Back on April 30, I announced that I was doing something that I had done a few times before. Ever since a relatively recent wave of mental health issues, I have taken to simply walking away. In this case, I’m referencing that I would spend a month away from Twitter, a bastion of diverse opinions and brilliant individuals, but also home to some of my worst tendencies. Whereas every other platform hasn’t made me grow overeager for follower count or even repost numbers, there is something about festering in that mindset that is easy for me to grow addicted to. The impulse to have somebody notice me is prevalent, and sometimes it grows unhealthy. I’ve taken those months away to reprogram my brain and realize that this is all just a silly game. As much as I’d love to have the fame my warped mind seems to want, I've learned to walk away when I realize its impact on the rest of my life.
As I’ve alluded to at several points, Twitter since 2020 has also been a better place for me because I’ve used the pandemic to find community. There are people I can check in on and feel relieved to know there’s kind people in the world. In fact, they’re the ones I miss most during those months when I pull myself away, forcing me to reckon with what we’ll simply call “reality.” When I’m online, there is dissociation. As real as I feel the people are, it’s an easy tunnel into realizing my immobility, the fact that I am getting tripped up by pixels on a screen. I begin to question reality, my self-worth, and whether sitting for hours staring forward is ultimately healthy for me. Walking away is, as the common vernacular would say, a chance to touch grass; to go outside and find something tangible if just to remind yourself that there is a world out there that’s amazing and beautiful and better with you in it.
So I did what I normally did and told myself that I would sign off for a month. Four weeks was enough time to break free and figure out my summer. However, midway through May, I came to that conclusion. I didn’t feel right going back to Twitter. I would push it back to the middle of June, then July (maybe I could get some good birthday wishes). Still, it felt wrong. Suddenly, I decided the start then middle of August. As of this publication, I have all intent of returning this week and discovering just what I missed in the 3.5 months that I’ve been away.
It's surreal to think that I haven’t been on Twitter in 3.5 months, or a few over 100 days. For a website that has held an addictive hold on me, there is something to be said for this absence. I think there is a difficulty in walking away from anything that feels so co-dependent on everyday life, where I am not aware of so many conversations that have come and gone, that mostly exist because of Twitter’s love of the hyperbole. Outside of evening news, I’ve barely known what’s gone on in the world. To put it simply, I left around when Elon Musk was allegedly buying the website. I am close to a month out from when he backed out of that deal. So much happens that feels like the biggest thing in the world and yet, because of my removal, it all comes across as trivial. As it stands, I still don’t know if anyone loved Under the Banner of Heaven or not (I trust my fellow Andrew Garfield fans did).
This isn’t a post suggesting that I’m somehow morally superior to those who have spent this time chatting it up over there. In fact, I think the absence put into perspective how much of my life has relied on that social interaction. Not a week has gone by where I haven’t wondered how many followers I lost or gained, whether I’ve accidentally been linked to a viral post that was time sensitive and my quietness seems suspect. I’ve wondered what that small group of people have been up to, whether they miss me or not. Even small weekly ritual things like Letterboxd’s “Last Four Watched” is a game that I’ve missed playing. Sure, it would be different if I cut away from all social media (I still kept in touch with a few on Instagram and Facebook), but even then. Twitter is home to a lot of the major interactions, and not having them has forced me to be more “in the moment” this summer like I haven’t been in a time approaching a decade.
Those three words bring with them a certain independence that is daunting. I am unaware of most of the trends that were going on. I don’t have any attachment to this summer in a unified sense. All I really have are my own memories, which consisted of going to WNBA games, seeing Hadestown twice, and reading a dozen or so books. It’s a thrilling experience to have your mind open to an endless barrage of ideas, to be forced into public atmospheres (of healthy variety) where you have no choice but to admire nature and find things that validate YOU.
Because that’s another thing. More than addiction to acceptance, I think it was also helping me struggle with my identity. Along with TikTok, there was a period where it felt like I was consuming new information regularly. Given how much I was questioning at the time, it created a blank slate that created identity confusion and tore down boundaries that should’ve been up. I was too codependent on absorbing other people’s behaviors in my thinking and not always recognizing what was healthy coping. I still worry that it’s my way of pleasing others and not an authentic version of myself, but the time away has forced me to spend dozens of nights just working those questions out without interference, realizing what was just anxiety and what felt genuine. It was only then that I allowed myself to feel more balanced. This time away was about me, and not having to report to anyone really allows you to put down certain guards.
I know that in theory I never had to report to anyone on Twitter, but it was still the pressure to be more transparent with everyone. I’ve felt more cathartic the more that I’ve come to terms with things. However, I’m also aware in that everything I did, I had nobody outside of close circles to really talk about things with. I missed the Roe vs. Wade debates, the threats to gay marriage, Brittney Griner’s trial, the January 6 Hearings… even discussing theories on Nope (2022). I wasn’t able to discuss my love for discovering Oscar Wilde’s “The Portrait of Dorian Grey.” These moments feel lost to time and many more from May or June are gone altogether. Outside of personal documentation, these are moments that are only relegated to my experience with them, and there is a tragedy in that. To me, one of the most tragic proponents of a pandemic lifestyle is how few moments are allowed to be social and thus more connected with others, so that it’s not just glorified intimacy. Having somebody else allows the memory to grow into its own inside joke. Alone, it’s a slippery slope into potentially asking “Did that actually happen?” in four months. Validation is key.
As much as that’s painful for me, I think the experience was ultimately necessary, if just to better grasp a sense of what 100 days actually felt like. There would come a time where the need to go to Twitter was demoted from a necessity to a curiosity, and I think freeing up that side of my brain has given a greater sense of what time is. As much as a day turns into a month so easily at my age, there feels like there’s more time to be active and live in the world than there used to be. Not every day was a “life to the fullest” scenario, but you become aware of the minutia that makes this world move. The more independent your mind becomes, the more creative ideas just flow. While I don’t think I could ever fully untether like some do, I am a firm advocate for time away because, even if I’m not entirely removed from the anxiety that I had back in May, I at least have a clearer vision of my self-worth.
In what has been my final test before returning to Twitter, I am going to be watching I May Destroy You. No, it’s not because Michaela Coel is an aromantic and I believe in aro/ace/aro-ace solidarity. It’s because I’m a writer and am all about symbols. The hit HBO series came out late in 2020 during a period that can be described as the calm before the storm. I could’ve noticed the signs better, but I May Destroy You was a show that I had all intentions of watching but just felt so dispassionate about. At the time I was dropping several shows because I was not engaging with media at the time. My attention span was breaking apart gradually, dissociation setting in. While it wouldn’t be as bad as the hell that followed, it was still there enough that I gave up four episodes in.
So why watch it now? I’ll admit that the start point is otherwise arbitrary, but this summer has also been one of surreal nostalgia. April marked the one year anniversary of my friend dying and the last day I self-harmed. July marked five years since I had one of the worst birthdays of my life. So many miserable anniversaries were cropping up and I think on some level I wanted to be alone to think about all of them. Back in 2021, that was what I did, which unfortunately also allowed me to give into some of my worst tendencies of depression. Thankfully, the time away this round has been more healthy and positive with zero injuries to report.
Again, I don’t think this has anything to do with I May Destroy You, but I think this was one of those incomplete things from 2020 where I could try and look back and try to understand who I was in October and November of that time. What becomes tragic is how much has slipped away, only really attached to a caricature of a moment. Even watching I May Destroy You, I realized how much of those four episodes I had forgotten. As much as it made the experience much more fantastic, it also made me realize the pains that depression can have. It makes you forget so much, making whole portions of your life almost nonexistent. As much as I want to forget how hellish the pandemic was, I think it’s important to hold onto those memories just to pass along to future generations, to never forget this unique event in global human history.
This isn’t some parallel metaphor for the events of I May Destroy You. That feels too crass. What I will say is that I’m a person who is very attached to the idea of progress. Things may look terrible, but how do they compare to where things were? I force myself to be an optimist because the world needs it. Thousands are dying, but doctors and nurses are sacrificing their safety for the betterment of society. There are small ways to realize even as I’ve felt too mentally weak sometimes to be productive that life will continue and maybe things will get better. Though I guess if there’s anything that I appreciate more in 2022 than I did it’s the idea of an aromantic-allosexual being front and center of an HBO show. That’s fun.
I’ll continue to piece together pieces of my life that feel removed from clarity. Having time away from Twitter has been useful in helping me figure out what matters most to me as an individual. I allowed myself to indulge without being judged. I got to experience the real world and feel untethered from expectations. As much as that time also feels ambiguously empty somedays, it is a feeling that allowed me to slow down and breathe. There is something to being in reality, touching grass, observing a flock of ducks fly across a pond. The spontaneity of life is so graceful sometimes, and it’s tragic how much of that I forgot. As hot and miserable as the weather is, sometimes just getting out and feeling a breeze in your hair makes all the difference. While I still have fears of Coronavirus and now Monkeypox, I think that I have the wherewithal to at least navigate the world safely enough.
The irony of returning to Twitter is that a lot of my initial anxiety was rooted in feeling like I was missing out on big events. Sometimes the language changed so gradually that I was out of the loop, and I finally felt my age by not even piecing together how we got there. I still want to be “with it,” but realizing I’ve never been going back to my teenage years of listening to local punk rock over mainstream pop makes it ironic. I’ll never have the taste that parallels the masses, and I should be happy with that. All the more to say, being away 100 days means I don’t have memories of the triviality that came and went, that’s been forgotten save for a trigger word that will launch future discussions that I’ll never get. I may feel removed, but I need to learn that it’s okay. It’s okay to not know just what chugy (sp?) means or where it even came from. I gift Gen-Z with the burden of staying up to date on the latest models.
I think it’s also the reality that this has been a period that I didn’t think I would ever achieve. Most people could disappear for a month, but for 3.5 seems unfathomable with the way that curiosity works. Sure, you miss so much but at the same time how much have you missed about yourself? It goes both ways. There is no convenient answer to this predicament. I’m just happy to know that this is something that I could achieve in a digital world. It may only be minor compared to going postal, but it’s a start. You do feel your brain reprogramming and I think it was necessary after the direction that these two years have gone in. I haven’t really allowed myself to be this removed from anything, to really stop and relax, and I’m grateful for this time.
So yes, I do return to social media and there’s a good chance that I will take a hiatus again at some point. The anxiety runs deep inside of me. Still, for now I can hop over to TikTok and watch the trans girls and autistic community living their best lives. I can watch asexual creators on YouTube educate us on the wonders of human history. I can even go to Instagram and see positive affirmations set over whatever Lady Gaga song spikes their interest (fun fact: 10% of the people I follow seem to be going to her Chromatica tour). I never considered the internet a cursed place. I think it’s just that I’m a very indulgent person and can get wrapped up in things that aren’t important. The important thing is knowing when to walk away for a little bit before you are swallowed whole. If one thing has changed in two years, it’s that… and I am grateful to know the value and joy that 100 days can give someone. I hope that time has been useful to you too.
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