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I've been made fun of so much for my hyperfixations and even just like, general interests, that I am literally terrified to talk about them on any public account in any form because I don't want to be called “obsessed”. I’m even scared to really interact in fandom spaces & stuff.
And it’s sad because I want to talk about the things that make me happy and the things I’m interested in but I’ve been put down my whole life for being “too obsessed” with things and getting “too excited” about stuff that I am literally scared to express my love for things now.
And as far as fandom spaces go, social media is so terrifying to me and some fandoms are so toxic and it’s really difficult because I want to like, make friends with similar interests and stuff but I’ve been put down so much for my interests throughout my life and I haven’t had
The best experiences with fandoms so I just enjoy the things by myself and wish I knew someone that I could talk to about it but I literally never talk about my interests publicly or interact in spaces created for that interest because it just hasn’t worked out for me in the past
I wanted to say something else about this but I totally forgot what it was.
I even created an anonymous account once so I could talk about my interests with less fear of being judged for being “too obsessive” since it’d be anonymous so why would I care if strangers on the internet judged my anon account?
Turns out I care quite a lot because I was still scared to post on it and ended up deleting the account because I almost never used it. The sad thing is, my hyperfixations and interests aren’t even that weird. They mainly consist of various media that my brain decides to obsess
Over and like, some true crime stuff (not in a weird way, like, I just like learning about it, I don’t want to bang a serial killer or anything), and a few very specific historical things. Like, I get people being weary of the true crime stuff bc it’s so fetishized that you never
Know what someone means when they say they’re interested in true crime. They could be into it because they genuinely find it interesting or they could just want to bang Ted Bundy or something (or both at the same time is possible, I suppose) but when it comes to things like music
Or movies or TV or whatever, like, me enjoying a piece of media shouldn’t elicit the amount of shit that I sometimes get. Like, why do people care so much that I know all the info that’s publicly available about an artist? I’m sorry I watched every single interview with them I
could find, I literally had no interest in doing anything that didn’t involve them somehow for like, 3 weeks straight. If I was like, being creepy about it or something, I’d understand but it’s not like I’m sexually harassing my faves on social media or anything ffs, I just enjoy
Their art and love listening to them talk about it! Why do people care that I can quote movies and shows from memory and like to read fanfic about my favorite characters and yes, I do talk about fictional characters like they’re my close personal friends sometimes but why does
That bother some people so much that they have to make me feel bad about it? Like, I know it’s annoying to hear me talk about the same things all the time and I know I get like, overexcited and emotional about my hyperfixations and I know a lot of people think it’s weird to be as
Invested as I am in some of my interests but there’s very few things that genuinely make me happy or excited anymore so when I find a thing that gives me those positive feelings, I cling to it like my life depends on it! And I know very few people want to hear my psychoanalysis
Of every character on Shameless, very few people want to hear my entire literary critique of whatever book I’m reading, no one wants to hear me talk about how some weird indie film emotionally impacted me despite the fact the acting wasn’t great or whatever the hell. I know very
Few people want to hear me talk about these things. But I just don’t understand why so many people have been so mean to me about it? Like, you can tell me you don’t want to hear my rambling without making me feel like an absolute space alien for being “obsessive”. You don’t have
To be like “*exasperated sigh accompanied by an eye roll* are you STILL obsessed with that? Omg you need a life! Why can’t you just like things like a normal person? Why do you obsess over everything? God, you’re sooo annoying and sooo weird. What is wrong with you?”
There was a couple years of my life that I literally had no interests at all because I felt like it was weird to like things! I avoided getting into anything new because I didn’t want to get “obsessed” and annoy people with my “obsessions”
At one point, I actually abandoned all my interests and hobbies because the people around me were so sick of hearing talk about them and even if they didn’t say anything, just the sighing and the eye rolling was enough to make me feel shitty. But yeah, I’ve had people go on
Entire rants to my face about how I’m “sooo weird” for getting “sooo obsessed” with stuff and like, if I was obsessed with collecting true crime paraphernalia or something, I’d understand but I literally just like a lot of stuff very intensely and I don’t understand why people
Get so mean about me liking a band or movie or whatever. Like, my interests outside of media can be odd, I’m not going to lie! I get if no one wants to hear me infodump about true crime and cults and historical shit and all the weird things I’ve researched the living fuck out of.
But man, if I’m just really into an artist’s work, or really into a tv show or movie or something, I don’t understand why people have been so mean to me about it over the course of my life and it’s so infuriating. So, I got used to just never talking about things that I liked as
If it was all some sort of secret or something and then I tried to eliminate all those interests from my life because people around me made me feel like it was unhealthy or bad to be so hyperfixated on things, like, I even had a therapist who acted like there was something wrong
With me for being “obsessed” with artists and books and movies and shows. She literally told me that I needed to stop obsessing over pieces of fiction and “people I don’t even know” and “join reality”. I was like, 17 and I just really liked BVB and a couple tv shows and some
Movies and I’d read “The Outsiders” so many times that I was able to recite parts of it from memory. It wasn’t like, interfering with my daily life besides when it came to socializing. It’s not like I was losing sleep or not eating because I was too busy being “obsessed”.
It just boggles my mind that I grew up thinking I was weird for intensely liking things and so many people acted like it was dangerous to like things as much as I did. I remember when I was obsessed with Buffy when I was like, 10, and had a wooden stake and would pretend I was
A vampire slayer in my backyard, my mom told me I had to stop because she was afraid I was “losing touch with reality” and that she was worried that I’d “get lost in a fantasy land and not come back”. So many people acted like I was doing damage to my health or something by
Indulging in my hyperfixations and I literally started to believe them and forced myself to stop liking things! What in the actual fuck? Imagine making your 10 year old feel like there’s something wrong with them for playing pretend in the backyard. Imagine being a therapist and
Shaming a depressed and suicidal teenager for latching onto media that makes them happy and excited. Like, when it was my peers, it was different because I was one of those kids who didn’t get along with my age group very well anyways and while it still hurt to be shamed by them
It hurt more to have trusted adults make me feel like there was something wrong with me. I’m sorry this thread is so long, I didn’t mean to write a whole fucking diary entry but ugh. I think about this shit all the time and it makes me so angry.
