From Invisible to Invincible.

Lessons behind losing a BIG CHUNK of my digital life.

A week ago I permanently lost my Facebook and Instagram accounts. There was no way to recover them and to be honest, I still don’t know what happened there. Most likely I was somehow hacked. Or, maybe it was the universe sending me a big fat message. What matters here is what this made me realize and how I am taking this as a big opportunity. (See universe? I am listening.) 

There was a little series of events that happened that morning that ended up with the realization that 15+ years of digital life were most likely gone. Meta erased me in a matter of minutes, and according to them, it was an irrevocable decision. No 30 days, no let me see if your id matches, NADA. My first reaction? I panicked, of course. Particularly because one of those events led me to believe I was being hacked.

Frantically, I tried everything I could think of to resolve the problem. Including tweeting angry messages toward Mark Zuckerberg. Because that is what you do, when Facebook and Instagram won’t work, you tweet. Happy dancing on TikTok was definitely not in my mood. And I guess my LinkedIn acquaintances would not even care.

As Facebook does not have a customer service system, and communicating with them to solve a problem of this caliber is practically impossible, I contacted a person who was working with me trying to get some ads done for an online course I was about to launch. (Again, I think it was the universe telling me that I was not quite ready for that). He helped me to get in touch with Meta and they opened a case to investigate what happened. But I haven’t got any response so far. I tried to download the information from my account, they give you that at least. But guess what? Some of the folders were empty. I clicked on the folder that said “memories” and it was blank. Nothing. That was the moment when I broke into uncontrollable tears. 

I regret how much I was relying on Facebook to keep my memories intact. For sure I have copies of all the pictures I have posted, but for more than 15 years I have been keeping notes, inspirational letters for my kids on their birthdays, posts about their first words, and milestones, or specific and special moments during almost two decades of my life. Things that certainly my memory doesn’t have a total recall. It was nice to wake up in the mornings and go through all those memories. That, I’ll miss.

Also, I have spent years trying to build a platform as an author. And even when I didn’t have millions of followers, I managed to create a community around what I have written. Contacts, people that found me, people I have found… how to recover all of that? I was certainly overwhelmed.

In the days that followed, as I was waiting for a response from Meta, the fact that I lost those accounts forced me to take a break from social media. I was not followed and I didn’t follow anyone. Occasionally I went on Tiktok or Twitter, but that only reminded me of having lost the other ones so I was avoiding almost everything. Plus, the people that I have on non-meta accounts are mostly people I haven’t even met in person. So I lack that intimate and personal contact over there. 

Something happened to me and this is the best way to describe it. Imagine being in an enclosed space full of people, music, and all kinds of sounds. However, you don’t realize it is chaotic and loud because, in time, you get used to the noise. Suddenly you find yourself being alone, and the only thing you have is silence. It’s nice. You hear your voice again. You start noticing things that you have forgotten or paying attention to things that you never thought would interest you. The break was not only great but necessary. However, silence can also invite your demons to speak to you.

The thing is, I am a person who has felt invisible almost all my life. It is hard to feel that way, particularly when you have this internal drive to be seen. For as long as I can remember I have been self-conscious about my image. So whenever I saw an opportunity to hide or walk behind someone else’s shadow, I did. 

Writing has always provided me with the opportunity to find my voice. Express what I think, create new worlds, and let my creativity flow. When I started sharing that side of me with others it was incredibly difficult. Little by little people started seeing me, and my vulnerability gave me power. Social media helped me to do that. However, there was always that little voice telling me how invisible I was. And it still hurts. Being suddenly detached from what I felt was my way of being seen sent me on a spiral of emotions.

In between all of what I was feeling, I realized I was so lost. No matter what, and how I was showing myself digitally, the sense of invisibility was still there, still making damage to me. The silence also provided me with opportunities to question myself. Maybe I was not doing a good job showing who I am. Maybe I was not being authentic enough thinking that I was protecting myself from judgment. So I was not allowing people to see the real me.

How many times have you thought about “what if I can start over again”? However, are you really up to the challenge? If you had the opportunity to start over, what would you do? There came the universe showing me an unusual but valid way to do that. Or like we say in Spanish the universe was telling me, “ how about a ‘borrón y cuenta nueva´?” Literally.

Something I have learned as an author is that when you finish writing a book, what you need to do is start writing the next one. Here I was presented with the opportunity to be reborn, digitally. Starting a new book in my life saga. Choosing the noise I want to hear, really working on being seen the way I want, and kicking self-consciousness’ butt. I created new accounts so I can start with the new me. The Return of Paola Sur. Sounds pretty dramatic right? But hey, that’s me. I love drama and I won’t hide it anymore. Also, I decided that in this new book, the heroine stops being invisible. She becomes invincible. I am stopping with that invisibility narrative BS that has followed me around for decades! How about that?

Who knows, maybe Meta will give me my old accounts back someday. Maybe not. Do I miss them? Yes. Do I need them? No. People lose their health, their belongings, and all sorts of valuable things but they can start anew. Losing a digital account is nothing in comparison. But I was really frightened of my reaction. I imagine if they someday decide to take that away from everyone. That will be the end of the world as we know it. People will lose their sh…. For sure. That is the kind of power social media has, it owns your information. But It doesn’t have to own you, so don’t let it.

There are also other lessons behind the whole thing.

• If you are an artist of any kind, don’t rely only on Facebook and Instagram to build your platforms. Fortunately, I have my email list community so I am glad that at least that is mine and nobody can take that away from me.
• Keep an old-fashioned way to record your memories. Journals are great plus they are cathartic. So whenever something nice happens to you that you want to hold forever, write it in a journal. You can post about it afterward or not. 
• Disconnect from time to time. I am talking about full days of disconnection. I realized a couple of hours a day is not enough.
• Make an effort to reconnect with people that you care about with means other than social media. Do you remember phone calls?
• Don’t be afraid of starting over. You never start from cero. You already have experience and lessons to rebuild whatever you need in your life because with each lesson you become stronger and wiser.
• Last but not least, be careful what you click on. 
  

What do you think?

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