This Is The Reason I Stopped Posting on my Facebook Personal Account For a Month

• Self-care.
• Mental health.
• Personal boundaries.
• D, all of the above. 

Never a fan of discussing politics or religion on social media, I decided long before the election not to discuss anything having to do with either subject on any of my social media channels unless it has to do with topics I’m passionate about: sexual abuse or trauma of any kind, and women’s rights. If these topics arise, I made the decision to share articles I had personally researched and vetted, due to the plethora of fake news (more on that in a bit).

Regardless, I found Facebook to sometimes be a hotbed of attacks and derision. I suppose it’s because there are no limit constraints — people write opinion novels, without regard to respecting what someone has curated on their own personal wall. I’m all for polite discourse, yet I found this to be rare. No, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. How boring. Yes, I do expect respect and adulting. No name-calling, which sadly happens frequently. Come on, people.

Yes, I realize, as the account owner, I can go through the effort of creating lists of who sees what, but I simply do not have the time (single mom of two teens, entrepreneur, working author, marketer, blah blah blah). Creating lists of whose feelings might be hurt on Facebook is not a priority for me.

So, with all this in mind, I decided: fuck it. I’m only going to post in my Street Team (a closed group — click if you want to request access) or on my verified author and business pages (save the occasional cat photo or quote). Still sharing articles, blog posts, insider tips, quotes, etc., there, and I’ve connected with some amazing people on Facebook who have become real-life friends, who’ve asked me to write for them (and me, them), and I’ve created and connected with an incredible survivor community (a private, secret group).

It’s not that I stopped using Facebook altogether — just my personal wall. If people wanted to find me, they could. I’m very active on Twitter, so they could always find me there, too.

Why I really stopped posting? What happened while I stopped posting? Where am I now? Let’s deconstruct. 

Why I Stopped Posting on my Personal Facebook Account

I realize my expectations are pretty high, but here’s my thinking: if you want to post racist shit on your wall, that’s your right. I have no right to go to your wall and tell you what to write or share or think because it’s yours. You curate it, you own it. That’s how it works. I respect your right to be a complete jar of hate and I will say nothing on your personal account.

Now, if you post that cowardly crap on a public page? That’s an entirely different story. Then you are fair game.

See the difference?

Apparently, I’m living in Ideal World, where I expect the same of others. Where, when they come to my personal account (aka, wall), they don’t call me names (or others who post comments and replies) or demand I do not share what I’ve shared because they respect my right to post what I want.

I don’t remember reading anywhere in the Facebook Rules having to ask permission of anyone else for what I’m allowed to post — is this a group decision? Do I need to ask “Mother, may I?” before sharing my thoughts and opinions on my own wall?

I’m not a baby and I’m not ego-bruised easily. I’m a fucking survivor and I was a salesperson for seventeen years. This isn’t about that. This is about me deciding not to deal with the whiners and armchair judges. Sure, I blocked people or unfriended. Yet, it didn’t feel like it was enough. So, I just…stopped.

And…the world didn’t end. And it was peaceful. And the angels…okay, that’s going too far. But it was nice.

Of course, being an anxious person, I started to worry: when we stop interacting with people of dissenting opinions, are we placing ourselves in a utopian tunnel of sameness? Will I stop seeing colors, a lá, The Giver? Will I let my hair go gray and get really bad bangs?

What Happened While I Stopped Posting on Facebook

A lot. Weinstein, senators, newsmen, actors, other directors…the list goes on. #MeToo became Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. And it’s about damn time. Millions of survivors have been sharing our stories of survival for years; many more have been living with the effects of sexual trauma even longer.

As a vocal, fierce advocate, I’ve gone toe to toe with people who seem to think some kinds of trauma don’t matter, aren’t as bad as others — because, you know, it’s up to, apparently, people who haven’t been sexually assaulted to decide exactly how traumatized a survivor is allowed to be — or question why some survivors waited so long to report (fear, humiliation, shame, and grooming, just to name a few).

I wrote about this for Daniel Maurer’s Transformation is Real site (I’m a regular contributor now) and the response has been mostly terrific. The only place it wasn’t? Facebook, where some people decided I was a victim who ‘couldn’t get over it,’ because writing and sharing experiences mean a survivor is still a victim, I guess. And even if I were, so what? At eleven years old, I was a victim of an egregious crime, in the legal sense of the word. I testified, and the perpetrator went to jail for eighteen months. Victims are not at fault. No victim, no survivor, ever.

I’m not sure what it is about the Facebook dynamic that creates this pile-on, mob mentality, where total strangers demand their needs be met, particularly when an issue has nothing to do with them. My experience and the #MeToo experiences of millions of other survivors don’t belong to them. It’s not their narrative to shift and change to fit their comfort level. Yet still, they accuse us of wanting money, attention, fame. It’s sickening.

Is this mentality exclusive to Facebook? No. We see it everywhere. I see it on Twitter as well, however, the content limitations of Twitter require brevity. They also conveniently have a Mute button.**

**Just announced this week: Facebook now has a Snooze Option. Read more here.

Where Am I Now? Mixed.

Am I hiding, giving away my power or running away? Nope. I made a conscious choice to only interact with groups and people important to me. This is me taking my power back and only being accessible to people I want to interact with regularly.

As a test, I started posting again on my personal account this past week and sure enough, Trump supporters showed up to denigrate an article I shared as fake news (despite the fact that I had vetted the article, backed it up with sources and witnesses who were there that said what happened, happened).

Here’s my issue with that fake news claim: it’s awfully convenient to call an article one disagrees with “fake news.” That’s Propaganda 101. Here’s my process for posting articles: I personally review every article I share and ensure I can find another source (see, we have this thing you may have heard of, this search engine called Google where you can search stuff — though I do recommend searching incognito to avoid the filter bubbles). Politicians will have you believe that certain sites are liberal or conservative depending on their ‘side,’ and therefore cannot be believed.

I call bullshit on this ridiculous bias. I minored in Journalism in college, and wrote for several magazines and newspapers after college. I write for many publications now. Regardless of what you’ve been fed, there are amazing journalists out there with integrity who just want to bring you the news.

This bias has a name, by the way: the hostile media effect. “The very nature of bias is that it’s a perception — it’s something that people see and they base it on what they see. Basically, whenever people are engaged in an issue, they see coverage as biased against their position, no matter what it is.” (Source: Dave D’Alessio, Journal of Communications)

Wake the hell up, people. Use your brains. Do your research. Especially if you are writers!

I provide source materials and facts to back up what I say. Your personal prejudices may keep you from believing something but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Yes, journalists and news sites make mistakes and they retract them. In this incredibly fast, minute-by-minute news cycle, it happens.

I normally don’t share political or religious articles on social media. Why did I share this one? Because it was about LGBT and black reporters being shunned by the White House holiday party, for the first time in a generation. Because the issue matters to me. Because it’s my right to share it. Then I stepped away to work and eat and I came back and wow — mud-slinging and nastiness. So I said ***COMMENTS CLOSED*** and figured okay, everyone settle down, let’s just go on with our lives.

But, nooooo. They continued to go at it. It’s 24 hours later as I write this and people are still leaving comments UNDER where I wrote ****COMMENTS CLOSED**** to tell me how unfair it is they were being picked on and disrespected after they picked on and disrespected others. Um…

Seriously? Adulting Time. Let it go. This is not your wall. Take it over to your wall, or go read a book, or write a blog post, or kiss your kid, or volunteer for your political party, or a homeless shelter or watch Buffy. I don’t know, but stop posting on my wall about how unfairly you’ve been treated over inflammatory comments you left on a post you didn’t like and called fake news.

There is Life Outside of Facebook. Live It

Ultimately, I’m posting again because of my advocacy for survivors. It’s important to me to use my voice and platform for those who can’t or aren’t able to speak about their abuse.

Compassion matters. Survivors matter. In the end, that’s all. That’s everything.

Will I unfriend and block people? I have, my friends, I have. I find Facebook exhausting sometimes. And a time-suck. Despite the many benefits of connecting with readers, family, and friends, what I’ve discussed today are real drawbacks that can and do affect me and countless others. Setting boundaries is crucial. So is living life off the damn computer and phone.

I truly do not have answers, and I’m sure sharing this will incite people who disagree with me, which is cool. I’m an adult and this is my blog. I get to say and share and rant as I please. And hey, as I say, disagree with me. Let’s discuss it. Politely, without name-calling, in a way we can all learn.

Otherwise, we might as well be mumbling to ourselves in a corner, wondering where all the colors have gone.

 

For Rachel’s poetry and memoirs, go to Amazon