Goodbye to All That (Doomscrolling)

on trusting that some safety nets are worse than falling

I write to figure out what I think. What I feel.

What something means, or meant, or might come to mean.

It’s not always a tidy process. Sometimes I write in circles. Sometimes I contradict myself halfway through. Sometimes I come to the end of an essay only to realize the truth is in the thing I didn’t say — or couldn’t yet admit.

But writing is how I get there.

So here I am again. Sitting with a decision I didn’t plan to make yet. Trying to understand why I made it anyway.

A few days ago, I deleted Twitter. Not just from my phone — I deleted the account.

The one I said, not long ago, that I would keep until my student loans were gone, until I had a real safety net, until I could afford to shut that door without looking back.

That was supposed to be 23 months from now, which is when my student loans will be paid off at my current pace.¹

But I deleted it anyway.

And I’m trying to understand why.

Not in the abstract — I know the reasons. I’ve written thousands of words on what Twitter is doing to us, what it did to me. But this time the break wasn’t planned. It wasn’t strategic. It wasn’t even calm.

It was a trigger. A real one; a PTSD-symptoms-kicking-in one.

A nervous-system-level event, not the internet version of “mildly uncomfortable for like a minute.”

Something I saw — something I felt in my body before I could form a thought. The reflexive nausea. The tightening jaw. The strange awareness of my tinnitus, which is rare for me. The disorienting sense of my head rotating off into another dimension. And then the protective voice, quiet but firm:

log out. walk away. don’t look at this again. don’t ever goddamn do this to yourself ever, ever again. not. fucking. ever.

But then came the other voice.

The one I’ve trained for years. The one that critiques:

Shouldn’t you be stronger than this? Isn’t the goal to get better — not more sensitive?

And maybe that’s the real question I’m writing my way into now:

What if getting better doesn’t mean becoming less upset?

What if some things should be upsetting?

What if life is too short to make “being exposed to toxins regularly and on purpose, but stoically” a goal?

And what if real strength isn’t in swallowing the poison — but finally spitting it out?

What Happened

I’m not an idiot. I know the right has a misogyny problem, just like the left has a misandry problem. There are people on the left who truly do hate men. Not as many as are accused of it, but some.

And there are people on the right who truly do hate women — again, not as many as are accused, but still quite real. A smaller proportion, I suspect, than the parallel problem on the left — but present nonetheless.²

One way that the actual misogynists reveal themselves is by letting the mask drop in moments of disagreement, particularly with women. That’s when rape, whether invoked directly or obliquely, shows up as a way to reassert dominance.

I was scrolling when I saw a woman — a legit conservative activist, someone who has taken real risks under her real name to oppose gender ideology — being targeted by a major right-wing account.

They disagreed over something small. Not principle, not even tactics — just tone. She wasn’t deferential enough to someone behaving badly on “our” side.

That matters. Why? Because it shows how close the psychopathy is to the surface. Even people who share your values — who orient their lives around them — are denied basic humanity if they don’t toe the exact line.

He told her her head belonged in an unflushed toilet — which would be juvenile from a 14-year-old boy, but from a grown man speaks to something far darker — and then added:

“There is nothing that could happen to you that would be wrong.”

And the tragic thing — for him, for America, for all of us — is that he meant it.

I’d seen him be sadistic at that level before. It never costs him. Not followers. Not influence.

His star rises, not despite the cruelty — but in part because of it.

Sadism is a currency now. A feature, not a bug, of our new world — as we swing from extreme matriarchy (everything feminized, empathy as the sole moral compass) to extreme patriarchy: rage, vengeance, and the belief that justified anger justifies almost anything in response.

That’s what set me off. That’s what my nervous system responded to — not just the words, but the full-body memory of being told that what happened to me didn’t matter, because I didn’t matter.

It triggered me because one of the most brutal moments of my childhood involved the response I got when I disclosed sexual abuse — when I finally told someone what had been happening. I won’t bore you with the details, but the reaction made it clear: I was so fundamentally worthless that no one cared what had been done to me.

So yeah. My nervous system kicked in.

And yeah, I listened.

Deciding To Leave

I left Twitter because, in that moment, I decided something important: I am not obligated to keep re-traumatizing myself just to stay “in the conversation.”

I don’t owe the algorithm my composure.

I don’t owe the discourse my peace.

I am allowed to recognize what is toxic — and step away.

Maybe the goal shouldn’t be to become numb to cruelty.

Maybe the goal is to stop giving it access to my soul.

Deleting my account wasn’t an act of despair. It was an act of defense. Of dignity. Of finally listening to the part of me that still knows I have some worth.

No tribe is safe from rot. I grew up among the worst of the right, so I knew what I was in for when I accepted that the left was too insane to stand with anymore and changed sides, at least culturally.

The calculus wasn’t complicated. I could live under one type of misogyny — where “woman” is a special inner feeling in the mind of a man and objecting makes you evil — or ally with the side that has another type — where misogyny exists, but isn’t the reigning moral framework.

So I picked my poison.

And now I’m done pretending that strength means swallowing that poison.

I’m done mistaking numbness for healing. But it took a lot.

It took sitting with my own thoughts long enough to write an in-depth series on what social media does to us — a unified theory, followed by breakdowns of its parts: psychological fragmentation, algorithmic reinforcement, emotional whiplash — and then taking real steps to reclaim my mind and life.

That’s how I got here.

Because I’m done pretending the worst people on the internet are worth more pain.

Life is painful enough.

What Came Next

I don’t know what to think about what came next. It doesn’t make much sense. Every time I reach for my phone — the muscle memory still alive, the phantom limb twitch of a habit that once owned me — I remember: Twitter’s gone. And then, instead of the usual flood of dread or outrage, something else lands.

Relief. Joy. Freedom.

Not in a metaphorical sense. Not some grand spiritual insight. Just the quiet exhale of a body no longer bracing.

Which is strange. Because I’ve cold-turkeyed from addictions before. And that’s what Twitter was. Not a habit. Not a hobby. An addiction. A steady drip of dopamine spikes and cortisol crashes, fed through a screen that knew exactly how to keep me sick.

You can absolutely be addicted to a form of torture. That’s the thing no one tells you. The pain doesn’t break the loop — it fuels it.

The brain chases not unalloyed pleasure, but unpredictability.

And Twitter — like every other scarcity-loop engine — was designed to keep me chasing. Rage and validation, horror and humor, cruelty and connection, all spiked together into a feed so volatile it hijacked my nervous system like a slot machine for the soul.

Usually, quitting that kind of thing comes with withdrawal. Shakes, if only metaphorical ones. Lethargy. The echoing ache of absence. So when I didn’t feel that — not really — I wondered if I was deluding myself.

My therapist wondered too. He asked if maybe I was just telling myself I feel better. God knows, I’ve done this before — wrapped an impulsive exit in the language of growth, called it healing because I needed it to be.

He could be right.

But if I’m lying to myself, it’s the gentlest lie I’ve ever told. And it feels an awful lot like truth.

Mostly, I just feel…released. Like I slipped out of a burning building I didn’t know I was still inside. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say: I’d been in it so long, I thought coughing that much was normal.

The discourse is still horrifying. But the discourse is not my life — and it’s not the life I want.

I’ve been reading more. Drawing more. Doing more math, with real attention, not just scattered sparks of curiosity between doomscrolls.

I don’t feel the same tug toward “staying informed,” now that I’ve remembered how little the news cycle has to do with wisdom, virtue, or truth.

And here’s the beautiful surprise: once the noise faded, I discovered I don’t care about politics nearly as much as I thought I did.

I care about people. I care about patterns. I care about how power moves. But the daily battle of slogans and sides? The constant churn of outrage dressed as civic virtue? Whether the team of narcissists I mostly agree with is winning or losing their current shouting match with the team of narcissists I mostly disagree with?

I really don’t care. And I don’t care what that says about me, either.³

Letting that go felt like unhooking a weight I didn’t know I was dragging.

And I’m happier.

I hesitate to say that — happiness has never felt like a stable state for me, more like a mirage I could glimpse if I squinted. But something is lighter. Looser. Quieter.

I even think my attention span might be improving, though that could be wishful thinking, or a placebo effect, or the tail end of burnout passing. Doesn’t matter.

It’s working.

Or at least, something is.

And for now, that’s enough.

What’s Up Next For My Substack

A few years ago, I started a series on the U.S. founding documents — and then abandoned it. Not because I stopped caring, but because I couldn’t find my footing.

It’s not like math. With math, if someone has a gap, I can always find it, isolate it, and plug it. Math is linear. Logical. A progression.

History isn’t.

History is recursive. You read one thing and realize you don’t understand the context. So you chase that context, only to find it depends on another context — and before long, you’re buried under seventeen browser tabs and three JSTOR articles titled something like Political Sentiment Among Pennsylvania Tavern-Keepers, 1763–1775.

It was overwhelming. And I gave up.

But now that I’ve let go of the need to care about politics — or rather, the illusion that I had to keep up with politics as a performative duty — I’ve been asking myself what I do care about. And surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly at all, U.S. history is near the top of the list.

So I’m coming back to it — but this time, with a framework. To keep from getting lost, I’ve decided to read a biography of every U.S. President, in order. Before each one, I’ll read enough background to understand what he inherited. Then I’ll read the biography, then whatever rabbit holes I feel like chasing. It won’t be complete. It won’t be “neutral.” But it will be doable. And it’ll keep me grounded enough to keep going.

I’m starting with George Washington, obviously. (The biography is on its way, and I’ve already got an APUSH textbook open like a security blanket.)

And I’ll read the founding documents as part of this, and publish close readings — probably not in pieces, but as long, detailed examinations that will not be readable in one sitting. These will be more like making my own notes coherent and complete for someone else.

That project will live in a special series for paid subscribers, where I’ll reflect on what I’m learning — not just about the men in charge, but about the shape and character of the country as it unfolded under their watch.

I’m also starting something entirely different: the Vermont 251 Club. For those who don’t know, it’s a real thing — a challenge to visit all 251 towns, cities, and unincorporated places in Vermont. I’ve lived here for years, but I’ve barely scratched the surface. So I’m hitting the road — as much as the weather allows, since I hate driving in the rain — and documenting the journey. Expect dispatches about tiny post offices, strange roadside plaques, forgotten libraries, and whatever else Vermont throws at me. Yes, I plan to drag

Josh Slocum

along for some of it, as his schedule permits.

And for those who liked Househusbands and Happenstance — yes, the follow-up story is halfway done. I’ve got an outline for the full series now, and I think you’re going to love where it’s headed.

None of this means I’ll stop writing about politics entirely. If something matters enough to shake me, I’ll say so. But I’m trying to write less from obligation, and more from joy. Curiosity. Attention.

The things I actually want to think about — not the ones that shout the loudest.

Thanks for still being here.

And if you’re new: welcome. It’s about to get weird, historical, literary, and local.

In other words — fun.

1. Those of you who have paid subscriptions are the only reason for this, as well as for every good thing that will flow from it — like the possibility of someday owning a house. I will be grateful forever.

2. And the left has plenty of misogyny, itself. My lifetime-online percentage of rape threats from the left vs the right is about 75/25.

3. Narrator: ah, but her therapist cared. And he would require her to either admit that she cared or understand, and face, why she didn’t. That magnificent bastard would win this one, as surely as the sun would rise in the morning. LOL.

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