Facebook and Anxiety

[puddingduck]

Maybe this is weird, but I'm gonna throw it out there to see if anyone else feels the same way.

Facebook is a brutal source of anxiety for me. Seeing photos of negative people from my past, reading about what other people are doing without me, seeing how other people talk to/about each other...it is a major trigger for my social anxiety and depressive mood swings. It's like the unpleasantness of socialising has found a way to reach me when I'm alone in the safe space of my room. Sometimes I can't stop myself from scrolling through the posts, though...

Obviously the easiest cure for this is to delete it, but I need it to stay a part of things at university so that's not an option. I've recently started 'hiding' all posts from certain people to prevent seeing anything that will upset me.

Does anyone else have problems like this with Facebook? It feels ridiculous to let a website bother me as much as it does.

[Sparkle1984]

Yes I can relate to this. I'm Facebook friends with a lot of people from the company where I used to work, and sometimes they arrange drinks or meals out without inviting me (even though they invite other people who have left the company), and when they talk about it on their Facebook statuses it used to upset me. It made me feel as though I was unwanted and that I was not good enough to be with them. It also made me feel as though I was too boring to be invited to these people's parties. So I ended up doing what you did - I hid all their posts so that I wouldn't see anything that might upset me.

In the end (after learning about CBT techniques and listening to rational thinking audios), I came to the conclusion that I don't need these people's approval in order to be happy. It might be nice to be liked by everyone, but it doesn't have to happen. If they want to exclude me from their socialising, it says more about them than it does about me, and it doesn't necessarily mean that I am a bad/boring person. I now focus more on my own friends, and try not to worry about these ex-colleagues so much.

I hope that helps.

[Magic]

I cannot get a grips with face book. I joined ages ago and came off it after a while.
I put in a few names (relations) and thought what a load of tripe.
Do I really want to know what you look like in your fancy clothes and hear about your many holidays.
I can understand if anyone needs it for education. Like Puddingduck.

[puddingduck]

I cannot get a grips with face book. I joined ages ago and came off it after a while.
I put in a few names (relations) and thought what a load of tripe.
Do I really want to know what you look like in your fancy clothes and hear about your many holidays.
I can understand if anyone needs it for education. Like Puddingduck.

Yep, the only reason I got it is because I need it to communicate with everyone at once since I'm a course rep. Also you can't know about social events without it. It is such a pit of despair, though.

---------- Post added at 21:46 ---------- Previous post was at 21:43 ----------

Yes I can relate to this. I'm Facebook friends with a lot of people from the company where I used to work...

I hope that soon I'll learn to work with my thoughts enough that it won't bother me anymore, but for now I'm sticking with the hide-everything-that-could-possibly-upset-me tactic.

Thanks for replying, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one!

[soulsearcher]

puddingduck i have to agree here it is a good thing face book but like you said it can be very stressful sometimes i get tempted to remove it too

[SarahH]

I have got sick of Facebook as it makes me think evryone else is having this amazing wonderful happy life....and I'm not!!! But after bumping into a couple of people who on FB were expressing how great there lives were, they then told my tales of woe about their lives being "shit".......so now when I occasionally browse through statuses I see them for what they are!!!!
Dont believe what you see!!!

[Edie]

I find Facebook to be a wonderful resource for keeping in touch with friends and relatives, especially those I don't see regularly. I'm sorry it's not that way for everyone.

I do unfriend people who start to annoy me though - maybe it's time to get out your delete button.

[Edward_1980]

I don't want to know about Facebook anymore. It unnerves me seeing the pictures and statuses of friends and family who are out living a great life while I stay in and suffer from all kinds of Anxiety. I deactivated my profile a while back and tend to stay away from it now. It makes me feel a lot better.

[Todayisagift]

Yh i tend to visit exes first, then old bullies second. Then I go to the other side...and visit those people who seemingly have a 'perfect' life.
I guess its only natural to wonder.
A well known big British broadsheet this week published an article about how facebook makes you miserable.
I'd firstly do what I did and delete people who are from your old school like 5 years younger first-you don't want to know what's going on at that old place do you?! Cos I guess that could bring back bad memories of school/or sadness of thinking of memories.
Yeh I wouldn't delete facebook either. I think we'll be the first generation to have it into our old age!! Silver surfers!

[KeeKee]

This is one of the reason I never have and hopefully never will have a Facebook account.