It’s not “trauma dumping” to say that participation in fandoms has become detrimental to my mental health such that I no longer wish to do that any more, especially when considering that the next action I took was to leave all Discord servers and Facebook groups relevant to fandom. As it was, participation in fandoms was such that I made specific social media accounts to discuss relevant aspects of them on that people who I knew in real life would be incapable of finding (and furthermore, would have an extremely difficult if not impossible time actually deducing that it was me who ran those accounts). Fandom participation, known particularly for the equal amounts of drama and passion that people put into this, was always something that I was going to “keep to the Internet”. More to the point, I kept it to specific parts of the Internet… my Facebook friends knew very little about the fandoms that I participated in, and people on my friends’ list on LiveJournal (yes, I have and still write in one of those) had no idea that I participated in anything having to do with fandom until I actually told them. So I basically got 5,122 posts into something — the number of posts currently on my LiveJournal — with no one having any idea that I participated in any fandom activities.

The drama, and the… passion for certain things that I was not capable of mustering up after so long because I was literally burning myself out trying to do so and “not let anyone down” were two of the chief reasons that I chose not to actively participate in fandom as it is widely known. So far, for the most part, my decision to do so — to make this decision — has been met with support, particularly amongst friends of mine on Facebook who have known me for years if not decades, and the people that I game with that had begun to suspect that something was amiss. It also got to the point that the effort to ensure that absolutely no one who I knew in real life would ever find out about my participation in fandom activities was getting to me, namely the fact that I didn’t want to continue to cordon off entire parts of my life (or interests of mine) because I didn’t want certain people finding out about them and possibly, probably asking questions. There’s already the fact that I effortlessly managed to combine being brash, conceited, and preppy in high school with gaming and being geeky on my “off time” to the point that no one actually knew that I was both of those things while I was attending high school. Now I just casually remind people that even in spite of my geekiness, I continue to love things like the color pink and “preppy” clothes (as well as fairy kei and harajuku), and I can sometimes be… less friendly than people might think I am. Perhaps the most ironic, and telling, thing about all of this has been that I’ve always felt like I could talk about being a gamer in real life, even with people who themselves did not game, but I never once felt like I could bring up fandom anything.

Hell, I’ve talked about Satanism with people that I know in real life and they haven’t been off-put.

I think I am going to begin to ascribe to the rule “if I can’t explain this in real life, or I don’t feel comfortable talking about it in real life, I’m not going to get or stay involved in it”. I feel like this will suit me pretty well…

One of the most hilarious things that I like to recount to people is the fact that as high school progressed, I made myself into such a Mean Girl that people actually compared me to Regina George from it for years. On the outside, at high school, I was conceited and preppy. I was popular and sociable. I had learned how to work the system at my high school to my success while managing to have a completely separate personality outside of it, being a gamer and a geek when I wasn’t actually in school — I didn’t want the people that I went to school with to know about, or have anything to do with, that side of me, and I was more than content to continue working the system exactly as I’d just previously described. Looking back on things, they were hilarious by the time that I’d given birth to my oldest son… I had cut everyone from my graduating class out of my life, and in a few years I would manage to cut all but one person that attended my high school out of my life as well simply because I did not want to continue to have to put that charade up. I made it clear that I did not want to attend, or even be invited to, any class reunions or anything related to the time I spent in high school. That would go on to be honored, which made me happy even though I’m still technically searchable on sites like Facebook… but I mean, there is a block list that I can use if needed, which is great.

However, I still suppose that I have some of that Mean Girl inside of me. It’s like the whole “two wolves” allegory or analogy or whatever… there’s a part of me that loves clothes, pink, and can be or come off as brash and conceited, and then there’s a geekier part of me. I’m not entirely a nice person, and I own up to that. I’d say that I’m mostly nice (and some people might say that I’m completely nice until, or unless, they see that part of me), but I know that I’m not actually completely nice. And I am completely okay with that.