One of the reasons I quit blogging when my child was born was the anxiety. I was seeing the world in a negative light and with the comments my blog received being downright racist and abusive, I just didn’t want to deal with it anymore. It was dehumanizing.
I’m noticing in the world with access to people’s real thoughts as they feel comfortable sharing them while hiding behind a computer screen; people are awful. The idea that people are inherently good is no longer a reality for me. Tied in with the 24 hour news cycle of constant negative information, especially for people of color, and the inability of Facebook and Twitter to keep racism, sexism, and downright abuse off of their platform, I get anxiety.
I’ve learned that as a black women, I am truly alone in this world. White people hate black people. Asian, Hispanic, and middle eastern people hate black people. They say we deserve to get shot. They celebrate our failures, and I’m learning black men don’t like black women.
I used to get annoyed when non black people in real life would share stories about how racist their families were and would want my reaction. Some kind of suffer porn as they shared these stories for no reason except to see my reaction, while not mentioning what they did to resolve the racism they saw firsthand. Because they probably didn’t do anything.
That is Facebook for me right now, except it’s just the whole world sharing awful things for no real reason. I’m guilty of this as well. Most of us are. We need to stop. It’s become too much.
I always knew this, but to be exposed to it on a 24/7 cycle is unnerving.
So I’m giving myself a challenge. An ode to self care. I’m going to leave facebook for two weeks. I’m going to step away from twitter and the news. I’m going to focus on ideas I have for my blog. I’m going to focus “fun things” like discussions about purses. I don’t want to hear anything about Trump, racism, or any other type of awful thing.
I realize it’s selfish and I should be aware of the world, but my problem is I’m too aware. I want to track how I feel about things with and without access to news. Will I still be uptight and anxious as I see once again people informing me my life has less value due to my skin color? Will I stop feeling helpless? These are things I need to learn and understand. I think stepping away from the 24 hour news cycle and politics on social media will give me somewhat of a breather from all the negative things.
Let’s hope anyway.
