Leaving Facebook

How chronic people pleasing nearly cost me my career

Photo by visuals on Unsplash

About six months ago I removed the Facebook app off my phone. I was experimenting with ways in which I could be more productive and my obsessive, addictive social media use seemed the most obvious place to begin. Facebook was a biggie. I felt like I was constantly craving the validation of likes and comments on this site far more than I did with other social media platforms, but wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was the way that mutual followings were called ‘friends’ or that people seemed to be more open on there, more willing to share the sadnesses in their lives as well as the joys, it made it so much more like speaking to actual friends. Without the app on my phone I had placed a step between thought and action. There was less mindless scrolling searching for that dopamine hit of a Facebook like - if I needed to get into facebook I would have to physically log in, rather than the lazy lean of the thumb onto the little F icon. It was part of a process of weaning myself off a platform that I have been on for at least fifteen years. In those fifteen years I have had a love/hate relationship with Facebook. It has, at times, been a life saver. I had reconnected with people who had gone out of my life, I had made friends, fallen out with friends, lost friends, I had commiserated and celebrated with facebook friends, and received care and comfort, and support and understanding, as well as being a part of the spats, blockings, unfollows and misunderstandings, the betrayals and cliques of any community of people whether online or off. At times, it felt like being at school and fighting for popularity, wondering what was wrong with you when you slipped off people’s radars. When I stopped being on the site so much, I began to go unnoticed on there. It’s a social media app, an algorithm dictates who sees your posts, so of course if you are not there as much, not as many people see you and you disappear out of there lives.

Photo by Barefoot Communications on Unsplash

A few years ago I watched the writer Helen Mort post on facebook one day, out of the blue, something along the lines of ‘I’m doing something I should have done a long time ago and leaving facebook’ before leaving contact details and walking away. I remember it distinctly because I thought of Helen (rightly) as an accomplished writer, a writer who had a clear career rise with regular book contracts and regular book launches. It seemed extraordinary to walk away from a platform where she had a very good following. How would she promote her books?, I wondered, and at the same time something small and tired inside me longed to walk away too. I had built two businesses up on Facebook and tied Facebook and its free groups and private spaces into my work as a facilitator until the social media page was wound into my life. It felt like I didn’t have any boundaries, like even when I was simply checking in to see what people were up to I had to always be ‘on’ - always with the professional face on, always ready to jump up and answer a question on the courses or respond to a tagged post promoting a writer’s work… stuff that I in fact loved doing, but couldn’t find a way to switch off when necessary - when I was tired or just wanted to be social on the platform. In my journey to having a simpler, more nourishing life I have realised that I am a chronic people pleaser. What this means is that I have problems placing boundaries around myself and my own creative work. My boundaries are often porous, I let people through because I value their needs over my own. It is something I am working on, and part of that work is learning to set solid boundaries; to feel the uncomfortable, almost shameful feeling of putting myself first, and to have a voice inside me that tells me that my work and my life are of value, that my needs can come first. I want to live a life that I am at peace in. I don’t want to live a life that I feel the need to escape from. This might seem like a weird way of tying in Facebook, after all, it is simply a social media platform, and I think perhaps those who do not have anxiety or low self esteem might not understand this, but I am certain that those that do, do. It’s not just a social media platform. It’s a chunk of my life. And it’s an area of my life I find difficult to manage.

When I got the book deal for The Ghost Lake, I realised that if I kept on people pleasing - putting everyone’s needs before my own then this opportunity that I have been working so hard for for the last fifteen years, was going to slip through my fingers. I could see it happening. I could see me answering emails and writing endorsements and promoting someone else’s work above my own, rather than working on the book, because I felt a horrible uncomfortable cringe when I put my own work first. I could see me devoting time to Facebook, to making sure people knew I was thinking of them and that I was up to date with all the news and not missing out, rather than working on the book. Apart from anything, I had seven social media platforms, plus seven more for the magazine I edit and run, Spelt. All of those platforms needed regular feeding to keep them satisfied. A great deal of my time was spent on social media. I was drowning in it.

If you are reading this from a similar place as a creative, if you are trying to put your own work first; I want to tell you it gets easier. It becomes more pleasant, you become more productive, you start to see the payoff and start to value your work and yourself more, the more you do it.

If there was ever a time to learn to set boundaries, it was when I needed to work to a deadline, on my own published book. Alongside taking the app off my phone, I began to say no to unpaid and low paid work, I began to change my own working patterns, I moved to Substack and I took a risk on myself as a writer, or to put it another, more healthy way - I invested in myself as a writer. My wages dropped, initially, but though growth is slow, growth is growth. I am making it work.

A couple of days ago I logged into facebook and felt a familiar sense of dread and guilt. Because I’d not been on the site for a while I had missed so many people’s news - sad news and happy news - I felt a terrible guilt to have missed birthdays and anniversaries and competition wins and publishing news etc. And it was at that point that I realised that Facebook was no longer enjoyable, I found that it provoked anxiety rather than joy. One of the things with facebook, or rather one of the things about my own perception of friendships, is that I can never tell who is a friend, who is an acquaintance, who is doing the friendly stuff in order to get me to help promote their work. This is true for me in real life too. I have thrice had my heart broken when what I perceived to be friendships turned out not to be; where the other person didn’t think of me as a friend, but as an acquaintance. The most recent heartbreak was the piece of the puzzle that caused me to seek an autism assessment; the puzzle being me and my odd way of thinking, my odd way of connecting to people. I am on the NHS waiting list. I suspect I shall be there until I am an old, old woman. It’s been a year so far and no one can even tell me how long the waiting list is.

Why is this relevant? Because I’m trying now to work with myself and not against myself. I am forgiving myself for stuff that didn’t even need forgiving, but that I felt was somehow cringe inducing, guilt inducing. I would LOVE to be one of those people who just comes and goes on facebook, one of those people who have an inbuilt sense of their own worth, but I’m not. I actually think that in some ways this makes me a more empathetic person. I think it makes me a good mentor and a good facilitator.

I see me. I see that how I am with facebook - the terrible guilt at missing news and not commenting, stuff that will literally keep me awake at night - I see this is part of the people pleasing/not understanding friendships situation that means my boundaries are always porous to other people’s needs. And so, this week despite the fact I have two books coming out next year and will need to promote them, I decided I do not need anything else in my life that’s going to make me feel like I am on the outside looking in. I do not need the extra social media platform. I will likely lose touch with people. But there are other ways of staying in touch with me, and I them. It is not the end of the world. It is just a social media account.

Photo by Merakist on Unsplash

One thing I have noticed already, just by not interacting with a couple of my social media platforms, is the relief of not having to use brain power on them, and also the simplicity of having less social media. I am on instagram, I am on twitter/X for now, and I am on here; the lovely substack community which I don’t feel like I have worked out or understood yet, but which still feels like a safe harbour for me. I feel that the platforms I am choosing allow me to be more in control, it makes it easier to set boundaries that are stable rather than porous.

I think perhaps the thing I will miss about Facebook is the Facebook memories; the little thread of posts from a single day going back years. It contains within it the days of my pregnancy and my daughter, and it also contains the days of her death. But perhaps, just perhaps I am ready to move away from that. I have everything I need in my heart and in my photos. It’s time to draw a line under that part of my life and move on.

I’m doing something I should have done a long time ago. I’m leaving facebook.

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