Growing Up Online — My Mistakes And Wrongdoings

Reflecting on mistakes, and finding the last piece of the puzzle.

Growing Up Online

It has been less than a week since I made the decision to use my real name online going forward. In that short period of time, so much has changed. This was the final piece of the puzzle. This is what was behind all those years of terrible feelings and mental disassociation.

The timeline matches up. My life had been in decline since I entered high school at 13. This was also when social media and the internet were becoming a significant part of my life.

Being born in 2000, I was part of the first generation to grow up with all these technological influences. There wasn’t any precedent for this. And so maybe it’s not surprising it’s taken me this long to figure out.

I can now see many of the factors that led to it all.

The beginning of high school in 2014–15 also marked the beginning of my decline. I was a social outcast in my school and rarely went outside. One could say that my real life didn’t exist.

However, with the internet, I could interact with people and play games in a shared setting. Even if it was just through text, or even by non-verbal actions in-game, it was at least something.

As each year passed, I feel like I began to forget who I wanted to be. I was only addressed by the false names I had come up with. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since someone had called me by my real name.

I believe this is what caused the erasure of my identity over time. My interests, my demeanor, and my morals were fading away. And I was transforming into a different version of myself. A much worse one.

This regression was only exacerbated by the realizations I was having about the world at the time. I was becoming more aware of the terrible things happening. And I was constantly exposed to a bombardment of polarized and aggressive discourse.

Because of this, along with many prior negative experiences, I began to believe everyone was out to get me. It all made me feel so angry and hopeless. And that there was no good left in the world. Unfortunately, those feelings came out in unhealthy ways.

There was a period where I partook in the same aggressive discourse I had a distaste for. I got into swear matches and threw vitriol back and forth. And I continued to make bad choices with how I chose to engage with the internet.

I tried my hardest to show just how terrible and angry some said I was. I’d show them actual terribleness, I thought. And from there, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I had made the choice to become exactly that.

I justified doing this with mantras like “an eye for an eye”.

However, I should’ve known that self-defense never involved stepping forward.

Eventually, I realized how far I had fallen. What the hell was I doing? Why did I feel and act this way? And going forward, I vowed to not repeat this ridiculousness again.

Enough Is Enough

It’s been a couple of years since I made that decision. I’m still in the process of undoing the mindsets that I developed over that decade. Not knowing what those mindsets were made it a whole lot harder.

The effects were very pronounced beginning in 2016. I thought that this loss of feeling and disassociation was just a part of growing up. And it terrified me of what was to come.

Would time continue to move faster and faster? How could I have possibly felt even less than I did then? I already felt like a shell of my former self. There was no way it could get any worse.

As cliche as it sounds, it didn’t have to be this way.

I never would’ve thought I could have gotten so hot-headed. There was an ego I had when I was a kid, that I would never do any of the bad things I had read other people had done.

Perhaps that’s why it took so long to snap out of it. After all, I couldn’t stop myself from behaviors that I was never looking out for in the first place. That was the danger of the word “never”.

I think what made it even harder was that many others supported my method of discourse. Some of which were prominent figures in the communities I resided in.

They weren’t “bad” people either. So I assumed I could trust their word. They and I thought I was doing a good thing for open discourse and proving a point.

While there was room for nuance, I ultimately can’t agree with how I conducted myself in hindsight. There are a few lines in particular that I remember…

“It’s not as bad as some things others have done.”
“At least you’re willing to own your mistakes.”

Perhaps this was supposed to make me feel better. And honestly, if I could believe these words, I probably would feel better short term. But I can’t accept them.

It’d been a fine line to tread, trying to maintain a balanced view of it all. There were times when I compared myself to a murderer. I thought I was worse than one. Which was obviously ridiculous.

Yet it was also important to acknowledge my wrongs from that time. That trying to elicit reactions, anger, and sometimes even insult others with bombastic language, all out of this misguided desire for “retribution,” was totally out of line.

Maybe what I said and did wasn’t “as bad” as what others have done. But that will always be true for something. There is no purpose in morality if it’s only determined relative to another’s actions.

I viewed myself as more “righteous” than others. That wasn’t true. But even if it was, if I had zoomed out and taken a look at the bigger picture, I would’ve seen that I would simply be on a higher ledge in an abyss below the rest of society.

My actions should have been dictated by what was right in an absolute sense.

Afterward, there was also this fear of admitting my wrongs. There’s even a tinge of hesitance now. However, by refusing to do so, I would be repeating my mistakes again.

I made the choice to act the way I did because of what I thought about others. I never wanted them to get the last word in an argument. I felt I had to make them “pay”. And I made unsolicited comments along the way. All while neglecting to consider what I myself was doing wrong.

By doing so, I partook in this detrimental behavior that affected not only others, but myself as well. And after I decided to take a step back and look at what I was doing, I had similar feelings about admitting wrong. My ego was talking again.

I didn’t want to give others the “satisfaction".
And I feared for what they would do to me.

But I’m not going to refuse to admit my mistakes. I’m not going to hold onto that flawed behavior and make excuses like I did before. That is what got me into this situation in the first place. That stubborn refusal to own my own actions.

I was wrong. There’s no doubt about it.

I want to say that I will never make a mistake of this magnitude again. But I’ve already discussed how dangerous that word is. There will always be a possibility I will mess up in the future.

I’d just hope not to make the same mistake again.

What I Wanted To Be

The decision to use my real name going forth was not a light one. But one of the biggest influences in the decision was finding out about Medium. Being able to see the stories of others has shown how ridiculous I was for assuming the worst in everyone back then.

Before I even finalized the decision, I could feel my “self” returning. While the situation had gotten better in recent months, there was still this cloudiness hovering over my mind. A tightness in my chest, and a lack of focus.

In the few days since then, I’ve come back alive. This was the feeling of warmth and aliveness I hadn’t felt since over 10 years ago.

I have been feeling a constant warmth for every single moment of these past few days. And I have regained some of that awareness I had before.

It was like there was a vignette in my vision. Inside my home, I would look at the room around me. But I wouldn’t see most of it. It was like it was all blurry, but at the same time, it wasn’t quite that either.

I had a VR headset, and when I did anything with it I could tell it was not real. But even when I went outside, none of that felt real either. It was almost like I was seeing a 2D screen instead of the real world.

The sounds of everything were all muted. I was hearing them, but they were barely registering in my mind. I could react to everything around me, but at the same time, I was virtually blind. Unless I tried super hard, everything was out of focus.

That all went away when I reminded myself of who I was, and who I wanted to be.

I went for a walk, and I could sense the depth and complexity of the world again. I could sense the presence of cars passing. The sounds were so much more vivid. That background fuzziness continued to permeate me without any sign of stopping. And the immersion in music was even stronger.

I thought that the loss of my senses was something that came with growing up. That I would continue to lose myself with each year. But after over 7 years, I only now realized that this isn’t true.

I haven’t felt this way since elementary school. It’s as though I’ve emerged from a simulation. And frankly, it’s overwhelming.

With all that being said, I shouldn’t be too happy.

I am going to have to continue to reflect and remember these hard lessons I’ve learned. To ensure that I never fall back into that destructive state of mind again. I would think I wouldn’t do wrong again. But that’s what I thought before.

By using my real name, I hope I won’t forget who I want to be again. I hope I will not forget my morals. And to be ever conscious of the thin line between morality and immorality.

I don’t know what happened to the kid I once was. But I think he’s still somewhere in there. The one that everyone said was “nice”. The one that always saw the good in others. And always wanted to do good in the world.

I hope I can reconnect with that person.

Final Words

I don’t like giving advice. And given my mistakes, I’m probably not the best person for that anyway. But I would like to say something to anyone who may have felt these symptoms I’ve described.

The feeling of prolonged disassociation. As though looking at the world through a 2D screen. A loss of focus and presence in one's surroundings. And a muted sense of hearing and touch.

An inability to focus on your surroundings. As if a vignette is obscuring your focus. When nothing feels real anymore. The online world is the only world you know.

Constant anger. Frustration and distrust. A feeling that the entire world is against you. That the world is a terrible place. And getting into crazy arguments online.

If anything I’ve reflected on in this article feels reminiscent of your own experiences, and you have been using a pseudonym, I would highly encourage you to use your real name. Or at least a real photo.

Really, it doesn’t even have to be public. It just has to be something to remind you of who you are.

Of course, if it is public, caution should be exercised. But it could be worth considering.

I’d recommend trying to write an introduction about yourself. Your “true” self, that is. It doesn’t have to be visible right away. But if you feel the return of that same warmth and aliveness that I felt, it may be the right choice for you.

It might remind you of who you really are. Seeing your own name and face every day will remind you to never forget your morals. To own all of your words and experiences, and to ensure they won’t be something you’ll regret.

Perhaps most importantly, you’ll be able to be just you.

It’s scary. But I think it’ll be worth it. And by doing so, maybe you’ll avoid messing up as I did. You’ll save yourself from losing 7+ years to the worst of yourself.