There’s a reason people have a love-hate relationship with social media. One minute, you’re a fun-loving genius who everyone loves, the next, you’re a villain, a fraud, a failure. The internet flips between extremes with the emotional volatility of a borderline personality disorder diagnosis.

And honestly — why wouldn’t it? Social media isn’t a thing so much as it’s an emergent property of us — our projections, our fears, our egos, our unresolved complexes, all bouncing around in a digital echo chamber. It is, in many ways, a borderline entity: oscillating between devotion and rage, clarity and delusion, celebration and cancellation.

This raises a deeper question, though — one that extends far beyond our online personas:

How do we even know who we really are?

Because here’s the thing: most of us are walking around identified with something other than our true self. And if we don’t recognize that, we risk spending our entire lives in service to unconscious forces we don’t even see.

The Complex Trap: When We Become What We’re Not

We like to think we’re rational, self-aware beings. We believe we act from conscious choice. But in reality, much of what we do is driven by complexes — autonomous clusters of energy that take over our behavior, thoughts, and emotions. It’s not quite the same as your personality. An easy way to think about it is that a complex is often an aspect or outcome of your personality.

Think of a complex like an internal script, written by past experiences, fears, and unmet needs. It’s an invisible force shaping how we respond to the world. And without any self-awareness effort you may well remind blind not only to the behaviors, but to the more deeply buried motivations they originated from in the first place.

Take these for some brief examples:

• You help everyone around you, but not because you truly want to — it’s an old codependency complex at work, ensuring you remain needed.

• You avoid confrontation, not because it’s wise, but because a childhood fear of rejection still runs the show.

• You overachieve, but it’s not about personal fulfillment — it’s about proving your worth because somewhere along the way, you learned you weren’t enough on your own.

We don’t even realize we’re doing it. We think we’re acting from conscious choice. But the question we must ask is:

What is this behavior in service to inside of me?

Not what it looks like on the surface, but what’s actually driving it underneath.

And here’s the kicker: many people mistake their complex for their identity.

“I am what I do.”

“I am my performance.”

“I am my success (or failure).”

But beneath all of this is a human being — wandering through life, trying to avoid pain, hoping that someone will step in and make it all okay.

The Illusion of Self-Perception

Now, let’s add another layer to this: self-perception.

We all have a version of ourselves that we believe to be true. But as much as we’d love to think we have an accurate read on who we are, self-perception is notoriously unreliable.

Consider this:

Some people walk through life thinking they’re deeply insightful and wise, when in reality, they’re just loud.

Others think they’re weak, when in fact, they’re carrying burdens that would break most people.

Some believe they’re unworthy of love, while the people around them are quietly in awe of their kindness and strength.

And then we take this faulty self-perception and broadcast it to the world through social media, expecting to be understood.

Spoiler alert: we won’t be.

Why? Because just like our self-perception is flawed, so is everyone else’s perception of us. People don’t see you as you are. They see you as they are — through the lens of their own experiences, projections, and emotional filters.

Which brings us back to social media.

Social Media as a Borderline Organism

If you’ve spent any time online, you know this dynamic well:

One day, you’re a genius.

The next, you’re an idiot.

One moment, people are telling you how much you’ve changed their life.

The next, they’re canceling you over a three-second clip taken out of context.

This isn’t an accident. It’s the nature of the beast.

Social media functions like a borderline personality — it swings wildly between extremes, constantly seeking an emotional high, and when that wears off, turning on the very people it once worshiped.

If you engage with social media, you have to understand that you’re stepping into an unstable psychological field. You’re interacting with a force that will, at times, feel sane and at other times, feel completely psychotic. And that’s not to even mention the Wizard of Oz behind the scenes pulling the algorithm levers, ensuring certain messages get seen and that others remain buried.

You will be:

Loved, but only conditionally.

Hated, often irrationally.

Exalted one moment and discarded the next.

And the mistake most people make? Trying to control how they’re perceived.

They waste energy defending themselves, shaping their online identity, curating their public image — when in reality, perception isn’t something you own. It’s something that happens to you, and you can’t control how people process you.

Which means…The only way to stay sane in an insane system is to detach from needing to be understood. (And this comes from an Enneagram Four who really wants to be understood.)

Last night I was reading Goodreads reviews of award-winning novels and modern classics in our literature. The reviews were all over the place in almost every case. Reviewers would spin their opinions with dozens of different takes from the same piece of writing based on what? Their projections, biases, moods, expectations, past and present experiences. Who knows all the motivations? And these were highly successful pieces of writing. How would you feel as the author sifting your way through all the “feedback”?

How to Stay Grounded in an Unstable World

So, how do we keep our sense of self intact when our perception is flawed, our unconscious is running scripts we don’t fully see, and the world around us is flipping between extremes?

1. Ask yourself: What is this in service to?

Before making a decision, responding emotionally, or posting online, pause and ask:Is this coming from my true self, or an old complex?Am I reacting, or am I choosing?What inside of me is driving this behavior?This alone can pull you out of unconscious reactivity.

2. Stop trying to manage perception

The minute you outsource your self-worth to the opinions of others — especially strangers online — you’ve lost the game.

You are not what people think of you.

You are not how many likes, shares, or comments you get.You are not responsible for how people interpret you.

When you let go of the need to be understood, you gain a rare kind of freedom.

3. Carve out space for self-reflection

Spend at least 15 minutes in the morning and evening away from any external input — no social media, no emails, no news.

Use this time to:

Reflect on what you’re feeling.

Journal about your dreams.

Ask yourself what’s truly important.

If you don’t create space to connect with yourself, the noise of the world will do it for you.

4. Accept that you’re a mystery to yourself

The work of self-awareness is never complete. There will always be parts of you that remain unconscious. There will always be aspects of your identity that shift over time.

And that’s okay.When you accept that you don’t have perfect clarity on who you are, you stop trying so hard to prove it to others.

Final Thought: Let Go of the Illusion of Control

At the end of the day, we are all multi-layered beings, full of contradictions and unconscious drivers. We are not our past wounds. We are not our online persona. We are not what other people project onto us.

Social media will never reflect who you really are. Neither will other people’s opinions. Neither, at times, will your own mind.

So stop chasing certainty. Stop trying to prove yourself. Stop outsourcing your sense of self to the chaotic mess of the internet.

Instead, focus on what you are in service to.

Because at the end of your life, the only person you have to answer to is yourself.

And trust me — you don’t want to be a stranger to that person.