My name is Diane...

My name is Diane and I am a email..texting..Face Book...twitter...addict.

I know that might sound silly and relatively impossible considering I am 55 years old and a few short years ago I could barely turn on a computer and had a cell phone that was only for emergencies.
But it is the way of the world now for many it has become an integral part of life and for some it has become a problem.

Now in these 12 step groups they always want to know when your rock bottom moment came. Mine was the night I heard my fancy phone ( its an Android but I just call it fancy) ding and I checked the email and it was a work related email and I proceeded to answer it...which would have been OK if it had not been 3:00 AM...
3:00 AM!!!!

Okay, unless you are the President of the United States you probably do Not have a job that is SOOOO important that you MUST attend to a situation that very minute.
Trust me..they do not pay me anywhere near enough to be on 24 hr 7 day a week call.

Frankly I am just NOT that important.

Delusions of grandeur.. I think Face Book and Twitter and the ability for everyone to know where you are and what you are doing every single moment of the day and night gives us all delusions of grandeur.

Most of us really aren't that interesting. Does anyone really care how I spend my day? Perhaps the husband has to feign a bit of interest in my day but the rest of you don't.

I have seen couples who do a majority of their communicating on face Book..they make plans on Face Book..they keep track of each other on Face book and they even fight on face Book and THAT is truly dangerous. Once you do that you invite unwanted advice and you run the risk of putting things out there that should be private.

Private..you remember private right?
It is getting harder and harder to be private.
The thing is even if you are trying hard to keep off the radar there is always someone who is watching and most likely reporting and recording it all.

Big Brother is watching and he is all of us.

We are all so very interested in the latest gadgets and devices and we think we want them all... no we actually think we NEED them all and I have come to start wondering WHY?
Why do I need my Email and my facebook to come to my phone? Why do I need to never ever be off.
Because that is what it is... you are never ever off.

This is a real real danger for folks like me who are Human Service professionals and frequently have a bit of the "I must save the world" thing going on.
The stress that I was feeling was over the top many days and I think it is not that anything is THAT much harder or stressful...I think its because I had forgotten how to turn it all off.

If you feel anxiety when you have not checked your email/twitter/facebook account within the hour you too have forgotten how to turn it off.
If you have convinced yourself that people really give a shit that you just went into Wegmans..you have forgotten how to turn it off and...you are wrong..they don't.

We are losing the art of human contact and communication. It is as Orwell predicted.
The part that amazes me is that we have all so willingly stepped into it.

Now does that mean I am going to stop using all these various forms of communication? No. Just this morning I went to a great workshop about Social Media and Communication. It can be a most effective tool for people in Human Services who are frequently doing more with less and less staff. It works.

But it is again like anything else..
I love a good ( big)glass of wine in the evening... However, If I start having a good ( big) Bottle of wine in the evening that might just indicate a problem.
Moderation is always key...

So here is my personal plan for recovery..first, I no longer take my phone to bed. Period.
Nor do I have my computer in my room,or an Ipod or a radio or a Television or even a clock. I have a bed and books. If it starts to get light out and I hear the birds I figure it is getting time to get up..if my stomach growls I get up.
That did make me wake up at 4:45 the other morning but so be it.

I sleep longer I sleep better and I have started to dream again.
I have always been a woman who pays close attention to her dream life. You can't pay attention to what you aren't remembering and that is Much harder if you have nothing but broken sleep.

I start my day quietly and I end my day quietly.

Will I backslide? Probably. Do I still need to make adjustments? Yes.
But they say acknowledging that you have a problem is the first step...
So, I did.