053 ☼ a week with no inst*gram
a diary excerpt
Last week I discussed cutting out some bad habits. My friend Anna talked us into giving up our respective social media addictions for a week. We struggled, we coached each other, I cheated once or twice. Without further ado, here is an abbreviated excerpt from my sprawling No Instagram diary.
day 1 monday 4/14/25
I have already tried to open instagram four times already. I've been up since 9am, it's 11:45. It's going to be a long day lol. Anna, whose stupid idea this was and who gave up tw*tter for this sober experiment, texted me to check in. "MAJOR WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS." I texted back. "Girl same!!!" She's so positive and uplifting and makes me feel like anything is possible so of course I trust her. She goes to the beach every day and rides her bikes for like 5 miles at a time. So needless to say, we're doing really well so far. It really is an addiction. The air around me feels so silent, I feel a need to chit chat, but texting feels too intimate. I'm actually doing and completing the work on my to do list. Where will I get my dopamine drip today? How will I fulfill my ambient social needs? Should I take a walk and go get a coffee? I've already had two cups!
Why does Instagram feel like walking into a busy town square for me? Even though it feels me with rage, professional jealousy, and makes me look desperate to my crush. Will they text me? I doubt it. When you use social media to feel "seen", it turns out to be unfulfilling. It's more of a fun house mirror full of your own perceived failures in comparison to an anachronistic scroll of other random people's lives for which you have little to no context. I saw a woman weeping on the phone, sitting on a boulder in the park yesterday—I doubt she posted that to instagram, but it is something I would 100% post to my burner. Sigh. Curious to figure out what need I think instagram fulfills and how to fulfill it otherwise. I think Instagram is a tool I use to avoid doing whatever it is I'm "supposed" to be doing, which is, I think, living my life?! Are friends the people you meet along the way while you're avoiding your life, or? I just love chit chatting on instagram. I miss google chat, does anyone else remember? I guess I could get a landline…but what if no one calls?
day 2 tuesday 4/15/25
In adenomyosis pain, can barely think straight. Woke up to the cats crying, ants in their food, and extreme cramps. At least it's cloudy and cozy out. Can't help but feel like all my addictions are surrogates for drinking now. Looking forward to therapy to figure this out. Would love to read some sort of nourishing text that readjusts the way I think about myself and my life instead of doing it by brute force. Anna had me start a list of everything I had going for me, things I liked about myself, accomplishments, and I was a bit dismayed at how uncomfortable the exercise made me. Z also tells me routinely I don't give myself enough credit. All I can think about are the things I haven't yet changed, like my income, or how "successful" I feel, my scope of influence, etc. All vaguely vain things I haven't detangled from my psyche, things about being a writer that may or may not exist any longer.
Perhaps I'm still in the bargaining phase of realizing that my industry, media, is dying. I still wince when people say "journalism is dead" because it's not! People with family wealth are still writing! Why not me? I added things to my list that weren't true but that I wanted to be true so as to trick my brain and maybe the universe—noy sure how this exercise works—into believing its true and therefore…happening? Is this manifesting?
Had therapy today, finally cycling through to some breakthroughs because I stopped spiraling out via social media. Today it clicked that learning that gratitude is fuel for ambition ~ focusing on what I don't have is in fact a technique for critical thinking but it's not great for a holistic approach to my life and career. I beat myself up too much because I want more, but focusing on what I lack is making me despair.
day 4 thurs 4/16/25
Miserable to be honest. Start the day with texts from Anna who wakes up earlier than me "RESISTING THE URGE"--our shared mantra. I was naughty yesterday and posted a story about AOC and neolibs and capitalist reform, oops! How am I supposed to let my fans know how hot I look? My crushes must be worried about me? The weather is cloudy so we both seem to be in mental ruts, Anna and I. I escape to T's house to parallel play aka send art fair PR emails sitting across from each other while his sweet doggy nuzzles my leg. I had writing group yesterday and proclaimed my love of social media cleanse but tbh I did nothing all day…I attempted to get some work done and did but mostly I just felt bad about myself. I also slept a lot in an adenomyosis haze, i deserve to rest and needed to. I am frankly, always worried about money and I'm exhausted by that.
I'm also routinely worried about a ambient fear of "dying alone" which just means I'm a bit tired of being single. A good crush is hard to come by during this, the male loneliness epidemic which has been rebranded to the male loser epidemic. The nicest thing any man has said to me has been uttered by men ten years my junior, that doesn't feel viable or wise. Men my age are mostly afraid of me, which is fine but also, quite boring. Tuesday had a pink cloud about it, Wednesday was rough and I cheated, today, Thursday, a miserable day to be online and glad to not be because its Guggenheim announcement day and really random people won awards. Some good, some not. My theory is that if you win a major prize before you turn 40, your personality rots away. I'm happy with my plan to meet my life partner and peak in my career in my 40-50s. Why must I think about my entire existence? Is this what I'm avoiding by not going on Instagram?!
Friday 04/18/25
I've cheated twice and I have no better thoughts in my head. The weather has been gloomy which I usually love but my thoughts are in the gutter! Forced myself into a gratitude list/meditation this morning after sleeping in (it's productive, actually, I am catching up on sleep debt tysm). Everything I've read about gratitude lists is that it's the oil that makes the ~ manifestation ~ gears turn and that positive self-talk begets better productivity. I care less about productivity than cash and life quality—I just want to make enough money to not feel catastrophically stressed every month and I know the habits I set out for myself last week are efforts toward that even if I'm in a HUGE hurry to meet those goals sooner than later. I have this idea in my head that because I'm about to be forty (in like 7 months), I need to be like Meryl Streep in a 90s NYC film. I often do this arbitrary practice where I measure my income and convert it to 1990s money and I feel better because in the 90s, magazine writers were wealthier than we are now.
My friends tell me I do not give myself enough credit and that focusing on what I lack doesn't make that lack develop, in fact it just paralyzes me so that no matter how I try, I can't move forward. Self-sabotage is an addiction all its own and every time I quit something, a gaping space opens in the foundation of my life and I realize I have to fill it with something substantive—not another addiction or bad habit. Maybe gratitude is part of assessing my life quality, would money add that much more? I'd like to go out to dinner with friends more perhaps but who says I can't do that now? I have two drafts that are very late and need to be filed, I have one major copywriting job to wrap up by end of weekend, and I have hours to gain on my book overview. What if I just drink a bunch of coffee and knock it out? Can't do that unless I'm telling myself I can do it. I can fucking do it.
Saturday 04/19/25
Am I learning any lessons? I am addicted to social media, I have no meaningful third space, and I am obsessed with getting attention. So all in all, I'm human and probably need a partner/roommate lol! I made a new life plan: sell the book, work on two more, fall in love, travel around Europe, settle in the desert. I'm convinced if I say these things out loud, the more likely they are to happen. So here we go.
Sunday 04/20/25
I woke up at 2pm today, I don't know why. I still love Easter sunday. Had a breakthrough this morning with Anna, my trip sitter in life (the trip being life itself yes, but also, learning to accept and love one's efforts). Emotional impermanence is a condition of addiction i think, I told Anna. Bc you always want more instead of looking at what you have. "Gratitude is the key to productivity!" I yelped during writing group. Self-affirmation is the juice to productivity. I added. "Really?" D had asked, "Like telling myself I'm good at stuff?" yes precisely. It's uncomfortable, I used to be good at it, but I wanted things more back then and I was younger, but now we have to adopt it even when our bodies change, when we don't feel up to the challenge, when circumstances have us second guessing. My brain is used to something Being Wrong. But what if nothing was wrong? Our brains believe what we tell them so we may as well get it into a good place while we manage everything going wrong outside our bodies, in order to make the world a safe and better place for more people. ☼
I love u ur a STAR
Ok you did it though