The morning after the weekend before…

I’ve toyed with writing this post all day; having vowed to have a break from social media blogging etc. but it just occurred to me on the train home that this is the sort of thing I should be writing about and what I promised to write about. So, as a sort of follow-on to my post below, here’s how my weekend panned out.

Almost immediately after posting the blog below, I got the fear. The fear that people were going to read it and think I was insane. I thought people were going to think I was crazy writing such a dramatic post about a band. And coupled with the fact it didn’t get as many like, shares and views as my previous posts, I spiraled into a horrible place where I was checking my phone every 2 minutes and was full of embarrassment and self-loathing. More so than I have been in a long long time.

In my head people were laughing at me; people who I really wanted to be accepted by. Having worked in music, I’ve got friends and acquaintances who work in the industry with great jobs, and I was overwrought with the idea that they were going to have read the blog and think I was ridiculous. And then I got the idea in my head that I might see some of these people at one of the two nights I was heading to see the band and started telling myself I couldn’t go. And then I started thinking; what if someone in the band or someone that knows the band has read it? They’ll think I’m ridiculous too. What if I said something that they might be offended by? What if they think I’m sad? And on it went.

By the time the evening came around, I’d convinced myself I couldn’t go. I’d spent the whole day working myself up that I now felt physically ill; I had palpitations, I couldn’t catch my breath, I felt sick – all over a blog.

Somehow Tom managed to convince me to go, knowing that if I didn’t I would regret it. And I’m pleased to say that I had the best night. As soon as they came on, all my worries disappeared; my only concern being “what are they going to play next?”. It was as if someone had taken my brain away for a few hours and it was a sheer delight.

But as soon as we left and I came home, it hit me again. This time I was worried I’d posted too many pictures on Instagram. Worried that people were looking at them and thinking “oh dear god not another one”. I only posted two, but in my mind that was the equivalent of 200.

And that was how much of the weekend went; I spent it in utter embarrassment, humiliation and deep sadness. Don’t get me wrong I loved every second of both gigs – they were phenomenal. But the whole weekend was tinged with this overriding anxiety that I had done something mortifying.

Obviously such levels of anxiety over a blog post aren’t the norm, I know that, and I’m sure there’s other factors that lead to me having such a bloody awful weekend, but I do know one thing; social media doesn’t help.

I plan to write something more about how social media has hindered my anxiety and depression in the future, but I really wanted to share my experience this weekend. I’m very sad and annoyed that I allowed myself to become so consumed by it all especially as this was a weekend I had been looking forward to for months.

Social media is meant to be fun, it shouldn’t be something that we use against ourselves, we shouldn’t allow how many likes we have dictate our self worth.