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.
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.
I noted in a previous entry that I would post something to commemorate Thasmin becoming canon.
Not too long ago, someone decided to go through my Tweets on Twitter (why do you do this to people you claim not to like? I only read what you have to say because you insist on mercilessly doing it to my friends, screenshotting everything they say that you may not like… I’m surprised no one really turned the tables sooner) and feign offense to me making reference to being autistic. Professionals in the field have repeatedly stressed that self-diagnosis — or in my case, diagnosis by way of Internet and many autistic adults repeatedly telling me that they are sure I am autistic — is valid, because there are many barriers to adult diagnosis and diagnosis in general that might make it so someone never formally pursues a diagnosis. In my case, I feel that I don’t need additional accommodations or supports for being autistic that I can’t already give myself, and I do not reject the opinions of the many autistic adults that I have spoken with over the years that have told me that they see me as being autistic as well. This has been something that has gone on for years, which the person who feigned offense at one particular mention of it on my timeline would have known if they had gone through more of it, but I digress. Growing up, my mother — my primary caregiver because of the sort of work my dad did — was repeatedly told that I was neurodivergent, but among many other things, she refused to permit it to be worked up. Were it not for the fact that she literally neglected me as a child (I was fed and clothed, but not much else), I would have been formally diagnosed.
I find it amusing that when things these people — members of the Supernatural fandom, which is why all of this stays online — take alleged offense at (“she drugs her kids”, referenced in the post that I made about Bub’s medication regimen recommended by the whole of his care team, this) or the fact that I do not dispute what many autistic adults have told me, they stop talking about it. I also find it humorous that they do not appear to be frequent readers of my personal blog (I have a tracker, but it’s not specifically for that purpose), instead choosing to block me on Tumblr and gloat about it… when I only use Tumblr because friends of mine have accounts there. I reblog a few things in the morning, read individual Tumblr accounts of friends of mine who regularly write, but I seldom compose blog posts in there. But this is why fandom stays online for me.