Who the f&@% am I? Or my farewell to social media

I remember the moment it happened. It was sixth grade. I was excited to be a grown up. I was officially a middle schooler, which meant I was almost a high schooler, which was, like, so old, but in the good way. My mom took me to Peeble’s, which was a low rent version of a department store in the small town of Geneva, New York. We bought school clothes, but not just any school clothes, middler schooler school clothes, so clearly they were mature.

See you later T-shirts with kittens on them. Goodbye skorts. Eff off sweatpant suits. It’s time for flowing dresses with bright florals, heels. Shirts weren’t shirts, they were blouses. I bet there were khakis involved. I could weep thinking of this girl. She knew who she was. She lived on a farm, but envied the towny life. She liked playing in the dirt, being alone, writing poems and songs, imagining all the things she could one day be: a veterinarian, a school teacher, a mom, a spy, a scorned lover, the lover scorning, a movie star, a gymnast, a private detective, an ice skater, a farmer. She wore things that made her own heart sing. She shared genuine thoughts and knew what she liked and disliked. She was shy, cautious, kind, voted most courteous, friendly to animal and human, questioned authority, seeker of freedom, adventure and knowledge.

And on the first day of middle school, wearing strappy purple heeled shoes, a gauzy, flowing dress, cut to the shin with a large floral print and pink tinted lip balm, she lost it. She, I, began the chipping away of self one cruel giggle, mean comment, and whisper at a time. I realized that very moment, as I began to sweat with my backpack full of glitter gel pens and trapper keepers, that to survive in this horrific world, I needed to conform. I needed to blend. I needed to be a good little sheep and do as everyone said and desired.

I never wore that dress or those shoes ever again. They sat in my closet and I looked very often, but I never dared put them back on.

I’m 35 years old now. You would think that middle school was such a distant past, but the reality is that life is still very much stacked up against what others deem worthy and the influence of other’s thoughts goes beyond what you can escape in the outside world. No longer can I come home and become whole again, repair the damage the day has done. When middle school became high school, AOL Instant Messenger became a thing. The internet was helpful and ugly, and the beginning of trolls and lack of escape began. You had to be part of it. You simply had to have an account or else you would know NOTHING. The 24/7 bullying was worth it to not be left out. The montage of comments to weaken the spirit was a necessity to at least be able to participate in life. Sometimes you were the target, sometimes you were the aggressor, sometimes you were simply allowing over age men to say really gross things to you.

I survived high school in a sea of Abercrombie and Fitch. Everyone wore the same jeans, the same hoodie, we all had the same side swept bangs barrel rolled just the right way. I was so lost that I never did the whole college tour thing, I never filled out mass amounts of applications and waited for large or small envelopes to come and make my dreams come true. By the time I graduated from high school I had already lost my complete identity. I had no dreams. I had become what everyone wanted me to be. I was ditzy, I was wild, I was drunk, I was slutty, I was destined for a sugar daddy, I was funny, I was trouble.

I bounced from community college to state university, never really feeling like I belonged. I dropped out, I returned. All the while suffering the influence of social media. All the while losing more and more of myself, allowing others perceptions to be my guide. I filled the holes left behind with traits and habits that didn’t serve me and lived truths that were not mine.

I graduated college and like many, I floundered throughout my twenties all the while thinking I had it figured out. I was still that same lost girl who regretted wearing my favorite dress and continued to be until a therapist asked me to write about myself. Not an experience, or a story, but all the things that described me, that were at my core, that made me unique. I couldn’t write a single word. I had no idea who my authentic self was any longer. This was after six months of therapy, meditation, and awareness practices. The work made me realize how little I knew, how little of myself was still available, how little of my day was spent with moments that made my inner self soar. Because honestly, who the fuck was I?

Before social media, the Victoria’s Secret catalogue told me how my body was supposed to appear, and my peers confirmed that my boobs were too little, my thighs too strong, my eyes too small, my hair too mousy brown. Family, friends, media, said that if I was dumb, pretty, and sexualized then I would make it far in life. I wouldn’t intimidate if I kept myself a vessel to be used and admired. I will never be able to escape the societal pressure that I as a woman face to be certain things but I can limit the amount of noise that I allow in. There will always be ads and magazines, TV and peers, comments from people who think they know best. Those things will always exist. But I can limit who I surround myself with, I can edit what I watch and read. I can silence what does not serve the girl in the flowing dress.

The only noise I want to hear is my inner voice. My gut. To trust my intuition, to know it is not stifled or led astray by what others value, but what I seek, what I find worth in, what I feel is good and right for myself. Is it roaring? Is it whispering? Is it screaming you are on the right path, keep steady?

My life is no longer a popularity contest where I need to know about the torments of others to stay on top of the food chain. Social media has remained a lasting influence in my life for the purpose of feeling connected, even artificially. To be able to become more, I need less. Less noise, less opinion, less distraction, less anxiety, less distortion. I’m okay with being left out. Thrilled to not have to know the complexities of “friends” lives.

I am starting from zero and rebuilding, finding, holding dear the things I love, shedding the things I don’t. I am reorganizing my soul. Does it bring me joy? Put it in the drawer, nicely, neatly, like you care.