I hate Facebook today.
Last night, I learned that a friend took her own life. Her Facebook page is full of pictures with her arms wrapped around her children, positive quotes, jokes, “happy” pictures with friends and deeply spiritual thoughts.
We post glimpses of our hearts not wide open pictures of our real life. We are careful not to show depth or vulnerability. God forbid that someone would see our flaws or pain.
I am learning that the keyboard becomes a template on which people create a persona according to what they believe will make them acceptable to the world. Facebook becomes that old carnival attraction, The House of Mirrors, where everything is distorted and nowhere close to the truth about who they are.
If they could only stop and realize that they are pretty amazing just being authentically them!
We have stopped now, as a society having genuine relationships. What ever happened to grabbing the hand of a loved one, looking into their eyes to see what’s really there, listening to their voice to hear the slight inflections that help us to recognize the pain?
We feel connected and up to date because we liked their status or commented on one of their pictures. We mistakenly think that we now know them only to find out that the hearts of their children, family members and loved ones have been ripped apart and broken by the loss of a mother, sister, daughter, aunt, wife and friend. Never to see her smile, hear her laugh, or feel her arms around them again. The ones she left behind can never be the same, never truly heal. But she was “happy” on Facebook.
On September 20th I saw her in a picture. She was smiling and toasting at a pub with friends watching a football game. Two days later, she was gone. Three months later I see a post from her family member on FB telling her how deeply she is missed. Perhaps I would have never known she passed if it weren’t for Facebook or perhaps our relationship would have been more than a superficial passing on the internet and I could have seen her real struggles face to face and loved her through them.
So now hopefully, I will pay real attention to the ones that are dear to me and let them know, face to face with my arms wrapped around them, that they are cherished.
I realize this is not the case with everyone and few resort to such extreme measures in their despair. FB has brought me closer to many I would have never seen or heard from again and opened up whole new communications. I am grateful for that. That is good.
But to my over to 700 friends on Facebook, I hope to see more of you, in real life in 2016!
7 comments
Most people are appalled at my FB profile. This is a good thing.
I wouldn’t be 🙂 Sometimes the truth is necessary and the ugly becomes beautiful
People on Facebook have to follow a social contract, if it’s not kept superficial, people tend to gossip. That’s the problem, people check each other’s Facebook thinking that nothing is wrong, or that they know the person on a deeper level. “Wow, she’s such a great example of the perfect human.” No, she’s just like everyone else, dealing with life and all of it’s unpredictable variables. Her suicide may have been precipitated by something incidental, something that you wouldn’t even known about.
I place Facebook into the same category as work place relations. When you show up to work you put a smile on your face. Your behavior aligns accordingly. Facebook is a place to find out about a person, but not a way to get close to someone.
I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, while you guys may have been friends, were you even close enough for her to reveal her raw emotions to you? If not, just understand it’s a sad situation, but you would have been unable to alter her path. I just feel like people take a lot of personal responsibility they, in reality, have absolutely no control over. Suicide really causes a ripple effect with any acquaintance the person knew, a lot of people wish they could have been there to catch the person fall.
I am sorry for your loss, and I’m not trying to invalidate your emotions. I agree, Facebook is a symbol of disgust in my eyes. I hope your emotions can find some solace on this website, and if you are feeling suicidal please reach out.
This is very well said. I don’t have Facebook, only Twitter. Even on there, people seem to try to pretend to be happy. “Look at me! Look at where I’m vacationing!” STFU! It’s sickening and fake. There are some people I can kinda talk things out with though. I don’t pretend, if I feel like shit or if I’m depressed, people will know it, like it or not. I heard Facebook is even worst when it comes to everyone pretending their life is perfect. The perfect family, the perfect children, yeah right.
In my opinion, if a person is trying so hard to give the impression nothing is wrong and everything is just hunky-dory, those are the ones with the real problems. Sorry, no one is happy 24/7. They’re hiding something.
I’m sorry you lost someone. I feel like it’s especially hard to deal with when it’s suicide.
I quit Facebook a while back, and it has made me more aware of my loneliness: I really ache to connect with people irl. I don’t know whether I would have noticed, had I still been on there. Maybe. The other thing is I have lost touch with a lot of people.
So I guess I’ve learned that Facebook is a useful way to be in people’s orbit, but it’s easy, at least for me, to overestimate how much you’re actually connecting.
FB is what it is. My mother would never see her grandchildren if it weren’t for FB. Lucky her.
Good point Hazy Day. The older folks do seem to know how to use it. They are more involved with distant relatives now.