WhatsApp obsession

[feathermucker]

It might sound ridiculous, but it's a massive part of my stress.

We have a group chat, our friend is very poorly so we communicate about that and day to day life too.

I seem to be stressed and upset if someone doesn't respond when I post on our group, yet they will respond to others.

I would be very grateful for tips on how to deal with this. I'm not deleting it as it is something I use regularly, moreso looking for tips to manage and how not to get paranoid about it.

Thank you

Have you got notifications turned on or off? WhatsApp used to really stress my out, so I set it so that nobody can see when I last looked at it (and I can't see this info for anyone else either) and turned off notifications. Now I only see messages when I actively open up WhatsApp and it really helps. Also giving yourself set times to check and not checking constantly might help too.

Turn off notifications and check it less. Worked for me.

Great advice from Jai. Check it twice a day and for no more than ten minutes. Tell others you're doing it so you don't feel obliged to reply sooner.

I now only check email twice a week. Bliss!

How big is the group you are in? I am in a fairly large one for a university course and often accidentally reply to some and miss others. Could thinking about it like that help? Are you thinking x didn't reply so they don't like me type thing? Maybe CBT techniques for challanging those kind of thoughts may help?

An example might be if you catch yourself thinking "John didn't reply to my message but he did to Sam's. I bet he's ignoring me because I'm boring" try to think of other possible explanations that might be more rational. John might be distracted ans missed your message. John may have not thought your message needed a reply if it wasn't a question etc etc.

Sorry if this was not what you meant btw!

Wow thank you for all the replies!

Yes that was exactly what I was thinking, need to find ways of challenging the thoughts.

Quite a large group, yes.

I also have a terrible fear of missing out on things. I've been very full on lately with friends, wanting them to talk to me about stuff but they prefer to. Open up to others.

2 friends were very honest with me yesterday about the fact I've acted very differently lately.

This really helps, thank you.