We all have friends on social media who choose for one reason reason or another play out their daily dramas or grieve deeply or sort through their issues in the public eye. I find myself often rolling my eyes at such posts, but perhaps there is something to it. It's emotional honesty, whatever it's source or motive behind it. It's a certain fearlessness that whatever they are are going through, it deserves attention. They deserve well wishes, and pick-me-ups. They obviously feeling a great need for things, and they are basically unafraid to ask for it.
I'd say most of us, project a positive face. Smiling pictures, successes. No matter what's happening off-line. No one, I think, truly enjoys posting about how their child is having real anger-management issues. That their child deals with sometimes crushing anxiety about the the most routine of things. That, as a parent, these things affect everything you do, every decision you make - and can take a toll on even the happiest and most loving of households. Sudden outbursts of raw emotion seemingly out of nowhere can take your breath away. And when it comes from your child, this piece of your heart- this tiny, developing human that you'd do anything for - well, it breaks that heart in the truest sense. And then realizing that even as a parental unit you can't overcome this alone, that you need help, can feel utterly defeating. Like you've failed your child in being that steadying, guiding force in their life- and was it something you've done to have brought on this behavior? But pushing past ego, you reach out and get the help- because you want more than anything for your child to relish in her deserved strength. To be sure that there's nothing she can't do. But the help is work, progress is slow, and sometimes you can see a flicker at the end of the tunnel- sometimes not. Yeah, I don't think anybody enjoys posting about that kind of stuff.
I'm not saying that it's all we want to read on Facebook, or the like- I want the smiling faces, I want the accomplishments and celebrations. But there is place for it- for emotional honesty on social media, other than anger (that's one emotion almost no one seems to have trouble expressing online these days). It's a way of reaching out into the ether to let that others know that if they are going though the same things, they aren't alone. The best thing about social media is the community it creates, but without some personal honesty to bring us back to earth, that same community can feel terribly isolating- a place where it's easy to "compare and despair," a wise lady once put it to me.
So I'll try and be a little more accepting to those reaching out. And I'll make an attempt, even if only once and a while, to be brave and ask for that pick-me-up when I need it.