This article was previous published in September of 2023 on Medium. Minor changes to formatting and content have been made to reflect continuing changes to my perspective of media and online interactions.
“When we walk to the edge of all the light we have, and take a step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen: There will be something solid for us to stand on, or we will be taught to fly.” -Anonymous
If vodka was my drink of choice, Instagram became its replacement. It didn’t happen right away. Social media wasn’t a thing when I became sober. It took time, as with most addictions. My personal boundaries were bled, leading to the loss of my mental health and personal agency.
I became aware of social media just as my small children were reaching the age where I could look away and let them play. I craved connection and an outlet for my creativity. I joined FB, taking advantage of the groups for parents that homeschooled, but I still didn’t get the appeal.
Then Instagram came in.
It filled a gap in my creativity that felt empty in the early days of motherhood. Within a short time my presence on Instagram became a flood of personal need.
For nearly seven years I utilized the service, posting hundreds of images and personal writings, spending hours daily online tracking trends, commenting on other peoples feeds. My time daily online grew exponentially with each passing year. It was never enough, worse still I was attempting to match the latest algorithm with each post so I could be seen, accepted, wanted.
Relinquishing my creativity for numbers.
The toxic behavior of others online became the clarion call I needed to make a choice to disengage. My brain was algorithmic to whatever I was reading, seeing, and connected to- it wasn’t healthy.
On April 14, 2021, I deleted Instagram from my phone and never logged in again. Any other apps that were utilized to communicate or share information went away too. It was a full fledged purge of social media.
The first week was hell.
Withdrawals are real
Acceptance that you have a problem is the first step, but it doesn’t makes it more bearable when all you desire is the serotonin hits you’ve grown to expect while utilizing social media.
My personal agency had been sublet to a screen with curated content.
I had lost myself.
Two days into my social media free life I noticed my mind contemplating if the light was right for a picture. Could I capture the words in just the right way to garner attention? I was thinking about how to make a desirable post for Instagram despite not utilizing the service anymore.
I fisted large handfuls of soapy water and stared out the window at my playing kids, realizing I was experiencing withdrawals.
After the fifth day of being media free cognitive dissidence set in.
I suffered from headaches, confusion, dizziness, and mild depression. I lacked the ability to make choices, couldn’t process easy instructions. I was withdrawn.
All from not having social media.
Instead of succumbing to the discomfort, I doubled down. Confused in mind but strong of heart I let myself get bored, the result was rediscovering what I really knew was true about life.
Filling the Void
I had been living in an echo chamber artfully curated with my assumed likes and dislikes. My challenge was to figure out what I really desired to fill my space with now that I no longer had social media to do it for me.
It became my mission to investigate this perceived loss and recover my dignity with a replacement that was sustainable and meaningful.
I needed to discover who I was becoming as well as where I wanted to grow.
Personal reflection guided me to one big truth: I needed a space to share my intuitive insights, personal reflections and stories with others. I wanted to do this on my terms.
Once I found a platform that could support my work, I would utilized it to do all I wanted without selling out on my mental health.
On July 16, 2021, Wild Devotion was born on the platform Substack.1
No one cares, not really
When leaving social media you don’t just give up your daily dose of serotonin, you give up perceived friendships, gossip, drama, validation. After initial the withdrawals subside I noticed alarmingly that with the exception of close friends and family, no one really cared I was gone.
This is where things go a tad sideways. Up until this point I was just uncomfortable without the phone or computer in my face. Now I’m no longer part of the social fabric that makes up the interwebs.
Except, I never really was anyway.
Once my mind got through the initial detox of screen time the next round of loss began. The loss of perceived friendships. I learned that the people that care about mhy thoughts, feelings, and experiences are the ones that share life with me in the here and now, no digital media required.
Living outside the screen isn’t as glamorous or predictable as an algorithm. It’s better, and it’s all created with heart. Receiving healthy doses of dopamine and oxytocin stimulated by human interaction is key to closing the gap of need verses want with social media.
Capturing More Sunsets
The discomfort of rediscovering life outside social media is well worth the exploration. The buzz of life is tangible everywhere, no filter required. A healthy boundary with how we interact with these systems is key. A good detox from them is the best place to start.
If you can’t imagine walking away from your social media hit daily, I’m here to tell you that you have a problem.
Discovering how to build boundaries begins with knowing who you are at your depths. If you don’t know, it’s time to find out. Multiple shifts have happened in my life in the last few years, many of them requiring the mental fortitude that comes from a depth of thinking not fostered in the socials.
I am certain that I would not have been able to handle them with as much grace as I did if I didn’t have a new level of emotional maturity that living life with a full perspective brings.
For me, social media created a short sidedness that limited my visions. Human minds are meant to solve complex issues for daily survival. We have grown lax in our modern comforts, soft in the body.
With social media our brains have become lazy, we allow our socials feed to be what we are mental faculties are fed. Life is meant to be a legacy of experiences- family, good deeds, things we have built in our lifetimes. All shared in the collective memory of our own personal lives.
Social media footprint need not apply.
I am happier, more self-aware, and have better boundaries in many areas of my life since leaving the socials. I don’t start sentences with “I saw this thing on Insta today…”.
I am more fulfilled because I’ve reclaimed my time and use it on my terms. I’m chasing my dreams, spending precious time with my growing children, exploring the wild world.
Boundaries not ultimatums
Social media keeps recreating itself, either through new apps or rebranding. Most of these promising a healthy, more supportive way to receive information or to connect with other like minded individuals.
Few deliver on the promise- mainly because we have already been trained to get the serotonin hit- our creative monkey mind will do whatever it takes to find it. I’ve tested some of these new startups. I quickly removed myself. I am no longer a social media user for any other reason than to market myself and my family business.
So what can one do when they need social media to traverse the marketing world?
After many months offline it was time for me to jump back into the socials world, but with set boundaries in place.
I created one simple rule as my boundary line:
Social media would only be utilized as a tool, not as a source of entertainment.
To enforce this boundary in the early days I utilized a timer to keep me honest. I’m not perfect. I failed many times before I mastered myself to do only what I was getting online to do. I also implemented a few other measures that were supportive to my goals: I have never utilized Instagram again. I only access FB on my computer. Using my phone for socials is too easy therefore I only have services loaded that cannot be utilized through a web browser.
Life is full of social media, creating healthy boundaries with them is the next step in our evolution.
Learning to live without them, as we once did, is the next adventure.
Wild Devotion was the first iteration of the Creative Mystic. I am still Wildly Devoted to my work but the name change reflected who I am, not just the identity of my writing.
The opening of this led me to think about what led to me diving into social media. I'm thinking it was the craft beer movement. There was a thing that came to be known as "beertography" where everyone would share images of the latest beer they chased down.
Then when I decided to blog about the craft beer industry, I went all in on Twitter and Instagram. I would try to take "artsier" photos of beer. I used to take images of beer labels by holding up a kaleidoscope to my phone camera lens.
Now I'm not exactly sober but have cut way back on intake. It's also part of the reason I now brew non-alcoholic Kombucha. It allows me to stay connected to a community that I loved being in.
Since I don't really go to bars and tasting rooms any more, I've largely lost touch with that community. The alcohol aside, it was an exciting, robust, and tight-knit local community that got us out and away from our devices....well, until it came time to share the latest new beer you were slaking your thirst with.