Social Media has impacted us in many profound ways, it allows us to reach large otherwise inaccessible audiences, it allows us to keep in touch with our loved ones thousands of miles away, and creates opportunities that would be glossed over.

Although in my opinion there is a massive downside, and that is the prolonged effects of it on your body and on your mental health.

Take this for example, 2.7 million people are opted in to follow Walmart. Walmart doesn’t care about you, Walmart pays its employees the bare minimum. All this corporation is concerned about is making more money, and the 2.7 million people who follow them just to receive advertisements willingly… well If the world ever needed a support group, I know 2.7 million people who could use one.

I myself used to have a Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, & TikTok, I was addicted. Mindless scrolling through feeds taking up hours of my day, months off my life. All for what? Can you recall what posts you saw yesterday? Has anything stuck with you? The truth is all of these companies are more concerned with selling your attention and data to their advertisers, and they have invented clever ways to keep you addicted and keep you stimulated, I will go through each of these platforms and list the negatives- although I am not listing any positives there are definitely a lot of positives but you must decide for yourself if they are worth it.

I want to start with the most damaging ones in my opinion, TikTok & Instagram. These platforms are comparison central, and the most damaging to our youth- especially women. You have to realize nearly every picture posted on Instagram has been cherry picked and & edited, pictures of models with slim thin waists and huge curvy hips, no stretch marks or skin defects of any kind. If you want to see countless examples just visit Reddit. When developing minds see these women on Instagram and then look at their own bodies, stretch marks & acne, loose skin, they start to feel ashamed and embarrassed about their own bodies- even though what they are looking at is fake. This mindset in the women of today is unprecedented and a big problem, so many girls now go to extreme lengths to hide their “flaws” and become super self-conscious and unhappy as a result of this comparison. It saddens me to see that people who are otherwise attractive think of themselves as uglier than a dog shit stain on their shoe. TikTok is another great example of this, countless people comparing themselves against each other and feeling worse about it after. This isn’t an attack on people who have these sorts of bodies, rather it’s an attack on these platforms that make it seem so these bodies are the ideal standard of perfection and desire, when that is far from the truth. Your body is your own and you should be happy and content with it.

Snapchat was another aspect of comparison, hundreds of my high school acquaintances, most of them I haven’t had a 10 minute conversation with in years, all living their lives and posting on Snapchat to see. What I realized is… I don’t give a fuck… I don’t care that you ate at some fancy restaurant or that you’re out having fun with your friends or at some concert, so I deleted it all.

Twitter is an echo chamber full of toxicity and politics, which is one of the reasons I deleted it. Everyone seems to have an opinion on everything & those who oppose you will be met with visceral hatred, such divisiveness, all for what? Twitter had to go.

Facebook? Well Facebook is just awful, let’s leave it at that. You can justify the previous social media platforms, but not Facebook. Facebook is a shell of what it once was, hounded by a glob of useless and often blatantly false information. Just stay away.

For those that have made it this far I have a challenge for you, quit social media for one month- delete the apps from your phone and log out of it on your browser and clear your history. Create friction so you can’t just immediately hop back on. You might hate it and call me an idiot, and that’s okay- but it’s worth a try, just to see. No longer did I feel the obsessive urge to take a picture of my food or picture of the mall I visited with my friends. You will experience the most clarity, the most peace, you will be far less anxious and still than you’ve felt in a long time and at the end, you will realize that you’ve missed absolutely nothing.

All my life I’ve been a lean 160 pounds at 5’11. When Covid hit I was recovering from a psychoactive episode and was placed on medication, specifically Resperdal .5 mg paired with Prozac. This helped my anxiety tremendously, I went from breaking down and sobbing to grabbing life by its balls- Resperdal also got rid of 90% of my HPPD so I would stop seeing visual snow & tracers as well as other hallucinations- but despite this I managed to pack on quite a bit of weight. At the end of December 2020 I was 190 pounds, and felt happy! Unfortunately those around me did not see it that way, I was astonished.

My father would look at me in disgust, as if I was walking around with vomit ridden shirt and shit smeared underwear- every day he would point out my weight, at the end of every conversation. He would also constantly ask me the dosage of my medication and tell me to reduce it. Instead he insisted a take a drink each night instead like he does. Yeah. I was appalled and I grew depressed, so I talked with my doctor about getting rid of Resperdal. It gave a lot of headaches and nausea but eventually I was able to stop taking it, but by then I was faced with another problem, Alcohol. I had gained an unhealthy addiction to Alcohol, at it’s height I was able to take down an entire bottle of 70 proof Vodka in under 4 hours. Yeah, I had a problem. My weight skyrocketed my weight to 235, by now I was considered Obese.

Here is a 1 year before and after comparison. (I’m a big car guy BTW!)

Even though I was happy and fulfilled others shamed me for my body, even people I’d never in a million years expect too- close friends and family all reminded me of how much of a fat fuck I was every single day, which was ironic because more than half of them were nearly as overweight as me. They had lost all respect for me, even though they remained close they would shame me for being fat. Often I would play along, nearly every time- and laugh it off, haha yes you’re right! Haha yeah but I’m exercising now! How will I ever get married in my shape? The absolute worst of it was people that said they were looking out for me and reminded me every day how fat I am. Yes, I know. I’m fat. I get it, you don’t need to constantly repeat it.

Now I understood. I understood why overweight/obese people had higher rates of depression and anxiety, and it’s because of ignorance and lack of respect, lack of love.

Fuck them. I don’t need their approval. For the longest time I realized that I was just trying to impress everyone, and make everyone around me happy- no. That is the wrong way to live. If I was happy being fat who are you to come and tell me what you think of me? I no longer give a fuck. When I started to lose the weight I had gained the people who had told me I was fat now were telling me of what a good job I was doing and how good I look- fuck them. I’m not doing it for them, I never was and I will never hold the same respect for these people as I once did, the real people I have around me are the ones that didn’t remind me, the ones that treated me the same and minded their own business.

This was such a big moment and experience for me, it made me realize that all my life I’ve put others before myself, they don’t matter as much as I matter to myself. My body is my own, and I accept it. I accept my weight and my skin, I accept my body. I am grateful and appreciative of my body. I love my body, and nothing can make me feel otherwise. Once you stop holding others opinions of you so high you will skyrocket, and that is what I am on the path to doing.

In my last post I shared the experience that caused me to face my Anxiety, I’ve never before acknowledged my Anxiety – I just thought it was a normal thing everyone had, or it was just my shyness or personality. Growing up I had Anxiety about things most kids shouldn’t have, anxiety about disappointing my parents with my grades or having to talk to other people. It’s way I am so silent, and why I remain silent to this day mostly. I’ve gotten a lot better at managing it though, and If you suffer from this disorder as I do I will teach you how to overcome it. It doesn’t have overnight, it takes dedication and patience.

We need Anxiety to survive, Anxiety triggers the fight or flight response which can really come in handy in some situations- but when Anxiety comes at the wrong times It can have a devastating and lasting impact on your health. The first thing I did was visualize my Anxiety, separate it from my mind. Your body is a temple with all different elements and each of them must be taken care of properly. I visualized my Anxiety as a Spider, a Spider that lives in my head and crawls along my brain, it constantly begs to be let in and more often then not it got its way. The spider would tell my rational mind things to scare it, to double check myself- these would come in the form of “What ifs”. What if I will never get better? What if I am a secret psychopath? What if I’m going crazy? These thoughts may seem like a joke, but after a bad drug trip your mind drifts to a crazy place.

Now that you’ve visualized the Anxiety, you can move to overcome it- now you just have to find a way to shut the Spider up, and you can do that through treating your body as a temple. If you give your body negative energy you will revolve around it, you must break free of the chains that keep your mind a slave. I’m talking about your diet, your health, your addictions, every human body has the power to overcome these vices whether it be Alcohol, Marijuana, Porn, Video Games, Social Media, etc. These 5 are the ones I used to suffer with until I grabbed them by the neck and overcame them, you must treat these things as pests. They are the pinnacle of human suffering. You will never reach your fullest potential if you succumb to these things, and many people don’t- they spend their lives drowning in addiction and never are able to be who they truly aspire to be. I’m not saying get rid of these things entirely, a phrase I often repeat to myself time and time again is “Everything in moderation” by Everything I don’t mean Meth or Heroin, just use your judgement on that part. I’ve bought Video Games into my life as a reward for a hard days work, and I do drink but strictly on social occasions or holidays.

Like I’ve said before, a good diet, good sleep hygiene, and exercise can do monumental wonders for your body. This positive energy motivates you to continue to do better and become more of who you meant to be. Do not tack these on altogether though, otherwise you will fail and spiral down again. Start slowly, build up one habit at a time and once you are comfortable with it move forward. For me making my bed everyday added structure and discipline to my life, it seems like a small thing but once you do it you are motivated to continue with completing tasks for the rest of the day. For your diet, smart small and be basic. For me I just cooked eggs, added some fruit and toast with some ham on the side for lunch, or some days I’d make a ham and cheese. Dinner would consist of a side of veggies, with rice and protein- nothing fancy. Waking up the same time everyday is very important as it controls your circadian rhythm. Exercise can be added into daily tasks such as taking the stairs or parking further from the store or taking your dog on a walk.

Mindfulness is another big part to recovery, I begun to meditate and noticed my thoughts constantly switching and changing, if you cannot turn your brain off then you do not have control of yourself. Remain in the present moment, enjoy it, stop and smell the air, notice the wind and the clouds, be grateful for your life. I used to be afraid of flying, thinking that the plane would crash and I’d die in a fiery wreck, and the weeks leading up to a trip I’d be sweating and when the thought came up I’d get chills down my spine, then one day I realized that if I don’t die in the plane crash all the time spent worrying about it is a waste of time, if it’s gonna happen it is gonna happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it, so just accept the risks in life and move forward.

Some other tips and tricks I’ve learned is this:

• When about to have a panic attack focus entirely on your breath, breathe out, hold, breathe in slowly, don’t focus on the seconds but just doing everything slow
• When you really need to get something done set a timer for 25 minutes, work entirely in that time frame and once it’s done you can stop or take a 5 minute break and repeat
• When you need to do something but have no motivation or are anxious simply count down from 5 out loud and physically move to do it, the physical part it important
• Meditate every day

There is a saying, there is no such thing as a bad trip, just a challenging one.

It is August of 2020. This was my first time taking LSD, I had heard stories of how it has helped countless people resolve their inner most problems, and I also read how LSD has driven people to kill themselves from going insane. Couldn’t be me right?