When I was still studying counselling, our teachers urged us to change our names on Facebook and basically cease to have any online presence whilst working at our placements. “You don’t want your clients to have access to that stuff.” I understand, I really do, but that doesn’t mean I was happy about it.
The thing is, I used to be a shy girl, who suffered with social anxiety, and loved My Chemical Romance; so naturally I found my home online. Over the years I managed to build up a space and an online name I was happy with.
Being online I could be who I wanted to be. I wanted to be confident, liked, comfortable with myself, and not feel as if I needed to hide anything; and online was the only place I could ever do that.
At school I was only ever asked out as a joke, and I’d get Sellotape tangled in my long blonde hair, but online I was this confident girl, who the boys liked, and where my hair would receive compliments; it was wonderful!
My online presence went with me to college and beyond. I’ve had every social media under the sun: MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Piczo, Myyearbook, VampireFreaks (Which was emo catfish city.) and most importantly: Tumblr.
I was unapologetically myself on Tumblr and I gained over 1000 followers this way. I was an active member of my favourite band’s Tumblr community, and a well-known name within that. I used that website as my personal journal; if you followed me, you knew everything, and I loved it.
My Tumblr is still there, and I have often visited my own page over the years. I liked that it was there, a token from the past; then all of a sudden, I was faced with the idea of erasing it along with everything else.
Erasing your online presence to do the job you’ve wanted since you were fourteen; it seems like a no-brainer right? Delete the stuff and continue? And that’s what I did, despite my own happiness.
I painstakingly went through my Tumblr, deleting every incriminating detail.
Any selfie, or photo with friends – deleted.
Email with my name in – disconnected.
My well-known username – changed.
That cheeky GIF I reblogged of someone having sex – deleted, just in case.
Something I poured my teenage years, and early twenty’s life into, had become something that wasn’t me anymore after having to delete a lot of it. It was sentimental to me, but I had no choice at the time.
After years of feeling like a square peg, trying to squeeze into the round hole of being a counsellor, I decided I didn’t want to keep trying to squeeze into something that’s not made for me. Something that made me unhappy in so many more ways than just deleting my social media.
There is still nothing I love more, than writing about my life, sharing too much and feeling oddly safe to do so. And now I’m not squeezing into that round hole, what else could I do but throw myself into writing again and create a blog?
It was fun while it lasted, (I’m lying, it really wasn’t all that fun.) but here I am, engaging in the ultimate rebellion: writing a personal blog.
Gwen Richards 