I feel a rare sense of relief when I am on the brink of being sacked from a job. I have a serious dislike for authority, and mixed into a cocktail with my anger for mistreatment, injustice, and generally bad organisation or unnecessary wasting of my time, and I’m like a Catherine Wheel at a firework night party. I used to be a total firecracker when I was younger, the kind of child that would stare at you with insolence written across his face, with a hint of disobedience, sarcasm, and nonchalance. The kind of face that would send even the calmest person into a state of irritation. Recently I’ve noticed my anger increasing, similar to how it did when I was a teenager. When my anger rises, and very small things seem to push me over the edge, I tend to know theres a deeper problem somewhere, usually identifying it is a little harder. I spent the last few weeks complaining, and shouting, falling out with family & friends, being generally aggressive and rude to people, and being sick with the flu on top of that, was just an equation for disaster.
After a few drinks one evening, I sat down and spoke to a friend of mine. She played therapist for a few hours, and we came to the conclusion, that I need therapy. This isn’t news to me, I’ve been saying I need therapy from around the age of 16, it’s just something I’ve not taken really seriously until now. We were talking about my online vs real life persona, and how the lines are becoming blurred, very Black Mirror esque. I’ve known this for a long time, but I’m so glued to my phone at all times, that it’s hard to focus on what real life is to me. I recently deleted all of my dating apps and it was a small step in moving slightly away from virtual living. I feel refreshed, and almost socially, and sexually, rejuvenated. Everything that I do online I run myself. I built my website myself, and run everything, from all the admin, features, and accounts, and obviously the content. It’s a heavy workload, and I’ve been working 24/7 for 2 years and haven’t really noticed until now. My attention to Instagram and my website is essentially on tap. I have to be attached to my phone for all hours of the day and night, and it’s exhausting. Often you just plough through it without actually understanding how it’s affecting your mental health, while little by little it’s chipping way at your psyche. I’m constantly posting, and delivering content, and have been doing so for about 5 years and I have a body of work on my Instagram that goes mostly unrecognised. Everyday I’m thinking about what content I’m going to shoot, should I take my camera here, and there, and is my body good enough, do I need to go to the gym, should I be eating better. It’s a never-ending self assessment of the physical state, and it leads one to seeing oneself as a commodity rather than a person. I’ve come to the point of looking at myself as a product. I am a person that does something that people look at, and I’m completely disconnected from that. I remind myself that this is all part of the experiment that I started years ago, but I find myself lost within it. I’m not distinguishing between the two. Who is ‘justsammorris’ and who is Sam?
My friend said I need to disappear somewhere. I need to come offline and go and live in the middle of nowhere for a while and reboot, and I agree. I don’t think I will do that just yet, but for now I’m taking a definite break from IG. I will continue to update my website, but at arms reach.
I know that in the future I will remove everything of myself from the internet, change my name, and it’ll be as if I never existed, but until that day, I’ll muster on through as this crazy ringleader, puppeteering the circus that is my alter-life. After all, the show must go on.