Why I Left Facebook
Over a decade ago with the desire to reconnect with friends from high school and college, I joined Facebook. Since then, I have used Facebook to create my community of friends and family living around the world which was amazing. Until it wasn’t. The Facebook platform has changed over time. Instead of seeing posts about my friends’ meals and puppies, I see ads and suggested content. Which is fine, I mean, Facebook is a company, and it needs to make money. Dealing with some advertising for the ability to connect with friends near and far was a fair trade. Dealing with the increase in scammers hiding behind profiles of widowers who wanted to befriend me was an annoyance, but not a deal breaker. What drove me away was the amount of negativity being posted, highlighted, and propagated on Facebook.
For nearly seven years, I have chosen a sober life. Surrounding myself with others who chose to release their addictions, I was able to let go of mine. A sober life means a peaceful life. It means taking responsibility for my actions and stepping up to change what I can. It means creating boundaries against things and people who do not support my peace. During these past few years, I have learned a lot about myself and am actively choosing every day to be the person I want to be. I have also learned a lot about others. By supporting women seeking sobriety, I learned to identify when someone was under the influence of an addiction, and what, if anything, is within my control to help them, and myself.
With my morning coffee in hand, I used to scroll Facebook to see life updates and jokes from friends. This still happens with my friends living in Mexico, Canada, and other parts of the world. Unfortunately, most of my connections live in the United States and their posts are overwhelmingly filled with hate, anger, and fear. To deal with this negativity, I tried many strategies. Unfollowing some people has kept some of the worst offenders off my feed. Attempting to have respectful discourse online proved to be ineffective as the platform does not encourage dialogue. Social media is about monologues which are the perfect tool for narcissistic behavior. Self-regulation of the amount of time I participated online helped, but I found that the negativity followed me offline. Hours of contemplation would be spent trying to uncover why people were filled with so much hate. Why are people that I love now turning on me and each other? What can I do to help my friends find peace again? I am leaving Facebook because I have finally accepted that many of my loved ones on Facebook have an addiction. An addiction I cannot change and of which I do not have to be a victim.
When I first started sponsoring women, I would answer calls day and night trying to be supportive on the bumpy road of sobriety. Over time I learned to recognize when someone was under the influence when they called. I noticed they would be highly emotionally – usually very angry, aggressive, or manic. I could feel them trying to lure me into their emotional state, to make me become as intense as they were. I also noticed that they did not want to come down from the high of this emotion. They fed off the drama. Their addiction was not only what they consumed in the form of drugs and alcohol. Their addiction was the high of emotions. They weren’t calling me to find escape from this high. They were calling to intensify it.
Not only did my under-the-influence sponsees not want to disconnect from the emotional high, they were also not in their right mind to receive any constructive feedback. Even if they had wanted to disconnect from the high, I was speaking to the addiction, not to the woman. When someone is under-the-influence, their rational mind disappears. No one is there to speak to. The disease was all I could speak to. No rational discussion could take place because no rational person was there.
This is where I found myself with Facebook. I felt surrounded by individuals addicted to drama. Addicted to hate. Addicted to fear. Addicted to self-righteousness. I tried to reason with them and found that they were unable to have a reasonable discussion. I was talking to an addicted mind, not to a rational being. I was talking to the disease.
In sobriety, I learned how to set boundaries with compassion. I learned how to detach with love. This is what I am doing now. Facebook is a playground on which I do not need to play. I can meet my real friends offline or via one-to-one conversations. I can keep in contact with friends near and far via LinkedIn. If friends want to participate in my healing journey, they can find posts on my website. After making the self-care decision to leave Facebook, I personally feel peace. Which is what I wish for everyone.
