I don't think I need to keep starting these posts about how I don't post anymore, haha, but I guess I just did. At this point, I think I will write about things as they come to my head and I feel like writing out my thoughts.
Well, recently I got involved in a very ugly situation involving Facebook and bullying. Yes, I am 23 and I still get bullied. It happens at every age, for example, the Dancing Man - an older man who just wanted to dance, but was publicly shamed in front of hundreds and then viewed thousands of times on the internet. Except, this wonderful man got a happy ending and so much attention towards bullying. Those who made fun of this man should be ashamed.
But anyway, my story is bizarre and I don't want to disclose too many details other than the bullying I was a victim to was verbal and emotional cyberbullying by a person I had never met or seen in my life. This person decided to target a complete stranger and try to ruin her life. For no reason. If anyone could explain to me why, I still wouldn't be ok with that. I can't for the life of me understand why ruining someone else's life and beating them down makes others feel good about themselves.
Yes, I study psychology but no, I still can't figure out what creates and perpetuates this type of behavior. In a way, it's not that big of a deal.. everyone gets bullied and it's over.. so I should be ok with it and get over it, right? No. It did impact me. Every word. All the lies, the mean words, and the fact that I was targeted on purpose. Why me? Why did this person choose to mess with me? Am I an easy target? More than one person was impacted in this situation, in fact, four people were. One started it by being oblivious to the ulterior motive of the bully and inviting the bully into our lives, once the bully was in, the bully could manipulate whoever and however the bully wanted.
I don't blame this person, who I hold very dear to my heart, or at least... I'm trying not to. But at the same time, I'm trying not to blame myself either... which is harder than it sounds. This one person, this stranger... ruined something that they had no business in ruining. In the process of ruining that something, the bully ruined my trust in someone very special to me, knowing fully well what they were doing. But why?
Well... does the why really matter? If you find out the why... it won't get rid of what happened. When we come across devastating or game-changing situations that break us down and ruin aspects of our lives, we need to learn to accept that this terrible thing happened and it was out of your control. Not easy, huh? I've been struggling for a week now. I don't want one person to come between me and the person I built something special with. I am not a toy, a doll, or a TV show that someone can play with and manipulate to do what they want. The universe always wins. Karma will bite back and she will bite back hard.
A person who does things like this needs help. Maybe they weren't shown love as much or maybe they were jealous of me or maybe they have been hurt in the past. NONE of these are valid excuses, however, for the actions of this person.
This situation happened to come at the worst time of my life. I was dealing with a stomach infection and was on several antibiotics, completely shutting down and not eating as well as preparing for a very intensive summer internship (the first week of which didn't go so well because of my anxiety from this very avoidable situation).
Now this brings me to why I named this post "Toxicity of Facebook." Well, the reason is that this happened on Facebook. It started on Facebook and it ended on Facebook. It's easy to say Facebook was the culprit, right? Well no, it wasn't... but it was the enabler. Facebook can be used for wonderful things like businesses and finding lost friends/family and keeping in touch. But, it can also breed very deviant behavior. People feel anonymous on Facebook and anonymity leads to heightened self-confidence displayed in negative ways - like bullying anyone just because you can.
Not only is social media a breeding ground for bullying, but Facebook in particular is specially toxic because some (hopefully most) of the people you are friends with on Facebook, you know in real life and getting a little glimpse of someone elses better life, as assessed by you, can be damaging. If you're having a bad day and you feel like nothing is going right and work is tearing you apart, for example, and you go on Facebook and see the person you don't like going on vacation and taking pictures on the beach, you will without a doubt feel worse than when you initially got on the website.
It can also instill panic for no reason. For anxious people like me, it gave me unnecessary reasons to worry, like seeing with my own eyes a terrible thing unfold that spilled onto me. I tried to stop it, I tried to tell the person close to me that this was a bad person and that we should stay far away from them, but because the person close to me felt like they needed to prove a point to me, they didn't heed my warning. I saw it all unfold and I knew the outcome before it happened.
If anyone hasn't felt this feeling before... it's awful. Knowing something terrible is coming but not being able to do anything about it. What I didn't know, was that I would be sucked into a hate battle directed towards me.
I wish so much that this had never happened. I wish it with all my heart. The knowledge I know now, the lesson I learned, the lesson the person close to me learned... all of it, wasn't worth the pain.
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