Lived Experience Forum

[greenspace]

Hi everyone, sorry I'm late joining the conversation, I was out watering the garden, then feeding my cats and getting myself a meal. If you hear crunching, that's me eating celery 😄 

I'm in my mid-50s and I use social media a lot, and am really grateful for the connections I've made online. 

Apart from getting pulled into the time-eating vortex of FB, twitter, and IG, and the way that can stop me doing other things, the main thing I find bad for my mental health on social media is seeing distressing things about people suffering, animal neglect or abuse, horrible politics (likehuman rights abuses), or environmental disasters -- droughts, floods, bushfires, etc.

I do my best to avoid stories and particularly images of animal abuse, but with other things like politics and environmental issues, I want to know what's happening and share information, particularly if it's not being covered in mainstream media. 

So I have to find a balance between sharing important information, and protecting my mental health. 

[holly299]

@greenspace its so great to hear from someone else who has had a good experience with social media and I totally agree about the need to strike a balance between being informed but also protecting your mental health

[nashy]

Love this post! @greenspace You are right in terms of news stories it can be incredible confronting too. There is a British organisation I follow on FB and Insta called "Positive News". I find their content offsets a lot of the heavier stuff 🙂

[greenspace]

@nashy, I've met people online, mostly FB and s9me on twitter, through common interests (cats, books, environment) and become good friends online, and met up in person with maybe a dozen FB friends over the years.
Mutual interests, mutual friends (on or offline), conversations in FB discussions, then friending on FB...

[nashy]

Alright wonderful humans.. the final Question tonight is for @holly299  🙂 I would encourage you to chime in if you feel it relates.

How did you get to where you are today with maintaining your

mental health whilst using Facebook, IG etc? Was there a

defining moment in your journey?

[holly299]

It was a really long process to get to a point where I could balance my social media use and my mental health. There was no one moment that changed everything but a series of lessons I learned. I started by following some mental health advocates on Instagram and diversifying my feed. I then started to unfollow any accounts that triggered any eating disordered thoughts or increased distress. For me a lot of these were other eating disorder ‘recovery accounts’ which weren’t actually recovery accounts at all. Slowly my feed turned into a really safe, diverse and positive space. So while I still try to have my time offline, being online isn’t a cost to my mental health like it used to be.

[greenspace]

@nashy I follow The Big Fix, which is based inthe Blue Mountains NSW, but shares good news stories, particularly about the environment, from all over the world.

Also I follow accounts that post/tweet cute animals, art, and interesting science, to make sure I get some happy vibes every day

[greenspace]

@holly299that sounds great

[holly299]

@greenspace definitely follow my fair share of animal accounts too! Always a good booster for the mental health

[nashy]

Yes @greenspace  animals and art! Total wellbeing winner!