No one understands the pain and anguish of losing a loved one. But social media has created an environment where we need to maintain our façade, rather than grieve openly. It’s time to stop being so afraid of what people think about us.
We are living in an era where there is no privacy – where it’s not just possible but expected that anything you do will be on display for the world to see, whether you want it or not.
This is true even when your life falls apart around you – especially then, in fact. The more publicly visible your grief becomes on social media. The less acceptable it seems to feel any emotion other than sadness on Facebook or Instagram posts about death and loss – because how dare anyone has feelings other than sadness when someone has died?
Grief is a very private matter
Grief is a very private matter, something that most people will deal with in their own way. But social media makes it difficult to be truly open when it comes to your grief process because the response you get from posting on Facebook about how sad you are or tagging photos of your dead dog online isn’t sadness. It’s a flood of people telling you how sad it is and asking if there’s anything they can do to help.
“Can we all share this link to my GoFundMe page?”
Social media makes it impossible to mourn privately. It turns our grief process into something that seems public because everyone is sharing everything about their lives. So, if you post something about your grief on social media, it’s easy to feel like you are making others uncomfortable. Because all they see is a reminder of their own mortality being thrown in their face.
This isn’t the way grief is supposed to work
We are not taught how to deal with loss in school or at home. We just must learn through experience, some of us worse off than others, some more fortunate than others. Social media has changed the way we mourn – our need to be part of an online community during times of loss has made it impossible for us to grieve privately, and that has created a strange environment around death and grief.
This Façade ends up in depression
Our social media lives are completely different than the average person’s. They see your perfectly posed, filtered, and edited photos with witty captions about how you’re so happy. Even though someone in your life has died. Then they see you with blank eyes and no filter at all in real life when you finally let yourself mourn after everyone else is already back to normal.
Reality shows a completely different picture from the one you present on your social media feeds. And that causes friction in real life with friends who don’t know how to handle both versions of you. They want the “old” you back. They want you to be happy again because it makes them feel better about themselves.
This sometimes ends up in depression and makes you feel miserable. If you need professional help don’t wait and visit the nearest hospital and to see Psychologist in Lahore and Psychologist in Karachi.
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