Not on Social Media, Still Addicted

White neon text on a black background: “HOLY SHIT.” Visibility is a drug. I thought I was clean.

I’ve been thinking a lot about performance lately. Not the obvious kind, like being on stage or putting on a persona, but the more subtle kind. The kind I slip into when I don’t even realize it. The kind that happens when I want to be seen so badly that I start bending myself toward what I think people will resonate with.

This realization came on the heels of something so ordinary: noticing how disappointed I felt when nobody liked or commented on my Substack posts. No restacks, no likes, no comments. Just silence.

And my nervous system—oof. It took a hit. I felt it almost immediately, this stirring in my solar plexus, that all too familiar ache that whispers, you’re invisible again. And right on cue, the self-monitoring impulse kicked in.

Maybe I need to make my writing more accessible. Maybe I should sound more helpful. Maybe I need to soften, clarify, repackage. Maybe I should be more like so and so. That old reflex to fix myself, to adjust, to self-abandon just enough to be seen, it showed up without me even asking.

Yet as I slowed down something inside me paused instead of reacting.

I could feel the hypervigilence start to rise within me. Tight in my chest, that familiar scramble to do something, fix something, become more likable. But this time, I didn’t follow it. I stayed with the unease. I took a walk. I let the thoughts swirl without trying to manage them. I felt into the ache instead of covering it. I let it be there, just to see what would happen if I didn’t try to outrun it.

And what I realized is this:

This loop? It’s inherited. It didn’t start with Substack. It didn’t start with blogging. It didn’t even start with my business. It goes all the way back to childhood, to being raised in a family that couldn’t really see me—not because they didn’t love me, but because their own mirrors were cracked by trauma and survival. The reflection I got was distorted. And so I did what so many of us do—I started performing in the hopes of being seen differently. To secure safety and belonging.

And when I was seen in a way that felt true, it felt so good that I started chasing it. And that’s where the hook landed.

This perform-to-be-seen loop has followed me everywhere. Even now, even in Embodied Rebellion. My own body of work, my own language, my own rhythm. It still shows up. And what’s wild is that I’m doing everything in a way that’s meant to be less performative. I’m not on Instagram. I haven’t been on any social media since 2011. No TikTok, no Twitter, no Facebook, no LinkedIn. The only thing I ever used back in the day was MySpace and Facebook, and I left because it felt so destabilizing. At the time I didn’t even have language for it, but something in me knew it wasn’t good for my system. I listened to that no and never looked back.

So stepping into Substack…honestly, I didn’t expect it to activate me. I thought, “Oh, I’m embodied. I’ve done enough work. I’ve been off social media for over a decade. I’ve built my business my own way. This won’t affect me.”

But ohhh, it did.

The first day I posted, the first day I got no response—it hit. That same wound. That same hook. And suddenly I’m scrolling the Notes section (which is, in my opinion, a ridiculous feature and a mimic of social media), and I’m watching which posts are getting traction. What kind of voices are getting attention. And I can feel myself trying to mirror their energy. I find myself thinking: “Oh, maybe I should try that. Maybe that’s what people respond to.”

And just like that. I’m out of my own frequency.

And to be honest? The few times someone did like my post or restack it, I got high. Like, actual dopamine high. And as someone who doesn’t eat sugar or do cocaine, I was like, DAMN!! This is the hit. I could feel it in my system instantly: if I got more of this, I’d chase it all day long. I’d contort. I’d shift. I’d do whatever I needed to do to get the next tiny rush of validation.

And most likely? I’d crash.

I mean… isn’t that basically why people eat sugar and do cocaine?
No judgment.

And I know what you might be thinking:
Well, if it feels so dysregulating, why even use the platform?

Fair question. But here’s the thing. Just because I got off social media back in 2011 doesn’t mean that the loop disappeared. The charge didn’t vanish. It’s always been there, quietly running in the background. It just wasn’t being activated constantly the way it is now.

So yes, Substack stirs it up faster, but the pattern? It’s not new. It’s been shaping my behavior, my relationships, my visibility, and my nervous system all my life. Even without the platform, I was still shapeshifting. Still magnetizing situations and interactions that triggered the exact same wound.

So I could leave again. I could say, “Nope, this isn’t for me,” and shut it all down. But instead, I’m choosing to move toward the wound to stay with it and see what happens when I don’t let it drive. No collapsing into it and no reinforcing it with resistance.

So here’s what I’m going to try.

When I feel unseen in my authenticity, I’m not going to scramble to quiet it. I’m not going to reach for strategies or start contorting to make myself more digestible. I’m going to let the ache remake me.

I’m going to let the silence speak.

I’m going to let the part of me that’s never been witnessed show me what it holds. Not because it needs to be seen, but because I do. Because maybe the point isn’t to be received. Maybe the point is to stop abandoning myself in the places where I’ve never been met.

This goes deeper than just staying with myself. It’s about letting the frequency of my authenticity deepen me. Not just in moments of stillness, but when I feel the pull to perform, or the ache to vanish completely.

This is descent. The practice of remaining. Of not rushing to control the discomfort or reshape myself for approval. Just allowing the experience of not being seen to become a place I can root into.

Because I think many of us are caught in this same pattern, feeding the loop of adapation even when we are trying not to. Trying to be authentic, but still reaching. Still subtly masking. Still asking to be liked, even if we do not say it out loud.

So now I am wondering.

How many of us are chasing resonance but losing our signal in the process?

How many of us are showing up not as ourselves, but as who we think the algorithm or the audience wants us to be?

How many of us have been inside the visibility-performance loop for so long, we do not even realize it is creating our reality?

And if I am feeling this now, after more than a decade away from social media, what are the nervous systems doing that have been plugged into this loop nonstop since 2011?

That’s not judgment. It’s grief.

Because this isn’t just about personal wounding. It’s cultural. It’s collective. It’s ancestral.

I come from Lithuanian and Slovakian roots—people who had to assimilate into whiteness when they came to America. Poor. Peasant. Erased. Their worth was measured by obedience and productivity. Belonging came at the cost of selfhood.

In that context, adaptation wasn’t a choice. It was survival. It got passed down in the nervous system, encoded through generations. Of course I learned to mold myself. Of course I mistook that shape-shifting for presence.

Even now, when my body moves into that familiar urgency to be accepted, I can feel how old it is. How deeply it lives in me. This isn’t something to shame or correct. It’s something to hold with tenderness. To name as inherited. To stay in relationship with, so I don’t confuse it for who I am.

And maybe that’s part of the work, too: grieving not just what I carry, but what my people had to become in order to survive. Recognizing that I’m still unraveling those contortions. That my body is still learning how to be here without bending.

So now, I want to try something different.

I’m not going to avoid the wound. I’m not pretending it’s not there. But I’m also not going to feed it either.

Instead, I’m going to keep showing up in the places that activate it, like Substack, and this blog, and I’m going to stay aware. I’m going to notice the moment that old ache of being unseen rises, and I’m going to stay with myself instead of covering it up.

I’m trying to come back to my own frequency. But even that is complicated. Because what does that actually mean—my frequency? How do I know what’s truly mine when the one I’ve identified with for so long is also a conditioned pattern? That’s the deeper question I’m sitting with now.

This is descent work. It’s not about solving or rising above. It’s about staying close to what’s unfamiliar. Letting go of the reflex to contort or grasp for validation. Letting things unravel without rushing to make meaning.

So here’s what I’m practicing. When I post something and no one responds, I’ll stay. When I feel the urge to follow, I’ll pause. When I want to morph into something more acceptable, I’ll breathe. I won’t perform or collapse. I’ll just be with what’s here.

I want to see what unfolds when I stop engaging this cycle.

And the truth is, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I have a few ideas., but I want to meet this invitiation with a not-knowing mind. I want to stay present, in the process, and watch what unfolds when I don’t default to the patterns I’ve always used to survive.

And if you’re curious too, if you’ve found yourself in this loop, or if you’re wondering what your real signal sounds like underneath all the distortion, I hope you’ll stay with me. I’ll keep sharing what I notice along the way.

(cue wide-eyed emoji here)

Rooted in the ache,

Alexandra Winteraven 🖤

P.S. If you enjoyed this post and know of someone who may too, please share.