18.09.2018

an unedited diary entry: 

I’ve just finished reading a memoir. Specifically, Robert Webb’s ‘How Not to be a Boy’, though I don’t suppose that matters. I am about to turn 25 in, oh, three minutes. Technically. Although I am mid-way through a flight to New York so I’m not entirely sure what time zone I’m in and what counts as my birthday.

I digress. I am alone in every sense of the word. I am physically alone (even the annoying woman I was seated next to for take-off has moved), and I am single. I am twenty-five (exactly, it’s midnight now) and single.

And I’ve just read a memoir, which has me thinking, amongst other things, what the bloody hell I would write in a memoir at this point. The vast majority of Robert Webb’s book takes place over the course of his childhood, teens, and university years, though it is fair to say that it could not have been written without the perspective he has seemingly gained with age and experience. Nonetheless, should I have a book’s worth of Life by now?

It might be more pertinent to write this on waking up tomorrow morning, properly 25, but tomorrow morning I won’t have another three hours left to kill on a plane. I have been answering the question ‘how old are you’ with ’25’ or ’25, well, nearly’ or some variation of that for the entirety of September, but hadn’t given much thought to what, if anything that number means to me or anyone else. 25 both does and does not ‘seem that old’ to me. Most of my friends are older than I am by years, but also twenty-five is the oldest I’ve ever been.

I am often, I think, self-conscious about age because of my older friends and the fact that whatever I say about 25, they have already felt it. They’ve been there, done that, got the badge, blown out the candles, etc. I also feel self-conscious because I know that at the end of the day a person’s age means largely nothing, besides a vague (but sometimes inaccurate) indicator of the amount of Life Experience they have.

As I write now I remember Millie telling me that 25 was the birthday that she had an age-related breakdown about. I have, when talking about my upcoming 25th, been saying to friends and acquaintances that 25 feels scary because I can no longer be good at something ‘for my age’. Unless I become Prime Minister, or something. In my field, however, people are achieving YOUNG as hell; as far as blogging or ~influencing goes, I am ancient.

So I suppose 25 is bringing with it a sort of identity crisis, but one I can see very clearly, almost like an out of body experience. Maybe all that therapy (and time left alone to think on solo flights) is paying off, ha.

Is it interesting that one of the first things I wrote was ’25 and single’, because I have not given any thought to that as a concept til now. I don’t mind being single, I quite like it a lot of the time, actually, and I have no real desire to settle down yet. But I do know that buried in my head like a fucking tick is the idea that my parents, who are still together, met when they were around my age, and that everyone around me seems to be getting engaged or married (well, both most of the time). Though my rational brain is fighting with all its might the idea that new lover = potential life partner, that is sometimes quite a hard fight.

09.10.2018

I’ve had a few weeks to settle into 25 and ultimately it doesn’t feel much different. Being a September baby and thus having my birthday coincide with what was once the start of the school year, I subconsciously or sometimes consciously find myself making premature new year’s resolutions on entering each new year of my life. This year: read and write more; do something for work other than run this blog (more on that later, perhaps); trust myself; talk about how I feel with everyone I have any kind of friendship or relationship with, but also get better at keeping my cards to my chest when necessary. Be less naive and stop expecting the best from people.

Stop expecting the best from people. This could be viewed as a step backwards into pessimism, but instead I think that applying my brand of cynicism to people I meet and even people I know already, rather than just strangers and intangible things, will stand me in better stead to meet and hold on to the genuinely good ones. I trust too much. It isn’t about coldness, it is actually maybe even about being nicer and kinder, but warier.

25 and single. Being single is invaluable for personal growth, I think. It gives you time to reflect not just on past relationships, but also on yourself as a being outside the context of someone else. I don’t think I change drastically from relationship to relationship (save for the added trauma here and there lol!) but I think I become better at being myself, and being there for myself, when I don’t have one person to depend on to be there for me.

I won’t be donning a purity ring for my 25th year, but I don’t want to be in a relationship because it seems more comfortable than the alternative, and I don’t want to be in a relationship because I quite like them and they’ve asked me twice and I’m scared of saying no. I’m going to be there for myself first.

photos by Zac Mahrouche, from my birthday do (which he attended as a pal I didn’t just make him come and take photos of me bowling I promise)

A huge part of my job is tied up with social media. I post every day, and spend hours scrolling through feeds full of friends, other bloggers, celebrities, and everything in between. I ‘have’ to do this, but the chances are that if this wasn’t my job I would still have similar habits, as I always have. To an extent I could probably be considered a ‘social media addict’, whatever that means.

I also have pretty poor mental health. In my case my poor mental health has been in no way caused by my social media use or presence but, in the same way that other areas of life do, it must affect and inform it. I am certain that social media and its omnipresence, while it can be a force for so much good, can also take a real toll on our collective mental wellbeing. There are many levels and nuances to this discussion that I could not even begin to cover in this post, especially when it comes to issues relating to fat-phobia, homophobia, transphobia, white-washing and racism – things that I am privileged enough not to have to experience directly, online or otherwise. But overarching all of that, affecting potentially anyone who uses any form of social media, is the curse of comparison.

top from Weekday; photo by Georgia

At a talk I attended recently, when the subject of social media and mental health was broached author and model Juno Dawson said that she finds herself scrolling through Instagram and comparing herself to trans models, like herself, in particular. Instagram has done a world of good for diversity but we are still falling foul of comparing ourselves, consciously or otherwise, to people who we perceive to be like us but in some way better.

I love following slightly ‘aspirational’ people, bloggers in particular. Most of the time it drives me and inspires me to better myself and my content. But every now and again it gets me down, and if comparing yourself to others makes you feel bad, then that can negatively impact your mental health. So often a discussion of social media and mental health boils down to the message that you should not compare your life to the lives portrayed by the people you follow on Instagram. But what happens when you start comparing simply your own Instagram account with someone else’s, or you own writing with someone else’s? And what happens when you are making your entire living off the representation of yourself online?

The problem for me here is twofold: firstly it is quite difficult to get away from comparing yourself to other bloggers. It is something that I would imagine almost all of us struggle with every now and again, especially when experiencing periods of bad mental health for other reasons. Secondly, while I try to act honestly and with a degree of integrity in everything I do,  it is sometimes hard to reconcile the idea that I am living off my online image with the fact that I might be contributing to the problem of unrealistic representation on social media. Potentially I am both a victim and a perpetrator.

A cute photo I post with my boyfriend doesn’t show the fact that our relationship can sometimes be challenging, I don’t live blog my therapy sessions on Instagram stories, and some of the hardest times in my life are documented on my social media profiles not with total honesty but with outfit photos.

This dress reminds me that I spent a day shooting beautiful photos in Kew Gardens but running off to vomit every half hour because of the state of anxiety and shock I was in.

This selfie reminds me that I spent that afternoon crying in a park.

I distinctly remember making this photo black and white to hide the red blotchiness of my face, and changing my top only to get straight back into my pyjamas for the rest of the day.

So yes, we all know that an Instagram account is not an accurate representation of the entirety of its owner’s life, but looking after your mental health while online is a much more complex than just that.

To an extent there is pressure on us all make our lives look good online; as a full-time blogger whose livelihood depends on my online life, that pressure is increased dramatically. I ‘must’ curate my Instagram feed to be equal parts perfect, aspirational and relatable; I ‘must’ also not allow my Instagram feed to appear too curated; etc. A lot of my own mental health issues are tied up in a difficulty in accepting failure or fault, so these pressures can often exacerbate my existing problems.

Self-care needs to extend to online. You should seek out and fill your feeds with people who make you feel good on the internet, just as you should in real life, and shun those who make you feel bad, be that because of how they speak to you or simply how the way they portray their life makes you feel. Take some time away from social media if you are having a tough week, mute somebody whose tweets you find exhausting or triggering, block a toxic ex. If a blogger makes you feel more negative than positive, just unfollow them. It isn’t that big a deal, I promise.