a lot of my self hatred has stemmed from the internet since i was a teenager progressing into an adult, i don’t necessarily blame the internet for my low self esteem but i definitely think it has taken a huge part. I guess it depends how often you use the internet, but for a lot of people the internet is a huge part of our lives & it has been a huge part of mine. Having constant access to social media growing up & in adulthood, feels like a very different source of entertainment than films or TV. When you’re watching tv & you see someone who is good looking, of course you think they look nice, but I think because there is a storyline to what you’re watching, you do get past that and im not saying the feeling of comparing yourself isn’t there, but I just feel like it’s not as bad as the internet, but that really does depend on what you watch because there are a lot of series I find myself comparing my life to. I guess we have unlimited access to the internet & it’s easier to just watch YouTube videos or scroll through social media at any time of the day but I feel like it comes at a risk because it is unlimited, to much of anything can become bad for us and when you are on the internet all day & night at that point, it has pretty much become your life. It’s something you are taking in constantly and your brain becomes reliant on it. In a way the internet, tv & gaming are very similar, they are all screens (obviously lols) but they are things that we take into our psych everyday and a lot of the time it’s just habit, it’s not really something we are aware of all of the time, but it is effecting the way we think & how we view the world, life and others.
i would always think why don’t i have a good life like the youtubers i watched, why am i not as pretty as these instagrammers that i follow. so i tried my hardest to look better so i could be ‘up to standards’ or even be accepted in society. it still effects me now & i want to be honest about that, but it’s not just the way i look, it makes me think what is wrong with me? why am i not as funny as them, why am i not as outgoing as them, why am i not as good as them. In a way I guess I looked up to a lot of people on the internet, but i was constantly comparing myself & my life to theirs. So really was it good for me to look up to them? I’ve learnt a lot from youtubers, but there kind of lies the problem. You rely on these people to learn so many different things, but they aren’t always things that are forfilling, it definitely helped in the moment to distract me from my thoughts like a lot of entertainment, like a distraction from feeling alone or my thoughts but then I would watch a vlog of a group of friends going somewhere amazing and if anything that would make me feel even more isolated, because i wish i could have the life they had. I think it’s amazing for successful youtubers to have these amazing lives because they worked hard for it, i don’t think badly of them or dislike them but the whole point I’m trying to make is when you are constantly watching someone else’s amazing life unfold online you start to question your own life and think ‘why don’t i deserve a life like theirs?’ In a way, I guess you feel left out, kind of like you are less than other people because they have such an amazing reality & you feel like you don’t. You feel left behind and forgotten about, because you see these people who are living so amazingly but also, they are so loved and appreciated by everyone and you start to think ‘maybe if i change these aspects about myself people will like me too.’ and it hurts my heart that younger me felt that way and sometimes still does.
When I was younger, I didn’t really start using the internet until I was 12. I got a laptop for my 12th birthday and i literally cried and jumped up and hugged my parents i was so excited! But I never really used the internet much before that, only at primary school for school work and for games, but never for social media. I never really cared about the way i looked until I was 12, i was a chubby tom boy and makeup and clothes just didn’t really interest me, it’s confusing to explain I guess but from being born to the age of around 7, my mum would dress me up in really girly clothes and dresses but then when I got to 8, as i had more of a say in what I wore I didn’t really care about dresses or girly things I just wore what I felt comfortable in and I was most comfortable being a tom boy. I’m not sure if that’s a good term to use, it was used when i was little but i don’t really like it for myself, i guess what im trying to say is i just wore whatever made me comfortable because i didn’t really feel like a boy or a girl i just didn’t care or really have the awareness of what gender i was being a child that felt non existent for me. I just knew i preffered the tom boyish clothes because i felt comfortable in them.
When I got to 12, i did start to become more conscious of the way i looked because i spent the last 5 years being bullied for looking like a boy and being fat, i was a child. Why did anyone care what i looked like. And i guess that’s the most worrying thing about today, because if i was being bullied for the way i looked when the internet wasn’t a big thing in children’s lives, it scares me to think of what bullying must be like now especially for the way someone looks or how they dress or how much money they have. That is a lot of pressure for anyone to grow up in.
Until I was 12, I didn’t really care but then things started to change after going through the bullying and being a fat child, I started high school and there was even more pressure for the way you looked, the Internet was being used a lot more and social media, i would talk to my friends on my laptop everyday and i would be using social media everyday. I was at this huge school where there were people who were older than me & they intimidated me, they are we’re older, popular and yep i was scared of them lol. I started to wear a little bit of makeup and eventually over the next two years i looked like a different person but I still don’t know if it was good or bad, i did feel a little better in the way i looked but i also felt like i wasn’t as good as others. I still got bullied through out school, for the size of my nose. I had a bump on the side so I was picked on for that, i was picked on for being to sensitive or shy and a list of things that I won’t really go into because i know that I’ve explained it before so it’s probably getting boring now, but getting bullied for your personality aswell as the way you look just adds more damage, i started to become really paranoid about myself and started to shut myself away in my bedroom. Eventually I decided to leave school, people found out i was mentally ill and that I tried to take my life, my friends fell out with me and it just felt like my whole world ended, I would cry in my room everyday and sit in the dark ignoring everyone. I couldn’t face people, I couldn’t face going into school, I couldn’t face being called weird or being called names anymore so I left. My childhood & the way I viewed myself was completely damaged, i had no confidence left in me. Eventually i started to gain weight again from being so depressed so my confidence just went down even more, people from school were still talking about me behind my back and calling me fat, I couldn’t really win. There was always something wrong with me, even when I shut myself away and hid myself i was still a laughing stock.
From being in my room most days, I started to watch YouTube videos a lot more and Instagram was a brand new app (it feels like a life time ago!) I felt like it was such an amazing escape for me, I watched shaaanxo makeup tutorials, Jenna marbles and a few other YouTubers but it was that long ago I can’t remember maybe if I scrolled back all the way through my YouTube likes I could find out who! But after losing myself, it felt really awesome to have a distraction and it felt comforting for me, youtube felt a lot more simple back then & Instagram did to :’) the picture quality on Instagram was absolutely awful but the memories bring me so much happiness.
Eventually after a couple of years, i started to go out more again but I was drinking more and doing more drugs & i wouldn’t really eat much. I lost a lot of weight, i went down to nearly 7 st and it kept getting lower and i know it’s stupid looking back on it now but I felt the best I ever felt in my life, so I carried on not eating, I carried on doing drugs but my mental health started to get so bad and my BPD was getting worse. Eventually but slowly I started to try to get better and my parents helped me with it, i went on medication and I tried to look after myself more but I kept relapsing and I kept coming off my medication and I was still obsessed with my weight. At this point, this is when YouTube, tumblr & Instagram became a lot more popular and I started to completely compare my life and the way i looked to them. I became more obsessed with losing weight, i would try to lose weight dangerously with diet pills and all kinds of things, i was damaging my body everyday, over exercising and i still never felt good enough no matter what my size was and I still don’t. It’s a battle in my head constantly, because social media has changed so much from then to now, there are so much more helpful accounts that make you feel better and try to uplift you but I still can’t help but feel like im nothing compared to everyone else and that’s noones fault, it’s my own. I don’t think i will ever like myself or the way i look but it’s confusing because at the same time if i am comparing myself to others and feeling all these bad things about myself then why at the same time, is there so many positives about the internet.
I’ve made amazing online friends, I’ve shared my recovery which has helped me so so much. I found the mental health community when I was at my worst. I started my Etsy shop and so many amazing things have happened from the internet, but still nothing i do feels good enough. I still don’t feel like a good enough person, I still feel less than others, my self esteem is still bad but I don’t want to leave. The mental health community is one of the places in my life where I actually have felt accepted, it helps me to feel so much less alone, it helps to distract me from a lot of things going on in my head, it gives me a sense of relief knowing I can atleast try to raise some kind of awarness or that I can vent, so I don’t want to leave. I know I have bashed the internet a lot in this post, but at the same time the internet in the last few years has been one of the best places for me so i just hate the fact that it effects me still, i wish everyday that it didn’t. I also don’t want to be an envious person or to hate myself everyday because I don’t feel like I’m good enough, i don’t want to be negative I just want to be uplifting and to help make others to feel uplifted but especially over the past few months i feel like i haven’t been able to do that. I hate how much I care about what others think of me, I hate that I am scared to be myself because i might not be good enough for someone else.
I don’t really know where this post is going, it’s just me venting and moaning. i don’t really know how anyone can listen to this lmao, but i guess it’s better than holding it in.
I’m so sorry for such a negative post, I think maybe in time i will get used to using the internet in a healthy way, but maybe that has to start from working on myself from within, like I said before it’s noones fault. But I have so much insecurities from my childhood and disordered eating, which i need to work through somehow, the internet can be so triggering for body image and self esteem so maybe it is normal to feel this way im not really sure. But i know that I just have to find a way to work on this somehow so I can just find myself again, that’s hard with BPD but there has to be a way.
Thankyou sooo so much for listening, I’m sorry if this is me just rambling on i feel kinda stupid but I guess the best thing to do is to talk otherwise I can never work through it. If any of u guys ever feel like this to, i just want u to know you are NEVER alone, i am right beside you. Constant self doubt, low self esteem and feeling like a failure is so stressful to live with, especially with so much pressure from the internet, and watching people’s lives progress constantly when you feel so behind, but i just want you to know that you are all amazing people that have achieved so much just by surviving, I love how unique you all are, I love that you stand up for things you believe in & you speak your truth. You guys inspire me everyday to be a better person & you teach me so much, i have learnt more than i ever have since being in the MH community and it’s changed me for the better. you are all so accepting, uplifting and are a ray of light in so many peoples lives & i just don’t want any of u to ever feel like you’re not enough, bc you really are more than enough. maybe this is something i need to remember for myself to, but we are all human and we are all equal, no matter where we are in life or how far we are in recovery, or what we do for work or how much money we have or the way we look, because if you took all them things away we are all still just human & the internet doesn’t define how worthy we are. you are worthy because you are a human surviving & trying your best to get through each day & i am so proud of you. i love u guys so so much & you are so loved 💕
Art/pictures are by:
@positive.plants
@abbiepaulhus
& i am not to sure who the other art is by but if u know pls let me know below & i will credit them <3 thank u loves <333
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