I appreciate this is a little wordy, so feel free to skim right past.
I've followed RVK for the last couple of years, and she reminds me an awful lot of myself (not the racists, repressed, braggy, child bride parts though!! That's just her).
I used social media a lot around 2010-2014. I had a blog in the early days of blogging, with a decent-ish following. Nothing major, and before anyone was making any real money from it, but a blog nonetheless. My entire blog and Instagram was Pinterest standard, pretty SLR photos of my happy marriage, perfect pinterest wedding, dreamy holidays, pretty house things, baking with my organic, farmers market ingredients (yes, I'm eye-rolling at myself too
). All very twee and sickly sweet. Everything was dreamy and perfect.
Someone started to give me a whole heap of shit online. It was actually a friend of a friend, and I just wasn't cut out for that level of criticism. My Mum kept telling me that I should just stop posting online, simple, but I couldn't. My answer was always 'but I'm writing it for myself', 'it's to document my life and look back on', 'I like to make my space happy and positive'. The truth was, I literally couldn't stop posting. The 'troll' made me feel shit, but not being able to post my humble brag life made me feel infinitely shitter. I certainly didn't realise it at the time, but I was absolutely addicted to the validation from strangers and showing off how wonderful my life was to make myself feel better about myself and my life.
The truth is, my life behind those perfect photos was a complete shitshow. You really wouldn't have guessed it from my lovely online life, but I had zero self-esteem, my marriage was under huge pressure and falling to bits, and I always needed to next thing to post about as a 'pick-me-up'.
My whole life was starting to be consumed with staging things so they looked amazing. All those wonderful trips were actually ruined by having to drag a huge camera around (before phones had decent cameras) and trying to get the perfect photos. If it rained and ruined the photos, I would feel so much pressure that I'd fall to bits. I'd plan places to go, just for the photo opportunities and I'd waste half the day laying out ridiculous flat lays of picnic food that I couldn't really afford. I'd talk about how wonderful my husband was, when really a lot of the time we were so sick of each other. I ruined my own engagement by throwing a strop that it rained and the pictures wouldn't be right.
The crappier my life was, the worse I felt, and the more addicted I was to my own dreamy online life and the validation that came with it. I put myself under huge pressure and was taking wonderful trips almost every month just to post things that made me feel good about my life (certainly not the Maldives, mind you).
My husband booked us a wonderfully dreamy, romantic weekend away into he countryside (nothing romantic about it at all. He was probably sick of my shit but humoured me. I booked it having myself, having studied the most aesthetically pleasing room they had and ringing up 3 times to make sure I got the room with the nice wallpaper). We got there and I'd bought my camera and no lens and I basically had a meltdown and told my husband 'there's no point in even being here if I can't photograph it for my blog'.
My husband was sick of my shit, we fought a lot and grew apart, but I was so stubborn that I hung on to that marriage for dear life. Not because I wanted to be with him, but because I didn't want to have to admit online or to anyone else, that my perfect life wasn’t actually perfect. That was my main concern over anything. I raced though life,getting married and buying home at a really young age just so I felt like I was 'doing well' compared to other people my age and had some great blog content. I didn’t realise it at the time, and I honestly didn’t think that I was ‘living a lie. I just saw it as sharing the best bits; a highlights reel if you will. My entire life was a Pinterest-pretty lie.
In the end, I shut the whole thing down and never came back to ‘public’ social media or blogging. It was the best thing I ever did for my life and my mental health. Sometimes it rains, and my house is a mess, and I have nothing to brag about and I’ve never been happier.
It’s very clear now that it was a full blown addiction and a way of coping with, what I can see now, was clearly mental health issues and a lack of satisfaction with my own life and the reality of that. I was controlling the way everyone else saw me, it made me feel better about myself. My life was absolutely filled with the most impressive photos and holidays when I was the most unhappy.
I know that no one asked for my life story
, and I sound like an absolute WANG, but as someone that has lived a version of her life, I can see SOOOO many red flags; Obsessively planning, staging everything, charging through life's big 'events' like a tick list, obsessed with 'perfect' weather, constant holidays, the repetition and trying to recreate past photos, massively oversharing and compromising safety for humble brags, just not being able stop taking photos or stop posting. It’s all there. She is not happy. She has an addiction and she's too stubborn to let go and get help.
I've followed RVK for the last couple of years, and she reminds me an awful lot of myself (not the racists, repressed, braggy, child bride parts though!! That's just her).
I used social media a lot around 2010-2014. I had a blog in the early days of blogging, with a decent-ish following. Nothing major, and before anyone was making any real money from it, but a blog nonetheless. My entire blog and Instagram was Pinterest standard, pretty SLR photos of my happy marriage, perfect pinterest wedding, dreamy holidays, pretty house things, baking with my organic, farmers market ingredients (yes, I'm eye-rolling at myself too
). All very twee and sickly sweet. Everything was dreamy and perfect.Someone started to give me a whole heap of shit online. It was actually a friend of a friend, and I just wasn't cut out for that level of criticism. My Mum kept telling me that I should just stop posting online, simple, but I couldn't. My answer was always 'but I'm writing it for myself', 'it's to document my life and look back on', 'I like to make my space happy and positive'. The truth was, I literally couldn't stop posting. The 'troll' made me feel shit, but not being able to post my humble brag life made me feel infinitely shitter. I certainly didn't realise it at the time, but I was absolutely addicted to the validation from strangers and showing off how wonderful my life was to make myself feel better about myself and my life.
The truth is, my life behind those perfect photos was a complete shitshow. You really wouldn't have guessed it from my lovely online life, but I had zero self-esteem, my marriage was under huge pressure and falling to bits, and I always needed to next thing to post about as a 'pick-me-up'.
My whole life was starting to be consumed with staging things so they looked amazing. All those wonderful trips were actually ruined by having to drag a huge camera around (before phones had decent cameras) and trying to get the perfect photos. If it rained and ruined the photos, I would feel so much pressure that I'd fall to bits. I'd plan places to go, just for the photo opportunities and I'd waste half the day laying out ridiculous flat lays of picnic food that I couldn't really afford. I'd talk about how wonderful my husband was, when really a lot of the time we were so sick of each other. I ruined my own engagement by throwing a strop that it rained and the pictures wouldn't be right.
The crappier my life was, the worse I felt, and the more addicted I was to my own dreamy online life and the validation that came with it. I put myself under huge pressure and was taking wonderful trips almost every month just to post things that made me feel good about my life (certainly not the Maldives, mind you).
My husband booked us a wonderfully dreamy, romantic weekend away into he countryside (nothing romantic about it at all. He was probably sick of my shit but humoured me. I booked it having myself, having studied the most aesthetically pleasing room they had and ringing up 3 times to make sure I got the room with the nice wallpaper). We got there and I'd bought my camera and no lens and I basically had a meltdown and told my husband 'there's no point in even being here if I can't photograph it for my blog'.
My husband was sick of my shit, we fought a lot and grew apart, but I was so stubborn that I hung on to that marriage for dear life. Not because I wanted to be with him, but because I didn't want to have to admit online or to anyone else, that my perfect life wasn’t actually perfect. That was my main concern over anything. I raced though life,getting married and buying home at a really young age just so I felt like I was 'doing well' compared to other people my age and had some great blog content. I didn’t realise it at the time, and I honestly didn’t think that I was ‘living a lie. I just saw it as sharing the best bits; a highlights reel if you will. My entire life was a Pinterest-pretty lie.
In the end, I shut the whole thing down and never came back to ‘public’ social media or blogging. It was the best thing I ever did for my life and my mental health. Sometimes it rains, and my house is a mess, and I have nothing to brag about and I’ve never been happier.
It’s very clear now that it was a full blown addiction and a way of coping with, what I can see now, was clearly mental health issues and a lack of satisfaction with my own life and the reality of that. I was controlling the way everyone else saw me, it made me feel better about myself. My life was absolutely filled with the most impressive photos and holidays when I was the most unhappy.
I know that no one asked for my life story
, and I sound like an absolute WANG, but as someone that has lived a version of her life, I can see SOOOO many red flags; Obsessively planning, staging everything, charging through life's big 'events' like a tick list, obsessed with 'perfect' weather, constant holidays, the repetition and trying to recreate past photos, massively oversharing and compromising safety for humble brags, just not being able stop taking photos or stop posting. It’s all there. She is not happy. She has an addiction and she's too stubborn to let go and get help.
Last edited:
Benpecked literally does the bare minimum work. I’ve never, EVER known a man “work” as little as him, or be at home/schlepping off for staged photo shoots for the gram as much as him. Yet when he does actually have to do his 3 days a month of real work to earn 10x more than all our husbands Grabby goes to absolute pieces. Try being a SAHM to a toddler and a newborn, no childcare, with a husband who works away Monday - Friday hun, then come talk to me about “solo parenting” 
has she not shared every single nauseating detail of her holiday while there. Airplane mode my arse. All that moaning about long days, Benpecked being married to his deadlines and she knew (unlike most of the country) she had an overseas holiday a few days away. How do all those idiots who are posting gushing comments not see what a spoilt princess she is.