woah i kinda. don't have any permanent interests at all and i stick to one thing until i get bored of it in weeks or months

hi guys! so this post is gonna be a rambly mess but fuck it, here ya go. if u dont wanna read all of it, u dont have to; skip down to underneath the tl;dr in bold text for the important bits :)

(there’s a brief & non-graphic mention of a triggering topic in the next paragraph. please be sure to skip this next paragraph if the thought of suicide is going to upset you.)

alright. so i didn't share this originally, but i spent some time in a psychiatric unit this month. suicidality related. 1000% unrelated from anything online, i've just struggled with depression for a very long time & shit happens. i didn't intend to share that at all & i certainly don't want pity; i'm telling u guys bc my time in the unit was extremely eye-opening, and i have some insight to share. since i've gotten out, with the help of my newest anti-depressant (fourth time’s a charm lol), i'm seeing the world in a better light & i finally have the energy to and the interest in exploring what it has to offer, which frankly i've never had before.

with that has come the realization that i’ve come to do something very unhealthy, and i want to break out of it. and that’s how much i’ve come to rely on my fandom life. i don’t want to get too candid publicly, but mental illness took a lot from me, and i lost most of my life, my future, and my options in the last few years. next year will involve a lot of working on rebuilding things. but in the time that i let things fall to pieces around me & i absolutely couldn’t get out of bed, i had a phone and i had a laptop. so when i couldn’t get up and physically face the world, i built up a new world online.

and i don’t think that’s a completely uncommon experience. most people are able to better manage things, and evenly juggle real life with an internet life (like i did back in middle school), because most people can’t abandon their real lives entirely like i managed to; but i do think a lot of people nowadays rely on their fandom life and their fandom friends when their irl situation isn’t ideal. and that’s an excellent coping mechanism in theory, but i think it’s debilitating in the long run.

forgive me for sounding like an old person, but i’m a heavy nostalgist and a bit of an anarcho-primitivist in that i resent modern technology's influence on society - but that hasn't stopped me from letting it be a big part of my life out of accessibility. the internet kept me occupied during my low points, and i became dependent, but i've realized i don't wanna live like that anymore. i’m vaguely grateful that it usually kept me busy enough that i wasn’t thinking the bad thoughts as frequently, but more than anything, i’m resentful that my grasp on reality got lost somewhere along the way, and i let time get away from me, too. because, again, an internet life should be a fun hobby, but when it’s a lifestyle and it becomes an excuse to avoid dealing with our real lives, bc our real lives aren’t as rewarding or as exciting, then it’s unhealthy.

everything’s at our fingertips these days, but i deeply believe human interaction, fun, and fulfillment shouldn't be spoon-fed to us through a screen. it's easy access, sure, but at the end of the day, is it any way to live? compared with how much world there is to see, i’m no longer satisfied with the thought of sitting behind a screen for another five years. i used to be, when i had no hope and no drive, but not anymore. i’m not gonna let myself settle for staying busy with the thing that takes the least amount of work & movement. not only because i’m a whole ass adult who needs to start sorting my shit out for the long run, but also because i deserve better.

and it’s fucking hard! especially for those of us who are neurodivergent. i dropped out of school three fucking times due to crippling social anxiety and utter lack of ambition and energy. i lost all my friends through that (making friends post-school is hard af); the thought of having to go out and remake friends makes me wanna fucking cry. i have a hard enough time making friends online, i’ve even come to struggle with correspondence thru text & email. phone calls? outta the question. but that’s therapy shit, and i know i’ll get there. i just have to stop putting life off by staying in a comfort zone.

and it’s interesting; depression and anxiety really took everything from me, and while i was dwelling in my own misery, my adhd worsened and decided to make my entire brain revolve around my fixations, so i didn’t have to deal with my own life. can’t think about how much you wanna die and how much you can’t function in society if you’re busy thinking about a ship you like or a character you find interesting. so i latched onto the safety of that. aggressively. problem with that is that once you let your “happiness” (as much of it as you can feel in the midst of your depressive episode, anyway) revolve around an interest, that’s all you have. so you become dependent and reliant, and that’s never good, especially if you’re someone like me who feels pathetic & ridiculous when you realize it’s all you can bring yourself to care about. 

and i think that’s what i realized in the psych ward (where there’s legitimately nothing to do; i did soooo much more thinking than usual, and i already think too much haha); mental illness will try to fuck up your lifestyle, so you have to eradicate the things that’ll let that happen in the first place. for example, like i said, my adhd tries to counteract my depression by making me hyperfixate and/or hyperfocus on something else to protect me from bad personal thoughts, and that’s good in theory (doing something you enjoy when you feel bad, to distract urself, is the number one most basic coping skill you learn), but i can’t do it in moderation, i let it run my life, and that’s made me worse in the long run. so i have to force myself out of that completely and not let myself fixate on things that make me happy in the short term, but don’t ultimately further me as a person. having fixations helped me through some awful times, but now i need to force myself to grow up, you know?

and while tumblr and other social media is an excellent way to indulge those fixations, it’s an aggressive enabler, in more ways than one. what i mean by that... okay, so while i’m the type of person who self-destructs while unhealthy, i do occasionally lash out. and i know some people completely explode rather than implode when they’re not doing well. and that’s how you get discourse, i think. because when mental illness makes us care much more about our interests than we ought to, and someone has a differing opinion about that interest, the instinct is of course to attack, if you’re that kind of person. i don’t think i am, but depression and boredom go hand in hand, and i might be inclined to care more about discourse than i would if i were healthy, purely because it’s entertaining and something to do. 

that’s a long winded way of saying, while i stand wholeheartedly by my past positions, i do regret starting shit in the first place. i’m not the kind of person who genuinely cares about much and i have little to no sense of morality (im a chaotic neutral bastard), so the fact i was bored enough to start shit really goes against my character and says a lot about how bad i’ve been. so i apologize for all that. but, again, i think that's just what happens when something is truly your everything. and i think the chronic negativity of modern fandom is a result of how damn seriously we all take it, because we care so much and we’re so dependent. fandom’s supposed to be fun, but it’s just too damn stressful this way.

idk my point in sharing all this, but i do think it'd be cool if this kinda got yall thinking. even if you don't engage in discourse, if fandom is just one of your only consistent sources of happiness, that's not healthy either. we all gotta break out & exist more & louder & more positively. and unfortunately i think tumblr fandom (and maybe all modern fandom) is no longer a place that encourages positivity and health.

but for all my criticism, i do just wanna say how eternally grateful i am that i was fortunate enough to meet the people i call my best friends through tumblr. they're my family, truly, and all the bullshit in this fandom has been worth it simply because it brought them to me. i love them to death and i always will, even if interests change, even if we grow apart, even if we quit speaking entirely in the next few years, i love them with my whole heart in a way that transcends a simple fandom friendship and i'm so glad we bonded over sp in the first place. that’ll never change.

i will also always love south park itself. now that the cat's outta the bag about my hospital visit, i can brag about my most pathetic and obsessive accomplishment; the fact that i've never let circumstance stop me from watching a new south park as it airs, and i've now watched sp on 1) an airplane, and 2) in a psych ward. i win for most dedicated fan tbfh. dsjkf & i'll keep that tradition, and i'll still watch this stupid show til it ends! it'll always hold a special place in my heart, & kyman's still my most meaningful & long-term ship. i'll never stop loving it. 

tl;dr

so, to recap; for 2020 i'm making myself step back from fandom (not just sp fandom, but fandom in general) and quit letting my world revolve around my fixations so i can enjoy the outside world a little more, mental illness be damned, and the first step is gonna be quitting tumblr. this blog won't be deleted and i may occasionally post (maybe when next season airs) but you're absolutely free to unfollow bc this'll be a mostly inactive blog. i’m also unfollowing everyone, so mutuals, please don’t take that personally. 

i will, however, try to write more prolifically, bc fic writing is something i'm able to do in moderation & enjoy, and i hope to get back into it. so if you'd like, you can keep an eye out for any upcoming fanfic i may post - my ao3 is leere. i also have snapchat, instagram, & twitter my mutuals can ask for asap (bc ill be logging out for good by the afternoon of the 31st, which is tomorrow) - though i'm not very active on any of them. still, if you wanna have access to me, i’ll be there.

i want some connection to the fandom still, albeit without letting my life revolve around it, so i'll be starting a new open-to-the-public kyman discord server! the post with the invite for that will go up soon. nvm im too anxious  

thank you for reading, thank you for the good times (thnks fr th mmrs), and i hope everyone has a good 2020! 

A little venting if you don’t mind lol

I’m so fucking tired of feeling like I’m nothing great, that I’m nothing special. I go into these kin shifts so hard and my confidence boosts and I feel great about myself and that I’m perfect and beautiful in every way and then I go to bed and I stare at myself in the mirror and realize all the imperfections. About myself, my mentality, my personality, my body. Everything clashes so hard and it’s ugly. I feel ugly. I know I’m not. But it still doesn’t stop me from punching the wall and hoping it breaks my hand. It’s like an intrusive thought that I constantly drown out by literally dissociating so hard I shift into a kin and pretend I’m okay again. I know I’m not bad. I’m not ugly. But I lay in bed wishing for once in my life that I can be okay with myself

I feel loud and obnoxious. I feel ignored and talked over. I feel boring and ugly. It’s like I know I’m not but I sit quietly in calls or at my desk and it’s a constant reminder of how much of a failure I am. How many weeks I’ve gone worrying over a test to the point that I just skip school continually and tell myself ‘I’ll definitely study this time’ and just sleep for 16 hours and wake up to play Minecraft. It feels great in the moment and then I’m laying in bed at 4 am again worrying about my test and the longer I go without doing it and studying the more I forget what I even learned. I hate feeling like I’m stupid and I hate feeling like a failure when my brother is out here getting scholarships and a 4.0 from some Cambridge program. It’s almost pitiful how someone so fucking stupid ended up in this family. I can’t drive. I can’t get through school. I can’t get a job because of it. Hell im so terrified of strangers and driving that it literally inhibits me being able to leave my house and learn. My anxiety and stress are so high that I’m fantasizing about ways to kill myself again which hasn’t happened in a long time

I feel like I want to die. I don’t want to, but I also do. I feel like a tug of war happening inside my body. I want to scream, I want to die, I don’t want to keep doing this but if I quit I know I’m just gonna be another fucking disappointment in a line of mistakes I’ve done with my life. I know this is my own fault. I know that I only have myself to blame. But I get stressed and procrastinate and then I become stressed from procrastinating and it’s a vicious cycle and I don’t think my parents would understand and I feel like I’ll get yelled at if I go to school now and I don’t want to deal with that too and on top of that I just feel bitter about myself and unhappy that I don’t deserve what I have right now. That everyone deserves better and it’s been so long so I’ve hated myself so much that for a second I entertained the thought that I was getting better. That I was healing. But everything is falling apart around me faster than I can apply tape and band aids. I want to do anything to avoid going to school tommorow. To spend time a little longer with my friends and loved ones. I just want an escape, something to distract me for just a moment that I don’t feel so shitty. And I know it’s 1 am and all my friends are asleep so they won’t see this and and I know it’s selfish of me to not just tell them how I’m feeling but at the same time I still have this problem of thinking they don’t actually care and the only closest way I have to reaching out is posting a vent on my blog and hoping one of them sees it.

I’m a mess. I’m sad. And I kind of want to die again and it scares me.

I constantly feel like my friends don’t like me, that there’s some wall between me and them. I talk, there’s silence. I resign to my fate. I know it’s more or less a problem with my mic not picking up my voice but it also feels like I’m being ignored. That I’m getting more scattered as I try to pick up my personality and put it back together in a way that would make my friends like me again. It’s like I’ve gone back to the habit of tearing myself down and remaking myself in a way that is likable because as is I’m nothing, nothing about me is likable so I have to change certain aspects, shut off others, a remake some to be this funny man in the group and even then I don’t even think I’m funny. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know who I am. I just wanna sleep forever.