re: How do you deal with fomo?

quote:

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You need to learn to step back from social media. That is a huge part of it. You see everyone posting the best things they do. No one posts a picture of them just lounging on the couch.

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This. It only make anxiety worse. It may not be all at once, but bit by bit it gets to you.

I don't know why people say that all the time like its a bad thing. (I don't mean you, fwiw!)

Nobody wants to read trashy people bitching about their lives on social media. Look how often people here complain about the women whining about men on Facebook. We want to see the good stuff, so I don't know why it is criticized in conversations like this one.

People have been taking posed, smiling photos long before social media ever came around. Its not like they were sticking photos of their hardships into photo albums.

Honestly, if someone struggles seeing something as innocent as happy, smiling photos of other people's lives.. they should probably seek some help working through that. It doesn't mean they are a bad person. It just means they need to get healthier mentally.

I deal with fomo a good bit and usually after a drunken night at the bar I just end up regretting it the next day/the rest of the weekend, realizing I rather have stayed home all along. I keep Facebook on my phone, but honestly I don't really check it. I let the notifications pile up and might check it once every three weeks. Stopped looking at people's profiles specifically and really don't even know why I keep it.

Like I said, it isn't an insult or a knock on their character. I mean it more out of genuine concern. There's nothing wrong with needing some help with these types of things. I guess that was more my answer to the title. How to deal with it, IMO, is to seek encouragement and help from loved ones and professionals (if necessary), rather than the folks in the thread saying to just "get over it".

As an aside, I think it is really cool for you to admit that people with kids sometimes have FOMO and miss the old days because too often there are threads here where folks who don't want kids bring that aspect up and they are told that's not a valid reason to opt out of parenthood

My kid used to go to bed at 5:30 and get up at 5:30 because of work schedules we had in BR. It was boring as frick some days just sitting there every night. I love him but at least now he is older and can interact with us now and stay up until 7 - 7:30. But you still have to plan going to the grocery store and that is your alone time for the day.

It can be hard when you are in that situation to not just look at FB and be like look at all the great things people are doing. We still did lots of great things and traveled, had fun and we go out with him a lot as well. We we have the means to, that is not always the case. But on a random Tuesday when you are bored out of of your mind because the routine is just is getting old it is easy to slip into the FOMO mode.

Right now at this point we are trying to think of things to do that challenge our minds and not just sit on TD or FB. Being a parent is fun, but it is not all sunshine and rainbows like people pretend.