#its going to be okay
Ive come a very long way these past 5 years. Shit gets better yall. Stay strong️⚧️
There are two parts to this solution and with the wrong mindset they can sound like mindless drudgery or like you’re supposed to be a robot. The opposite is true. You have to be mindful and you’re practicing good self-care.
The first part of the solution is to make a daily schedule. Put it somewhere you can’t ignore it. Use an app, notebook, or a spreadsheet. If one format doesn’t work after a couple weeks, try a different one. Be glacially patient. If it takes you time to remember that you’re trying to use a schedule and you have to build the habit of consulting it every day, that’s okay. Give yourself a month to make that one part a habit before giving up. Set a reminder to check or have someone agree to praise you in a positive and silly way when you tell them you did the thing. They don’t ask “did you check it?” They’ll fist bump you enthusiastically or make, like, celebratory chicken noises when you say you did it. The chicken noises must never be used to nag a person to do something, but only given as a reward. The chicken noises are sacred.
A few weeks ago I was a mess, my days were formless blobs. I couldn’t do anything, but I’d overcome this problem before. I made a spreadsheet and created an ambitious new daily schedule. I printed it out and stuck it to the freezer door with my favorite magnets. It gave me that walking into an office supply store optimism! I had glitter star stickers! What could go wrong?
Everything. I tried to radically alter my daily routine, or lack of one. I tried to add too many new tasks to my day to “fix my life.” I should have added 2 or 3 new tasks and adjusted one structural aspect of my day, like a consistent daily wake up time.
It can take a month or more for a daily habit to stick. If you want to floss every night, put your floss where you’ll see it. Try to do it every night for 4 to 6 weeks. You’ll forget sometimes and that’s fine. Keep going. This isn’t about having a perfect record, it’s about making yourself reach for the floss and use it, because that’s your habit.
But what do you do in the mean time when you need to wash dishes or take a shower or do anything you’re struggling with even though you think it should be simple. It’s on your schedule. You should just do it. It’s not hard, right? And yet you can’t do it. You think about it, but nope.
2. Do not think about what you’re going to do. Simply go to the place you need to do it and put on your dishwashing gloves or open your .doc, pick up the laundry basket, or turn on the shower.
I’ve been struggling to do my PT exercises, even though I’m in pain that would get better if I did them. I think, Oh yeah. PT. Gotta do that. I should do that. Sometimes I start to imagine myself doing the exercises, whether it’s going to be hard or painful. And then I don’t do the exercises because I gave myself a choice.
I pretend it’s a habit. I do NOT think about the activity at all. I don’t think oh, I’ll do that soon or UGH it’s time to do it, I guess. I immediately lie down on my exercise mat and do the first bridge. Once I’ve gotten past that hurdle it’s pretty easy to keep going. I pretend it’s a habit until it is one. I do this with chores like dishes. I do not think about the task. I go to the sink and put on my gloves and keep going.
“The sea is only as powerful as you allow it to be.”
- g.d (the sea)
For those of you going through this for the first time: everything will be okay. Fandom always survives stuff like this. We’re good at it.
I know there’s lots of advice posts out there. This isn’t an advice post. I’m just going to tell you why it’ll be okay.
So far, on every commercial platform fandom has called home, there has come a tipping point when we leave. There have been a few scares on Tumblr before, but I didn’t think that we’d reached the tipping point back then. I do think so now. Given the way I’ve seen fandom leave platforms before, yes, this is the real thing. It won’t happen all at once, but in waves. You can afford to wait, but start thinking about it so you’re not taken by surprise when you reach your limit.
Take note of those advice posts that are going around, and especially of the things the BNFs in your fandom are planning – people will tend to follow them in clusters, so that’s a good place to start. But even if you leave it all to the last minute in the hope it won’t happen, and then realise you need to leave after all, it will still be okay.
We are fans, and the internet has always been our playpen. We all have multiple social media accounts, many with the same handle. We can find each other again. It won’t be the same. Of course it won’t. Tumblr fandom is different from Livejournal, is different from GeoCities. But it will still be fandom, it will still be good, and you will still find people you like, including some of those currently in your fannish circle.
We have the advantage of the OTW now too – this kind of thing is exactly why we built it. It’s our safe harbour, no matter what, because we own it.
Once you decide to leave Tumblr, it won’t be as scary as you think. You’ll recognise people’s handles. You’ve probably already done this without realising it – remember the people you used to share a fandom with, but no longer do? Their handles are still seared into your brain, and you’ll always feel that pang of nostalgia when you see them again.
It’s just the same when fandom migrates.
Some people will disappear, and you never will find them again. But mostly, you will still see the same handles, having the same conversations, sharing love for the same favourites, just in new places. You will find them on Dreamwidth, Pillowfort, Instagram, Twitter, Google docs, discord, fanfic.net, Wattpad, Deviant Art, YouTube, Vimeo, and so on. Most importantly, you’ll find them on Fanlore and AO3, because they are run by the OTW and we own it.
Fans and fandom will still be here long after Tumblr is full of rolling tumblrweeds.
We’re good at this. No matter where we end up, you will find your people again. Fandom will go on. It will be okay.
This is who we are.
Out of all the posts I have seen about Tumblr reaching peak idiocy, this is the one I like the most. This has happened before. We’ll be okay. See you wherever our next home will be.
The important thing I got from this, apart from the wonderful sage advice, is to keep same handle everywhere! Good to know. And AO3 is wonderful. We can put in our AO3 profiles wherever we eventually migrate to, though for now, we all seem to be staying here.
A lovely post <3
Also Mod Vorpalgirl would like to add:
- she is “vorpalgirl” or “VorpalGirl” on all her current platforms (which include AO3,Pillowfort.io, and Dreamwidth.org so far in addition to tumblr)
- as far as this blog goes, you will find some of Inu-Fiction’sexisting AND FUTURE contentonAO3 in a special Collection of our archived and drafted meta and fiction from tumblr (it’s slow going converting it, but it’s happening!), as well as a brand new Inu-Fiction Community over on Dreamwidth (and possibly Pillowfort too!), where similar meta will be cross-posted. :)
By Kinsley Holland
I wish someone would have told me that I was not the only one. I wish I would’ve known that I was not alone in my struggles, alone in my fears, trapped on a deserted island of my shame. And that is why I am telling you, right here. Right now.
When I was on the verge of my teenage years, I began to seriously struggle with the way I would feel when I looked at my body in the mirror. But it was even so much more than that, so much more than just my body- it was my skin, my hair, my nails, my smile, my teeth, my eyebrows. Everything. Though I never succumbed to the temptation of self-harm, I allowed my thoughts full of self-hatred to chip away at the innermost pieces of my being. My soul was crushing under the weight of the anxiety and fits of depressions that I would experience whenever I thought about myself.
One of my most vivid memories of the pain I experienced from all this came when I was playing sand volleyball in my junior year of high school. I showed up to my first practice, wearing what every other girl was wearing, but the lies forming in my head, saying things like, “You’re fat in comparison to these other girls,” “You’re an outsider,” and “What do you even think you’re doing here? You’re not good enough.” I made the excuse to run inside to the bathroom, and for the next ten minutes I struggled to find my breath, as I felt like the lies in my head were going to crush me to pieces. My first anxiety attack came that night, and it was one of the most difficult experiences that far in my life.
And I wish someone would have told me I wasn’t alone in my struggles. So, because I thought I was, I want to remind YOU today that you’re not. You, my friend, never walk alone.
I think when our mental health takes a hit from our own bodies, we feel isolated. We feel as though there has never been someone else in the world like us to have struggled, well, like us. When I was 16, I really began to share my struggles with those around me I was closest to. In my mind, many nights are stained in tears as I just grieved through the loss of my hope, grieved through the loss of my joy. What I heard from the girls with whom I had trusted with my deepest hurts astounded me. They had struggled too. Many of them, at some point in their lives, had dealt with the grip of mental illness, self-hatred, and body image struggles. And the most encouraging thing was that they had made it through. So, I knew that I could make it too.
Today, as I write this, I’m a nineteen-year-old sophomore in college. I love my life. I love my body. I love the quirks God gave me, the crooked smile I flash when I’m too overjoyed to contain my laughter. I love where my life is now because I know where I have been. Don’t be fooled, though. Those thoughts of unworthiness and those feelings of hurt still surface on occasion. They don’t just disappear entirely. But what I have learned is that we’ve been given a community for a reason. We have communities around us to remind us that we are so worth loving, that we are qualified to do the things we dream of, and to remind us we have hope and a future.
Personally, I never had to seek out medical help to get better. I have many friends who have made that decision because it was the best thing for them. The ways in which we’ve gotten better do not make one superior and the other inferior. They just make us different. And I don’t know about you, but I really have learned to like different. I found my hope in a Savior named Jesus who tells me every day that I am worth everything to Him. He tells me that I am beautiful in His sight. “Imago Dei,” meaning “Image of God” in Latin, is the promise that carries me through each hard day. And for me, that kind of love and acceptance I find in Him is enough.
Kinsley’s life changed drastically while she was in college, when she felt God nudging her heart to move to a different city all on her own. Through the love from others and the hope they provided, she began to learn even more fully her worth and the magnitude of her purpose, even in extremely treacherous times. Kinsley finds her joy in Jesus, iced coffee, writing, and running!
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An apology letter to myself…
I’m sorry…I’m sorry for the days that I laid in bed, without knowing or even trying to figure out your purpose for existing or without having a will to continue living.
I’m sorry that I doubted you, and your ability to walk this life with a genuine smile.
I’m sorry for living in that hopeless mindset for years and years, without getting up to try and fix it.
I held onto the thought of a potential life long failure, to keep myself safe from my own disappointment, when I’ve only really held you back from what you could have achieved. I’ve only pulled you away from the opportunities that could have landed you on a path of financial and mental wellbeing.
I should have treated this body like a temple, but instead I treated it as a landfill for hard drugs, bottles of liquor and slit wrists.
I chose to cope with the pain that trauma buried in the deepest part of my mind, in a way that only brought 10x more crisis and hurt into my life.
I’m sorry for the actions and the decisions I made through out my dismal years.
I’m sorry for all the times I’ve tried to kill you, without thinking about the second way out. But somehow we found it, floating in the missing thoughts that hopelessness hid from us.
So I’m sorry, but I also want to say thank you, because without the trauma, the horrible experiences, the childhood of pain, and all of the struggles, I wouldn’t have ever been able to find the strength I have now. I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the small things that a lot of people take for granted.
Thank you for helping me become the light when I stopped searching for it.
