Finding clarity

It’s a strange sensation

I woke up for the first time in months maybe in years feeling refreshed. Some time after six am in the morning and I woke up to todays world surrounds by the sound of birds chirping. The room felt brisk and I notice the sound of air moving in and up my noise canal into my sinus cavity and down my throat filling my lungs. I felt the weight of my blanket and the pocket of warmth that surrounding me in the coolness of my sheets as I began to move under them. I noticed my breathing again and took a deep breath in filling my lungs up and exhaled doing one of those breathing techniques for when you have anxiety attack.

I noticed I really was present in this morning and it felt very different. It felt nice with a sensation of clarity, yet I could quite yet figure out what was happening or more so what has happened. Something was very different. I closed and open my eyes and I felt my front part of my brain. Not with my fingers or hands but its weight under my scull. I just felt my brain presence. Not like a headache or a concussion but something different. When I open and close my eyes I saw this bright white light sensation in the upper corners of my eyelids. Perplexed I repeated opening and then closing my eyes and I kept feeling this sensation and I wasn’t quite sure if I was seen this white light as a sensation or if it was some bright reflection in my room. I just could not figure out for the next 10 - 15 mins. I just thought it to be strange.

My hands and arms starts to move like a serpent under the sheets and under the pillows as I began to wake and stretch and lean to my side. I looks to my side and then I was hit with a big realization that something was different. There was no smart phone next to me. It wasn’t in my hand and my fingers weren’t moving up and down my favorite social media slot machine feed. It has been over three months of not going onto that photo sharing eco system and I have been working daily on rewire my brain after years of use. I have been fighting for years with how much I using it and I did’t like how I was using it, more and more I was trying to gain control but it had more control over me than me. The morning ritual of waking and digital baking mindlessly consuming scrolling posting commenting easy for 15mins, 20min or sometimes I was lost to time. Feeding my eyes and my brain that drip drip drip dopamine but not knowing that until the last couple months. Years of waking and checking my smartphone first thing. Checking to see if any notifications, see the time, see what was posted but more importantly to check how many likes and views the content I created got. That information could manipulate the morning in a good way or disappointed way. I notice if it was a disappointed way it would trigger me to end up scrolling more to offset the disappointment. It then content was barely seen and that did a number on me. I started cobsumung more content on hiw to beat the algorithm and on self help and trauma related psychology understanding that habit has been formed and I didn’t like it. I didn’t understand why. It felt like I was given breakfast and it was an empty plate. So you have to look for something to eat. Not understanding I was in a system of reward like a mouse and cheese in a maze.

Infact it came to my attention It’s been years of waking up to this ritual of checking my phone. It became a habit that lead to constantly checking my favorite app first. When I finally notice I was filling up on empty calories it became a problem to gain control. The more I tried to take control the more I was shocked at the difficulty and severity of this problem. The more I created, the more time I was spending and well it wasn’t good. I was struggling to distance my self and I felt I found myself in a toxic relationship that I didn’t want to quit, yet I should, but I could not and that just cause layers of stress and triggers and anxieties. It all seems superficially and silly at first.

I started to question my mental health and the cause and effect and if the return on investment was worth all of this internal conflict and frustration and disappointment in myself. I tried to put it down and tried to deactivate and delete over the last couple years. But it one over my mental health. How have we been so programmed that this is so important to be on. The interface can really cause some serious stress and anxiety and more when everything is fine. Then stressors, the triggers, hurtles that life hit me with, dealing with family and friends deaths, family breast cancer, and a personal health injury; the app became escape between doctor visits, endless tests, and surgery and rehab and spending repeated hours in the emergency room led the app to become a type of safety blanket under high stress. A type of medication that would fill up the void while I was sharing creativity and chasing validity I was sinking deeper. I began to question myself and my over use. When you become sensitive to possible being addicted to tech it seems so laughable at first and then it may just sink in there’s a little problem. Buts soon you realize it’s more like a opioid prescription addiction problem. It has the same type of addiction that can get out of control. Then you look for help to find its design to be addictive and all your struggles start to make sense.

Like most wanting to grow in the system of likes and followers struggling to receive that attention and feel it withheld more and more. They need to see their in an abusive narcissistic type of relationship. You need to start to think about walking away and you probably have attempted to and failed. But how did we get here. How did we get hooked. I started to become sensitive to this and I thought and thought. We are all plugged into the ecosystem without a second thought about it, in lines, at stores, in movies, in moments of waiting, at diners and tables taking photos of food needing create like a film director of an AD company to post the perfect image to share. I have taken thousands of photos of food. Just did last night of a peach pie and why. I had this deep wanting to upload and share. But where and why did this come from and why can’t I stop taking moments and needing to share them. From every day users to content creators we just feel compelled to do so. It’s a daily thing these days where did we learn this from? More so how are we conditioned to and who programmed us this way and why can’t we stop more so why can’t I stop? What’s the underlying psychology of it all?

I was on a hike and I saw a banana slug I stoped took a photo. I was with a group and as we walked I kept spotting more and more banana slugs. I stoped took photos, to capture videos and began to realize I might have been annoying in doing so for some. Now I found joy in these little creature and in spotting so many but I was completely compelled to take photo and I would stop on the hike and take videos all for sake of sharing. I came to understand that some of the people I was hiking with did not have my favorite photo sharing app and more so they just didn’t understand the need to capture photos to share content, were as I, was completely compelled and driven with OCD to capture and share.

I would curate by starting with shifting through a collection of photos and videos and string them together rearranging the location of the photos in the thread to find the perfect rhythm for the collection to exhibit. I would edit the video at the right location to clip and splice and then I would go in and search for a song that I thought was a brilliant soundtrack for this experience and upload. Sometimes it would upload smoothly, sometime it was a problem and sometimes I would have to restart the entire process. I would become aware that this was starting to wear on my mental health and cause frustrations. I would come to learn that this would lead into further problems with new added feature just seemed to keep you in longer. Base on interaction of likes and views and shares and comparison to others content numbers it began to effect my mood and when I noticed I very much didn’t like that this was happening contemplating on escaping and deleted my account I lost and continued using. But there was an internal battle happening about fighting my impulses and come to terms that I was addicted and what that meant. Yet I kept using I kept dealing with frustration and the frustration of new tools being pushed and it became more about posting and trying to beat the algorithm and chase attention and fill up on the rewards with mindlessly consuming. That all tapped into some of my childhood trauma which I was not aware of until I started my new journey of “unbecoming” not growing view or engagement, not growing followers was becoming a problem I don’t want and it taped into underlying abandonment issues from a narsacitc father and all that comes with that definition. The photo sharing app was taping into that I was on an unwanted rollercoaster ride. Evoking a subconscious need for creating more content for attention and rewarding me with likes, shares, saves or comments. Driving bourse to get photos and videos and make art to drop in a setting. It was all consuming. Then I saw a post by a travel influencer who traveled to Bali to create content for a post at one of those most captured and shared places and how that cost her over $4000 dollars. That was a wake up call of what are we chasing. Consuming more and more content and secretly wanting to beating the algorithm and down the rabbit whole I went not realize what was happening. Not realize I was sinking in quicksand. Feeding on the drip drip drip of dopamine and the lack of dopamine.

So I decide to assess and address and learn about mental health. I wanted change and I wanted to manage my use. I kept daily attempts to control but I was sucked back in and failed. I realized that if you have a problem with addiction, becoming or deeply addicted, using the platform your struggling with is very much like playing on a beach building sand castles but instead of sand it is actually cocaine. So I decide to give up my favorite social media app for awhile seeing help that really has turned into a difficult experience for the first couple month and possible a blessing. It’s opened me up to learning more about types of addictions, my own personal behaviors and seeking help from others and professionals. I think, quite possibly there are a lot of negatives being experienced fueled by this new attention economy which has been created to be addictive as I have come to learn. As wonderful and amazing social media is I think we all have a lot to learn about it and its affects. More so because let’s admit we are not going to give up social media but we desperately need to know when it escapes our control and when it effects our mental health or taps/created addictions in the ecosystem that create strong habit forming actions so we can auto correct ourself. Sort of like alcohol and the direct effects it can have on some and getting help.

We all joke about being addicted to our phones or our favorite apps but unfortunately there is so much truth in that thought we don’t want to admit too. So I started to detox from my favorite app for personal reason. A digital detox isn’t gonna have you throwing up but depending on your extensive usage you will experience with falls both physically and mental the first couple weeks. I see a lot of similarities to prescription pill addiction.

It’s a work in progress for me but after three months without my favorite app you begin to experience something completely different with your mind and I find that fascinating. Your mindset of being present, the brain fog seems gone and your mental clarity all feels better. As if your healing for something you don’t know you needed to be healed from. There are accounts I deeply miss and I do feel like I miss out. My FOMO is real but it’s also exacerbated and triggering when being plugged in form event like Coachella or art and fashion show to travel post and the talent creators and such. As I read about addiction and the and how the digital eco system works and work through therapy I realize that was once fun it’s actually terrible burden. But more importantly is this sensation of being free that sits with you and it really is a good feeling.