• How Foursquare Helped Me Overcome Depression

    Date: 2011.11.02 | Category: All About Jen

    Over the past few years there has been lots of discussion about whether local check-in services like Foursquare were worthwhile. From a marketing perspective I can see why a business would want to have a profile set up, create some campaigns and generally use it to market their business. But personally I’ve struggled with finding a reason to use it.

    A couple years ago I first signed up, added a few friends and started checking in to places. I thought it was interesting to read the tips and fun to see where my friends were, but it also felt a bit creepy. Plus I never wanted to be that chick that checked in at Applebees (or some other horrifying place) and told the whole world about it. You know those folks who feel it necessary to share on Twitter and Facebook every step they take each day. So I never hooked up other social sites to my Foursquare account. As someone who works in social media every day this may seem a bit odd, but for me it just didn’t seem right to scream to the world every place I went.

    Then several months ago, I lost my phone (ok, actually it got flushed down the toilet but that’s another story) and never even bothered to add the Foursquare app to my phone. I went on my merry way, living my life just fine without checking in to places. I thought about it a few times and had several occasions where a friend would check in and have a good tip or something along those lines. But I never really saw the point.

    Until one day this summer while I was going through the end of my chemo treatments and dealing with a deep depression where I didn’t want to leave the house. Literally I spent weeks inside my house, not even wanting to go outside to get the mail. It depressed me even more to think that I couldn’t go to the grocery store, or to a restaurant without horrible anxiety.

    Then I started going on walks each day sometimes to the Ballard Locks close by, other times to the beach. One day my husband, in his infinite wisdom, mentioned that perhaps I should start checking into places on Foursquare. He thought it might help me feel like I’m getting out and doing things if I had a “record” of it. So that’s what I started to do.

    It’s not like I was going many places, but if I checked in to one place each day I felt pretty good about it. After a month or so of walking to the Locks every day, I got a notification that I was 9 days away from being the mayor. Woohoo! I wasn’t sure why but that message elated me. So I kept walking, every single day. I didn’t care if it was raining or dark or cold or hot or whatever, I wanted that damn mayorship. I needed to prove to myself that I could get out of the house. Then after those 9 days (I think it actually only took 7 days, which I haven’t quite figured out how) I checked in one morning and VOILA I was mayor. I think I did a little dance right there at the Locks. “Oh yea, I’m the mayor, Oh yea, I’m a baddass” is what I sang to myself.

    Again, it still didn’t really mean anything. But to me, it meant everything. It meant I had gotten out of the house 43 days straight. It also meant that I had gotten exercise for 43 days. Woooohawwww!

    At some point along the way, I went back to work (after two months out). I slowly started going back to the office, sometimes just one day a week, and now I’m back to full time. Again, I started to check in at the office (when I remembered). And today, I became the mayor of the office as well. :) Which I think is pretty damn good for a gal who was out for two whole months in the summer. :) Of course this probably just means that my coworkers don’t check in, but that’s ok. To me it proves that I’m getting better. That I get out of the house and into the office full time. It means I feel normal again.

    So yea… I’m damn proud of my mayorships and now it gives me something to hold on to. It may sound silly, but some days when I don’t want to get up and go for a walk because it’s pitch-fricken-dark out there, I remember my mayorship. And I’ll be damned if someone is going to take that away from me.