Constrained Choices of a Trauma Survivor

The Power of Leaving Social Media

The choice to leave Instagram has felt empowering on many levels.

Being on Instagram never felt like a choice. As a business, being active on social media is not only expected; in many ways, it is also necessary.

The choicelessness of public presence felt like nonconsensual exposure and as a trauma survivor, being on Instagram was a violation.

That may sound dramatic but the elements of choicelessness, exposure, power and victimhood are the thread that sews the two together.

For a long time, I felt victimized by the algorithm. I was a pawn in its game and I was not winning. I didn’t even know how to win because the rules kept changing. I was exhausted doing things I didn’t consent to, feeling pressure to output at a rate my body could not support.

I felt robbed of my creativity, stripped of my power in order to appease the ever-changing demands of an untouchable controller. I felt like I “had” to be on Instagram, that my legitimacy was entwined with a presence on social media I did not enjoy.

In feeling like I “had” to, being robbed of my choice, I was retraumatizing myself every time I opened the app. The pressure to post certain things at certain times of day so many times a day kept my nervous system frantic to keep up.

The algorithm kept taunting me, creating more and more hoops to jump through to barely break through its walls. It is, of course, a POS system that profits from exploitation and bigotry and I was also choosing to participate in it on a wholly unconscious level. The choice was conditional, a concept known as constrained agency that is all to familiar to me but it was still a choice. I was, in some ways, participating in my powerlessness to Instagram. The choice was also completely subconscious - I in no way consciously repeated this powerlessness.

This is super different from experiences of trauma where powerlessness happens to us without our consent. For me, Instagram isn’t a trauma but it is retraumatizing because the power dynamics that play out mirror the same power OVER invasiveness I’ve experienced in trauma.

When I say I participated in my powerlessness, it is without blame. The participation exists on a subconscious level so there is no active choice happening at all. As a poly-traumatized survivor (having experienced multiple traumas over my lifetime), powerlessness became familiar. I experienced choicelessness so much that my body recognized it as familiar and what is familiar becomes coded as safe - not because it is so but because it is recognizable. I began to crave powerlessness in my life because it was familiar.

So I would unconsciously work jobs where I was unappreciated or find relationships where my partner couldn’t accept me. My subconscious craved the familiarity of powerlessness because it felt safe, only because I knew the terrain of choicelessness. I am not to blame for my traumas nor these choices of constrained agency but I undeniably participated in perpetuating a harmful cycle of familiarity - out of the best of unconscious intentions to feel safe but participated nonetheless.

I would complain about being on Instagram all the time. I hated being on the app and I would get off complaining about “having” to be there at all. I would say I “had” to have IG for business reasons but most of the time, I was merely satiating personal curiosities. When my business coach told me I didn’t have to be on Instagram at all, I froze.

Isn’t this what I always wanted?

To not “have” to be Instagram, to channel my creative energy in the ways that I wanted, not how I “had” to. Given the key to what I wanted, I was stuck. I unconsciously enjoyed being able to blame Instagram for my creative woes. It was a subconscious scapegoat for why I didn’t pursue other ventures, like writing or speaking or workshops. Without IG to blame, I would have nothing in the way of my dreams.

I would be to blame if I failed. I would be the only one responsible.  It was a fear of success, not a fear of failure, that had me stuck. Failure is familiar, just like powerlessness and it feels safe in familiarity.

Having more boundaries with Instagram has already handed power back to me. As soon as I feel I “have” to do something, I sit down. I don’t “have” to do anything. Satiating the impulse of pressure is participating in my robbery so I sit instead. I sit until the pressure passes (it always does). Once the impulse passes, I might still do the thing but I am doing it out of choice, not coercion.

*I have the same method for when my nose itches during meditation, because it always does. I sit and wait for it to pass - it always does.

I won’t violate my body’s boundaries to keep producing content to be consumed on a platform that isn’t aligned with my values. I will create what inspires me to share in ease-full ways that I love. I hold what is public, what is private, what is secret and what is sacred all with esteem. I have choice in the access to me because I don’t “have” to do anything. I have choice.

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