The Facebook Effect + a question

Hello all,

I have talked about Facebook before on here. But it's really, really fascinating to me.

Last year around this time, I was feeling very depressed and even suicidal. I went to the hospital to try and get help. After this, my friends couldn't handle me. I don't know what it was, but the group of friends that i had at the time just couldn't accept that I was feeling this way. They didn't want to handle it. They didn't know how to handle it. So they stopped talking to me. One of them had been my best friend since grade 4 and we had lived together for 3 years up until several months before - when she decided to move in with her boyfriend of three months instead. She didn't even text me when she moved in with him either for two weeks - I actually only met with her when a mutual friend both invited us out for a breakfast date. I was her best friend for all those years and yet she didn't even text me when I was depressed. Not even a hey whats up? Nothing.

I also found out she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, ADHD, and borderline personality disorder. But that's beside the point.

Anyways, I had been wanting to get away from her for some time. I just didn't know how. And our lives were so intertwined.

Especially on Facebook.

We had taken several trips and she had all the photos on her fAcebook. There were a lot of photos of good times we'd had. also, I posted on her wall all these cool new ideas that I'd have.



Anyways. After her and the group of friends we had in common stopped talking to me after I'd called out for help and gone for it - I couldn't go on Facebook. I couldn't stand the sight of their faces. Also, I was depressed and everyone seems to share about how good their life is on Facebook or happy events and shtuff like that.. and I just didn't want to see it. I didn't want to feel like more of a loser than I already felt.

Then I slowly started going on Facebook more.

I got help, was eventually diagnosed with ADHD, and I started posting about happy events I was experiencing. I got a new job. I met the love of my life (really and truly - not some weird kind of rebound or excuse to not be alone).

I was posting about it because I wanted to throw it in their faces... the friends who stopped talking to me - yet still had me on their Facebook. I wanted them to see and it to be a huge F*$# YOU!



anyways. It's a year later, and a couple of days ago.. I realized that I don't need them to see how awesome I'm doing now. and I don't need to occasionally creep their Facebooks to be like "thank God they stopped talking to me.. because I wouldn't want to be their friends anyways.. was I drunk the whole time I was a part of this group?" (and the answer to that is no, I was high - but that is another story as well).

So I deleted them off of my Facebook.


And it's like I have this weight lifted off of my chest that I didn't even know existed.


Does anyone have similar experiences with Facebook? Keeping friends on there that you don't really want to have but doing it because you feel like you'd be missing out on something if you didn't have them on there?


also, can anyone tell me why ppl still keep pictures of their exes up on their profile? Like.. when they're already in a relationship with another person.. isn't it weird to look back through their photos and see a picture of their ex? My bf hasn't done this, actually - the only reason he got FAcebook was because I encouraged him too and to keep in touch with friends from college.. but like especially if you're the other person in the current relationship with them.. wouldn't it bother you? ??

I think that in general people want to just make an image of themselves that they could admire and it boosts their ego if others like their posts aswell. Envy is the force that drives the users of facebook to post and view things, but that is of course very pointless way of life. I myself have tried to stop using facebook all together but I have always went back because I don't have too much social life for my taste and facebook helps me to feel connected to my past friends. I know it's really an illusion of being part of something because browsing this site never really satisfies my emotional needs. If you are able to use less facebook, I would encourage you to do that.


People are really mad there anyway. They are so interested about themselves and want to compare their lives so much to other people's lives that it seems unhealthy. They are living in delirium like many others if you ask me.

I assume that you like any young depressed person has thought about the same many many times, but why the masses are so tightly tied to each other in this way? I wish we could speak more with people privately rather than do whatever we do and make it public. The whole core idea is silly.

I think people use Facebook in many ways, based on their own personalities. I know I had 1000's of friends, was playing major Zynga games that required it to move ahead, etc. and got more enmeshed in playing games than I liked so I deleted everyone I did not "know" from my account and sent an email to my actual friends/relatives that I would not be on Facebook very often from then on. I went to another health-related site and started working there instead and, to this day, I only visit my Facebook page once a month or even less.

My husband, who knows/cares nothing about his Facebook page has many old girlfriends on his page, his ex-wife, etc. They are all friends of his. He has introduced me, online, to his high school girlfriends (we're 60-70 years old) because they have contacted him and are "weird"/he does not understand them but I do better because I am another woman :-) He is fine with being contacted by anyone who wants to contact him from his past and he'll chat back and forth a bit but he, too, does not use his Facebook page except rarely. I think most old friends may/may not contact one another often, etc. depending on where they live, what's happening in their lives now, all that. I know I am friends on Facebook with friends I've had since I was 16 but they live quite a distance from me and have varying interest in their Facebook pages, whether someone contacts/answers me on Facebook or not does not influence much in my life now. But I am sure there are others, such as you seem, who are my friends and more "into" it and maybe hurt by my seeming lack of response to them, when my response/lack of response is really all about me, not them at all. Our perceptions are ours and not necessarily correct/helpful/what others we are perceiving about would agree feels true to them.

There are a number of people on my facebook from schools I've gone to in the past that don't really talk to me really, but occasionally I see stuff of theirs on my page and perhaps they see some of mine...some of them play a couple of the same facebook games I do so I have 'neighbors' or whatever on those games. Not really anyone I was super close to though.

I lost touch with one group of friends, well sort of various groups since I hung out with different people some of who didn't get along with others...but I only met most aside from one the year I ended up dropping out of college, can't even find any of the ones I would still want to talk to on facebook. Aside from that I have some family members and friends/aquantinces on my friends list and sometimes contact them that way.

Its also not a site I pay much attention to, I added a bunch of people just to have more friends on the game 'pot farm' because that way you get more free stuff for it don't really care if they see what I post or not if they really don't like me then they can delete me. But yeah I don't really post a whole lot on there sometimes I might mention something I am thinking about but usually I just post things I like such as music videos off youtube, memes I find funny and stuff like that.

Maybe some peoples still have pictures of exes if they haven't got to deleting them yet...or provided the break up went smoothly and the two are still friends or at least don't have any animosity then maybe they just don't feel the need to delete all of them. But maybe there are other reasons I am not really sure.

This is always the first thing that comes to mind when i think of Facebook and to this day it still makes me laugh:



I have about 20 or so 'friends' on facebook but they're mostly family/extended family. Anything else is just tedious drama and i'm not wasting my life on it. I have a profile i suppose to keep tabs on family gossip in a free and efficient way lol Can't answer your last question i'm afraid but i'm assuming it's mostly down to a nauseating mix of nostalgia and laziness

There's a group pic or 2 which includes my bf and an ex in one of his albums. I don't mind that he didn't take it down because their relationship ended amicably and they've remained friends.

If he kept the "couples" pics of the 2 of them? Well then that's a different story, I would wonder what's up with that yes.

predator book

Yeah, different people use Facebook for different reasons. I mostly use it as a social and environmental justice platform and rarely if ever post pictures of myself on there. In fact, the only pictures that ever really get posted on there of me are ones that are taken with me and my wife, and then she's the one that posts them. She knows not to tag me.
What I find interesting about Facebook is that even people I know very well in person are different on there. There are some people that I care about very dearly - friends that are more like family - but they are so dramatic on Facebook with cryptic updates and whatnot that if they were like that in real life we would not be friends.
I'm glad that releasing those people as Facebook friends brought you relief. I think that's great. And I hope you continue to get the relief and healing you seek. Having a major mental health episode can be frightening enough without being alienated by those closest to you. I have had to rebuild my life a couple of times because of mental health stuff. The first time I was 17, and it was my second family, and the people I got high with every day. The second time was in sobriety, around my 3 year sobriety celebration, and even then people didn't know how to deal with it.
In the end, my path is my own. The ones who stick around and don't get weirded out by my experience, but who also aren't afraid to acknowledge it, are the ones who get my time.
I wish you all the best.