Thanks to technology now you have to worry about your online reputation in addition to the one on earth -- two reputations to stress over when one is enough to set your brain on fire.
How can you possibly keep track of all your online activities or remember every time you drunk posted a picture of yourself, downing rum shots on a Jamaican beach? Hypothetically speaking.
Other technological problems, like lack of privacy or digital burnout, can make life online intolerable at times.
Some website platforms even torture, uh, encourage you to learn @#$&*%!!-HTML coding, which reminds me of hieroglyphics and is far more difficult to learn than Spanish.
Whenever my pulse gets a Black Sabbath vibe after staring at HTML symbols for too long, I start to exhibit symptoms of Cyber Ditz Disorder, characterized by the inability to Google.
If only my problems with the Internet ended there. Sadly, I have a social media phobia, too. Yes, Facebook and Instagram scare me.
But that doesn't stop me from visiting my profile every time I get the memo from Facebook that "You have notifications pending," which makes me feel bad that I haven't responded to all those Farmville requests.
Isn't compulsive link hopping distracting enough?
That's why my brain shuts down every couple of days from information overload, often prompted by a Facebook email that comes with an underlying threat.
Lauren, you have 30,000 Facebook notifications pending.
Don't you feel like a jerk for not responding?
Lauren, Wanda WTF Knows? just added you as a friend on Facebook.
You want to have friends. Don't you? Or are you some kind of freak?
Lauren, you have five friends with birthdays this week.
Wish them a Happy Birthday. Damn it! You freak!
Honestly, I agree with Betty White when she said, " ... Now that I know what Facebook is all about, frankly, I think it's a waste of time."
Yet, social media gurus constantly hype the importance of using Facebook and other social media platforms to promote a business or blog. Book publishers require authors to use social media to promote their books. Simon & Schuster even runs a social media boot camp for their authors.
I understand the necessity of self-promotion. I "tweet" and "like" with the other cool kids. But that doesn't mean I like to "like." I worry that if I don't "like" a picture of a Schnauzer wearing a yamaka, the cyber cops will Taser my keyboard.
For someone who already endures a variety of dysfunctions -- from ADD to OCD to shyness -- dealing with Facebook, WordPress and Google is too much for my 3.1-pound brain to handle.
Why do the Internet mucky mucks insist I interact with strangers when I should be interacting with my BFF keyboard and be writing instead?
Oh, that's right. I can do both. That is, if I could multitask, another dysfunction of mine, along with poor time management skills.
I also suck at punctuation.
Too bad the Internet isn't ADD friendly, yet I can probably make a friend on Facebook every time I'm online.
Can you say, "ironic?" Now, Google "ironic" and see how many synonyms you can find. And, oh, by the way, is my avatar fat?
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This is a revision of the blog post "My Blogging Dysfunction" that originally appeared on ThinkSpin.com.