Social Cutting

A long time ago, I made a point to stop visiting any place on the web that messed with me emotionally. There are other places where I will go, but I won't read the comments because I know they can get toxic. I certainly don't engage with strangers. This has done wonders for my internetting experience.

I'm glad I did this, because it seems that many people do not. Not only will people go to places where they know they're going to experience negative emotions, but they will also take it steps further. They will do things to cause the people within the group to purposefully target them. In fact, it's become such a problem that a new term has been coined for it. Digital Self-harm.

One of the most common acts of digital self-harm is to post selfies in places where you know people will rip you apart. For instance, were I into this kind of behavior, I might go to a site where people degrade fat women. I would post a pic of myself and read the comments as people told me how ugly and disgusting I am. I would absorb them suggesting I kill myself, how awful I was for society, etc. I would never do this, because thankfully I don't have that level of disorder. Other people, however, do.

Why does this happen? I think in some cases, people are so lonely and broken, they think that even if they're seen for negative reasons, at least they're being seen. Other people mistrust compliments and want people to reinforce all the negative things they believe about themselves. Other people use this as food for their depression. "I'm ugly/useless/stupid/hopeless so why bother trying?"

The problem is, well, honestly, there are a lot of problems with this, but the major problem is that many of the people who end up in places like this are young teens who already have a pretty distorted worldview and screwed up emotional center. Toss them into this quagmire of insults and attacks, mix that with little life experience and judgement......well, a lot of things can go wrong. It's an easy moment for some predator to swoop in and start grooming them. It's an easy gateway to physical self-harm and suicide attempts.

How to combat it? Well, don't go to these places is the easy answer, but also probably easier said than done. One of the people I was watching on Youtube talked about how she literally had to install software that would block these sites from her. This helps some, but it doesn't solve the problem.

The most important thing to do is recognize that there is mental illness going on. Get help. Find meds that can start giving you good doses of chemicals instead of your brain feeding on the chemicals the self-harm gives you. Talk to a therapist. This life is yours to experience. Don't invite in darkness to suck it away from you.