Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Comments

  1. I deleted it because all it achieved was that it upset me and made me feel I was missing out and life is too short for that rubbish!

    With me it was the wedding pictures that upset me and the engagement and announcements of being in a relationship when I was without and I had deleted those people off there who had those things just for that reason which sounds irrational but I did it because I was jealous and nothing else.

    Also people who have their own homes stirred up jealousy in me and social events especially when I was feeling low.

  2. During my early, very dark days I ended up deleting my profile for about 6 months. But then I had people texting and emailing me, asking why I unfriended them which made things worse. I live across the country from my family and a lot of friends and Facebook is a handy tool to keep in touch with minimal effort.

    However, my happiest day was discovering the “hide” button. There was a time when I’d start hiding people as soon as a pregnancy was announced (particularly if accompanied by ultrasound photo). For a while, I had hidden people from my feed as well as hiding myself from theirs (yay, privacy options!) so I wouldn’t get ninja comments/likes from people I was actively trying to avoid. As the years passed, I slowly got better and fewer posts set me off and I slowly added many people back. Some remain hidden because all they can talk about is their kids (I do the same for all one-note posters regardless the topic just because it gets old).

    I actively remind myself that people who feel driven to present a perfect life on social media are overcompensating for something, and that helps. Not that I still don’t have days where I want to throw my computer out the window, but those days are slowly decreasing. It really does get better. Allow yourself the freedom to protect yourself from the things that hurt you when you are most vulnerable.

    • I live an even thousand miles from my parents and siblings, so Facebook is a nice way to keep in touch with them, but for certain others I agree: the “hide” button is awesome! I also love the “acquaintances” list; the number of people whose posts I look at regulars is actually pretty small because everyone else is an “acquaintance”.