Dealing with old important pictures
Looking for engagement from my fellow Trans people.
Hello, you beautiful stranger. I recently decided to try to resurrect my old FB account after like 5 years to work on some real local community. I purged 3/4 of my friends list (didn't grow up in a trans-friendly environment), and opened up my pictures to start removing things, and... I can't.
I can't look at them without it feeling painful. But I also can't imagine myself deleting pictures of such big things - my engagement, years of wonderful dates with my now-wife, pictures with my old cat from before he passed - damn near every picture feels like sandpaper on my soul to see, but even worse to delete.
Any advice on what the heck to do from anyone who has been there?
Thanks 🩵🏳️⚧️
Hello friends, I read everything and thought about it and acted on it, and wanted to comment the resolution.
First, thank you all SO much for your care and advice! 🩵🏳️⚧️
I made a folder to drag the old pictures into, but I was still having trouble on the emotional side when I tried actually doing it. I talked to my partner about the struggle, and she offered to save then delete them for me, and then to go in and untag anything with my face. I gratefully accepted, and she did it. Problem solved (with help and extra steps)
Thank you all, wonderful humans!
Maybe submit a GDPR request to get all of your photos from FB in a nice clean package so you can pack them up into cold storage and nuke the albums on the platform entirely.
I don't know how far along your journey you are, but I can tell you for me at least, at some point, the old photos stopped having any sort of emotional impact on me.
Download the photos and save them somewhere, and then delete them from facebook. That way, they aren't there for the world to see, but if you ever need or simply want to go and look back the memories, you'll still have the option.
Deleting them isn't a great move, because even if you never truly feel comfortable looking at them, I guarantee you that as time goes by, they'll impact you less, and at some point, the positive memories they contain will outweigh whatever is left of the discomfort.
Can definitely say the same for me. I have some old pictures from when I was a teenager I used to dislike. But I have them on display in my home now. It's honestly nice to see them and see how far I've come and who I once was. Seeing that person has become easier.