Many people criticize social media, claiming it promotes fakeness and toxicity. The constant comparisons on social media leave a deteriorating impact on mental health, including anxiety and depression. Trust me; I can resonate with this very well. At times, I still catch myself constantly comparing my life with the glimpses of my friends' lives as portrayed on Instagram and Facebook.
Dealing with cancer as a young adult can be extremely confusing and challenging to navigate. You feel as though you are caught between two alternate realities and two parallel universes. My insta feed is literally split into two different worlds. The truth is, it can be extremely hard for me to watch some of these social media updates posted by my friends and family. The polarizing lives that people around me are leading make me feel bad in different ways.
By proactively engaging in online cancer spaces, I have been reading many triggering posts, usually involving painful struggles with treatment, side effects, or facing death's door. It's quite unsettling and demoralising.
On the other side of the spectrum, I have friends outside of the cancer world who just so happen to be getting married, buying houses, starting families, earning promotions, and moving in with their partners. It's funny how all of these things started happening at the same time while I was in the middle of my treatment. I am not joking. To be honest, it's been very very hard to watch them move on with their lives while I feel so behind, constantly under time pressure, and genuinely terrified of what else might derail me. Time seems to have slowed down for me while it's flying by for others. Sometimes, I experience dissonance, leading to feelings of envy. I feel ashamed that the very people I envy are actually the closest people in my life. Until today, I still struggle to relate and understand some of my friends like the way I used to. It's like a bunch of juxtapositions all rolled up into one hot mess ball of stress. I haven't really openly talked about this with many people for the fear of being judged for making it about me.
Despite people telling me that everyone has a different timeline or that life isn't a race and that I shouldn't compare myself to others, it's not so much about comparing. It's about what I want, and I'm nowhere close to those stages, which makes it frustrating. It's also not helpful when they feed you with clichés like "don't worry, the time will come," or "everything happens for a reason." While these sentiments are not ill-intentioned, they can potentially promote false hope, inducing feelings of disappointment. There will always be people who have it worse, but that doesn't diminish your experience. Your struggles are still valid. You are entitled to talk about them and own your story.
Simultaneously, I also had some positive experiences on social media. Perhaps social media isn't all that bad. It could be a good thing...
Because of social media, I formed genuine connections with friends within the cancer community.
Because of social media, I got the chance to partner up with a pharmaceutical company by working on a variety of projects to raise cancer awareness. This included getting the chance to speak on stage at an international hematology conference back in June 2023. By going on stage, I felt like I was a voice representing the unheard. It helped me to heal and process my experience while providing essential knowledge for the research and medical team on improving the needs and support for cancer patients. It was such a profound feeling to make my story worth telling. It was an impactful moment to present my experiences so that the medical and research team could gain understanding from the perspective of a cancer survivor. I truly felt like I was doing something meaningful.
Because of social media, I get the chance to connect with like-minded individuals and engage in things that I am passionate about - music, friendships, mental health, and spirituality. I had the chance to reconnect with old friends and former classmates. I had the chance to do virtual music collaborations. I had the chance to work together with a friend of mine in creating our very first music video.
Because of social media, I come across reels and videos that make me feel seen, less alone, and more understood. In a way, I can find some safe spaces where my thoughts are validated. Many of those pages are relevant for the cancer community. Sometimes I find myself struggling to search for the right words to express my thoughts and feelings. By coming across posts like these that have the power to take the words right out of my mouth, it actually helps me to articulate my thoughts and label my feelings. Words hold so much power. They say that we cling to art, poetry, music and books because we desperately do not want to be alone. We want someone to explain things that we can't. Perhaps that's also one of the reasons why I picked up reading and started listening to music way more than I ever did before. In a way, this helps me to claim bits and pieces of myself back. It gives me some form of control - something that we could all use in our lives.
My upbringing as a third-culture kid led me to internalize this narrative that "everyone always leaves" and that everything is fleeting. Because of that, one of my biggest fears has been loneliness - the lack of connection, the lack of empathy, and the lack of community in my life. By adding my personal insecurities in the mix, I spent most of my life trying so hard to earn other people's love, which drained my soul. I wasn't being fully myself.
When I was diagnosed with cancer, I started to document and share my updates about treatment on Instagram. Slowly and slowly, I revealed raw and vulnerable parts of myself. It was uncomfortable. I had even had my reservations whether I was oversharing some of my content. But I have come to find that by putting myself out there and being real about my thoughts, passions, and experiences, I started to form genuine connections. I didn't have to try so hard to keep people in my life anymore like the way I used to. This was what worked for me as a result of my community and friends being scattered across the globe. You don't necessarily have to use social media as an outlet to connect back to yourself. At the end of the day, it comes down to finding the safe spaces where you can show up. No one talks about the challenging aspects of rediscovering yourself...your true self. Finding yourself again involves a grieving process, including letting go of some people whom you once considered to fulfill an important role in your life. But this also makes room for new people in your life who will show even more love than you can imagine.
"No one talks about the challenging aspects of rediscovering yourself...your true self. Finding yourself again involves a grieving process, including letting go of some people whom you once considered to fulfill an important role in your life. But this also makes room for new people in your life who will show even more love than you can imagine."
Upon reflection, social media can do a lot of damage yet it can bring a lot of good. The key lies in what you choose to post, who you choose to follow, and how you navigate the platform. You have the POWER to choose what you wish to engage with online, who you choose to subscribe, mute, follow or unfollow.
Reconnecting back to yourself can be a painful yet empowering process.
You can be happy for others but sad for yourself. Many differing feelings like gratitude, happiness, resentment, and guilt can all coexist.
Healing isn't always linear and not as glamorized as it is made out to be in the movies. It comes in waves of unpredictability. It challenges your boundaries and limits.
Resilience helps you to become more adaptable yet it comes at a cost of pain and loss.
As a society, we are often conditioned and trained to perceive things in a binary manner—either one thing or its opposite. The truth is, many aspects of life are intricate, with layers that form a myriad of complexities. The world isn't always so black and white. Sometimes it is easier to surrender and practice radical acceptance without forcing yourself to feel or be a certain way; without labelling it as good or bad or "I should/ shouldn't be feeling like this." Life itself is gray...grey.
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