Alternate Title: Don’t kill the part of you that’s “cringe”, kill the part of you that cringes

(This post is long and I wrote it at like 1am excuse the typos or weird grammar if there is any, I’ll likely fix it up when I’m more awake)

So I’m writing this in a way to try and get myself to follow my own advice because, let’s face it, it’s easier to give advice to someone than it is to give that same advice to yourself and actually internalize it instead of just repeating in your head as something to do to “feel better.” We know our complexities and that makes it harder for us to just take the advice we give others in the same way right back onto ourselves. So I want to at least try and internalize what I’m writing down here considering I really need to or I’ll just be in the never ending cycle of feeling great and then feeling like shit.

I think everyone on some level has felt a level of “shame” related to their interests. Either because they’re too weird, or too childish, too unpopular, and so on. It would kinda be an understatement to say I have just felt shame related to all of those with my interests because I think it goes a bit further than simple shame. I haven’t always been this way (trust me I very much remember how just gleefully open I was about talking non stop about my interests when I was in 5-6th grade no matter how many times I was told it was “annoying” and “too obsessive”). It’s honestly so strange in a way to consider that there was a time when I was just unapologetically be “cringe” and could give less of a shit about what people had to say or think about my interests as long as I was having fun it didn’t matter. It hasn’t been like that since about 5-6 years now. I’m 19 now and I am still very much traumatized by the ways I was treated about my interests. And traumatized is very much the right word for this feeling because it’s completely altered my mindset and perspective about talking about my interests. What once was an ability to talk for hours to anyone about a thing I enjoyed, post anywhere about my thoughts on a thing I liked and spend time looking up and saving things relating to my interest; has now been reduced to the occasional private ramble that can’t be too long or having to make sure I only bring it up offhandedly and dropping it after or toning myself down because I can’t seem too invested. Even when all I want to do is just unapologetically embrace my own interests it feels like my own mind and body want to refuse the possibility for me to. Physically I go tense and anxious because my mind still makes me feels like I’m an 8th-9th grader telling my friends about the thing I like and getting told in response something along the lines of “don’t you talk about anything else?” Or “uh ok?” Or of course “that’s so weird how can you even enjoy that?”. I’m not in that position at all now but my mind still feels like any minute now it will be and it makes that authentic embrace of an interest I enjoy, tough. I think even more so it makes getting into a new interest a lengthy challenge

I think the thing that really sparked this post was getting a new fixation for the first time in like- almost a year (I think the last thing I got kinda fixated on was Bluey early this year). I recently have been very fixated on Little Shop of Horrors (you can tell when you check my lastfm stats from the past week oh boy; also please check it out if you haven’t it’s genuinely so good hgdbsbn). It’s easy for me to tell when something is just a passing interest of mine or something has become a fixation (even if it’ll only last a few months) and this very much has which has, which has been difficult for me to process. It’s like all this pent up fear and trauma surrounding having a fixation now has my brain wanting me to almost hastily get over it so I can just be “normal” (or whatever the hell that even is tbh) and it’s like I really don’t want that but I’ve become so riddled in shame for my interests that it’s made me feel so bizarre for having something new to fixate on that brings me joy. I really don’t want to let the part of me that wants to “get this over with” to win.

If I’m being honest one of the reasons I made my site was to try and break this mentality, even if just by a bit. Social media does not feel like a welcoming environment to just share any kind of interest and my flat out lack of confidence could never. I kinda just want to feel like I have my own corner to just let myself be like I used to and share whatever the hell I want to without the feeling of pressure. I want to be able to say that “yeah some of my interests like bluey or collecting old childhood toys/plushies might be childish, so what?” Or “yeah some of my interests are weird like abandoned/dead malls, so what?”. I want to just unapologetically embrace and ramble and just write my fucking heart out about the things I enjoy and also feel safe again doing that. It’s hard to undo trauma that’s become so engrained in your everyday behavior to the point it’s become second nature but I want to at least slowly try to just ramble or make little blogs with memes about whatever thing I currently enjoy and just fuck idk be “cringe” or whatever people are calling that feeling now. I want that confidence back about what I like and can feel confident and safe knowing it’s fine that I really enjoy something and that it’s also ok to.

I often give others the advice to just be unapologetically themselves but I don’t think I’ve ever let myself truly be unapologetically me about my interests for more than 5 mins or whenever I believed myself to be too much. I want to try and change that and internalize that it’s ok for me to just- be me and unapologetically enjoy what I like and embrace it and have fun with the media I enjoy and fixate on again. Instead of my default response being to suppress joy related to my interests, I want it to be to spread the joy my interests give me