Image by Maëlick (License CC BY-SA 2.0)
Last Monday, I was so depressed I didn’t leave my bed until noon. After eating breakfast and spending an hour staring into space, I pulled it together enough to go to the gym. I walked in, took in the smell of the lobby, and then immediately turned around to go back to my car. I listened to NPR drone on until the tsunami of feeling subsided and I felt like I could drive.
When I’m depressed, everything feels impossible. My skin prickles with sensitivity. My mind snakes through the mountain path of fatalism and gender pain like a steam train. I buy a ticket, and I can’t get off until I reach the end of the line, whenever and whatever that is.
After I got home from my gym experience, take-out in hand, I sat on my couch and looked out my window. Watching myself have this experience, seeing my neural pathway train go round and round, I had the impulse to share something about it. I wanted to Snapchat a picture of myself with a caption that somehow described my experience while giving it levity. Something along the lines of: “tfw your depression hits, but then you get tacos and maybe it’ll be ok.”
Yes, I know I’m not very funny. I’ve never really “gotten” how to Internet. I LITERALLY (and I mean that literally) did not know what a meme was until a year ago. I’m almost 25, so I know I’m probably slightly over the hill in terms of Internet speak, etc, and I’m sure my impulse to write an article about this is evidence that I clearly do not “understand,” but the fact that I was having a pretty bad depressive episode (in my book) and wanted to share it with the world, gives me pause.
“We want to share our vulnerability, but the act of sharing it, whether it’s something positive, horrible, or somewhere in between, is the opposite of vulnerability. When you control the narrative (however much we think we control the narrative on the Internet), you’re not being truly vulnerable.”
I didn’t pick up the phone and call my parents, friends, or partner. I didn’t text my therapist. I didn’t write in my journal or attempt to make art of any kind. What I wanted in that moment was for the 30 or so people who follow my Snap Stories to pay attention to me for three seconds. I wanted to hurl my experience into the ether and receive…validation? Understanding? Someone to relate? Someone to see me; truly see me?
In my purview at least, we are talking about ourselves more honestly on social media these days. For a while, I felt like the goal was to make your life look as awesome as possible. That’s still there of course, but now there’s something else. There is a desire for not just performance, but connection via sharing the more vulnerable parts of ourselves (maybe the performance of connection?), whether we are sharing something positive or on the darker side.
I see that Kermit meme. I see “existential” memes. I see little videos of kids or animals looking pissed/sassy/doing something clumsy or stupid, with an accompanying caption acknowledging that the person who posted it has done or felt something similar. There’s “relatability.” Instead of, “Look at how awesome my day was! My boyfriend bought me flowers and I feel really loved and wonderful and I wanted to share to make you jealous but also because I am consuming myself and am intoxicated by my own aesthetic,” we say, “tfw bae buys you flowers (heart eyes emoji).” That feeling when. You’ve had that feeling when. Everyone can relate to a feeling when. Look, I can share this braggy thing because y’all are with me, right? RIGHT?
And on the flipside, when we’re having a horrible day, we don’t share a picture/caption with what’s really going on. We mitigate it with some kind of humor or irony qualifier. Or maybe there’s no humor qualifier, but there’s something to signify that this was a CHOICE. Look at me, I’m being vulnerable. It’s cool. I did this on purpose. Or, when we’re hungover or feeling “vulnerable” (socially sanctioned vulnerability like sickness or sharing in a collective emotional experience a la an awards show or basketball game), we caption it with, “I literally want to die,” or, “my life is a dumpster fire.” Nevermind that you may have literally felt like dying at some point in your life, or that people have lives that are actually out of their control—lives one might consider a “dumpster fire.”
We want to share our vulnerability, but the act of sharing it, whether it’s something positive, horrible, or somewhere in between, is the opposite of vulnerability. When you control the narrative (however much we think we control the narrative on the Internet), you’re not being truly vulnerable. You’re sharing a curated portion of your vulnerability, just as I did in the first paragraph of this article. I tried to be as honest as possible about what happened that day. My nitty gritty physical sensations, and my thought process—but the sentence, “My mind snakes through the mountain path of fatalism and gender pain like a steam train,” is a pretty way of saying something that isn’t pretty or even romantic.
I’m being forthcoming about my experience, and I suppose I’m opening myself up to attacks from strangers on the Internet who no doubt have things to say about mental health, etc, but I’m still the one who decided to proclaim my reality. Even if I don’t get any likes or shares, or any response, I’m still the one who made the choice. I’m still billing myself as relatable. Not abject. Not outside the “norm,” though the norm has now been greatly expanded.
There is nothing wrong with sharing our stories. I know I have been positively affected by reading and seeing what other people have to say about their pain or success. I think that the move toward more honesty, even if it’s couched in irony, humor, and hyperbole is a positive one. It creates space for real life conversations that may not have happened before. It gives us a collective vocabulary, however rudimentary, for talking about hard things like post partum depression, body image, oppression, chronic illness, disability, economic struggle, etc.
What worries me though is that we are all relating to each other in a way that is masquerading as authenticity, but, we must realize, is not. No matter how honest social media gets, the choice to put yourself there gives you agency that is always, ultimately, false.
All the Instagram photos in the world of your post-baby body or the way your face looks when you give yourself a double chin or a flower with a caption about your recent loss will not change the fact that your decision to share your experience, while valid and meaningful as hell, is not authenticity. Authenticity and earnestness will never be cool, because not being in control will never be cool.
Keep sharing your memes and struggles however you need to package them, but don’t forget that being vulnerable is when you allow people to see you when you haven’t made any choices. It’s hard fucking work, and it should be. The pay off is too valuable for it to be easy.
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Natalie Houchins is a graduate of Northwestern University, with
degrees in Theatre and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is a writer and
actress based out of LA, who is perennially homesick for Austin, TX.
She currently spends her free time hiking, watching Battlestar
Galactica and resisting the Trump administration. For more information, visit her website: www.nataliehouchins.com.