I can say a lot about the benefits of Facebook, including making contact with long lost relatives in Greece and back East, networking shelter pooches facing certain death and maintaining communication with co-workers and friends. But sometimes I find myself wishing for the good old days, when the only way I connected with friends was either by hanging out with them at a local coffee shop or chatting with them for hours on the phone. When I find myself really feeling lonely or depressed, the best thing for me is not lingering for hours on Facebook. It’s to get my butt out of the house and go for a run, or hit a 12-step meeting.
Do I always heed my own advice? No.
The worst part is, I have over 1,300 friends on Facebook, and I will be honest, I don’t even know who most of them are! When I first joined Facebook in 2009, I was drinking heavily. By 2010, I became consumed with the notion of accumulating Facebook friends. My obsession reminded me of when I was a kid and I got hooked on collecting insects, specifically bees and wasps, an odd hobby that drove my mom nuts.
While I was sending out all these friend requests, I received a warning from the friendly Facebook Help Team, saying that my account would be disabled if I didn’t stop my mad friending spree. I suppose the Facebook Help Team thought I was up to something fishy. The truth was, I was lonely and just wanted to collect as many friends as I could, because I thought that would make me look cool and attractive in Facebook land.
Even though, I stopped sending out requests, I still ended up with more friends than I could manage. During my last few weeks of drinking back in 2011, my status updates were full of self-pity, and written when I was intoxicated. “Just really sad and down today” and “Nothing is on my mind. I am so weird with the world lately. It’s better I keep it to myself” and “Its raining, its pouring, my pit bull is snoring.” I really had nothing to say, but I desperately wanted to connect with anyone and anything, as long as I could get outside of myself.
Life was awful.
During that time, I was in a state that the Big Book describes as being “unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it.” And yes, I knew “loneliness such as few do.” All I needed was sad music, such as Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 (funeral march), completing the soundtrack to my life. At one point, I realized that a married guy that I had an affair with had blocked me on Facebook! I was perplexed. How did that happen? Then, I read the messages that I sent him, and discovered a horrible letter that I wrote. I told him that I felt betrayed and now I understood why Anakin went to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader. I could not remember writing the message—I must have done that during a blackout. That really freaked me out. Darth Vader?
Had I completely lost my mind? I wasn’t even a Star Wars fan!
That incident, plus stalking another ex on Facebook were triggers that convinced me that I needed help. After I got sober, and gathered a bunch of new friends on Facebook in recovery. I noticed that a lot of them were sharing corny posts. Stuff about gratitude, including this Benjamin Disraeli quote “I feel a very unusual sensation-if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.” When I read that, I wanted to eliminate all of my AA friends. How the hell could these people act so happy? Even if they weren’t really that happy, hell, at least they were sending positive vibes into the universe. They shared about how lucky they were feeling, and how wonderful it was that God had blessed them with checking accounts, great jobs and solid mutual funds. It seemed like there was always an AA friend buying a new car, every other day.
And what was I supposed to put on Facebook? “Can someone please direct me to the nearest cliff so I can re-enact the last scene of Thelma and Louise in my crappy old T-Bird?” Or “Filled with a sense of impending doom, like Camus.” How about, “Anyone here work for NASA? I would like to volunteer as a human test subject for a mission to Mars.”
A month ago, I was very depressed. I stayed up all night watching a particularly dark show called The Killing on Netflix, fell asleep and got up at 5 pm. After I made coffee, I sat down in front of my laptop. I saw all these posts from friends on my Facebook newsfeed, sharing how fulfilling their days had been. One friend’s update announced that she was in a relationship. Again? I thought. Wasn’t she just in a new relationship last month? Another friend was at LAX about to fly to England, and was taking selfies every ten minutes. Jesus, I thought. Is that a photo of her getting out of the cab? Didn’t she just take one of herself inside the cab?
I wondered to myself, why don’t I take selfies? Of what? Of myself wandering around in the Mojave, like one of those lost souls hanging out in the vestibule of hell in Dante’s Inferno? I thought, maybe I’m feeling a little envious, because my friend is going on a trip to the UK. I have never been to England, except for an overnight stay at some airport hotel near Heathrow on my way home from Dublin, and oh my God, why the hell did I sleep in until 5? The real issue was not my friend going on a trip. It was more about me heading for another depressive episode.
Shortly after that, I saw my shrink and got new meds.
The truth is, Facebook or no Facebook, I have always been a loner. And loneliness is one reason why I self-medicated with booze. So as a person who has always felt a sense of alienation, I can be extremely neurotic when it comes to Facebook, to the point where I take things a little too personally. If I share a photo, and no one comments, I think, oh my God, I have no friends. What is wrong with me?
Well, it turns out I do have friends. When my pit bulls, Zeus and Loki went missing in April, I posted photos of them, plus expressed how heartbroken I was. The outpouring of support really moved me, and motivated me to keep looking for them and not give up. And when I found them, and I shared about that, I felt really close to my friends in Facebook-land. It was a great feeling. I learned a valuable lesson. I need to work on those feelings of loneliness, which for the most part, I have always had. Hell, I can feel alone in the midst of a packed AA meeting, so it’s no wonder my Facebook home page can make me feel isolated.
Perhaps I need to limit my time on Facebook or just work to maintain a sense of objectivity. Lately, social and news media has been overwhelming, especially in light of the 2016 political campaign, and more recently, the tragic Orlando shootings. When I see other people expressing the outrage and sadness that I feel over the shootings, I realize that I am not alone. It’s sad how such tragic events often put things in a perspective.
I also begin to realize how precious life is. And then I feel more connected to my Higher Power. And yes, its not indigestion that I am feeling right now, its probably something akin to gratitude.
Sponsored DISCLAIMER: This is a paid advertisement for California Behavioral Health, LLC, a CA licensed substance abuse treatment provider and not a service provided by The Fix. Calls to this number are answered by CBH, free and without obligation to the consumer. No one who answers the call receives a fee based upon the consumer’s choice to enter treatment. For additional info on other treatment providers and options visit www.samhsa.gov.
