My dopamine withdrawal and social media addiction story

Three weeks ago, I decided to break free from my phone addiction and I could not be prepared for what followed:

Loss of identity, feelings of depersonalisation, despair, uncontrollable panic attacks and extreme overstimulation – all because my brain was starved from the hundreds of dopamine hits I had been giving it from my phone everyday.

Let me take you back to the beginning…

I have been addicted to social media for the last six years. Oh sorry, I should say, I’ve been working in social media for six years.

My life has been tied up with a heavy online presence for as long as I can remember. From working in a PR agency, to building a community on Instagram and working with brands as an influencer.

To most recently, founding Grounded Socials to support wellness businesses in growing through Instagram.

It’s all I’ve ever known since entering the workplace.

Aren’t we all addicted to our phones and social media?

What did that look like in my daily life? An average of seven hours of phone (not even counting my laptop) and picking it up over 130 times a day. Which I now understand has been keeping my brain dysregulated.

I believe all of us are slightly addicted to our phones and social media. And I knew I had a bit of an issue, for the last six months I’ve applied daily blocks to the most distracting apps so I can only access them between 11:30am and 7pm on weekdays, and not at all on weekends.

I was aware there was a problem. I just didn’t know how deep the problem went.

Breaking the screen addiction

This all started when I listened to a podcast with TJ Power [this is the one] and decided to start leaving my phone away from my bed at night. Easy, I thought. I’m pretty boundaried with my phone.

Oh how wrong I was.

For the next two nights, I started with my phone on the other side of my room, but both nights I moved it back to next to my bed.

This scared the hell out of me, why couldn’t I do it?

I’m someone who always does what they put their mind to, so not being able to do this made me panic about how addicted I actually am.

Over the next couple of days, as if it was serendipitously planned, I visited my siblings in Dorset, and my grandparents in Hampshire. During this time, I completely restricted my social media apps so I didn’t use any for five days.

I really started to unplug, leaving my phone upstairs pretty much the whole time I was at my grandparents. I really connected with them and my partner, we chatted, swam in the pool and ate good food together.

I felt so alive and I realised that’s what life should be about. Family and connection.

Loss of my identity, self-esteem and feelings of depersonalisation

Sounds perfect, right? Woman decides to quit social media, so she does, and she gets on with her life... If only!

I had recently realised social media management no longer aligned with how I wanted to spend my time, so I pivoted into consultancy. And I thought this was going to be the biggest change in my business so far. How wrong I was.

In the days following, I spent my days getting on with work, ticking things off my to-do list and unwinding by doing puzzles. Seriously, puzzles have been a lifeline for screen-free time to connect with my inner thoughts without finding it overwhelming.

But this is when it started to descend into a hellish week…

I started feeling this all-consuming panic about my business. I’m at home on my own, and I’m breaking down.

I have these thoughts of extremely low self-worth, like I don’t know what I want to do anymore, that my work isn’t meaningful.

I go out on a walk and I experience this feeling of, “I don’t want to be on this walk, I don’t want to be at home, I don’t want to do puzzles, I don’t want to do anything”.

All I wanted to do was “power down” – not sleep – I wanted time to just pass. It felt like an out of body experience.

I’ve heard people’s experience of depersonalisation and that’s the only way I can describe it. I felt at a complete loss of who I am, what I’ve worked so hard for and what my identity was.

I can’t emphasise what a challenge these few days were, which is why I decided to close my laptop and take time away from my business to understand what was going on within me.

Dopamine detox rage and overstimulation

At this point, my screen time has gone from seven hours a day to between 30 mins and two hours. A huge drop. But I hadn’t yet linked how I’m feeling with this fact.

The only way I can explain it now is because my brain was used to 130+ hits of dopamine from emails, scrolling, sales.

And I had starved it of that. So I entered into a dopamine deficit state where my life felt grey and meaningless.

The next stage of the withdrawal effects that I felt I can only describe as dopamine detox rage and overstimulation.

The worst of it was when partner was driving us to see family and there were ads playing on the radio. I can only describe my reaction of anger and panic at the voices on the radio.

The anger was so deep it almost became a panic attack, just from listening to some adverts.

This culminated into me crying uncontrollably. It was so confusing and frustrating.

That overstimulation repeated itself again and again over the next couple of days. I also woke up to the negativity in content. Scrolling on Netflix and YouTube became impossible without feeling so disenchanted and despairing at all the negative crap we are being fed through our screens.

Even being in the same room as my partner while he scrolled was impossible, I couldn’t stand hearing YouTube Shorts (something I used to do regularly), it was bizarre.

And yet still, I was thinking I’m having a combination of a spiritual awakening, an ascension into 5D, I’m gaining a new level of consciousness.

Yet in a way, I still think I have done all of these things.

How I got over the dopamine withdrawal from my social media detox

After researching, and with hindsight, I can see all of this is textbook withdrawal from substances.

It’s crazy because I don’t remember feeling any of this when I quit alcohol five years ago. This has been the toughest experience yet.

Everything happened over the space of a week, and every day felt like I was falling deeper and deeper into this hole of grey nothingness.

That was until Thursday night which kicked off events that saw me coming out of the other side. Listen closely if you’re going through the same thing, as I turned this whole thing around.

First, I spoke to my mentor who told me she was just coming out the other side of exactly the same thing. It took her two months to feel normal again which freaked me out, but helped me feel so much less alone.

Then, my partner suggested we go to the spa which was a new environment I hadn’t been to for a while, we spoke, laughed and had genuine connection. I’m sure tonnes of oxytocin was released.

This is where it got better so much faster than I had anticipated and it’s because I was so intentional with how I spent my time, I realised it was probably to do with dopamine so I doubled down on everything that would release it naturally–helping me to return to my baseline.

I went to stay with family in Dorset to completely chill out. I get back there feeling like I am having an out of body experience, not knowing who I am, depersonalised, no identity.

The words, “I’ve been really worried about myself and I’ve never felt so ‘not okay’ in all my life. I felt so disassociated, depressed and almost schizophrenic” come out of my mouth. I’m still in the thick of it.

So, what creates healthy dopamine, novel experiences, relaxation, sunlight. Right?

That’s what we did: Went on a new walking route through stunning Dorset countryside at golden hour. Stunning. Had deep chats while we walked. Lush.

Went to the pub, saw people I knew and got introduced to new people. Had more deep chats with my mum and ate delicious food. All great.

The next morning we went to The Island Sauna, went in the sea, ate at a new cafe with my brother. Go back to my mums and see a close friend, more deep chats.

That evening, went to a theatre I’d never been to for a comedy gig and spent all night laughing. The feeling of being sat alone in the theatre while my mum went to the bar, and not wanting to check my phone was incredible.

Post-detox effects on my life and relationship with my phone

After that, the depersonalisation, loss of identity and low thoughts went, and over a week later, they haven’t returned.

I still have emotional and overstimulated moments, especially while doing things I used to think were normal (e.g. listening to a podcast in the bath, literally can’t think of anything worse now).

But overall, I’m back to feeling my normal happy self and embracing a slow lifestyle.

What’s actually changed though? So much!

I no longer have an urge every ten minutes to check my phone, maybe once an hour I think about checking it but I can resist without bother.

I rarely have my phone on me at all times, this morning I woke up and couldn’t find it. I’d left it in a drawer downstairs, I didn’t even think about it while getting ready for bed. How times have changed since the start!

My emotional regulation is so much better, I’ve had a couple of tricky conversations with family and I can’t believe how calm and regulated I’ve reacted while dealing with it. Past me could never.

I don’t feel the need to pick up my phone until about midday, and when I do go on it, I’ve noticed feelings of anxiety and aggravation in my chest for about 30 minutes after. I’ve never felt that before and I think it’s because I was so dysregulated before, those feelings were there I just couldn’t feel them.

How my dopamine detox changed how I run my business

The most impactful thing for me of all?

I see the future of my business with so much clarity.

You hear the advice that your business needs to exist beyond profit, and Grounded Socials definitely did that before. I help wellness businesses because they helped me through a very tough health scare in 2024.

But now?

The calling I have to help other women discover they can scale their business without showing up on social media daily. Without screwing up their brain chemistry with screen addiction.

That’s the real purpose beyond profit.

To discover the healing power of reducing your screen time, that’s what I’m here to help you do.

All in all, this was the most horrendous three weeks, and I really hope if you follow in my footsteps, you won’t experience it as bad as I did.

Or if you do, you’ll know what it is, and you’ll know you will come out the other side.

Because trust me, I have come back to work and the amount of deep work I have done is like nothing I’ve ever done before. And it’s all because I broke my phone and social media addiction.

Now I want to bring you along with me: Operate in business and life with fewer distractions, less dysregulation and more grounded growth….