. But he’s right. The change isn’t going to happen overnight. It’s going to take time. I’m 48 now, and I’ve been marinating in this anger and self-loathing for a long time. It’s going to take time and that means that I’m going to have to do a lot of work.

The first step is to start believing I deserve to be happy. The second is to find the courage to be so, then confidently project that to the reflection in the mirror and to the rest of the world.

The third step is to stop being a victim of my past experiences. (Am I creating my own victimhood?) Things were said. Things happened. We all have issues from our pasts. But not everyone lets those issues affect them so easily in their present.

A fourth step might actually be to stop and realize that I'm projecting onto others what I'm actually doing to myself, e.g. believing that my father would think I brought a gay-bashing on myself when really I'm the one who believes the bashing is his own fault. 

It’s not going to be easy. But then again maybe nothing worth while ever truly is.

The anger and fear are debilitating. And remorse has become the lesser of the two evils between debilitation and intimidation. Self-loathing might as well be a shirt that I put on years ago and have yet to take off.

I have been surviving for a long time but not living. And as Adele sings, “I want to live and not just survive.”

So how do I do this? How do I step out of my comfort zone and step into the lions den with no fear of the bite?

That remains to be seen but step in I must. Otherwise what’s the point?

An American in Paris

There is a freedom that comes with being somewhere else; being a stranger in another country. Yet I am realizing with more and more frequency that I stand in my own way on the path to that freedom. 

I am in France. Specifically, Paris.

I desire to set myself free and be alive in the air that is different from what I normally breathe. I wish to blend in, to look as if I belong. Therefore, I’m afraid to make mistakes, afraid to be the American that I am.

I’m not doing anything wrong. I just wish to adhere to the customs, meld with the culture of the country. 

We Americans are very different than the French. 

This, my third trip to Paris, came with many memories of how to get around, but with more apprehension in how to just be. 

I found myself embarrassed to speak the language that I had been working on for weeks prior. I knew that I was an outsider but didn’t want to be perceived as such, even though I knew I couldn’t possibly sound as if French was my native language. 

Sometimes the mere greeting of Bonjour led to a response of Hello. I felt saddened by this. Even though I knew the Parisian to which I was speaking was ultimately going to have to converse with me in English. 

I know this comes from a history of not wanting to look like a fool and a strong desire to not be mocked. 

My heart is filled to bursting with happiness when I’m in Paris. Why is it then that I can’t accept that I am an American in Paris and just enjoy the air?

What Am I Doing?

“What am I doing?” he said aloud to himself. Did he mean with the day, the morning, that moment, his life?

The coffee in his cup was cold...again. He'd already warmed it once in the microwave. He didn’t ever seem to be able to finish a full cup in its state of straight-from-the-French-press hotness. Many days there were multiple trips to the microwave just to invigorate the sweetly bitter liquid with enough heat to warm his throat as he swallowed. Why should this day be any different?

What am I doing? That question continued to plague his thoughts. It was a big question that led to other questions. He couldn’t answer any of them really. Or wouldn’t.

The exotic fragrance of bergamot from a candle burning quietly on his kitchen counter wafted into the room where he sat. One whiff of its perfume always put a smile on his face. It was the essence of comfort, luxury, and happiness, set free by the heat of a flame.

His own flame was flickering. He wasn’t aging gracefully. Just that morning he’d been admiring a picture of a handsome older man in the pages of Vogue magazine when he read that the man was 48 years old. He felt like he’d been slapped in the face. He was going to be 48 years old himself in a mere three months. Reality! He didn’t see himself as older. He wondered how others see him. He thought he probably didn’t want—or need—to know.

“Time is a funny thing.” How often had he heard that phrase in his life? Where did it even originate? Does it even matter? Not really. Time isn’t funny. It continues forward through the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. It has to continue forward otherwise he’d be dead. And he didn’t want to be dead…at least not today.

Dead is a heavy word loaded with fear and darkness, the inability to escape the black nothingness of the unknown. Gone. 

He had often wondered what life would be like for the people who know him if he was no longer present in their lives. Since he feared the word death almost as much as its result, he thought about this lack of presence as more of an absence. Like, say, severing the connective tissue that is cyber space, freeing himself from the binding filaments that are often more detrimental to his psyche than beneficial. Then he pondered the essay he would most assuredly write called "Separation Anxiety and the Negative Effects of Solitude" and decides once again to stay present and connected albeit more limited than before.

The perfume from the burning candle continued to fill him with contentment…and longing. The coffee inevitably cooled once again in his cup. He took a deep breath. He sipped, grimaced.

Time moved forward, his pendulum swinging, marking. His flickering flame did not set him free. 

He was told recently that he needed to dig deeper to uncover the truth of his sadness. He was good at avoiding.

So the question remains: What am I doing?

I Woke Before The Flood Could Take Me

photo from the film The Day After Tomorrow

I could see a crowd of people running in the distance. I was about half a block away from the bustle. I had an odd sense of déjà vu. I had seen this crowd, and their running, before. Yet I did not run...toward them, from them, or with them. I continued to walk as I always did until I reached the street corner. The crowd was running past me to my right. 

Where was I? Was this New York City? If so, these strangers, who seemed familiar yet not, were heading south. The familiarity with the scene gave me pause at the corner of Whatever Street and Something Avenue. Where was I going? What were the people running from?

I finally turned to see what the people were running from. I saw it. A wall of water cresting over the avenue’s hilltop maybe three blocks away. I stared in shocked fascination then turned to join the crowd moving away.

This was happening. My sense of déjà vu spiked even higher. 

This had happened before. I remembered it. I had survived it. I had lived through this destructively rushing liquid wall's twin in my very recent past. I had run with all the others who were trying to stave off mother nature’s attempted murder. I had run down the hill (down the hill? Was this San Francisco?) toward a building that housed a department store. It rose maybe four stories. It had been tall enough. I had managed to get inside and climb up, up, and away from the wall of death that threatened to wash me away without a trace.

This time, however, I could see a crowd of people standing on the sidewalk in front of that same department store. They were pushing, shoving, shouting, screaming, beating on the glass. From what I could see, no one was getting inside. The revolving door was not moving. 

We had all been here before, but this time it was different. We were either late or the water was early. 

Somehow, even at the distance from which I stood, I could see that the ground level of the department store was filled with people. Movement had ground to a halt. Others were trapped inside the triangular pockets of the revolving door, briefly surviving to ultimately die. I could not imagine their fear even as I felt the hand of dread clench my heart. I could hear the roaring surge of the water approaching. I recognized this water. I knew it was taking with it everything in its path even though I refused to turn and look my approaching killer in the eye.

There was no building high enough for me to save myself. I had been here before but not like this: outside, completely unprotected. The hand of dread did not release its grip on my heart nor did it tighten any further. My terror was calm as I tried to accept my impending doom.

I heard myself say aloud,  “I guess I’m going to die today. I love you, momma.”

Then I woke

The Wall In My Head (lyrics)

The Wall in My Head

John McCrea, Original West End Cast of Everybody's Talking About Jamie

It was something he said
Something he said
His words built a wall
A wall inside my head

Just one little thing
Didn't mean that much to him
But it keeps building and building and building
This wall in my head
This wall in my head

Just one tiny thought
It started out so small
The thought made a brick
The bricks made a wall

And the wall keeps me down
And the wall trips me up
And it keeps building and building and building
This wall in my head
This wall in my head

And here I stand
With my feet stuck to the floor
As I shout down the street
Screaming for more

Over the wall
Over the wall
I see my future standing tall
Over the wall
Over the wall
I can believe I'd have it all

So I keep climbing and climbing and climbing
This wall in my head, head, head
I'll keep on climbing and climbing and climbing
This wall in my head, head, head
This wall in my head
This wall in my head

‘Twas something he said
Just one little thing
The thought left a scar
The words left a sting

Those words are the walls
That still hold me in
And they keep building and building and building and building

And don't fall, I'm finding my feet
There's shoes to be filled
But this wall, is harder to beat
When its one you helped build

Over the wall
Over the wall
I see my future standing tall
Over the wall
Over the wall
I can believe I'd have it all

So I keep climbing and climbing and climbing
This wall in my head, head, head
I'll keep on climbing and climbing and climbing
This wall in my head, head, head

Oh I'll keep climbing and climbing and climbing
And climbing and climbing and climbing
And climbing and climbing

Hand over hand over hand over brick over
Hand over brick over hand over brick over
Climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing

This wall in my head
This wall in my head

This wall in my head
This wall in my head

This wall in my head

Can I Call Myself A Writer?

I have begun to call myself a writer. It still feels weird. But it has gotten easier than it was nearly 10 years ago when I started blogging about my life experiences. It is true that writing is like exercising a muscle: the more you do it the better you become at it. 

My writing has changed a lot since 2009. There's more raw honesty, more depth in the storytelling. I have even faced the daunting task of staring at the blank screen and creating fiction, which is completely different than recounting how certain situation or experience affected me. Fiction is creating something from nothing. Intimidating. I have then let other people read said fiction. As a creative person with a fear of failure, putting my thoughts, ideas, and stories in front of other people's eyes is truly a feat of courage. 

However, I recently watched the film The Wife in which Glenn Close gives her Oscar nominated (and hopefully, finally, winning) performance as Joan Castleman, the title character. She is the wife of a writer. She is a writer herself. 

There is a scene in which her husband says, “a writer must write as he must breathe.” As soon as he said it, it gave me pause. Was Joan breathing? Am I? Of course I am. I breathe to live. Yet, I’m calling myself a writer, yet I don’t write every day. Sure, I try to be clever or intuitive or thought provoking in a Tweet or Instagram post. I try to use my words to greatest effect. But I don’t write every day. 

I don’t live and breathe a story for eight hours a day. Not even ten minutes a day on most days. But I love words. I love stringing them together to create a feeling, an emotion; to evoke a laugh, a tear, an understanding of a situation; to take the reader on a journey. 

Can I call myself a writer?

I recently finished watching the series You on Netflix. The main female character is a writer. She didn't write every day though. She would often say she was stuck. Social media, and life in general, were often distractions. (I know these distractions. Throw in television and porn and I'm fully distracted.) She admitted, if she was being honest, that she was just putting it off. (Guilty!) She once tried to justify her procrastination saying that thinking about what she wanted to write was just as much a part of the process. In her next breath though she acknowledged she was actually procrastinating. I believe a lot of her, and my, procrastination is fear of failure. Maybe even fear of success.

I often think about the stories and characters that are brewing in my head. I would go as far as to say that I think about many of them daily. But I don’t sit down and write about them. I often mull over my own life experiences and think about what I have to say in connection with something that inspires or angers me in the present. But I don’t write about it immediately. 

Can I call myself a writer?

There are times when words pour out of me like water; when essays practically write themselves; when I can’t type fast enough for the sentences forming in my brain. But it doesn’t happen every day. 

I don’t commit time daily to the computer screen. That long gestating party that I’ve been thinking about since 1990 is still waiting to be written. The piece on the importance of pink in my life is still waiting to be fully explored. The story of the half sisters who hate each other yet continue to work together is waiting for its next soap operatic confrontation. The fiction and the non, it sits there. But hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about that party and who is in attendance and what they are doing or saying. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about what pink means to me. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t wonder what is going on with those two women.

Can I call myself a writer? 

There are days when I can do nothing but write the words that are clawing their way out of my thoughts; when writing is the only form of expression that allows me to get the drama, the anger, the comedy, the provocation out of me. 

There are other days when I can't seem to find the words to say anything at all. 

The written word is probably the most authentic way in which I express myself. I am definitely a storyteller. And even though I have a body of work to my credit, calling myself a writer remains an uncomfortable label. My confidence ebbs and flows.

I may not write every day. I may be lazy and procrastinate. I may be afraid of the exploration of my thoughts, my opinions, my ideas, my past. I may be completely intimidated by the party scene that I won’t write. But I do know that without the ability to express myself in words, whenever I have something, anything, to say, I would be breathless.