Hello, I'm Robyn, I'm a journalist, and I'm a little bit out of focus. I write a parenting column for The Pool, have regular bylines in ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Grazia, etc, and was shortlisted for the 2016 Words by Women award in lifestyle journalism.
I also write an award-nominated parent blog called The Parent Crap, and co-present the LUV & HAT comedy podcast with my husband, Stuart Heritage.
In the past I've been a BuzzFeed employee, a session musician, a tech journalist, a stagehand, a web editor, and the world's least convincing barmaid.
I can probably knock out a few tunes on the piano or guitar still, but I absolutely and categorically cannot serve you a pint. That's why they fired me. I live in Kent with my husband, son, and mess.
LUV & HAT is back as a fortnightly podcast! Stuart Heritage and I are putting out a new episode every two weeks, and weāre doing a live show in September 2016. Listen to us here and visit our newfangled website here.
No, you wonāt finally write that bookā¦ The tumult of childbirth, the relentlessness of parenting and the lack of sleep will dominate maternity leave, says Robyn Wilder
I donāt know about you, but when I was a kid in the 1980s, the very worst thing anyone could call you in a playground was āgayā. The āgayā label could be slapped on you for the tiniest of transgressions ā from accidentally calling your teacher āMumā, to still having your name sewn into your shirt, to, strangest of all, fraternising with the opposite sex. And to be called āgayā was to have all your friends sidle away from you, lest they also be targeted.
As children we didnāt fully understand what we meant when we yelled āgaylordā across the monkey bars, only that it was a naughty slur. But, for most of us, the minute we realised that using the term pejoratively wasnāt cute at all ā not even ironically; not even at university, not even when all your gay friends are in on the joke and you earnestly specify ānot gay-gayā whenever you use it ā we stopped. Of course, we stopped. Because we were adults.
And then thereās Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, who implied that Fox news anchor Megyn Kelly interviewed him aggressively because āshe had blood coming out of her whereverā. Donald Trump, who accused Hillary Clinton of āgetting schlongedā by Barack Obama, and made fun of her for briefly leaving a debate to go to the loo. Donald Trump who, at his last rally, gleefully repeated a female supporterās words when she called Ted Cruz a āpussyā. Donald Trump, the adult.
Donāt get me wrong, Iām not offended by genital references ā human genitals are weird, bulbous, deep-sea-creature-looking things and they deserve to be ridiculed until nature designs more chic alternatives. But itās interesting that Trump is flinging all these schlongs, wherevers and pussies around the political landscape. And that itās allowed.
Particularly the term āpussyā. As a word, I donāt like it ā for some reason it always makes me think of someone with braces on their teeth chewing a scouring pad. And it goes without saying that Trump (and presumably his supporter) used the word to suggest that Ted Cruz was weak-willed and a coward.
In the lexicon of the vagina, there are three universally unambiguous slurs. First, there is the C-word, famously the worst thing you could call anybody ā although it just means āvaginaā, for Godās sake. I guess it describes a really awful vagina. A vagina with teeth. The sort of vagina whoād steal your boyfriend, stab you in the back, then kick you while you were down for good measure. Then thereās ātwatā, which means āvaginaā too, but also ābarely tolerable foolā. And lastly, there is āpussyā, of course, which is shorthand for weakness, cowardice and general wimpery.
And, while there are corresponding male-genital words for the first two (ādickā or āprickā are rambunctious, straightforward slurs like the C-word; and ābellendā matches ātwatā quite well), there is no penis-slang to marry āpussyā. Iāve just had a lively conversation with my husband about this; he insists there is, and I left the room to him shouting āPutz! Weiner! Limp-dick!ā at my back, but my point still stands.
There is no male-genital slur that means quite the same as āpussyā. Because āpussyā, apart from being a put-down, is also a sexual term (again, not one Iām fond of: it makes me think of a lisping pimp in a seedy side street). "Putz", "weiner" and "limp-dick", whereas, are not words you'd expect to hear in a bedroom, unless it was a very sad bedroom.
So essentially what Trump and his supporter are saying is āthe actions of Ted Cruz bring to mind something laughable and yielding that Iād use for sexā. Like a woman. I paraphrase, of course.
Perhaps itās no surprise that Donald Trump thinks women equal weakness, and uses them as the butt of his jokes at every opportunity. He, like kids in playgrounds, has a very black-and-white idea of who is "us", and who are "them". I mean, the man has already pledged to ābomb the shit out of Isisā, he wants a blanket ban on Muslims, and it really did look like he thought Paris was in Germany that time.
For all his billions, itās hard to feel cowed by Trump when heās running for office by basically being that child in a playground shouting āgaylordā, ostracising anyone unlike him, and calling girls stupid. The only difference is that this child could feasibly run the free world one day, and thatās pretty scary.
We need to do more to help children experiencing mental health issues
Originally published on The Pool
My father died when I was ten. It happened suddenly, shockingly, while he was overseas and I was stuck at boarding school in the Home Counties. Soon afterwards I fell into a deep and paralysing depression which ā although very visible ā was entirely ignored by the staff at my school, and changed the shape of my whole academic career.
Now, as an adult who battles anxiety and depression on a daily basis, I wonder if things might have been different had I been offered mental health support at the time.
According to the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), a fifth of UK schoolchildren under 11 suffer mental health problems ā due to domestic abuse, bereavement, or any number of issues ā and primary schools donāt typically have the facilities to deal with them.
The government has ear-marked Ā£1.4bn specifically for childrenās mental health, but itās government cuts that have done away with existing counselling services in many schools. "We know the government is determined to improve children's mental health but there's still a danger that some children will take untreated mental problems into adulthood," NAHTās general secretary, Russell Hobby, told the BBC this week.
Having depression as a child is a totally different experience from being a depressed adult. When youāre 10 you barely have the language to describe day-to-day emotions, never mind the smothering guilt-dark terror that comes with depression.
When I was suffering, I felt a million miles away from my friends, and they found my long silences irritating. I became a target for bullying, and uncharacteristically had no comebacks. I spent all day waiting for the oblivion of bedtime. I over-ate and took up smoking behind the chemistry lab (sorry Mrs Birch, that was me), and still the teachers didnāt notice. And the less people noticed, the more isolated I felt, and the more I blamed myself, because it didnāt even enter my head that I might be depressed. Because I was *10*.
Eventually the teachers began to pay attention when my schoolwork started slipping ā in a single term I fell from the A stream to the B stream in all subjects, because depression had rendered my brain a dead slug that sat uselessly in my head ā but instead of being helped, I was constantly upbraided and branded a troublemaker. At one point I was even given a black mark forputting my hand up to ask a question in class. Not that Iām bitter.
After that things took a turn for the weird. One of the teachers had the bright idea to have me tested for autism. I failed this test (or passed it, depending on how you look at it), but it revealed that I had quite a high IQ. Still, no one recommended that I have counselling or emotional help in any way. Instead, I was entered for my GCSEs three years early and left to get on with it.
My past, just like anyone elseās, is chequered ā with good decisions, bad hair days, and long, grey Tuesday afternoons. I have ended up with a career I love, a husband I adore and a son I canāt for the life of me stop Instagramming, so I cannot in good conscience regret a single choice that brought me to this point.
That said, I canāt help wondering that, if at my school there had been a kind face sitting behind a door marked ācounselorā, they might have helped the burnt-out 12-year-old me bounce back from her cynicism and her 20-a-day smoking habit, and squeeze out the last few sunshiney drops of her childhood.
#TimeToTalk: how talking about mental health issues can make a huge difference
Originally published on ASOS Likes.
Hello, my nameās Robyn and itās time to talk about the fact that I have mental health issues. In fact, I have a smorgasbord. For years Iāve had panic attacks so crippling that I sometimes find it hard to leave the house. I also live with a sort of pervasive anxiety, which drives me (DOES IT?) to constantly doubt myself (OR DOES IT?), and can descend into full-on everyday-tasks-are-like-dragging-wellies-through-mud-style depression. Plus, since becoming a parent Iāve also welcomed post-traumatic stress disorder and postnatal depression to the party, which at their essence make me really uptight about not maintaining Kate Middleton levels of chic while cleaning my babyās pooey bottom.
Normally I wouldnāt tell you this. Normally Iād stop after āmy nameās Robynā, then spend lots of energy trying to give off powerful waves of normality. But today is Time To Talk Day, encouraging the nation to open up about their mental health, and enoughās enough.Ā
Hiding the truth and trying to appear ānormalā takes so much energy that you often donāt have enough left to take care of yourself. Also, not talking about mental health just perpetuates the isolation these conditions can bring, and helps to confirm negative stereotypes about them.
This is also the firm belief of Laura Darrall, whoās behind the #ItAffectsMe hashtag on Twitter and Instagram. After suffering a breakdown last year, she started the campaign to give mental health a voice, and to get people ā sufferers and non-sufferers alike ā talking about it. āThe best thing my closest friend said to me was, āYou donāt have to pretend in front of me,āā Laura told ASOS Likes. āWhen youāre suffering, part of you feels you have to pretend youāre OK in front of people so you donāt worry them or bring them down, and itās exhausting! To be given permission to just be exactly how I felt was exactly what was needed.ā
Lauraās fighting to get mental health education into the school curriculum. āEducating children about the symptoms of OCD, depression or body dysmorphia will help young people understand whatās happening to them, and make them more compassionate towards their peers.ā As for how friends and family members of those suffering should react, she advises, āBe patient, be kind and pass absolutely no judgement. We donāt talk about it because we are often afraid of being judged, so if you approach someone who is suffering and create a safe open space for them to talk about it, it will do wonders.ā
And I can attest to this personally. It wasnāt until I started writing about my own mental health issues for magazines that I really unlocked it all and opened up to people, and the result was astonishing ā so many people were thanking me and saying they could relate to everything I was writing. Iāve made friends, picked up valuable coping and treatment options, and, best of all, I donāt have to āworkā to come across as normal. Turns out loads of people have mental health issues, so I was normal all along.
To take part in Lauraās #ItAffectsMe campaign, post an Instagram or Twitter selfie with a Post-It note and use the hashtag, then donate Ā£3 to mental health charityĀ Mind.
Last week, when deputy Commons speaker Eleanor Laing publicly lit into pregnant MP Tulip Siddiq for taking an unscheduled break during a long parliamentary debate, it was galling, but sadly I donāt think there was a parent in the country who could say they were shocked.
Laing is a single mother herself, so while she arguably could have displayed a bare minimum of empathy for a heavily pregnant woman sitting on a hard chair for more than two hours straight, the fact is parents humiliating other parents for their choices is nothing new.
Venture far enough into the Mumsnet forums and youāll find snarling gangs of vicious mothers and fathers clicking their fingers and circling each other in shady sub-threads about who stopped their sons from dressing up as Elsa from Frozen, and who lets their toddlers watch TV. And to read the below-the-line comments on my husbandās Guardian parenting column is to learn how every single choice he and I make as parents counts as child abuse (and that he should get over himself because heās not the first person to have a baby).
Even with the most benign of conversations, parents drop tiny judgement-bombs that you donāt even notice until after the fact. Blogger Susie Verrill listed my favourite of these ā the term āoh no, we were really strict about thatā when discussing parenting styles ā as though your choice makes you a lax parent.
Pregnancy, though, is different. If youāve never been pregnant itās ridiculously easy to accidentally offend an expectant mother. I know: Iāve done it. Before I had my own baby, seeing a pregnant woman would set off alarms in my head. Iād scramble madly to find something appropriate to say, and Iām sure I occasionally came out with clangers like āSO WAS IT PLANNED?ā before I really understood how totally unforgivable that was.
Secondly, your own pregnancy is an epic journey of Frodo-carrying-the-one-ring-to-Mordor intensity. Itās everything when youāre in it, so when youāre over it, the success can be so dizzying that itās easy to mistakenly believe that you are now an expert on everyoneās pregnancy.
And everyoneās pregnancy is different. Some people fly through it. Some people lurch and fall the whole way. Some peopleās noses grow bigger. Me, I developed freckles and every pregnancy health complaint available on the NHS, and broke a rib to boot.
I had a relatively good pregnancy at work, but even then it was a struggle, especially in my third trimester.
I had constant severe morning sickness and anaemia made me dizzy, and that was even before I tried to commute into the office with a laptop slung around me on journeys where everyone was suddenly blind to the pregnant woman who needed a seat. Once in the office the smell of brewing coffee would send me off, heaving, to the toilets for most of the morning. Sitting in meetings made me weep with back pain. Around 2pm I would come over terminally drowsy and Iād basically stop producing anything of value.
Once or twice my diminished performance sparked uncomfortable conversations with colleagues who either didnāt understand that it was down to the effects of my pregnancy, or had experienced easier pregnancies, and couldnāt fathom what I was going through.
And these werenāt scary HR conversations ā these were well-meaning, pleasant, fleeting chats. But they destroyed me a bit, because I was really doing the best I could and, secretly, I did feel that by not being a pregnant superwoman, I was letting the side down.
Had someone actually taken me aside and accused me of āplaying the pregnancy cardā, āmaking women look badā, and ābringing down all of womankindā I would probably have dissolved. So well done to Tulip Siddiq for holding it together, and for being so eloquent in her response.
Eleanor Laing has combined a career in politics with the challenges of a single-parent family. And I suspect, like the passive-aggressive judgy mums, and the reactionary sharks you find on pregnancy forums, at least part of her motivation was ā rather than cut-and-dried workplace bullying ā to hold Siddiq to the standards she holds herself to.
Perhaps when Laing was pregnant she could sit in a hard chair for half a day without needing a boiling wee, or to inhale a bunch of Dairy Milks. It seems that Siddiqās pregnancy, though, is different, so Laing ā and anyone dealing with parents and expectant parents ā would be well advised to change her approach from ādo as you would be done byā to ādifferent strokes for different folksā.
Also, Iād stay off pregnancy forums for a while if I was her. Those sharks are lethal.
On tonight's programme, Geoff gives some advise on Christmas etiquette and Annabel is joined by writer Robyn Wilder to fill a time capsule with stories from the week fro the people of the future
Here I am on the very funny Geoff Lloyd show on Absolute Radio, telling children that Father Christmas doesnāt exist.Ā
This year will be my babyās first Christmas. On 25 December he will be two days shy of 11 months old, and eager for āØhis first opportunity to leap spread-eagled onto the Christmas tree and find a nice dangerous string of lights to gnaw on. āItās going to be hilarious!ā my friends keep telling me. āI bet you canāt wait!ā
The truth is I can wait. As much as Iām looking forward to Christmas, I have post-natal depression and, on bad days, even the washing-up can overwhelm me. The news that a thirdāØ of new mothers suffering in the same way are too scared to seek help, for fear of lettingāØ loved ones down, is never more pertinent than at this time of year. The very thought of festive logistics ā socialising, liqueur chocolates, LBDs, giftwrap, food prep, hangovers andāØthe obligatory festive baby-wrangling in a hot shopping centre ā just make me want to go to bed. Then get up, fetch the liqueur chocolates, and go back to bed again.
Instead of bed, though, Iām going to the Sad Ladiesā Club. Sad Ladiesā Club is what I callāØ a local weekly crafts group I go to for women with post-natal depression (itās actually called Craft Attack and is run by a local mental health charity; my GP and health visitor referred me). If you have visions of orange jumpsuits and bleak-eyed basket-weaving right about now, donāt worry ā so did I at first.
But Sad Ladiesā Club is great. First, you lovingly dump your baby in a crĆØche, then a very nice woman hands you the first of unlimited cups of tea and encourages you to plunderāØ the enormous box of chocolates on the table.
Sure, you want to create something perfect at first ā but soon the colours, the textures, and the exactitude of the guillotine quieten your mind. For two hours a week, the clamour of parenthood, the terror of depression and the looming threat of Christmas go away. You are yourself again.
Sad Ladiesā Club has been incredibly healing. As a direct result Iāve organised therapy for myself, a part-time nanny and a cleaner to help me feel less overwhelmed. And, best of all, Iām starting to look forward to Christmas. I have a beautiful Christmas wreath I made at SLC, Iām not in bed and my babyās not chewing on the fairy lights. Things are on the up.
Recently, I decided to host a dinner party. I moved out of London a few months ago and had a baby, so basically I wanted to prove to my friends that I was still relevant. But, as soon as I had the idea, I dismissed it ā because catering to their new and bizarre dietary requirements would have been too painful.
One of my friends is low-carbing. Another has gone gluten-free (but admits that she couldnāt even remember why sheād stopped eating bread). A third friend is now āpaleoā and only eats red berries and grass-fed buffalo. And yet another has vetoed refined sugar. Those bastards. I was going to make lasagne and profiteroles.
Itās clear that I need new friends. I can no longer be seen with someone who arranges chia seeds (whatever those are) on a vintage plate and then Instagrams them into oblivion with about 500 #glutenfree, #sugarfree and #paleo hashtags.
Now, I am all for dietary diversity, but I think this needless weighing of grains and health-food-shop-bothering is a Ā little, well, joyless. Itās 2015 ā the date that Back To The Future Part II predicted weād all be zipping about on hoverboards. And yet here we are, still policing our food like a catty secretarial pool during the macrobiotic diet craze of the Eighties. Itās a sorry state for womanhood when the sheer jubilance of diving into a hot bowl of cheesy pasta has become social anathema.
Sadly, this is no longer fringe behaviour. That difficult friend, the menu-dissecting fussy eater, has gone mainstream and the Joe Schmo jam-and-toast eaters among us are the food weirdos. Restaurants have sprung up to cater for those whoāve done away with carbs and sugar, and even Pizza Hut has started offering a gluten-free pizza base. Sales of UK supermarket āfree fromā foods have risen by 15% and people are buying 40% more dairy-free alternatives than they were in 2011. Conversely, bread and pasta sales are down by 8.9% and 4.2%, respectively, which analysts say is down to the no-carb trend.
Full disclosure. I have spent half my life wedded to one diet or another, trying fruitlessly to hammer my size-14 frame back down to the size eight I was before Ā I quit smoking. My food weirdness of choice is the good old-fashioned diet. We go way back. I have counted calories. I have survived for months on ānutritionally completeā shakes and soups, then blown my dietary load in a bakery, undoing much of my good work. Recently, though, Iāve taken an interest in balanced nutrition because my six-month-old son has just started on solid food and I donāt want him growing up thinking that granola eaten straight out of the box while still in your pyjamas at 3pm counts as ālunchā (and if you were wondering what I was doing with my maternity leave, thereās an insight for you).
But what is a balanced diet now? The NHS still recommends a mix of carbohydrates and protein with lots of fruits and vegetables, and fewer KitKats than Iām comfortable with. Gwyneth Paltrow however (who starred in Iron Man and therefore is more credible to me) thinks that the road to a healthy-eating nirvana is paved with absolutely no gluten.
The much-maligned gluten is a combination of proteins that gives bread and āŗ Ā pasta dough that pleasing gluey elasticity. People with coeliac disease canāt eat gluten because it causes their immune systems to attack their own digestive tracts, and can even lead to bowel cancer. Only 1% of the UK population has coeliac disease but, according to market- research organisation Mintel, around 7% of people believe they have an undiagnosed intolerance to the stuff, and another 8% avoid gluten to ābe more healthyā ā most likely mentally lumping āgluten-freeā in with terms like āveganā and āorganicā under the vague dietary umbrella of āhealthy eatingā.
My coeliac friend Emily is not a fan of this new gluten-free tourism. āOne minute people are telling you theyāre coeliac too and begging you for your cauliflower pizza-base recipe, and the next it turns out they just fancied stopping eating
gluten for a bit, because now theyāre taking a selfie with a Subway footlong. Itās so annoying,ā she says. Conversely, blogger and coeliac Erika Holt is grateful for the
gluten-free demand theyāre creating: āBefore people jumped on the gluten-free train, there was nothing available except for the expensive prescription foods. Now each week thereās a new type of gluten-free food in the supermarket.ā
If you donāt have coeliac disease, though, or a diagnosed allergy, cutting out gluten could actually harm you in the long run. āA gluten-free diet may adversely affect gut health in those who donāt need to follow it,ā says registered dietitian Rosie Norman. āGluten-free diets are often low in fibre and can be linked to deficiencies in B vitamins, iron and folate.
āIn fact, following any food fad may, ironically, lead to nutritional deficiencies and medical complications.ā
Try telling that to Lauren B, a 26-year-old training consultant from London, who has lost over two stone by cutting out carbs. Her plan sounds quite convincing when she evangelises about her clear skin and how much fresh food she gets to eat. But her altered attitude to carbs concerns me: āI didnāt worry at all about cutting out a major food group,ā she says. āI wouldnāt go back to carb-laden meals every day because I put on weight when I eat them ā Iām not a very moderate person. I wouldnāt have eggs on toast or a sandwich, Iād have a sandwich, then chips, then some cake and a chocolate bar. I find it easier to avoid all carbs and just associate them with treats.ā
Itās all-or-nothing attitudes like this that some psychotherapists and dietitians worry will lead to a buzz-phrase you may have heard bandied about, orthorexia nervosa, which means an obsession with ārighteous eatingā. In a 2014 Vanity Fair interview, Jennifer Lawrence pooh-poohed the gluten-free trend in Hollywood, calling it āthe new, cool eating disorderā. Was she on to something?
āOrthorexia is yet to be formally classified as a recognised psychiatric disorder,ā says Norman. āIt describes obsessive behaviour with being healthy. Itās characterised by a restrictive diet, ritualised patterns of eating, and rigid avoidance of foods believed to be āunhealthyā or āimpureā. It can also lead to anorexia or bulimia.ā
āThere is something about control in the obsessive dieter,ā says psychotherapist and broadcaster Philippa Perry. āWe may be buying into this myth that, āI can control my allotted lifespan and extend it indefinitely so long as I eat quinoa and soya beans.ā But is an orthorexic life fun? And do you live longer than someone who just eats normally?ā
I put this to my paleo friend who doesnāt dismiss the idea out of hand. āHaving a plan does lessen my anxiety around food,ā she says. āI like having something I can stick to, and Iām perfectly aware that in a few years a scientist will turn round and say that eating paleo has halved my lifespan or something. But on the other hand, I feel the healthiest that I have in years, I have loads of energy, and Iāve shed all my extra body fat.ā
So, for approximately 13 seconds, I decide to go paleo.
Thatās the problem, you see. Itās all incredibly persuasive. Thanks to the Ā lovingly edited photos of sun-kissed six-packs and courgette spaghetti, the #eatclean Instagram hashtag inspired me to run out and buy a vegetable spiraliser, before realising that I hate courgette and adore, you know, actual spaghetti.
āClever marketing may lead people to believe that the food theyāre eating is healthier than it actually is,ā says Norman. āInstead of demonising single nutrients, or following diet fads, take a broader look at your lifestyle. Eating a variety of wholefoods from all the food groups is key.ā
I have another friend, Ellie, who, while all this has been going on, has just been quietly following her own plan ā one which allows for lasagne and profiteroles. āOh, I just try and eat a balanced diet,ā she tells me when I ask. When I mention that I havenāt seen her Instagramming any of her food, she gives me a strange look. āWhy would I Instagram my food?ā she asks. āI have a cat.ā
There is a woman on the internet who is my nemesis. She doesnāt know sheās my nemesis, of course ā or even that I exist ā but that doesnāt stop me getting all emotional over the photos she posts online. Because, you see, her life looks flawless. This woman is a beauty blogger with more than 90,000 Instagram followers. I, however, am a journalist, and fewer than 2,000 follow me. One in five of this womanās selfies are taken in an azure infinity pool in Bora Bora with someone who looks suspiciously like Tom Hardy. One in five of mine are taken in a terraced house in Kent when my baby, who looks a bit like Max from EastEnders, pulls a funny face.
Whenever Bora Bora woman pops up on my Instagram feed with her poreless skin and poolside life, Ā I suddenly feel catastrophically unattractive. This woman looks the way I might if I had a stylist, won the lottery and had never heard of potatoes. Itās galling. Suddenly my own messy fishtail braid is a knot of malnourished rat tails. My outfit is too generic, my life not as sun-kissed and aspirational. āWhy am I even sharing photos if Iām so lumpen and uninteresting?ā I find myself thinking. It seems searingly unfair that such a glamorous creature could even exist in the same universe as one in which I have a wandering right eye and an unhoovered living room.Ā
Obviously, though, youāre never going to see my wandering right eye or unhoovered living room. Just like Bora Bora Lady, and just like anyone whoās run a no-make-up shot or #iwokeuplikethis selfie through an image editor (which
is pretty much everyone), Iām very active on social media, but only share the most photogenic parts of my life online.
Offline Me cries once a week and still hasnāt unpacked all her boxes, seven months after moving house. Online Me, however, is happily raising a bonny child in a sunny, well-kept albeit unhoovered house with nary a frown nor a vomit stain in shot. Iāve been conditioned by society, my parents, and by the mean girls I went to school with, to keep all that less-than-perfect stuff locked up tight. In his essay about imagery and meaning, Simulacra And Simulation, the philosopher Jean Baudrillard observed that we are becoming increasingly unable to distinguish reality from the imitation of reality. By not challenging the status quo, even Bora Bora woman and I ā with my filtered-to-oblivion online self ā are contributing to a culture of FOLO.
FOLO is the fear of living life offline, of real life, the dispiriting dissonance that occurs when your own humdrum moments ā say, queuing in Lidl on an unfiltered grey Tuesday afternoon ā donāt measure up to the Facebook update you just read about your friend drinking Aperol Spritz at sunset in Bali.
Social media is inextricably linked with depressive symptoms, claim researchers from the University of Houston. A recent study suggests that the longer you spend on social media browsing the curated highlights of other peopleās lives, the more isolated, jealous and worthless you can feel ā scientists have called this phenomenon āFacebook depressionā.
āIt doesnāt mean Facebook causes depression,ā the studyās author, Mai-Ly Steers, has said. āBut that depressed feelings and lots of time on Facebook and comparing oneself with others
tend to go hand in hand.ā
My friend Sara Levi, a charity information manager, deleted her Facebook account last summer when she found it was actually worsening her existing depression. āFacebook wasnāt doing good things for my self-worth,ā she tells me. āI forgot that people deliberately present their best selves online. I was starting to think that the smiling selfies and status updates about wonderful partners and friends were how everyone lives all the time, rather than snapshots ā literally ā of one moment in time.
āNo one was sharing that they were crying for no reason, or having a panic attack at work, or couldnāt face leaving the house today. So I felt no one would understand how I was doing because they all had such marvellous lives. And that I shouldnāt bother them or bring them down with my gloom.ā
But what would it feel like to show real life? I decide to embark on an adventure and go unfiltered for a week ā I will step out from behind the edits and share my life and face online. The very idea sets my teeth on edge and I have visions of being chased off the internet by villagers with pitchforks the very second I share my first IRL (In Real Life) selfie.
I start with 5,490 Twitter followers, 1,193 Instagram followers and 475 Facebook friends. Can I really go for 10 days unfiltered on social media, and come out alive? Will they still like me?
Day 1:After a rough day, and with a fridge full of decomposing aspirational salad vegetables, I cheer myself up with a questionable takeaway chicken burger, and ironically Instagram my leftover chips with the hashtag #avocadotoast. I follow several eat-clean devotees, so Iām surprised when my post acquires 58 likes and several more hashtags from my followers, including #eatclean, #wellness and #eatnourishglow. My followers are the best.
Day 2: Using the hashtag #shoppingaddict, I Instagram my shopping list, which includes tampons and bin-liners, and people compliment my handwriting. Later, I am in Lidl, so I post a picture of Lidl on Twitter, and tag it ā#Lidlā. It gets retweeted seven times. People are weird.
Day 3: A borderline racist rant about āmigrantsā appears on Facebook, all dingbat send-āem-all-back terminology and poor spelling, from someone I barely knew at college. My instinct is to ignore it and move on. This time, though, I reply with my own, rather more liberal point of view, with links to relevant news pieces. Iād like to say that this opens my āŗ Facebook friendās eyes to a broader outlook and we all live happily ever after, but the truth is he calls me a c-word and unfriends me, and it makes absolutely no difference to my life whatsoever.
Day 4: Technically Iām on LinkedIn to further my career, but Iāve never got a job out of it, and the same five bizarrely named people like my updates. Despite this, I only update it when Iāve written a serious, impressive feature. Today I just post, āI quite fancy a jam sandwich.ā Troy St Augustine Squire, Reuters Starbucks III, Ahmed Ahmed, Molly McGee and Samson LaGuardia all approve. Again.
Day 5: I attend a barbecue and share a boozy ensemble selfie on Facebook and Instagram. Itās wonky, peopleās heads are cut off, my whole face ā apart from three double-chins ā is obscured by a chicken leg, but weāre all grinning like fools. āYou look like youāre having an excellent time,ā someone comments, which pleases me because we really are, and that may not have come across if weād all been duck-facing. Ā
Day 6: Time to be real on Twitter. Iāve been dreading this. Twitter is where I trot out the random (hopefully, funny) one-liners that pass through my brain. Posting something opinionated or emotional is far beyond my comfort zone. Still, I post that Iām feeling a bit overwhelmed by new motherhood. No one pays me the slightest attention. So later I live-tweet my progress through a packet of Bourbons and the self-loathing that accompanies it, and I get about 20 retweets and lots of LOLs. Iām slightly horrified, though, and later I canāt help but delete my tweets.
Day 7: On Instagram I share a real, unedited, no-make-up selfie from my bed. I slightly cheat by including my baby son, who brightens any photograph, but, to my credit, I do look extravagantly decrepit. I hashtag it #wokeuplikethisselfie and wait for the insults. Instead, I get 20 likes. Less than half of my average of 50.
Day 8: Someone tags me on Facebook with the #widn (What Iām Doing Now) tag. Generally, Iāll either ignore something like this, or lightly art-direct a photo that may feature any combination of my baby, a clever-looking book, and some flowers in an interesting vase. Instead, I just post an unfiltered shot of my curtained window and whinge about being stuck inside with hayfever. This results in 23 likes and tons of hayfever remedies. More interestingly, people tell me in the comments what theyāre doing right now (crocheting; waiting on a scary medical diagnosis; sitting by a pool; shopping), and the conversation becomes about them, not me ā something that Iām realising, with some shame, rarely happens on my social media.
Day 9: Nervously, I share an unfiltered full-body fashion shot on Facebook. All my clothes are from the high street, and my post-baby figure is more Tweedledum than Blake Lively, but the response is mildly positive, with 13 likes and a compliment about my lipstick (Ruby Woo by Mac, of course).
Day 10: It occurs to me that there are glamorous internet entities whom I follow on Twitter and Instagram, and compare myself to regularly ā but Iāve never actually interacted with them in any way. So I email the brains behind one of my favourite accounts, a relentlessly picturesque Londoner who, when she isnāt displaying her perfect thigh gap on a yacht, skips about Notting Hill in haute couture eating massive burgers (the dream). When she doesnāt respond, I contact the sartorially sound (and very approachable) Susie Verrill, the author of stylish parenting blogmymiloandme.com, whom I have admired from afar for many months.
āI think we all need to own up to the fact that only the most Stepford Wives among us actually have immaculate lives,ā she tells me when I say Iām writing a piece about the simulated reality of social media. āItās like airbrushing: we all know it goes on, it makes things nice to look at, but itās not realistic. āThat said, I wonāt include my dogs humping or the washing-up in a snapshot. If Iāve had a shoddy day, Iāll put up a cheery photo of something pretty, rather than post reality ā I like following people who put effort into what they upload and I use it as a tool to inspire me, so I like to give the same back.ā
So thatās it. Iāve shown the world my uncurated life and lived to tell the tale. I end the experiment with 5,495 Twitter followers, 1,197 Instagram followers, and 474 Facebook friends ā Iāve actually gained followers (although Iāve lost one Facebook racist). And many of my posts have sparked discussions, and generally made me feel better about myself than any updates Iāve ever posted for visual or comedic impact.
Thatās followers, though. My actual real-life friends are a different story. āAre you feeling depressed?ā one texts me. āAll your Instagrams are of closed windows, too many biscuits, and your captions have become paragraphs, suddenly.ā Paradoxically, a cousin who lives in Canada is a fan of the new, wordy updates: āItās just so lovely to hear from you and know whatās going on with you.ā
However, this little experiment has brought to light several things. First, given that I have largely been whingeing about motherhood and mainlining Bourbons, I might be feeling a little vulnerable, and using social media largely as a means of escape ā the way that you might flick through a glossy magazine on a grey day. Second, I might be keeping my online self locked down a little tightly ā so much so that Iām a mystery even to family members. And third, Iāve been comparing myself, my wonky eye and my unhoovered living room to a photoshopped magazine advert thatās almost entirely designed
to make me covet it.
Somehow, Iāve forgotten that, in life, we will experience both Aperol Spritzes and queuing in Lidl (at least metaphorically), but weāll only share the former online, and that brands will sponsor particularly scenic social media entities, like Bora Bora lady (and often style and professionally photograph them within an inch of their lives), and thatās where aspiration can tumble over into feelings of inadequacy.
Obviously, when I return to Instagram I will remain a devotee to the filters Lark and Clarendon (frankly, I live in England and the weather is not kind to my bone structure), but otherwise Iām going to use social media as a way to connect, not just to preen insecurely, and not as a barometer for my own self-esteem.
Now, if youāll excuse me, I have to comb through my Facebook friends and do a cull of racists. And Iāll unfollow the Bora Bora infinity-pool lady because, letās be honest, thereās no way sheās ever going to introduce me to Tom Hardy.
This week we have first-time Mama Robyn Wilder sharing her experience of motherhood so far. She juggles pen-wielding with baby-rearing on a daily basis writing for Buzzfeed, The Pool and her own bl...
Here I am being interviewed by the delightful Siobhan for her excellent blog, The Double Mama.
Whereās Bob? Off sick again? Probably man-flu. Poor love. They always have it worse, donāt they, the men? I bet heās holed up in his man-cave with some beer and a Netflix bromance, feeling sorry for himself. Men, LOL!Ā
Iāve heard this conversation, or a variant of it, at every office Iāve ever worked in. Now, Iām all for calling out people who say theyāve got the flu when itās clearly a cold (for future reference: with a cold, your headās a goldfish bowl full of liquid snot; with the flu your throat is studded with razor blades, and you bow out of reality for three days).Ā
But if I struggled back to work after *any* sort of illness only to have a male colleague accuse me of āwoman-fluā, I would be *incensed*. I would take to Twitter in outrage, a hashtag would spring up, and someone somewhere would organise some sort of awareness walk.Ā
Somehow, though, itās now accepted wisdom that women get colds and men get man-flu. Women take sick days for Real And Important Reasons, men just get high on Night Nurse and watch porn. We infantilise men, we act like theyāre great big idiots. Just take the pub sign that Telegraph writer Bryony Gordon photographed this weekend and published on Twitter.Ā
Itās funny because itās true! All women DO enjoy shopping! All men, without exception, LOVE the rugby! Because women are rational and civilised, and men are just knuckle-dragging cretins who are always mansplaining everything, putting bros before hoes, and generally getting under our Louboutins while weāre trying to get on with the serious business of adulthood.Ā
This perception is clearly bullshit, otherwise Oprah would be running the UN and weād all be feverishly trying to coax Obama down from the pinnacle of the free world in case he sneezes too hard during peak man-flu season and inadvertently launches all the nukes.Ā
But weāre still being bombarded with this idiot-male stereotype from all corners of pop culture. Homer Simpson is a bumbling fool, Robin Thicke doesnāt know what rhymes with āhug meā, and once a year Judd Apatow takes his actor friends on a giant obnoxious man-child bender, and calls it a movie ā and weāre all okay with that because weāre in on the joke.
However, my eight-month-old son isnāt in on the joke. To him, this will be what the world says: men are lovable boneheads who are relegated to the garage with their beers and their football leagues while their female counterparts raise the children and run the house.
That pub sign says it all, really ā itās aimed at the well-meaning but slightly boring Marge Simpsons of the world; the shrill, uptight-wife character in a Vince Vaughn movie who has no sense of humour but a really precise day planner and great hair. The control-freaky, man-hating career-witches that menās rights groups are always banging on about. These ironic caricatures of women donāt exist in reality any more than the modern Neanderthal stereotype, but theyāre so common now that theyāre the norm.
So please, letās stop pretending men are stupid, or that they donāt have real illnesses, or that they require some sort of gender specific cave. Itās a spurious notion, and it doesnāt help anyone ā male, female, or other.Ā
If I can use this article to convince you to do two things, here they are:Ā
1. Stop adding the prefix āman-ā to words for weak comedic effect. Youāre better than that.
2. Someone please change that pub sign to something more inclusive. Because I donāt know about you, but Iām a woman and Iād much rather spend a little restorative time in a beer creche than go shopping.
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