Lately, I've been thinking a lot about loneliness. The biggest change that has taken place in me since Mini's diagnosis is that I feel very alone in the world. In the end, I think, it's up to me to make or break my life and my son's life.... No one can do that for me and no one knows how to do it except me. I used to feel like help existed everywhere- like it would come out of the woodwork. Now I know that's not true- at least not in the way I thought. Looking around the world today, I see two true things: that each one of us is alone, and that we all are inexplicably linked. The shootings in Charleston, the recent national recognition of gay marriage, the escape of two murderers in New York.... there are so many examples that simultaneously prove both the singularity and the community of our world. We all are simultaneously alone, and connected. Most media outlets seem to highlight the otherness and the singularness in everything, the BAD of everything. And for me, too, it's easy to lose my community, and fall into myself and my little world. It's easy to feel like reaching out takes too much effort, to convince myself that the help I need can't be found, to sit on the couch and cry and stew instead of focusing on finding a way out.
I guess that's because my life is busy. I'm sure most of you reading along here can relate. Life. Is. Busy. I don't always have time to keep the important people updated, even when the important things happen (birthdays, IEP meetings, new word utterances, major milestones reached or not reached). To combat the loneliness and disconnectedness, I use social media. Yes, I really do. I know, I know.... The dreaded, critiqued, and scorned social media, right? Perhaps, for some, that's what social media is. So many sources out there claim that people who spend time on social media are depressed, disconnected, addicted, hiding, comparing, feeling left out... and the list goes on and on.
And yet, here I am, to tell you I'm grateful for Facebook. I have made my own social media world into a place of connectedness, support, and positivity. I don't go onto Facebook and get barraged by negative posts, by incessant photos of perfect lives and boasting status messages. Instead, my newsfeed is dotted with real updates from friends, my inbox is filled with questions, advice, and sweet notes of praise or support. I check the pages of the people I love and find them smiling with pride, bleeding with honesty, and educating me with articles, blog posts, and poignant quotes. I find at least a dozen reasons to laugh. In the last couple of weeks, I've found a wonderful article about being "the world's okayest mom" shared by my friend Patti, had a wonderful conversation with a friend offering advice and support about his wife's pregnancy struggles, and set a date to meet up with my dear friend Melissa during my vacation last week. If I wasn't using social media, none of those connections would have happened.
Online communities don't have to be the abyss they are proclaimed to be. Check out this fact sheet from the Pew Research Center to find actual support for that statement. I hear so often that people try to portray a fake-perfect life via social media, and I've not found that to be the case at all. I've found that my friends are all looking for the balance, trying to find community in their struggles, trying to find suggestions for handling their issues differently. I've found true humanity- not faked humanity- when I've needed it most; first connecting via social media and then ending up on the phone for three hours, or at a coffee shop on Sunday morning, or a restaurant for dinner. It's about post asking for help with our dog while we're away and having a personal message an hour later from a friend opening her home to our pup for the coming week.
Yes I check Facebook countless times a day, but most often, I'm not scrolling through the newsfeed. I'm clicking on articles, typing a quick personal message, or trying to find a recipe for dinner. It's not about hiding from the real world for me; it's about having a clearinghouse to connect with the real world. I'm too busy to find email addresses and then write individual emails, too distracted to make 10 phone calls in a row searching for a dog sitter, too scatterbrained to remember to call friends on their birthdays and anniversaries, and too far away to thumb through family member's photo albums in person.
One thing I've learned about having a child with special needs is that it takes very little for me to feel intensely lonely. If Mini is having a bad day, or a bad hour, or if I read an article or hear about a poor kiddo's glaring failure in some way large or small, I can go into emotional tailspins. I get lost in my head and my heart and start spiraling into myself, wallowing in the "what ifs" and "how comes" and "what will I do whens." I've learned that, if I don't have immediate access to a friend to support me in person, I can almost always text or gchat or Facebook to find someone who can stand with me on the proverbial ledge and convince me to back away from it. If I didn't have those online communities, I'd be at a loss. What would I do- find 10 phone numbers and dial away until someone picks up? Who has time for that?
What's more is that I believe social media is here to stay. My 6 year old and my 3 year old will be using it before I can say the word "Facebook," and I need to be able to talk to them in an honest way about the place it can have in their lives. How can I help them figure things out in the cyber world if I'm not using it appropriately myself? Or, even, AT ALL? I am, admittedly, terrified of cyber bullying and sexting and online trolls and all the things that social media can bring to my kids. The only way I see to combat all that is to live with it, know it, use it, and watch it. No, I don't think it will be possible to mandate that they abstain from social media. Instead, I'll make sure they are informed and aware, and that they use it exactly how my smart, confident children want to use it.
I'm sure the stereotypes aren't completely unfounded. I've seen rants and ugliness and alientation and bullying online. When I see it once, I delete it or unfollow it or otherwise remove it, so that my online communities remain the positive, uplifting communities I want them to be. Social media compliments and augments my life. It's a positive piece of my daily struggle to keep myself intact despite the MANY reasons to get lost- in motherhood especially, and life and my marriage and the tiny details that take up all the free minutes of my days.
I've always heard that you'll find whatever you're looking for in the world. And as far as Facebook is concerned, I've found exactly that.
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