The Backlash of the Instagram Life

I think everyone will know what I mean when I talk about the "Instagram life".

You post your best pictures, present your best self. There are inspirational quotes, posts about "living my best life!" and every photograph or video is of you apparently having a wonderful time.

In reality, life is not like that.

I get it. Who wants to share the mundane? Who wants to share when you are having a bad day, or not looking your best? When the most exciting thing you do that week is go to Tesco.

It creates friction. It creates jealousy. It creates pressure.

There becomes an element of "Keeping up with the Joneses" – except that the Joneses are your online life and the way you portray yourself, and you are struggling to keep up with the image.

I prefer honesty. The real you. The person who admits that they are having a bad day, posts a picture that does not have every hair perfectly in place, with make-up that did not take hours to create.

I remember once having a photo shoot done by a blogger friend. It was a group thing where you could dress up in vintage-type clothing, get your hair and your make-up done professionally and get a few photographs from the package. It was so much fun.

Part of the package was that you received one photograph that had been retouched, as they do in magazines. To be honest, I think I was more excited for that than any of the other photographs. I wanted to see what I looked like with all the imperfections gone. My skin smoothed and looking the best that I could be.

To my surprise, I got the photograph and I hated it. Because it wasn't me. I did not look like that. They didn't do anything drastic to me, but the image that looked back at me was foreign. It was my face, yet it wasn't.

I shared all my photographs from that day, but not that one. I preferred the natural me. The real me. Flaws and all.

The problem with the Instagram life is that it seeps into everyone. You look around at others, supposedly living a perfect life, and you wonder why your life isn't the same.

What you don't see are the twenty-five pictures that were rejected to get the perfect shot. Experiences that were dampened because you took a photograph or a video instead of living in the moment. The bank balance after a clothing haul that was not needed and could not be afforded.

But there is something else.

Because everyone knows about the game now. And that makes it harder to share real happiness. Real experiences. Real thoughts. Because you post and then feel guilty. You feel like you are showing off. Because your happiness is genuine, not for show or Instagram. So you stop posting.

I have used this blog to talk about my life and my feelings for many years. Someone who has read my blog for even some of that time will understand the journey I have been on. Going from someone who was desperately unhappy, to finding my confidence, meeting the love of my life and now, having a life I never thought was in my reach.

I have worked hard for the life I have now.

Yet, even with my journey, with its ups and downs documented, I still feel a pang when I share my happiness now. Because I post, and then I think of someone who is not as happy as me reading it and thinking, "Well, good for you, but my life is not like that."

But I have chosen not to dim my light. I do still share. And it is for this reason.

When I started blogging about confidence, so many years ago now, I was inspired by other people, other bloggers. The journey that they were on inspired my own. I remember even writing to one of the bloggers and thanking her for being my inspiration to improve my life.

Then, one day, I received an email like that myself. Just a girl. A nurse called Amy. She wrote to me saying many of the same words that I had written once in my letter. Thanking me for inspiring her to become more confident.

So, as much as I wrote about when I was sad, I will write about how happy I am now. Because I have been on that journey. Because I deserve to have happiness and celebrate that happiness.

Instagram life be damned. This is my real life, and I bloody love it.

Rescuing Yourself

One day I woke up and realised that I no longer need to be rescued.

Because I rescued myself. 

Knowing that is the best feeling in the whole world.  And the most important one.  Better than anything.  Better even than falling in love with the right person.

Because rescuing yourself requires growth.  It requires hard work.  It requires looking at yourself in the mirror, really looking.  It requires staring at your demons in the face and fighting back.

It is becoming strong enough to you know that you can win.

Anyone who has ever experienced sadness, pain and depression in their lives know how hard it is not to wallow.  Not to sink into it.  Not to throw your pain in a chained up box in your mind.

The thing with locked boxes in your mind is that you can hear those chains rattle.  They may be invisible to the naked eye, but they weigh you down.

Going through pain and sadness is sometimes like trying to walk through treacle.  With quick sand underneath.  The more you try to move, the further stuck you get and the more you sink.

But you can come out of the other side.  I did.

I always knew that there was a fight in me that one day I would win.  The voice inside my head that once screamed “don’t you dare”.  The being inside me that still, after everything, had hope.

Over the past couple of years, I did the mind equivalent of cracking myself open like an egg and letting all the bad things slide out of me.  The locked boxes were torn open.  The chains were thrown away. 

I will not lie to you that each time I did that, there was pain.  Because the pain was no longer in a box.  No longer hidden.  It is staring right back at you in the face, daring you to fight back.  It circles you, unsure as to what you will do next. 

Sink once again, or swim?

But I am strong.  I am brave.  I had fought the fight once before and gained some ground.  This time though, I knew that I was the strongest I had ever been. 

And I fucking won.

The last time I cracked my eggshell was nearly a year ago now.  It was and will always be the most perfect moment of my life. 

To walk around in your own mind, with sunshine pouring in all around you.  Open.  Calm.  Free.  Peace.  Happy.

Before, I kept my sadness inside.  Hidden as best as I could from the world. 

Now, I let the world flood into me.    I am open.  I embrace happiness.  I feel peace.

I rescued myself.   

And so can you.