Thank you all for your kind words of wisdom. Over the weekend I took a step back from Social media and already feel better for it. I don’t feel the need to check it as soon as I wake up every morning to see if anyone has tweeted at me etc. and even though I had a few unpleasant things to deal with over the weekend, I didn’t feel the need to seek attention and sympathy via social media.

@Anita I took your advice and started noticing that I do beat myself up too much about things and started having a bit of compassion for myself and congratulating myself for the little victories I have had over the weekend from not being tempted to go on social media. I feels a lot better than the fake gratification I get from likes and retweets!

@Patrick I never thought of it that way before. In the past when I have had social media breaks, I have 100% treated it as a punishment for the way I have acted which made me want to go on it more. Now that I am treating it as time away from social media as a cleansing of negativity from my life I am already feeling like I don’t need the gratification, attention and sympathy I used to crave on Twitter.

@Meredith I agree. It’s so much easier to complain and be negative from behind a keyboard or smartphone but I’ve found that the negativity that I feel inside is unnoticeable at first and slowly increases until I feel really bad about myself. Focusing on other more important things in my life and getting satisfaction from these things instead of social media will hopefully make me see that I don’t need it.

Hi Tina,

Thank you very much for your reply. Yes, I’m very much the same outside of social media when I think about it, I have been known to have a short temper and can fly off the handle and rant about things with the slightest nudge. I also have a bit of a complex with caring too much about what people think about me and take criticism very personally.

I took a 2 month break from Twitter earlier on in the year and when I returned, I was a lot better for a while. Unfortunately I have recently returned to my old habits and behaviours so you’re probably right. I need to distance myself for a bit longer while I figure things out.

Thanks again for your helpful words.