On January 7, writer Kyriakos Haritos suffered a panic attack. A few days later, he wanted to share the experience with his online Facebook friends. “In all this I look for myself when I break down,” he wrote, among other things. “When did I break as a person? I think if I’m like this at 45, then how the hell will I be then (if I live to see that, of course). I ask the neighbors if we are the same, to feel like a single whole. And share the shame of not being strong.”

What follows is a stream of hopeful and encouraging comments, advice on vitamins and supplements, on top of incoming messages in which other friends and acquaintances, real and digital, come out of their shells to share their stories. For several hours, Kharitos is not alone in what he has been through. The horror will subside, waves of tenderness will overwhelm his soul, the fear counter will reset to zero, almost.

I can think of people in my timeline who over the past year or two have not hesitated to jump into personalities and revelations from time to time. Bringing complex personal issues into the semi-public light of social media: bereavement, health issues, mental issues. None of them fall into the “attention whores” category. But it looks like the pandemic has accelerated a process that began before the health crisis and lockdowns brought on by successive lockdowns: releasing the heartache. Pandemic quote “It’s okay. not be okay.” (“It’s okay not to be okay”) pierced Western societies like an electric current and gave the normally extroverted Greeks the boost they needed to speak in an unusually personal tone. Somehow, Facebook and Instagram, and younger platforms like TikTok, are turning into an informal psychoanalytic couch. In general, the prevailing opinion, sweet to our Mediterranean ears, is that it’s good to “piss them off”, but is that enough? In this regard, we wanted to ask mental health experts, psychiatrists and psychologists how helpful and how profound these online confessions really are.

In April 2021, photographer Thodoris Nicolaou went public (again via Facebook) on his battle with depression. Another complex cycle has come to an end, and as he reminds me today, he wrote in his preface that he was unwilling to reveal a confession of faith, joy, or pain. “More than that, to instill in me the pity or admiration of the reader for my mental illness.” Pretty sure of the faking of online attention and care, which likely leads the “confessor” into an eternal spiral of frustration, and he’s fortunate to have been able to heal his existential as well as real grief to some extent in the therapeutic arena, perhaps with the help of arades she had, she said, only one expectation: “To speak frankly about mental health and social stigma.” If he won something? “At the time, I didn’t care. I didn’t say a big “ugh” at the end of the text, and I was not encouraged by the sight of reposts and likes. What overwhelmed my soul is that five or ten people who up to this point were afraid to utter a single word about how they experienced the state of their mental pain, turned into specialists and specialists in the field of mental health.

He doesn’t want to appear cynical. “I believe in the power of deep and honest testimony, in the mobilization it can lead to, even if it happens on social media. However, I am attached to a real hug, it heals. I urge that we spin the “abortion spiral” a little more. Thodoris believes that online hugs, other than being unrealistic, are never enough. “And so we are looking for more and more. This is where the uselessness lies, I think. And it comes with pain.”

Kyriakos Haritos agrees, but wants to defend his online confessions a little more. “How many times I“ undressed ”mentally, laying out cruel and completely personal moments, I understood that the publication is, first of all, recognition. And at the same time, the act is rehabilitating and therefore, to a certain extent, therapeutic. On the other hand, it confirms that even among difficulties there is a language. Who can say everything and hold everything. And this is a victory, or at least a great consolation. In addition, “reporting” an injury, problem, or fall has a very self-serving motive. It’s not so much the kindness of strangers and pity that you look forward to. It is a healing confirmation that your darkest sides are not your “privilege”, that they belong to everyone. Last but not least, when you are in need, even a moment of relief is priceless.”

“You need to be careful when you share your emotional state, as social media does not provide a secure psychotherapy space.”

Psychoanalytic psychotherapist Thodoris Papagatonikou is not so sure. “When someone reveals traumatic events and painful experiences, they inevitably expose themselves to the risk of re-traumatization. Many of the issues and challenges she faces require careful consideration in a safe and secure environment where there is a properly trained mental health professional who can truly help. When one exposes one’s vulnerability to strangers, one also exposes oneself to the risk of abuse from narcissistic and sadistic personalities seeking to exploit vulnerable prey. So one has to be very careful where one shares one’s emotional state, as social media does not provide a secure psychotherapy space.”

The psychoanalyst Sotiris Manolopoulos makes a very interesting point before we move on to the main course of the discussion. “In online sessions during the pandemic, we noticed that people were much more confessional than at home. Physical absence seems to give you more freedom, less anxiety and guilt. But confessing something personal online is just as important as talking in a bar or taxi. There is no sense of personal involvement, which is very important when you share something personal. It is certainly not something “dangerous” or harmful, I would characterize it more as a symptom of our time, it acts as a stimulant, it discharges, but rarely can add truth or illuminate aspects of our psyche and help us significantly.

I lost contact with my K magazine colleague Valia Dimitrakopoulou when she was living in Paris. But a series of very important articles in her personal newsletter (howitends.substack.com), in which she touched on issues such as the loss of her father, her relationship to motherhood, and mental health issues, piqued my interest. “It was quarantine, I was fired, and I had several unsuccessful IVF attempts behind me. The idea was to write about books. I was going to write about Nabokov’s Lolita and comment a little on the sexualization of young girls. But somehow, all of a sudden, my fingers began to type words about the death of my father – which coincided with the reading of “Lolita”. The text turned out to be 2,000 words, and “Lolita” was no more than 150. Below, when I posted it on social networks, many shared their emotions, others spoke to me after a while, and still others shared their anecdotes.” For the next year, he diligently wrote every week. “I wrote about respect and toxic masculinity. About the professor who tried to kiss me. About my obsession with skinny girls and my age-old grandmother. I wrote about friendship and the male gaze. I wrote about the birth of my son.” How does he see these texts with the distance of time? “This exhibition never scared me. Behind the screen, I know what I share and what belongs to me. It sets me free and it’s controllable. If I can even touch someone’s heartstrings, I’m a winner and I hope he is too.”

Poet and translator Krystalli Gliniadaki also confesses on social media from time to time. “If I expose myself personally on social networks, it is because I have a naive idea (and hope) that what I say goes beyond social networks, and my goal, first of all, is to to help people who may have suffered the same way I did, either about my homosexuality or my bipolar disorder,” he tells me. At the same time, he believes that the social media environment is not particularly safe: “If you choose to expose yourself there, you risk being hung on hooks, but you also take the opportunity to help people whom you could not help. achieved otherwise.

Sotiris Manolopoulos listens to all proposals with respect and discretion. “To speak, to share is a human need, we already know this from ancient tragedy. And we cannot rule out cases where our other online contacts use a genuine expression of personal truth, asking themselves questions and opening the way. But the reality is that on the Internet everyone has an opinion, but no one is held accountable.” Consequently; “It is the human need to present personal suffering to another to whom we are addressing, so that he can interpret what we give him in order to be understood. The anonymity of the Internet creates a defense against contact, relieving you of the emotions, anxiety, shame, guilt, and hesitation that come with approaching. You are not afraid of what harm your desires can cause to another. We hold the other as a subjective phenomenon under our control. And it doesn’t bring significant relief.”