volume forty-five
canât quit you, baby
CW: mental health struggles, hints of assault and harassment.
I was struggling to find the words to say that I was struggling. There I sat on a zoom screen, talking to someone I had only seen outside of the two-dimensional form once or twice by that point, and both from a distance. I was fumbling my sentences trying to express that I was just so incredibly unhappy. Was it homesickness? Loneliness? The impending doom of the weight of the world? The fact that nothing was currently what I had hoped it would be? All of the above?
All I knew was that I wasnât coping and the one huge part of my life that was feeling like a weight hanging off me was my job. Not because they were at all the cause of any of these feelings â but more so that because I had this job, everything else felt heavier and impossible and stuck. I just didnât have it in me anymore to care. But I couldnât say only that. So I tried to explain my mental health struggles to the best of my ability, I tried to express how this was a long time coming, tried to say that I just need to be at home with my grandparents, I think, as soon as I could be. Or at the very least not use my brain for my current role because I just had nothing left in me to carry that out.
The common response I get to opening up to harder times, when they come, is that I am such a positive person, how could that be? This person said all the things they needed to and heard me out and supported me to what I believe was the best of their ability when their job was pulling them in a million different ways and this was certainly not priority number one (or two or three or four). But the things they likely won't even remember saying that still eat at me much, much later is that âyou are just so open on social media and you donât seem this way thereâ or something to that note. They also said that when we move away from family that it is a choice, and we know that going into it it will be hard.
This is exactly what I didnât need to hear in a state of breaking during a global pandemic. Nothing felt like a choice anymore. I didnât choose to be away from my family this long, or from friends or from anyone that felt like home.
But yes, I am very open on social media. And nothing on there alluded to my struggles. I spoke openly about being sober, my sexuality and my crushes â much like this love letter. But because I hadnât publicly declared âI am not okayâ it didnât feel real, therefore making it hard for this person to process and quite frankly it felt like they didnât believe me.
I hit post for the first time in a long time, encouraged by my friend who sat beside me at the beach. Laying back with my upper body propped on bent elbows, the sun coated my face and body with my head tilted back, eyes closed yet not seen behind my sunglasses. In that moment, the pain was not there. The sadness wasnât real. The empty and lonely basement apartment that awaited me wasnât here. The immigration struggles hanging over my head that made me feel neither here nor there and entirely powerless werenât there at the beach. The fact that I couldnât remember the last time I didnât cry myself to sleep wasnât here on the sand. The name-calling and anger towards myself, the way I would never talk to anyone else, didnât occur there in the sun. The bank account kept afloat by working all day and night got a short break, as did my tired and sore body, for just a couple of hours, and my soul got a little of its desire back temporarily while laying next to my friend.
I felt nothing for the first time in months, then when those tiny red hearts started popping up and the flame emojis and the compliments trickled in I felt something different to what life had felt like for almost a year. That momentary rush of worth with each and the next carried me on my walk back to the dark of my basement apartment where I dropped my beach bag as my eyes adjusted to the stark contrasted dark from the sunshine of outside.
I saw my memorised follower count drop by one. I saw it happen even though that is impossible. Click. Gone. And I knew exactly who couldnât see me happy and it was confirmed with a scarily quick search that happened like a reflex to see they were no longer keeping up with me.
I was back in the dark, the photo of me happy just a mirage, my followers unable to see the girl in the foetal position on her floor, crying as she hated herself for all of this bothering her so much, but only for ten minutes, because it was time to get ready for work.
If the product is free then you are the product.
I hear this on a podcast and my mind is blown. I have heard this before as it went straight over my head, but suddenly it clicks as they explain how they deleted their social media account created just for words that fit into a certain count when they realised contributing was giving their precious thoughts and ideas away (at least that was my takeaway after listening).
Suddenly I am realising I havenât written a joke in an incredibly long time, and my rekindled love for writing comes second to the instant gratification of a like or two on a passing thought scribbled into the short-form format.
Not fleshed out. Not wondered if I even believe it or if it is just quirky enough in the moment to hopefully get the attention of a crush. Not considered how I could explore this or dig deeper and get to its core.
If it gets me the instantaneous applause of a click then it is good enough for me. But this podcast helps me realise that it is not good enough. My thoughts and feelings deserve more. They deserve time and effort and they certainly donât belong to the entire world.
âCan you remind me of the password for our account?â they ask, after an already very heated conversation as collaborators. I have decided to move on, pass the torch, giving my blessing to continue without me or with someone else. As a result, they pull away and continuously flake which hurts me and in response, I regrettably attempt to hurt them back with my angry attitude and harsh tone.Â
It gets ugly, but we agree to see this out as far as we have already taken it, then it is all theirs.
I send them the password and go back to my work. But my gut tells me something isnât right so I attempt to log on and suddenly I have lost all access to everything we built together â the email has been changed associated with the account so I cannot retrieve the password that has also been changed.
The account is theirs now, and with my angry pleading to at least let me see this out as agreed, that they owe me that, they laugh it off as if I asked for this. They play it like my departure was something that meant this was the obvious next step. They play it as if they are doing me a favour. But it was calculated to lock me out to hurt me in our game of cat and mouse where we are both guilty, and it worked. I obsessively refresh that page until it updates to private and I no longer have access to a world I helped create. Against my wishes and through their spite, in a few clicks, they are able to take it all away and there is nothing I can do about it except get over it.
An email pops up to tell me that my profile has had new views. A professional profile meant for networking and securing employment â an online resume. The face that pops up is not a stranger, not a potential future employer, not a new connection at all.
I know them. I know them well. They were once a friend, someone I cheered for loudly on the sidelines, someone I enjoyed spending time with, and someone I had to block on all my social platforms.
I didnât think of here. They found me here. Found me when I tried to cut ties. Found me when they associated themself with someone who took advantage of me. I let it go, after all, it had been some time since we had contact given we lived in different cities now. I thought I could go quietly, saving myself the torture of seeing that bad manâs face pop up in the comfort of my apartment on the other side of the country just because this person decided he would make a good podcast guest.
But it wasnât quiet. Someone else said what I didnât, and called them out for it and then the messages came: emails, texts, direct messages. Nope, nope, nope, nope. I donât have the energy to relive this all over again. Block and delete.
But then came the abusive messages from âanonymousâ accounts and âterribleâ reviews on my podcast as a way to spite me. I was able to shrug them all off, knowing they couldnât actually get access to me. Yet they proved me wrong and found a way, and this platform was telling me in real-time that he was thinking of me at three oâclock in the morning.
âLauren, can we talk about this?â my messages alert me that he has reached out.
âWe have spoken about it, we settled it. I forgave you, then you decided to take it public. I am done talkingâ.
A man who took advantage, a friend I trusted, someone I gave the time to talk to about and believe that it was a misunderstanding has now used it all against me for his attempt at professional gain. We as the women he has harmed, have to relive his hurt all over again but this wonât be the last time.
Even when I block him, every time someone gives him a platform I see his face pop up on my screen and my gut will lurch and I will be reminded of what happened, not just by him but by every other.
I go to look at her profile, realising it has been a while since I have seen anything from my friend, wondering if the stupid algorithm has pushed her down like it does so many.
I see I am no longer following her and she is no longer following me.Â
She has decided that is best for her without discussing it with me and while that hurts, I accept that boundary she has put up for herself. I leave it there. She did what she had to do. Breakups are messy â especially when I am friends with both parties. I know all too well the jolt in the tummy you get when you open your phone to see a face you donât want to. Protecting yourself is important.
But then time passes, and a message is sent that confuses me. It asks me in riddles about our friendship, a friendship I had accepted she no longer wanted. I can see she has been watching my story, assuming she has been seeing what she didnât want to see: that I have not chosen a side despite her best efforts to turn me against the other.
Maybe by not choosing, I am choosing. Until it is no longer a maybe and I have chosen. I switch my account to private.
This is a messy mind vomit this week, friends. I am not sure what I want from socials anymore, if anything, as the more I feel I share here without pressure, the more I get out of sharing here and the more I loathe there. Sharing here is sharing the real me, on a deeper level, in an honest way. It is not a highlight reel meant to suck me in on a loop like a hamster wheel every time I open it.
For two weeks I have been turning my phone off at nine oâclock and turning it back on later the next day. It varies. Sometimes I have to make a call at eight, other days it can stay untouched until eleven before I need it.
I know that once I turn it on I resist the urge to open those apps I have shoved way to the end of my swipe screens. Right to the very last page in the hopes it will be âtoo much effortâ for me to get there and not in my face as a temptation.Â
The thing I notice is that in the same way I used to drink before getting sober, the same way I eat potato chips or a block of chocolate or a bowl of pasta, the same way I clean my house, and the same way I will read my emails â once I start I cannot stop. If only I never opened the app, then I never would feel the need to pull myself off it. If only I never checked it, I can spend the day not wondering what I am missing. As I write this right now I know I posted a picture earlier and the temptation to go and see how many likes it has gotten is like a magnet pulling my right hand from one side of the keyboard to the phone sitting next to me.
And I give in.
I have too much fear of missing out (on what it could do for me) to delete all my socials now. I have just one platform left and it is the one I cannot give up. It still remains linked below. It still lives in my email signature. It still lives in my podcast show notes.
It still exists in my every waking moment.
Maybe I can try what I have tried before: no socials before five in the evening, no socials before reading ten pages of my book, no socials for more than thirty minutes in a dayâŚ
No matter what, the addiction is real and the heat and heartbreak that cannot exist without it are desirable. But not as desirable as instant satisfaction.
I love you,
Lauren xoxo
Three things I struggled with this week:
đą Isnât it obvious?
đ Honestly, getting this to you on time was a struggle this week.Â
â Saying no to things I donât need to do and just trying to fucking chill.
Three blessings from this week:
đş I have been so stretched that binging hasnât even been an option, but I managed to get in ONE episode of Ozark this week (NO SPOILERS PLEASE) which has been one of my favourite shows for so long. I love this song, and I love it even more now, thanks to the scene it accompanied, which I will just say if you know you know, as I donât want to the be the one with spoilers.
đ Finally backed up my photos from Australia and got to remind myself how much IÂ cannot wait to get back.
đ Got an invitation to one of my favourite peopleâs weddings this week. I maybe cried about it later I was so happy. I will for sure cry at the wedding itself, it is not even a question.
Three goals for the coming week:
đť I had a moment this week where two of us jumped on a video call and realised we both considered cancelling as we were not feeling up to it due to being exhausted for different reasons. So we said a quick hello and jumped off to give us time back. More of taking care of ourselves and respecting peopleâs screen (and other) fatigue, please.
âď¸ I have booked my entire Saturday (except for the evening when I will attend Queer Trivia from the comfort of my couch, and I cannot wait) as a âsee how you feel and do nothing if that is what you needâ. Your girl is struggling with returning to some kind of normal and is a little burrrrrrrrnt out.
âď¸ Calling a friend that just hasnât been able to happen for weeks as I keep being too busy, and I need to catch up with her, it has been too long. I will do so from the comfort of my bed or on a sunny walk if I want to, that is okay. I will also attempt to write back to all the texts I have sitting unread. I see you, friends!
What I am enjoying this week:Â
I am thrilled to announce I will again be taking part in the Walk for Alzheimerâs fundraiser THIS SUNDAY, which raises money for vital research and support for those living with dementia and their loved ones. I will be walking in honour of my Poppy, who also celebrates his birthday this month. A lot of you got to know him over the course of volume 23 to volume 30 and while these funds will impact families in BC, I believe that focussing local has a global result and I am honoured to help those out in my community. If you have the means, it would be wonderful if you could donate here, My goal is to reach my fundraising goal! No amount is too small and every bit helps. If you canât donate, I encourage you to check out the amazing work of the organisation. Thank you, friends!Â
hi, lauren deborah! is free for subscribers every week. feel I am not sharing enough? ask me a question and I will answer it in a future post.
if you would like to say thanks for this love letter, please like or comment (it means so much to me to hear from you đ§Ą), forward it to a friend who might enjoy it or you can show your support and buy me a slice đ
Damn, girl you made me cry. Buckets of love...
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