Facebook issues

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I've been really into social media for as long as myspace first came around. It's driving me crazy, because I like being able to post the eclectic side of myself. But I feel SO much anxiety, later on. Sometimes I'll have facebook open. Then I hit ctrl+tab and put in facebook again. Now I have 2 facebooks open. The same can go for gmail and some other sites. It's a cycle of anxiety, OCD, and the continuance of having to "complete" my profile on there.

I have similar OCD-like issues with media. Refreshing over and over, etc. I don't think there's any real "cure" for this per se. If there were no such thing as social media or even old-school media, autistic people would still find things to obsess and/or perseverate over.

I have considered private journaling, as a way to organize my thoughts, but it became obsessive.

I also felt vulnerable, describing private things, and putting them, where someone could find them.

I'm currently doing the same, but I am comforted by the fact that if I feel vulnerable I can alway put a password on my Tumblr (no going through individual posts to make them private like on Livejournal); once I do that, it's instant and nobody can see anything.

As for Facebook, I wound up quitting my Facebook because of the reasons you described above. I am sure that the site is designed to make it hard to leave anyways, with Aspies it's just overkill.

I think people go there to put on fronts.

You can't come across as too serious, or they take advantage.

Here's another thing...I put my FB on Private and even though a serious hacker could still see in there somehow, who is THAT interested in my life? KWIM? In addition, I:

1. pared my list of "friends" WAY down. Way way way way down to only actual people I really truly talk to. Mostly it's family, actually. This not only helps me to feel safer, it also cuts down on the confusion factor of trying to remain social with a huge range of people, gauging each time how friendly/social I should be to a given person but maybe not to the next, etc.

2. make sure I don't post the most intimate details. If I really, really need to spill I write it on a doc at home and then if I don't want to keep it, I toss it. I don't know whether that's psychologically unhealthy, but meh. Sometimes you just have to spill and then dump it forever.

I've done this.

Some people do seriously consider it a form of therapy, but it just helps me to pull my thoughts together.

^ Yup! This. Agree 100%.

For me, Facebook is both the primary source of my tragic awareness of how socially decrepit my life is and an infinite supply of humor. If you amass enough friends on there, you can literally laugh yourself to sleep at night reading their goofy, misspelled and dramatic statuses/comments. Now I'm not talking about harshly judging someone for being open and honest on Facebook, but rather the crazy people who post the exact details of their relationship fallout followed by an exciting exchange with the previous partner. It's really insightful. Then there's all the pictures which also serve both purposes though usually leaning towards the 'socially decrepit life' awareness. Overall, I'm glad I have one as it makes me feel slightly connected to people's live without actually leaving my house but I can certainly see how it can turn into a compulsive obsession.

I keep a journal on my hard drive, and I use a password to access. Even my husband is not allowed to read it!

I have a private journal too. That's what people used to have.... on paper ......before the great age of the internet. With a private journal you don't have to worry about what people think of what you wrote or what they might comment about it ect.

True! I still have my first journal, which I started when I was around age 13. I wrote in paper journals for years, and still have all of them as well. I find that I type faster than I write, so now its all done on the computer.

A bit off-topic, but if you keep something so precious on a computer hard drive, to avoid huge disappointment, please back it up from time to time.

Yeah, mine is on the computer now too. I'm not a fast typist but it's just easier to store/manage a journal in computerized form. I used to have paper journals at different times in my life (not consistently) and I had my first when I was 13 too. I didn't keep them though......at certain points I'd go back and read them and think "I can't believe I thought like that.....what an idiot" and then I'd throw the old journals away. Now I wish I had kept them so I'd have a record of my thoughts at different ages (no matter how stupid they were).

I do back it up.

I am tempted to burn all of mine because I feel the same way, unfortunately.