There seems to be an online community for just about any interest, identity, or desire out there. From Facebook to Twitter, Redit to Tumbler, and on to an entire encyclopaedia of additional platforms beyond, anyone can find people with whom to share ideas, commiserate, or wage war. These global networks of often anonymous and carefully curated identities are available 24-7, meaning there's always someone somewhere up to play, chat, or listen when you scream into the ether.
This is absolutely a boon for those isolated by and struggling with their mental health. With a quiet tweet or desperate plea to an online group, one can immediately elicit dozens, if not hundreds, of consoling comments, an avalanche of advice, glorious GIFs, and possibly even direct messages from someone willing to talk you down from the edge. When it works, it can turn a crisis moment into a teary laugh and perhaps a long online conversation about everything that's going on. Instead of simply shouting into the void, you now have a real, live, compassionate human being on the other end, telling you you're not alone, you matter, your thoughts/worries/anxieties are valid, you've got this, you can make it through to another day. It's an incredibly beautiful thing.
Good online communities look out for their members. People notice when someone disappears for a while or the tone of their posts darkens. They ask how things are going, pull individuals who are struggling aside for a one-to-one chat, link them with local support IRL, and follow up over the days and weeks to come. This can literally save lives.
I wrote briefly about my time in a maternal psych ward here, but didn't go into details about the long slippery slope of degrading mental health and the online community of local mothers who did their damndest to keep me afloat as I was frantically bailing water from my sinking ship. I connected with this group when I first moved to my new home five years ago because I knew no one and was terrified of being completely isolated with my challenging child yet again. I opened up to them about my history of PND/PTSD, shared my fears of having another terrifying birth experience, sought advice on balancing work and a potential second child, and started making friends I could actually talk to in the real world. These women helped me immeasurably in the decision making process before becoming pregnant again, during the three brutal months of vomiting and nausea that marked the beginning of pregnancy, working through the terror of birthing what-ifs, and filled our freezer and fridge with ready-to-eat homemade meals to ease the burden of the first few weeks.
They were so much more than just an online community; they were an actual community sewn together with the ease and convenience of the internet. The group was carefully designed and moderated to be a place of support, not mommy wars or pyramid marketing schemes. It was a mothers' group on steroids. A call for help was invariably met with outpourings of whatever support anyone could offer: a chat in the dark when babies weren't sleeping, a cup of tear-filled tea to get you through a hard morning, a walk in the park, a hazy coffee date, soup for your family's dinner, grabbing your weekly shopping for you. No favour was ever deemed too big and the only request in return was that you pay it forward someday in your own way to someone else in need.
The group gradually grew too big for its britches. Somewhere around the 800-member mark, the vibe changed. The old guard moved on as our kids started school and we returned to more work outside our homes. People's needs, desires, and trust shifted, or at least mine certainly did. It's no longer my go-to port of call when I need to vent or ask for support, although many of the mothers I connected with initially through the group are still valued friends.
My journey into uncovering, discovering, and embracing my Autistic identity and that of my eldest daughter has led me into different online communities. Some are good, others are downright toxic. I've tried to learn to be very selective about which groups I engage with and how quickly to flee the savage spaces to protect my own tender skin, but it's not always easy to know what conflagration you're walking into. Some spaces are kept safe and welcoming by ardent guards who take swift and unrelenting action against anyone who breaks the sacrosanct group rules, but even they can't moderate all corners of their little cyber space every second and it only takes a single thoughtless moment to crush someone with a careless comment at the wrong time.
Some very large groups seem to be populated by generally well intentioned individuals who are there as much for the camaraderie as they are for their own selfish needs. The Twitter #WritingCommunity is such a place of silliness, shameless self promotion, writer lifts, follow threads, and virtual tackle hugs. There are certainly some who are only there to boost their follower numbers and promote their wares, but there are a lot of incredible people there too. People around the world are sharing writing tips, industry advice, critiquing each other's work, and bolstering anyone having a hard time. It's kind of amazing to watch sometimes, but there is a dark side to all this incredible "connection".
I argue that our brains are simply not evolved enough to know on a deeply visceral level the difference between online and real life connections. Sure, we know intellectually that these "friends" we're making are only as real as we are to them, but that doesn't stop the flood of neurotransmitters from generating feelings of adoration, attraction, jealousy, and rage. We feel the feelings but there's no way to gauge reciprocity.
I know this is one reason involvement in online communities is ultimately terrible for my mental health. Yes, I may get a daily hit of serotonin and dopamine when my peeps like or comment on a post. Sometimes there's a suggested activity, such as posting daily gratitude tweets, that helps me take stock of just how fortunate I am. Occasionally, someone may write just the right thing at just the right time, when there's no flesh and blood human available to tell me to breathe and stop scrubbing the sink frantically as my mind whizzes out of control. Those random people on the other side of the world who take a few seconds from whatever else they're doing to send a little virtual love can have extraordinarily positive effects in the short term and doing the same for others makes me feel valuable, but the long-term effects are not so shiny.
Sure, commiserating over the heartache and exhaustion of raising a differently wired child with a parent on another planet can ease the burden of those feelings, but it doesn't lighten the load of caring for said child. Sharing inside jokes with a group of like-minded individuals is great fun, but it isolates us from loved ones around us who don't "get it". Swooning over the brilliance of someone else's thoughts, regardless of how carefully curated those thoughts may be, decreases our tolerance for the inane things that spill from the mouths of our unfiltered friends and family.
Creating the perfectly likeable online persona also eats up an incredible amount of time and energy. There's so much preening going on we may as well be a pack of chimps constantly picking nits off one another. I've seen at least half a dozen tweets just today from people apologising for being too negative in their posts because they're going through a hard time. Why do we have to apologise for speaking our truths? Why do we have to be up-beat and glorious for thousands of strangers all the time? This creates an inordinate unnecessary mental burden no one really needs, most of all those who are already struggling with their identity and mental health.
Maybe it's harder for someone like me for whom face-to-face interactions are so fraught with anxieties and baggage. Online communities allow me to read the lay of the land, figure out how the "cool kids" do it, and then put my best foot forward. I can slink away when my head is in a terrible space or spill the thoughts out across multiple groups to avoid overloading any particular one with all the garbage in my head. But I have to continually remind myself to be cautious, not to put myself too far out there, not to invest too heavily in straw men with no investment in me.
It's much easier for me to put my thoughts down in writing, heavily edit them and add a graphic that further enhances the expression I wish to make than it is to spit out what I want to say to someone's face. In real life, I'm invariably interpreted as overly blunt, uncaring, egotistical, or someone who simply thinks they're "way too smart for the rest of us plebs". Online, I can weigh my words, put my compassion first, and check my caustic tongue at the door. My anxiety is lower, so I'm able to tap into my heart sometimes instead of just my head.
It is a brave new world we've created, one our biology is far from catching up with. My only hope is that we can all learn to traverse it more kindly so everyone can benefit more from the infinite possibilities simmering just beneath the surface.
