Social Media Isn't Real, But It Could Help You Heal

A positive spin on a force that's shaping our lives.

Photo by Adem AY on Unsplash

Social media is a lie, but we love it anyway. Filtered selfies. Curated breakdowns. Trauma in a trendy black font. It's a glittering highlight reel stitched together with algorithmic sleight of hand, and we scroll it like gospel. And yet... if you're clever (and just a little self-aware), it can also become a tool for your healing, instead of a trap for your nervous system.

No, Instagram can’t reparent you.

No, TikTok won’t hold you through your panic attack.

Used intentionally, however, social media can become a digital mirror, a learning lab, and even a kind of co-regulation. Healing in the digital age means we stop asking the internet to save us. From there, we can start using it to support us.

Social media can force open doors you didn’t know were closed.

Here’s the truth: when we’re healing, we discover that there are a lot of doors closed. We close them on relationships, on ourselves, on opportunity, and on growth. The healing person tends to be isolated in ways they don’t always recognize, shut off from the parts of reality and self which could make them otherwise more complete.

That’s where social media can be helpful in the healing journey. It helps us open up those doors and create a new material reality and sense of self.