Let’s Make Social Media ‘Social’ Again

In 2017 I was overwhelmed with life. I felt guilty for that as I had great friends, co-workers and I was living in a highly-desirable location as a filmmaker. I graduated with a Bachelors in Communications and Cinema Arts with a prestigious award from my department. I was starting counseling and learning to ‘adult’ on my own. Social media was developing and growing into a different monster and I wanted so badly to keep up. I never could. I was the person who was always so busy ‘doing’ she never posted.

I filmed a lot of projects between entering university and the two years out of university. I was making multiple videos a week to be shown to hundreds to thousands of people. I had learned to edit fast, and (I thought) efficiently. I was trying to create more clients and making content that was awe-provoking and testing my video-editing prowess. I made music videos that made people laugh, cry and stop in their tracks. Even better? I was working alongside a Non-Denominational church community that was filled with some of the most amazing people I have ever met. Creatively and personality wise.

I was on the rise and I fell. Hard. Loud. In the most humiliating way I could conceive.

I dropped everything I had built in California and moved back in with my parents. I told people it was because my mom was sick, which she was, but I was also sick.

I didn’t work for six-months straight. I hated social media because I felt like I had nothing good to say. Nothing good to offer. I distanced myself from college friends A LOT except a few because I felt like a loser. I was supposed to be Greta Gerwig before she even came on the scene. I was supposed to be a business mogul that women looked up to. I was supposed to be all these amazing things, and I just… wasn’t.

For those who don’t know by now, because I just disappeared off social media… I had a mental breakdown. Especially after getting fired from a Protestant church job that I took instead of another job in Colorado because I wanted my chance to keep the California dream alive.

I hated being on social media, so much so I wouldn’t even comment or like stuff my friends or acquaintances were doing. I didn’t want people seeing my pathetic life.

I even cut off all my waist length hair. Bold move.

There was a lot of days between Summer of 2018 to Winter of 2020 I wondered what I was even made for? I was all this great potential that got wasted because I wasn’t strong enough. Not resilient enough. Not hard-working enough. Not pretty enough. Not kind enough. Not. Not. Not.

There was also the ‘too’s in there. Too loud. Too soft. Too angry. Too timid. Too much. Too. Too. Too. Always not enough and too much at once. All those thoughts in my head were so loud I enjoyed driving in silence as it was a moment to sort through them all.

Where does social media play in all this? 

When doesn’t it play a role in the constant measuring stick we hold up everywhere we go?

After years of feeling worthless and some good therapy… I started seeing social media as a possibility to overcome old wounds. Do I like social media?

No. Yes and no. It is my job after all.

Am I finding a new way to use it that makes me feel fulfilled and happy?

Yes. After much pain and constantly allowing myself to be humbled.

Welcome. Let’s heal by making social media ‘social’ again.