Looking Back

It’s almost the year anniversary of the day that I was told I was too toxic of a person to follow on Twitter. If you’ve read my blog, you know that I wrote a lot about how this incident affected me. I just couldn’t believe a person (who tries to come across as loving and caring) would unfollow me because of my depression and the fact that I didn’t worship and gush over her and her family. It’s still unbelievable but I no longer hurt because of it. What I feel is pity for the individual. Pity that the woman needs validation from people on a social media site to feel validated.

Over the last five years, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve learned who I can and can’t trust and who really does care about me. But I don’t need to be the center of the social media universe. Earlier this week I did something that was a big deal to me – I used my stove. I tweeted a pic of my eggs I cooked and moved on with my day. It didn’t even dawn on me that no one had responded until the next day when two people did. Did I throw a hissy on Twitter because dozens of people didn’t acknowledge my big deal? Did I unfollow anyone who didn’t acknowledge what I did? No, I moved on with my day and felt proud of myself for accomplishing a goal I thought would take all summer.

In the last few months, I’ve learned to forgive the woman for what she did. When you boil it down, her unfollowing truly wasn’t because of me, it was because of her. She felt that her actions were appropriate and didn’t take a moment to stop and think about how her actions would affect someone like me. I blame this on a problem that is prevalent in the US (and probably the world) and that is not understanding mental illness. For some people, they don’t want to take the time to understand the mentality of someone like me who struggles with depression and anxiety (and a few other lovely things). That’s their choice but as you can see, it can cause problems and those problems can hurt people.

I know some people may find it hard to deal with someone who has depression but in all honesty, it’s pretty easy. For the most part, just treat us as normal as possible but understand that sometimes, we may not be happy-go-lucky or tweeting up a storm or, in this case, gushing about your family or yourself. Not to be blunt but the world revolves around NO ONE so GET OVER YOURSELF. (Those aren’t shouty caps but emphasis caps. There’s a difference. Honestly.)

Anyway, I guess what I want to say is that I no longer feel hurt over what happened. I’ve tucked the experience into my writer’s file cabinet to be used in a future book. Maybe a take on the incident. Maybe the hurt I felt. I’m not sure yet what will exactly come from the experience but it will be used at some point. Life experiences bring authenticity to my writing. This leads me to two pieces of advice.

#1) Be kind to everyone. It’s really not too hard.

#2) Never piss off a writer. ;)

Dana