It’s 2 a.m. and you’ve just fallen in bed after a night of drinks and dancing with the girls.
Your phone quietly informs you of a new Facebook notification just before your eyes close and you drift away to sleep and you groggily reach across your nightstand, flipping the phone toward you.
You unlock the phone and squint to read that your ex just got engaged.
Whether you’re single or married now, you have no choice but to do a little stalking. I mean after all, don’t you want to know who he ended up with?
You’ll compare yourself to her, wonder if she’s better in bed than you, and if you’re still raw about your breakup, you’ll probably wind up hating her.
That’s no good for you or anyone else. Hate is one of the most self-destructive emotions we have.
Logically, we know that we shouldn’t look and stalk – but in those weak moments, like at 2 a.m. after a night of drinks and dancing, we can’t help ourselves.
But now Facebook has decided to step on in and give you a little help getting over your ex.
That’s right – now there is a way to prevent your urge to stalk, and we can thank the great Mark Zuckerberg.
As you’ve probably already heard, Facebook recently announced that you can control how much (and how little) you see of your ex. That’s cool and all, but I feel like there’s something else we need.
Dear Mark Zuckerberg, Help me out!
So this is why I’m not totally satisfied yet. Right now, these tools are exclusive to people who change their relationship status.
So, if you change relationship status, you’ll be presented with the new options.
I say that’s pretty cool. Of course I also have a suggestion for the Facebook team. You ready?
Give me this much control over all of my friends. There are a few things I don’t want to see repeatedly.
For example, some author friends and I share several free ebook groups that we use to promote our free days on Kindle Select. The problem is that when they post their freebies, I end up seeing like 50 notifications on the same item. This clutters up my newsfeed and pisses me off a little.
When I try to unfollow the person, I still see the notifications.
On top of this, I do not want to annoy my own friends with similar stuff.
So I think I’ve made my point. Facebook. Help me out.
What do you think? Should Facebook make its “ex” tools available to everyone? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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Angela Atkinson is a certified trauma counselor and the author of more than 20 books on narcissism, narcissistic abuse recovery, and related topics. A recognized expert on narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder who has studied and written extensively on narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse in toxic relationships since 2006, she has a popular narcissistic abuse recovery YouTube channel. Atkinson was inspired to begin her work as a result of having survived toxic relationships of her own.
Atkinson offers trauma-informed narcissistic abuse recovery coaching and has certifications in trauma counseling, life coaching, level 2 therapeutic model, CBT coaching, integrative wellness coaching, and NLP. She is a certified trauma support coach and certified family trauma professional. She also has a professional PTSD counseling certification. Her mission is to help those who have experienced the emotional and mental devastation that comes with narcissistic abuse in these incredibly toxic relationships to (re)discover their true selves, stop the gaslighting and manipulation, and move forward into their genuine desires – into a life that is exactly what they choose for themselves.
Along with her solution-focused life coaching experience, Atkinson’s previous career in journalism and research helps her to offer both accurate and understandable information for survivors of abuse in a simple-to-understand way that helps to increase awareness in the narcissistic abuse recovery community. Atkinson founded QueenBeeing.com Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support, the SPANily Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support Groups and the Life Makeover Academy.
She offers individual and group coaching for victims and survivors of narcissistic abuse at NarcissisticAbuseRecovery.Online.
