We’ve all done it. On a random Wednesday night, one can become absorbed into a random TV show, leading us down the social media rabbit hole of interviews, edits and the life stories of each actor. Our hyperfixation distracts us from our due assignments and the time which has hit midnight … two hours ago.
Not So Sweet Escape
Our hyperfixations can start off light-heartedly and stray us away from reality temporarily, creating a sweet escape. We revolve our thoughts and focus around a certain hyperfixation that feels important and fulfilling at the moment. As we remain distracted in our little bubble, real life and responsibilities pass us by. We lose focus on other life aspects that act beneficial like sleep, eating, exercising and other daily tasks.
Deeper into our sweet escape we find the cracks that go into negative and obsessive thoughts about ourselves. Hyperfixations can occur in snippets, where we bounce from one to the next. It may begin with a somewhat innocent thought but progresses into more extremes that reflect ourselves.
Our social media stalking sessions become more obsessive over people who don’t acknowledge our existence or that one ex who wronged us years ago. We absorb everything and more from their profile page, tagged posts and some sort of external link to feed into our hyperfixation.
A Turn For the Worse
It is hard to escape the spell our hyperfixation puts upon us without all the irrational thoughts that send us into a deeper trance. As we dive further our thoughts can become worse. Our hyperfixation on random social media accounts can turn into nitpicking ourselves and making small, unnoticed behaviors about ourselves transform into insecurities that did not need to originally exist.
We go down into a self-loathing rabbit hole where we start to believe our irrational thoughts stemming from that one hyperfixation. “Do I actually act like this all the time?” and “Why am I like this?” These small, irrelevant thoughts consume our being. Our worsening thoughts come from thin air, yet thicken in our minds to the point where it’s our first and last thought of the day.
Other needs are blurred in the background, becoming white noise to our irrational thoughts pounding at the forefront. We forget to eat, sleep and properly take care of ourselves in the midst of our hyperfixations. We can only consume the bad and the ugly of what that annoying voice says in our heads.
Seeing the Light
One hyperfixation can live rent-free in our minds, but we have the power to take charge of our ways to lead ourselves out of the obsessive bubble. While it feels easy to get sucked into that escape and forget about the real world, it is important to remind ourselves to live in the present. We can put more focus and effort into the tasks at hand that benefit our mental and physical health.
When it comes to social media, nothing is authentic and can easily be fabricated. While it is inevitable to see a post or two in our social media spiral that negatively taints our thoughts, having a constant reminder about how people easily fake their lives through one video or post.
We all have our fun hyperfixations every now and again so tag @VALLEYmag on X pertaining your most recent one!
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