Facing the facts

So, my name is Ashley and  am a single mother of a little boy named Isaac. He is 1 year old and the light of my life! Now, I have never written a blog before, nor have I ever thought that I would be dealing with an addiction... So here goes! I am 23 years old and I have had a Facebook since I was about 15. I am going to be blogging to keep my mind off of logging into Facebook! Maybe my blog will help someone, maybe it will never bee seen by anyone. Either way, I am ok with that. I deleted my Facebook at 11am today. It's 9:15pm! Let me tell you, these past ten hours have been full of anxiety, boredom, being antsy, pacing steps, and clicking in and out of internet only to realize Facebook is no longer there. I am not very good at committing to things, but when it comes to something serious, I put my mind into it, and I do it!
I am beginning this journey alone, all of my friends were sad to see me leave the social network, but I hope to end this journey with some company, some followers, something new.

Facebook addiction is a real thing! It may seem silly to you but for me, it is a major struggle!

I think the true addiction began when I stopped working and got married after becoming pregnant. Now, I just had to sit here and think for a minute to come up with that... You see, I worked a lot before I got pregnant. My last actual job was as an overnight stock person at BJ's wholesale club! I knew I was wearing myself thin at that job BUT usually I can push through that. Not this time. This time, I was falling asleep at work. I was falling asleep while stocking the shelves!! I don't ever remember being so fatigued in my life, I could barely keep my eyes opened a any time! Turns out, that was my first sign of pregnancy. A pregnancy, doctors told me would never happen due to scar tissue from problems in my childhood, so it really never crossed my mind. The only reason I took a test was because of the brand new box of tampons staring at me in my room from the month prior, and my small amount of hope that I never could figure out why it had lingered. Make sense? Sooo.. I quit my job because I knew I could not keep up there any longer. I ended up trying to work for McDonalds (what was I thinking? I wasn't lol). I think that lasted a couple weeks? It ended in a emotional breakdown in the bathroom and a falling out with a bitchy manager who was trying to screw me around about picking up my paycheck.

After that, the only job I could handle any longer was my weekend church nursery job (lots of time to be on Facebook now!). I worked there until 3 days before I gave birth to my son. He is 14 months old now and I have been a stay at home mom. I was with someone from 6 months pregnant to my son's 8 month of life mark. Married and everything, but it didn't work out. I ended up leaving my husband because he was unfaithful and I packed my bags and moved to Washington state, of all places, to start over. That my friends.. is a whole nother story. But while I was up there, I got on cash assistance and planned to have a good job by my sons first birthday. Well I moved back to Florida before that day, switched my cash assistance over, and started doing community service. I told myself I could do this, I could be a single mom, and I did it, I am still doing it!

Back to the topic... I used Facebook to connect with other moms during my pregnancy. I used it to make friends, and learn about what is going on inside me, and what will be going on when he was born. I also used it to have socialization while my husband was at work, school, or home ignoring me (after a while). That's also another story. I had stopped talking to not so positive influential "friends" I had in my life. I decided it would be better for my child if I didn't socialize with people who were wasting their lives doing drugs and partying. It would be better for me too because I was in that crowd before, my son saved me from that life.
So Facebooking became my life. I took care of my son and talked to people online, isolating myself from the world. Here is where the problem began.

People need interaction, face time, not brain mushing computer time. I don't think anyone realized just how much time I spent on Facebook up to today. How long has it been since I have hung out with friends who live close to me? How long had it been since I hung out with them and was NOT also on my phone checking Facebook during conversations or awkward silences? Truth is, I can't even remember. How bad of a sign is that?

The truth might hurt! But it is still the truth

This one is the hard part....
 So a couple of days ago, I finally admitted to myself that I have a problem... I realized that I am not spending as much time with my son as I should be. I realized that it had been ages since I had gone outside for more than a half hour in a day so that my son could play in the sun and get dirty. I am pale, cranky, and tired all the time. I am lazy, stuck at a heavy for me weight of 168lbs. Just 6 pounds shy of my weight the day I gave birth! That was the heaviest I had ever been, both before having a baby and also being pregnant. I was 135 pounds and a size 6 (for two whole weeks) before I got pregnant. Well that diet was working till a fetus came in to play ;) All I was doing on Facebook was reading about other people's lives, helping other moms with information that I was knowledgeable about. I wasn't doing much living of my own life though! So I made a post to my friends letting them know that I would be deleting my account. I think I am the only person I know now who doesn't have an account, it makes me wonder how many others are addicted but don't know it yet. I told them that in a couple of days I would be deleting my account and in the meantime I would be giving those who want it, my info, to keep in touch. Much to my surprise, by today (the big deletion day), only about 30 of my 216 or so friends had made sure to have my information. The rest are now history.

This is the beginning of a new life for me!  Day 1