Doomscrolling Is My Therapy Now
A personal growth journey powered by The Algorithm
I am in pain.
My therapist says I have to sit with it. That rebuilding emotional trust, closeness and affection with my wife would take time. That I need to trust the process because there’s no shortcut to healing.
Is she lying to me?
At first, I tried everything.
I meditated to clear my mind and hear my inner child. I confronted my Jungian shadow by showing it love and acceptance. I practiced psycho-somatic breathwork, using my physical body to process psychological trauma.
Then I found something better.
Doomscrolling.
What’s more comforting than knowing things could be worse? That life is a horrific, agonizing experience I did not consent to? When I’m on social media, I’m not in pain because The Algorithm comforts me.
Why work through my pain when I can just scroll past it?
My therapist calls this a maladaptive coping strategy.
I call it healing because I’m no longer suffering.
Some will see this as an addiction. A form of digital escapism that cedes personal agency to products from billion-dollar companies designed to entrap humans through manipulative design practices.
It’s not.
I’m simply prioritizing my mental health by managing the excruciating pain I feel from the well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous decisions that resulted in being estranged from my wife.
It’s not my fault I mistook the goal (resolving the source of emotional pain) for the outcome (no longer being in pain).
What’s the point of therapy if I don’t survive the process?
The subconjunctival hemorrhage I suffer in my eye from repeatedly dropping my phone on my face as I lay in bed is a small price to pay.
Doomscrolling is therapy.
I connect with people going through the same thing I am, feeling the same thing I feel. I relate with people that wonder why the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
I don’t feel so alone anymore.
My therapist thinks I’m outsourcing my trauma instead of feeling them.
She’s wrong.
I’m just finding my community.
When I see a post about being college-educated without debt, working a 6-figure corporate job and being emotionally devastated from a completely wrecked relationship with the one person that matters, I feel validated.
Someone else is suffering, just like me.
I don’t need to be better to feel better.
Of course, there are bad days.
Days I have a complete mental breakdown because my phone died. Days I catch my own reflection in the bathroom mirror and am forced to confront my absolute cowardice and complete surrender to fear.
Yet during those dark moments, I have lucid clarity. Like I just orgasmed.
Is my completely rational aversion to pain actually keeping me trapped in a never-ending cycle of self-inflicted suffering? Am I repeating peace-seeking, conflict-avoidant behaviour that made my marriage fragile and brittle because I thought no fights meant no problems?
Am I—
My phone screen lights back up.
The meme makes me laugh so hard, I’m bent over crying tears of joy. My face is frozen in a forced, manic rictus of smiling.
Someone made this. Someone helped me.
I could do that. I can help others.
What if I stopped running from my pain? What if I gave it purpose?
I’m going to share memes and heal the world.
My therapist calls this delusional megalomania.
I call this growth.
Why can’t I stop crying?
So yeah, I had to spend $15,039 on a new gaming PC with three Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090s and a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, as well as $2920 on four 27-inch 480Hz OLED monitors to maximise my meme intake. I even removed the blue-light filters from the screens so I can consume content directly, unmediated.
Why are my eyes bleeding?
My therapist has one degree. I have four vertical monitors.
I provide therapy at scale.
Sure, she has decades of experience creating safe spaces for healing using the right words, the right language. Who cares?
A meme is worth a thousand words.
I don’t doomscroll anymore.
I curate content.
My therapist asks why I’m cancelling our sessions. I show her my meme collection. Why do I need her help when I can help others instead?
I don’t even look at my phone anymore, though I feel bad for missing hundreds of my wife’s calls. I want to hear her voice but I stop myself.
I’m not going to choose pain.
I’m stronger than that.
Sunlight seeps through the blinds. I hear the birds chirping. It’s 5 AM. I’ve successfully avoided suffering for another day. I’ll soon start my three hour commute to work.
It doesn’t matter.
In this moment, I feel good. I feel safe.
My therapist begs me to stop being terminally online and to face reality. She says I can still save my marriage because it’s never too late to save myself.
Does she think I’m stupid?
Why the fuck would I waste time saving myself when I can save other people?
I see a meme that perfectly encapsulates everything wrong in my life.
I share it.
I am the Vanguard of Culture.
I am no longer in pain.