the blog of a disabled mother who likes to game, and "get in the pit"
I may no longer consider myself an active member of fandoms or actively participate in them (and wow, was that ever a sentence), but I still like Supernatural. I don’t think I’ll be tuning into the prequel or the planned podcast, though. Carry on my wayward son, there will be peace when you are done… I got off of the ride.
Since more and more hospitals are going back to doing only necessary surgery, the work-up for severe diastasis recti that I was undergoing seems to have to be shelved. Since I don’t intend on having any more children, it wouldn’t have been a significant bother for me to undergo surgery to correct it, and I could lower my dose of prednisone if needed such that it would be as safe as it was ever going to be — assuming, of course, that I ever took it again, which I don’t want to because my body has finally gotten to the point where it can no longer manage oral steroids without sometimes significant problem. I mean, if they do it at any point during this pandemic, they do it. I’d ideally like it to be done as soon as possible so that I can get it done and heal from it, but if it’s not safe to do because COVID-19 cases are once again climbing and we have a mutation out there that more people are susceptible to… then I’ll wait. Even though I won’t like it…
And the saddest thing of all is that this could have been picked up on years earlier than it was even noticed.
Anyone who said “you can only quit fandom when you’re dead” has clearly not met me.
None of this was out of malice though, and I want to make that abundantly clear.
I realized that fandom participation, even — perhaps especially — amongst those who shared common television shows or pairings with me was becoming increasingly more detrimental to my mental health. Being an admin on a Supernatural fandom and meta server, and doing the things that come with that and were supposed to bring me joy and satisfaction, was becoming increasingly more detrimental to my mental health. Something that was supposed to bring me joy and satisfaction was making me depressed and sad. I decided that I would no longer engage in things that actively contributed to these states of mind, so I “tendered” my resignation from fandom as a whole, quit Discord servers related to said fandoms, and exited Facebook groups for the same. This was kind of like what I did when Bub was like… all of two years old, I was active in fandoms, and then I decided that I didn’t want to participate in them so I simply dropped off of their maps and wasn’t really missed (which made me happy because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself doing this, although my presence in recent fandoms was such that I didn’t have a choice with it).
I don’t want to be asked questions about this or told that I could have handled matters differently.
In fact, I am actually already feeling better, so I know that this decision was the right one for me to make.
After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided to join the Coven of Satan (and Queer Satanists) rather than affiliate with The Satanic Temple. There were certain things about The Satanic Temple that did not sit well with me, although I continue to like the work that Shiva Honey does within The Satanic Temple. It’s all really confusing. However, I feel like it’s the best thing for me to do right now — my values align with the Coven of Satan and Queer Satanists more than they do The Satanic Temple, so it only seems fitting and right that I affiliate myself with the coven (or group, or temple) that best fits those values. I think I’ll keep the flag that I have for The Satanic Temple in my room and the certificate that says that I am a member, but over time I may cover those up with Coven of Satan stuff. It all depends. I need to check their shop out sometime, heh.
And as for my birthday, which is coming up, all I want is Etsy gift cards. I want kandi bracelets and perler necklaces. I’m finally living the life that I want to live and dressing how I want to dress (as when my mother bought me clothes and jewelry, it was never anything that I could actually wear, and it was apparent that she was dressing the daughter that she didn’t have because I was not and never would be that person).