Social media - a potential 'Pandora's box'

In classical Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on Earth.  On her wedding day she was given a beautiful jar with instructions not to open it.  However, filled with curiosity she did open the jar and when she did all the evil contained therein escaped and spread over the earth.  She quickly closed the container - but the whole contents had escaped, except for one thing that lay in the bottom - the spirit of hope.  

Today the phrase 'to open Pandora's box'  (a jar in the story) means to perform an action that may seem small and innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences.

Yesterday I opened my own 'Pandora's box' with the click of a few keys on my laptop.  At the time it was an impulsive decision to act  following a passing thought which happened to  float through my mind while I was on the computer.

Reacting impulsively to fleeting arbitrary thoughts can be dangerous.  

Especially for me.  

I have a tendency to quickly act  on impulsive decisions - before I change my mind! 

Most people - wisely - do the opposite.   They think carefully.  They consider consequences.  They weigh up the pros and the cons of their decisions.  They let their ideas brew for a few hours - or even a few days - or even longer - before they make their final decision.  They don't give in so quickly to temptation or curiosity.  

I should do that more!  I really should.  But I don't ...

I consider myself a 'grab-and-go shopper or 'doer' - in this case.  I rush in.  I think later.  If I'm shopping - I don't scout around and consider my purchases and look for the best price or debate whether or not I really need a 'belly-button-warmer' or that 'pet rock'.  I find one - of whatever it is. I grab it.  I go buy it.  I think later - or - I don't reflect at all.

  

I regret at my leisure. Sometimes.  Other times it  works really well for me.    What if I change my mind and it turned out to be the last 'one-of-whatever' the shop ever stock?  Or it turns out to be something really fun!?  Or the opportunity passes and it never returns? What if I miss out - because I over-analysed the situation?! 

On the other hand - 'fools rush in …'    

And 'rushing in and then regretting it' is what I did yesterday - foolishly.  And it wasn't the first time.  Actually, it's probably the second time - on my computer.  

I've stopped counting when it comes to regrets about rash decisions off the computer.  But that is a story for another time.

So yesterday, within minutes of my computer screen responding to the few little innocent commands I impulsively plugged in - I regretted my decision!  A lot!  A really really lot!  With some decisions there is no going back …  

Within minutes of my computer flashing a response to my key-strokes - I felt awful and depressed and terribly upset.  Within minutes I wished that I had never opened the files that I did.  My day became a horrible nightmare.  I had difficulty functioning for the entire day.  I found it hard to sleep last night and finally, thanks to getting busy at work today and chatting to my lovely patients - as I do everyday at work - I have only just begun to feel better. 

Yet, I think it will take me a while to more completely recover - from my experience on social media yesterday.

Social media can do that to you … sometimes.  It can be a Pandora's box.

What did I foolishly do?  Let me explain:

Firstly, however, some back story - to put into perspective what happened.

My back story  all started twenty-six years ago.  The day I left my childhood home.  

For many young people aged 22 years - leaving home might be an exciting time where one's family come and see your new house or flat.  

One's mother might tearfully hug you and fill a lovely vase (a 'housewarming gift' maybe) with colourful flowers.  She might put a few 'home-cooked meals' in tupper-ware containers into your fridge.  'Eat well, dear,' she might say.  'And I want you to come home every week to visit us and I'll cook you a  nice meal.'

One's father might look around and see that you're safe.  He might check that the  doors can be securely locked.  He might look outside and check that you'll be safe getting  from your car into the house after a  late shift at work.  He'll look for 'good lighting' and all that. He might remind you that he is only a phone-call away should you need your car checked or something heavy lifted.

Well, that was not the case for me. Not even nearly!  Not even remotely!

Leaving home for me, 26 years ago, at the age of 22, was done in the way a woman leaving a domestic violence situation might leave.  

I had planned my exit in detail and a long way ahead of time:  A safe house had been arranged weeks earlier.  I had arranged a $10,000 bank-loan  to support myself while I finished my last year of Medical school.  That money was now sitting in a secret bank account that I had opened. 

My lovely boyfriend, David (now my dear husband of 25 years), had arranged time off work to help me get my possessions packed up quickly and keep me safe while I got myself out of my parent's house.  Finally.

I  had arranged to leave while my parents were at work.  On the morning that I finally left that 'horrible house', as it would forevermore be referred to by me, I'd gone to university, as usual.  My parents, similarly, had left for work, as usual.  However, later in the morning, I had returned to the house with David.  We had two cars - so that we wouldn't need to make a return trip to the house. I did not want to return and accidentally be confronted by them.  

My exit was a skillfull and fast affair.  We got in. We threw some of my clothes and my books and my university-folders into a few green plastic garbage bags.  And we got out.  Fast.  

Fifteen minutes is all it took for me to pack up my few possessions - and get the hell out of there.  

I was so scared that my terrifying parents would come home during the process of my leaving. 

My heart was racing as I packed my things.  I was so vigilant -  listening nervously for any car that might pull into the drive way. I kept my eyes on a clock … constantly. I couldn't even begin to relax until I had driven some distance from the house.  My mind was racing.  

And even then, when I had moved into my elderly aunt's house - where I stayed and paid for my keep for the next 18 months until I married David -  I still had nightmares every night for an entire year.   

My elderly aunt told me later that every night I  would call out in my sleep and sometimes cry.  She said that she could hear my bed banging on the wooden floor as I tossed about during my terrible nightmares.  Finally, after a year, the bad dreams became less frequent.  Now, I rarely have them.

I do recall some of those dreams.  They are often based on traumatic events which actually happened during my childhood and my youth.  In my nightmares I often felt like I would be killed.  So, I presume that must have been my fear in real life at the time. 

For example, in one recurring dream my father chases me down a road to bash me, as he actually did when I was around 14 years old.  But in my dream he carries a gun - which he didn't actually own in real-life.  

During the first 12  months after I moved out of my parent's house,  I also recall that my hair fell out in handfuls.  It was a difficult time emotionally.

Looking back,  I find it interesting to consider the way that during  'war-like'  experiences of violence and horror - one's brain copes by playing down, to an extent, the dangers and the trauma - so that a person can survive and continue to function.  Feelings are often buried such that one may feel almost numb to emotions during that time. 

However, once safety is found and the screaming and violence and the dangers subside - then the nightmares and the emotions often come to the surface again, buried as they may have been before, and a person may seemingly 'drop their bundle', as part of their recovery. They may seem to 'fall apart' a bit, emotionally, before they can review and reframe the things that have happened to them and around them.

It can be a sort of 'darkest before the dawn' situation.  It can feel initially, like it gets harder before it begins to heal and get better. 

And for anyone reading this now - who may be currently in a violent abusive situation - it can get better.  But only if you make the changes you need to and arrange to get out!  You must get away to safety - but you will need to plan and get help first.  Any other changes and councelling or whatever can follow later.  But getting to safety must be the initial priority - if violence is involved.  Safety first.

Also,  when I say 'abuse' - this could include other situations of abuse, other than child-abuse.  Situations such as  domestic violence or even bullying - in school or in the work-place.

To get out from an abusive situation a victim of abuse needs to, firstly, be accurate about the label - 'abuse'. You need to call the situation what it is: 'Abuse'.  Not just say that someone has a 'bit of a bad temper' or they are simply being 'mean'.  

I always say in medicine: 'Half of any treatment is making the correct diagnosis'.  If the diagnosis is wrong then the treatment will be wrong.  

A doctor must therefore think very carefully about medical situations and be extremely accurate with the his/her word choices and labels - to avoid misdiagnoses and poor outcomes for patients. 

Similarly, with abuse, you won't appreciate how serious and potentially dangerous a situation is - if you don't accurately label violence, of any sort, as 'abuse'.  

That is - don't 'misdiagnose' the situation you're in!

Don't 'down-play' it.  Abuse escalates.  You can't placate an abuser.  They almost always get worse.  I have seen not only deaths in children, in child-abuse cases, but also terrible injuries: children with brain damage resulting in - blindness, retardation, quadraplegia, hemiplegia, paraplegia, multiple fractured bones …  These things are heart-breaking to see.

Obviously, I have seen similar terrible injuries in domestic violence situations  as well - and in other violent relationships or situations as well. All of these situations can be very dangerous. And in many cases poor outcomes can be prevented if the victim can get to safety soon enough.

It is never  OK for a human being to be hit or physically attacked or belittled or called names or made to feel bad about themselves.  To attack a person in such a way is not simply someone having a 'bad-temper' or being 'mean'.  It's abuse.  Don't make excuses for them! You deserve better!  

I could have got out of my violent house sooner.  My older sister continuously ran away from home and she was put in foster care from the age of about 14.  She never came home again.

I did go to the police, after my father bashed me at about 18 years of age.  I then took him to court and I got a restraining order against him.  Following that, in my case, while my father did continue to be verbally and emotionally abusive to me - he never hit me again.  Even though this was a bad situation, I thought, at the time,  that while I wasn't being hit I would stay in that house until I finished Medical school.  

However, if my father had hit me again or if I had felt unsafe  then I  would have left university, delayed getting my Medical degree, and got out of that dangerous environment  immediately.

I don't know, in hindsight, if staying in that environment while I finished my degree was the right decision.  But it's what I did. 

I never returned to my parent's house, after I escaped from it at the age of 22, except for a brief time, many years later, when I attempted briefly and unsuccessfully to reconcile with my parents and siblings.  

Typical of abusive families, when I confronted my parents as an adult in my early thirties, they did what most abusive parents do: they denied my accusations about physical, verbal and emotional abuse; told me that I was exaggerating; and said that what did happen was all my fault.

A wonderful book I read on the topic of recovering, as an adult, from child abuse was:  Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life.  It is written by Dr Susan Forward.  It has been a number one New York times best seller and more than one million copies have been published.  I think that says something about the prevalence of abused children and recovering adults in society.  It has been estimated in Australia the numbers of abused children (physical, emotional, neglect, verbal and/or sexual) is at least 20%.  

It is worth mentioning here that one of the hallmarks of growing up in a frightening household is that children often think that they are the only ones in such circumstances.  Even when they reach adulthood and realise that many other people had very troubled childhoods - they may still not reveal the details of their abuse to anyone.  This imposes a profound isolation on people which can be very painful and destructive.

Also, typically, and predicted in the books I had read as an adult about abusive families, when an adult-child confronts abusive parents - the other siblings in these dysfunctional families often resent the upset to the status quo created by the victim identifying the 'elephant in the room' - which is the abuse.  The other siblings may become so angry with the 'whistle-blower' adult-victim that they dissociate from the victim making the accusations. They may stop contacting and speaking to the adult victim and thus socially isolate him/her from the family.

This is what happened to me.  For the last 15 years, since I confronted my parents about the childhood abuse, I have been banished from all family events and cut-off from any further communication with any of them: my parents and my two siblings.  I will almost certainly be disinherited as well.  

My siblings are welcome to the few million dollars that my parents will bequeath to them - unless, of course, my parents wish to torment their children one last time, for old-time sake, and they leave all their money to a local 'cats-home'. And they don't even like cats that much!   But, fortunately, none of that is of any concern to me now.   

And the fact that none of my old family speak to me or visit me anymore is absolutely fine with me.  It is more than fine.  It has been bloody fantastic! Smashing! Liberating! Wonderful! 

I have lived a lovely adult life free and safe from my horrible early years in my abusive childhood and in that 'horrible house.'  

With my old family gone from my life -  most of the bad memories and nightmares have gone too.  Also with them, away from my current life and back into my distant past, has gone:  The sadness.  The frustration and anger that abusive people can just 'get away' with what they do to other people - sometimes.  They can remain oblivious and uncaring about  the damage they've done.  They may be happy and  successful in their later lives and even admired by people outside of the family who have no idea what monsters they might be behind closed doors. 

But that is not something I dwell on.  I just don't.  I have chosen to leave the past in the past.  Distance myself from those times and start over in a happy adult life.

I have forgiven my family in the sense that I don't wish them any harm, and I don't seek vengeance, and I don't actually think about them at all - mostly.  I just wish them to remain far away from me.  Forever.  

I have  my own 'new family' now.  A family that love me and I love them:  David and our four children.  I have also been blessed with a number of lovely, kind and dear friends as well.  Friends that I have had for most of my life - decades.

It is worth acknowledging that only very rarely can abusive parents be rehabilitated.

Nor will they ever (or rarely) give their children validation for the abuse they suffered at their hands.  

And almost never will an abused adult-child receive the healthy parent-child relationship they long for.

An understanding of this will save many adult survivors of child abuse a lot of angst and a lot of wasted time trying to make their abusive parents change or understand the effects of their past behaviour.  It will save adult survivors of abuse a lot of painful disappointment to know this.

One of my patients told me a sad story recently.  She said that she had been estranged from her abusive parents for many years.  She had, however, enjoyed a happy adult life and she felt much reward doing volunteer work, in addition to her paid work, as she could help other people and give to them the love and support which she couldn't give or receive from her parents. 

She had given to herself, and to the people she helped, what her parents never could - love and acceptance.

She told me that her mother had died this year, but, before she died, her mother had asked to see my patient one last time.  

Dutifully, and hopeful of some lovely warm closure with her mother before she died, my kind patient went to see her mother.  She sat next to her dying mother's bed and she held her mothers hand.  Her mother looked into her eyes and her last words to my patient were: 'I have one regret in my life,' she whispered. 'My regret is that I ever gave birth to you!'  

Soon after this she died.  These were the last words that she ever spoke to her grieving daughter.  A final act of abuse on her sweet daughter who had trusted her mother and come to see her when she had called.  Needless to say my patient told me that she was very hurt by what her mother had said to her.  She wiped tears from her eyes as she told me this story.  

I wrapped my arm around my patient's hunched shoulders and I told her what a lovely person she was and she deserved better than that. 

Psychologists say that it is worse to return to abusive parents than it is to distance yourself - as you will always be at risk of being open to re-abuse.  Just as in a domestic violence situation - with a victim returning to a previously abusive partner.  The pathways that a parent carves in you as a child can easily be accessed by them again - because these are your weak spots.

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, had an abusive father.  Sadly, his mother died when he was only nine years old.  When Lincoln left home, after working on his father's dirt farm into his early 20's, he never returned again.  During his father's final illness - Lincoln ignored his father's letters.  Finally, he wrote to his step-bother: 

'Say to him that if we could meet now, it is doubtful whether it would be more pleasant than painful.'  

Lincoln didn't attend his father's funeral.

Psychologists have written that people who push survivors of abuse to reconcile with aging parents fail to take into account the potential psychological cost of reconnecting, of dredging up painful memories, and reviving destructive patterns.

Which finally brings me back to my original comments about  the 'Pandora's box' which  I opened through social media yesterday:

On a whim, yesterday morning, while 'surfing the net' - (a term my children tell me is so passe - but I'm middle aged - so I'll use it!) - it suddently occurred to me: 'What ever happened to my brother?  Why don't I just Google his name and find out  …'  

So, at that moment, as I impulsively punched away at a few keys on my laptop  - suddenly there he was!  After 15 years of not seeing him or thinking about him - there he was!  Just like that.

Then I did the same for my sister and my nephew (my sister's son). 

Recent pictures of these people popped up on my screen; recent wedding photos and details of their lives (although of course no-one speaks to me - thank God! - so I hadn't been invited to anything).  

These people from my sad past - who I had pushed away from my current happy adult life - all smiling at the camera.  Looking right at me - from these recent photos.

If not for social media -  I would never have seen these people again.  Not for the rest of my life.  Their memories would have faded away and the only pale memories that I would retain would be of my siblings and parents when we were all younger  - so many years ago. Vague dull pictures that couldn't hurt me so much.  Distant times. So far away from me now. 

Time and distance would have insulated me from the hurt and horror of that time.

Yet, with all these recent photos on social media - and the  blurbs about these people's  lives - on my screen after the push of a few keys - before I can rethink whether I want to do this  …  Suddenly, all of the horrible memories and feelings hit me like a punch in the head.  I felt overwhelmed with sadness.

I wasn't ready for the impact of all of that information about these people. Recent things.  Recent photos.  It was as if they were all suddenly standing right there in front of me.  Here.  In my new life. It was as if they had suddenly infiltrated my safe and happy world - which until that moment had felt so far away from them and protected.

My horrible memories came screaming back from the dark recesses of my mind - where they had been safely shoved away as if in a rusty old filing cabinet in a dark corner of an old attic I choose never to visit.  With a few clicks of the keyboard that world returned: in awful crystal-clear focus.   

And, as if that wasn't bad enough, they were all  bragging about their amazing lives - as people typically do on social media platforms these days.  

Apparently all of my 'old family' are incredibly brilliant managers of major companies or senior super-dooper delux-managers of incredibly important and high up government departments.  

Managers are a big thing in my family, apparently.  Lots of 'bossing people about'.  Well, actually, that's not so surprising … now that I think about it.

No-one is just a sales-man in a shop who eats a cut lunch of vegemite sandwiches and an apple everyday and takes a yearly holiday to local Victor Harbour.

My 'old family', according to their social-media narratives, dine in  posh restaurants and travel to places like South America for holidays and they lecture at universities … They can out-shine anyone - anywhere - anyplace.  So there!  Beat that!  And did I mention that they're all managers! 

Oh, and they are blissfully happy and rich as well and all of their friends think they are wonderful and incredibly smart!!?

My best friend (we've been best friends since we were 12 years old) said to me recently that a problem she found with social media - like 'facebook' - is that people brag so much on it!  

If everything these people said was true - then no-one in the world would be average. They'd all be incredibly successful, endless happy, have perfect children and perfect partners and perfect high-flying careers ... and lives. They'd never clean out the toilet, argue with teens about home-work or a messy bedroom, or worry about their weight or the budget or getting older ...

When I walk around the streets and shops and in my life as a doctor with a clinic, which I share with my husband, of 20,000 patients - I've never met anyone who in real-life has a life even remotely resembling the stuff bragged about on social media.  These supposedly perfect lives - conveniently omitting all of the negative stuff and exaggerating any good things in their lives! 

My dear friend told me that she made the mistake (the pandora's box of social media - like me) of looking up people she knew at primary school and high school.  

She laughed when she told me that at first she felt like a total failure in comparison to these 'reportedly' rich and endlessly happy and successful high fliers - when she read about all the glamorous holidays they seemed to constantly be flitting off to;  the wealth they all apparently had; the amazing and brilliant families and children and careers they all had.  A lot were also 'managers'.  

No-ones a just a 'janitor' these days.  They all now have names like 'effluent redistribution engineer-manager'??!!  

A rose by any other name ...

My dear best friend said that it was only when she actually remembered who these people actually were  and she'd seen them recently at the local supermarket - all just as average and mostly ho-hum like the rest of us - that she was able to laugh at the pretentiousness of it all. 

And then she felt better about herself - as well.  

These people were all pretty average - just like her - and me - and the rest of us all.  They had their ups and downs and work was just work - no matter what 'senior super-dooper special-agent manager' title you want to throw on it.  Social media is filled with a lot one 'one up-manship' and bragging and lying by omission.

I have read that this is another trap of social media.  

It was noted by Pauline Wiessner PhD, an anthropologist at the university of Utah who has studied social networks, that people on social media are 'always showing their best side'.  The electronic representations and 'friendships' make it easy for people to misrepresent themselves. Exaggerate.  Inflate.  List all the exciting things they have done for 2% of their time and skip over the 98% of their time doing the mundane same-old stuff we all deal with everyday: worries, work, weight, wealth(lack of), whatever... 

The stuff we all deal with in the 'real world' - but never 'share' on social media.

Without all the drudgery and problems which I know, as doctor over the last 25 years, that  everyone lives through - reading profiles put up by people on social media about themselves can make the rest of us feel completely inadequate, boring and awful.

So, yesterday after accidentally reawakening many awful memories from my past - which I had mostly been able to bury and ignore for the last 15 years - I suffered through my day and last night and some of today - feeling really really sad and upset.  

I also felt like a complete loser compared to all the wonderfully impressive senior super-dooper managers of 'global companies' and 'government departments' in my estranged family members.  And their amazing glamorous lives?!

I would have preferred that - like Cinderella's ugly step-sisters and mean step-mother, or evil kings and villains - my estranged family members who had been abusive and unkind to me - lived miserable lives filled with remorse and dull jobs and miserable stuff … well like in fairy tales.  

It took a while for my head to get around the fact that many people who abuse others just carry on in their happy lives oblivious to the hurt they have done.  They may have a very long and fun-filled life and never pay any price for their abuse.

But then I realised that these people  were not my problem.  I have so much to be thankful for in my life.  I won't dwell on them and their lives.  I have moved on.  I will not go back.  I should never have 'looked them up.'  It was a mistake.

I also now understand that  experiencing the abuse that I did in my childhood taught me a number of lessons:  

- It taught me about compassion for other people, which has helped me as a doctor to my patients.  

- It taught me to appreciate all the lovely people in my life now. I don't take them for granted. I know that I am so lucky to have them to share my life with.  

- It taught me to appreciate the  peace and safety which I enjoy in my life now.

And I couldn't really ask for more than that.

I have closed the social-media pandora's box which I opened without thinking about  consequences yesterday.

  

The bad memories are already beginning to fade away again.  

I will not ever re-open that 'social-media door' to the horrible parts of my past. I'll be less impulsive and more careful in the future.  I'll think more carefully about who I really want to let into my life now.  Even if it is only memories and photos of people I won't  meet personally.  I realise that even  images of those people and details about them and their lives can  dredge up really painful memories.

Lastly, to finish my blog this week, a lovely thought  from the classical Greek mythology:   ' … In the bottom of Pandora's box was the spirit of hope.'  

Hope in Psychology has two features.  It is the idea that bad times don't last forever.  And bad times are not pervasive - which means that even though one area of your life may be not good - other areas may be lovely.  There is usually something nice to be found in all of our lives - at any given moment.

During my abusive childhood - I can think of loving people I knew and lovely times I had - which occurred in other areas of my life - constantly.  There was never a time when the sun didn't shine on some part of my life  - even when the clouds were grey at my home then.

Hope: A lovely idea to finish on.   In any Pandora's box - there will be hope as well.

Take care - and I hope everyone has a lovely week.

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