Depression in a Digital Age: The Highs and Lows of Perfectionism

By Fiona Thomas

Fiona was your average 80s baby.

She grew up without an iPhone, used actual landlines to make calls, and didn't have the luxury (or perhaps the curse) of Facebook during her adolescent years. But though her childhood took place in an analogue world, she found herself suffering from the same problems many young people face today; the race for perfectionism, high levels of anxiety, a fear of success.After an unfulfilling university experience, a stressful beginning in a management career, and a severe case of impostor syndrome, Fiona suffered a nervous breakdown in her mid-twenties. Amongst therapy and medication, it was the online community which gave Fiona the comfort she needed to recover. In Depression in a Digital Age, Fiona traces her life dealing with anxiety and the subsequent depression, and how a digital life helped her find her community, find her voice, find herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trigger Publishing
• Release date: Nov 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781837963379

Fiona Thomas

Fiona Thomas is a freelance writer who was born in Glasgow but is now living in Birmingham, UK. Since starting her mental health blog in 2012 she has been published in Metro, Reader's Digest, Happiful Magazine and Grazia to name a few. She has also been featured in Cosmopolitan, Red Magazine, Good Housekeeping and Refinery29. She speaks regularly about mental health and freelancing at events all over the UK. Her passion is working with female-led businesses and shining a light on the positive impact that freelancing can have on our wellbeing.

Book preview

THE AUTHOR

Fiona Thomas is from Birmingham, UK and was diagnosed with depression in 2012 and felt completely lost. She was unable to work for almost a year, and turned to blogging in that time turned as a hobby. However, though it started off as a way to pass time, Fiona quickly became obsessed with the online world, leading her to experience high levels of anxiety.

Now a proud advocate for technology as a communication tool for those of us who suffer the crippling symptoms of mental illness, Fiona has used the internet to help hone her identity and create a supportive community.

Fiona has her own website and is a freelance writer with work published on Metro, Healthline, Heads Together, Mind, Reader’s Digest, and Happiful magazine. This book is an extension of her work, and a celebration of all that’s possible through the power of social media.

First published in 2018

This edition published in 2023 by Trigger Publishing

An imprint of Shaw Callaghan Ltd

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Text Copyright © 2018 Fiona Thomas

Fiona Thomas has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners and the publishers.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available upon request from the British Library

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-83796-337-9

Cover design and typeset by Fusion Graphic Design

Trigger Publishing encourages diversity and different viewpoints. However, all views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and are not necessarily representative of us as an organization.

All material in this book is set out in good faith for general guidance and no liability can be accepted for loss or expense incurred in following the information given. In particular this book is not intended to replace expert medical or psychiatric advice. It is intended for informational purposes only and for your own personal use and guidance. It is not intended to act as a substitute for professional medical advice. The author is not a medical practitioner nor a counsellor, and professional advice should be sought if desired before embarking on any health-related programme.

The Inspirational range from Trigger brings you genuine stories about our authors’ experiences with mental health problems.

Some of the stories in our Inspirational range will move you to tears. Some will make you laugh. Some will make you feel angry, or surprised, or uplifted. Hopefully they will all change the way you see mental health problems.

These are stories we can all relate to and engage with. Stories of people experiencing mental health difficulties and finding their own ways to overcome them with dignity, humour, perseverance and spirit.

Most readers who regularly use any social media platform will be able to identify with Fiona’s story. For someone with perfectionistic traits, comparing herself to the filtered word of social media, Fiona found herself falling short of her exceptionally high standards, sinking into a deeply anxious state, and becoming consumed with trying to match these unrealistic standards. This is a story of a young woman exploring what it means to exist in today’s world and overcoming the pressures to be ‘perfect’.

This is our Inspirational range. These are our stories. We hope you enjoy them. And most of all, we hope that they will educate and inspire you. That’s what this range is all about.

Lauren Callaghan

Co-founder and Lead Consultant

Psychologist at Trigger

For Jenny

Disclaimer: Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Who the Hell Am I?

Chapter 2 I Want to Be a Spice Girl, Writer or Witch

Chapter 3 The Olden Days – Before Facebook

Chapter 4 Am I a Girl Boss Yet?

Chapter 5 Saying Goodbye to Booze, My Career, and My Best Mate

Chapter 6 Falling Asleep at Dinner

Chapter 7 Instagram Made Me Do It

Chapter 8 Getting Married and Blogging Undercover

Chapter 9 Going Public (… kind of)

Chapter 10 Let’s Meet IRL

Chapter 11 I read your blog.

Chapter 12 Can You Feel the Connection?

Chapter 13 Online Obsession

Chapter 14 Playing the Numbers Game

Chapter 15 No Filter, No Wi-Fi, No Problem

Chapter 16 I’ve Got Something to Say

Chapter 17 I’m Whoever the Hell I Want to Be

References

CHAPTER 1

Who the Hell Am I?

The glitter on the bathroom floor is pretty.

It isn’t something I’ve ever noticed before, and considering I’ve been making a habit of staring at this exact spot on the floor every single day for the past six months, I’m surprised I haven’t seen it before.

Why hadn’t I noticed it before?

I look up at the ceiling to inspect the light fitting. Is that a new bulb? It looks like it’s way more powerful than the one that’s been in here for the last year. I squint my eyes at it and eventually let them shut, blinded by the light of this suspicious new arrival in my favourite bathroom stall.

I lean on the partition which divides my current space from the one next to me and try to control my breathing. The glitter on the floor and the harsh light make me feel nauseous, although truthfully, I’ve retreated to my safe space in the first place because I’d already felt a sickness rising in my stomach.

I visit this bathroom stall every day because it’s the closest one to my office, but also because it’s just far enough away from everyone else. Sometimes I find myself zoned out and staring at the wall, which is painted the most horrific shade of yellow, wondering how long I’d been mentally asleep and had anyone else noticed? That was the important thing; whether anyone else had noticed or not.

This particular day – the day when the floor glitter and the lightbulb make me feel attacked – nothing in particular has happened. There hasn’t been an argument with the chef, even though he hates me so much that I swear he’d chop me up and put me in the daily special within a heartbeat if he could. There’s no staff appraisal where I have to insist, yet again, that George shave his beard otherwise I’ll be forced to discipline him … again. There’s no stock-take of the gift shop, which requires accounting for 17,029 smiley-faced bouncy balls, 1,201 Slinky’s, and separating a million comedically large erasers into colour-coded piles. All these tasks, and more, are things which have given me cause to hide in the past, but today I’m here for the simple reason that it has all become too much.

I can no longer be near my carefree, fresh-faced staff members, whose frivolous activities, like meeting for after-work drinks, send me spiralling into a silent rage. It feels like I’m being punished. Not by them, of course – they all kindly invite me out to socialise every time and I always decline – but by my life choices which seem to have forced me right into the role of responsible adult without much room for anything else.

I watch them get changed at the end of a shift, putting on make-up, and brushing their hair while I quietly tap numbers into a spreadsheet, resentment brewing, trying to ignore them. I can’t help but think back to the person I used to be just a few years ago. I went to gigs, started bands with my mates, worked on fun projects like homemade zines, and stayed up until five in the morning watching the final episode of Lost.

I cry for a few minutes and try to regain my composure, but how much composure can you find when you’re hiding from everyone you know in a toilet? I try to stand up and exit the cubicle to go back to my office, but I can’t seem to move.

Like I said, there’s no direct reason for today’s breakdown, so the plan is – if you can even call it a plan at all – to have a private little crisis on my own time and then get on with the day as though nothing has happened. Because nothing has happened.

That’s what I’ve been doing for the last few weeks and it’s been working out just fine, so I have no reason to believe that it won’t continue to be an effective way of dealing with my problems.

But today, I just can’t seem to execute a crucial part of the plan. I can’t leave my favourite bathroom stall.

My body just doesn’t want me to go back to work.

It’s funny because right up until this moment, I had never seen a way out. I’d always thought that there’s no other direction other than forward, no answer other than yes, and no choice but to carry on. I’ve been conditioned to do all that has been expected of me, no matter how difficult it might be or how sick it makes me feel.

But on this day, for some reason, another choice rears its head. That choice to do nothing. I could stop pretending that I was okay. I could stop pretending that I was dealing with everything just fine. I could just stop.

It feels like my body is going through an emergency shutdown, the mental equivalent of pulling the fire alarm to get out of an exam, to run.

I’m closing for business.

I stay in the bathroom stall for a while longer, reaching for my phone. I press down on the button at the top, bringing life to the screen, pull up the browser, and start to type: what are the symptoms of depression?

CHAPTER 2

I Want to Be a Spice Girl, Writer or Witch

Social media didn’t exist when I was born. Prototypes of the internet were floating around in the late 1960s, but the World Wide Web (how the general public actually gained access to websites) wasn’t invented until 1990¹, and even then, I’m pretty sure its grand unveiling went unnoticed to most of the world.

No one really had computers back then. They were a foreign concept to most, if not all, of us. There was no Google, no email, and definitely no iPhones. In fact, my mum’s first job was in an office working in the filing department. There were no USBs back then, no fancy hard-drives to store everything on. All documents in the County building where she worked were filled out by hand or by typewriter, photocopied multiple times until important facts and figures were barely readable, and then lovingly bound together with a couple of treasury tags before being carefully filed in a manila folder under their designated section of a filing cabinet.

What I wouldn’t give for someone to come and sort out my desktop right now, to organise all my documents, family photos, selfies, and emergency backup memes into some sort of ordered chaos.

Things were obviously different back then, and being raised in the late 80s gave me a front-row seat to watching the world of social media unfold right before my very eyes in my young adult years. It almost feels like I’ve lived two lives: one before the internet existed and one as part of the digital age.

I was born in Glasgow on 17th December 1986 to Pauline Reid, the professional filer, and Alexander Reid, the quantity surveyor, my two mild-mannered and loving parents. They had been married for a few years before I was born and chose to settle in a quaint little village about 20 miles south of Glasgow. The village was tiny, so small that even its name seemed too big for it: it was called Quarter. It just didn’t seem small enough to describe the idyllic little dwelling which consisted of a handful of bungalows, a pub, a shop, my primary school, and an old folk’s nursing home.

I arrived in Quarter as a new-born baby to meet Stuart, my older brother, who had been ruling the Reid house until I arrived. He’s three years older than me, and we share many of the same genes (some say I even look like him but with a wig on … I don’t know whether we should take that as a compliment or an insult) but not quite the same interests. We both love music and creativity, but he’s more of a death-punk-and-oil-paintings kinda guy, whereas I get my kicks listening to Neil Young and writing lengthy think-pieces on my blog.

I had only just celebrated my first birthday when, less than a month later, my younger brother Colin was born, right on the 1st of January. Little did he know that he’d be destined to spend every birthday like a true Scotsman, hungover as hell after a Hogmanay Hootenanny.

Together, the five of us made the perfect family unit. But, for such a small town, having such a family meant it was a squishy but cosy affair whenever we took a long car journey, making summer holidays a hothouse for brawls and bickering.

My mum always encouraged us to explore our creativity when we were younger. Looking back now, I’m not entirely sure whether she thought we’d enjoy it or if she just used it to keep us quiet. Although we never wanted for anything as children – we were always fed, watered, and clothed in a perfect balance of hand-me-downs and British Home Stores garments – I’m sure the reason we were always offered a crayon and some paper was because it was a cheap and easy distraction.

Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are of sitting at a small red plastic table and drawing pictures of my family while my brothers wrestled on the floor beside me. Whenever my mum found me walking aimlessly around the house, feet dragging behind me, she would say, ‘What’s wrong?’ and I’d answer with a long monotonous drone, ‘I’m boooorreeddd.’ Her answer was always something creative like, ‘Read a book’, ‘Write a story’ or, my personal favourite, ‘Take your pencil for a walk.’

She obviously didn’t mean attach a lead to my classic Staedtler Noris and take it for a stroll around the block, but instead to let my pencil have free rein on a piece of paper. I’ve never asked her where she first heard this phrase, but as a kid, I always used to laugh and roll my eyes whenever she said it, adamant that this was a rubbish response to my constant and over-dramatised boredom. I’d go straight back to my Barbie dolls, dress them in new outfits, cut their hair, and put on a fashion show or find some other way to pass the time. But sooner or later, I always ended up giving in to my curiosity and picking up a pencil.

My dad had a home office and there was always scrap paper kicking around which had been discarded from the multitude of construction jobs he’d been working on. As a result, I’d often start my pencil-walking journey on the back of an architectural drawing of some local school which needed repair work done or a shop that was being fitted with new shelves. I’d raid his office for unused documents and recycle them into my own works of art, handing them over to my mum for her honest critique of my latest masterpiece.

I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but they all made it onto the local gallery space (the fridge) and a lot of them have now been placed in a special archive (a box in the garage).

As I went through my first years at primary school, my love for drawing continued. I was always first in line to pick up the forms for the class colouring competitions, and I was particularly excited when the tea-towel-drawing season came around every year.

If your school didn’t have a tea-towel-drawing initiative, then let me enlighten you. Every year at primary school, we would spend an afternoon drawing self-portraits. Each child was given a small piece of paper and on it was a clearly marked circle. We were all told to draw a picture of ourselves within that circle. Then all the portraits were collected and printed on a tea towel that depicted each class with all its pupils and was ready to purchase by the families of the children. Needless to say, I took this very seriously and was always eager to see a copy of my artwork reproduced on a mass scale and sold on to so many adoring fans.

When I wasn’t colouring in or crossing off the days on my calendar to tea towel season, I was obsessed with drawing witches. Yes, witches. It sounds quite strange to mention it now, but growing up, there was a lot of witchery business in books and shows all targeted at my demographic. The least offensive of the trend was a book series by Jill Murphy called The Worst Witch, a collection of tales featuring Mildred Hubble, a young witch who attends the Academy for Witches, a school of magic. Mildred was a witch-in-training and bumbled along through her studies with disastrous consequences, which were often a result of her terrible ability as a witch. This, combined with the terrifying images conjured up in Roald Dahl’s book The Witches, was enough to feed my need for a mystical and twisted reality where potions and spells could not only turn little boys into mice but also gain you popularity at school.

I loved witches so very much that I aspired to become one someday, though I didn’t quite know how I’d get there. When people asked what I wanted to be when I was older, no matter what I told them, deep down I always thought that I would be a witch. I’d be a good witch, of course, maybe with a few cunning spells stored up to keep my brothers from hogging the TV quite so much. There’s only so much WWF wrestling championships a young girl can watch before she starts to research the dark arts

I could often be found drawing pictures of ugly old witches, sporting long dark cloaks which were held up by old thorny twine and oversized floppy hats with spiders precariously dangling off the pointed peak. The witches themselves would always be grinning and I always sealed the deal by drawing on a comedically large nose with at least one hairy wart on her bulging beak. I won a competition for drawing a witch, actually, and although my parents were undoubtedly proud to see me receive a certificate and book token from the Lord Provost (the Scottish equivalent of the town mayor), I’m almost certain they were slightly confused as to why I had chosen such a thing to draw. Anyway, I stood there graciously and received my £10 Borders book voucher with a smile and got my photograph in the local newspaper,