More Than Fiction

Nowadays, people often ask me why I spend so many hours on my computer. Whether I’m watching YouTube, Netflix, playing games, or just messing around on my laptop, I find the electronic world much more inviting than the real one when I am upset. People often ask me why I’m so addicted to fantasy TV, why I fangirl over made up relationships, and why I choose to spend more of my time in their false worlds than ours. People like to ask why I’m so obsessed with fake characters when there are plenty of “lovely real world people” out there who’d like to have a real- life relationship with me. “Why don’t you go out and make real friends?” they’d say, and I’d just shrug. It’s not worth explaining. I have plenty of friends. Plenty of good, healthy, supportive relationships with friends, family, teachers, and my boss. I just can’t always talk to them. Sometimes my brain can’t beat out my depression, and I end up in my room by myself for days.

One of the worst karmatic ironies in my life is that I am painfully extroverted. Extroversion means that I recharge and get most of my energy from being around other people, and being alone for long periods of time is draining to me. So during the times that I isolate myself in my room, my depression and anxiety just multiplies the longer I am alone, and I usually end up going in and out of the rooms of my various friends in my dorm, never staying long, hovering for long enough to get a hug and some basic conversation, and fulfill my basic people needs. Then I leave to go to the next person so that I don’t have to explain why I seem to be in a bad mood or I look horrible or they haven’t seen me all weekend even though they live down the hall.

All of this struggle is 100% in my head. Until now, I haven’t found a way to articulate the issues I’ve had. But recently, someone said “You do realize that they’re not real, right?”, in reaction to my distress over some science fiction show’s love triangle. And it hit me in that instant that to some other people these characters, these plots, these shows and stories are nothing more than just that, stories. They aren’t real. They don’t matter. To me, however, these stories are more than just a fun way to spend time, or a pastime. To me, my fandoms are an escape. When I can completely absorb myself into someone else’s story, when I become a part of their lives, a part of their worlds, for a short time, I no longer have to live in mine. When I need to get out of my head, but I have nowhere to go, I reach for a book, I turn on netflix, log in to YouTube, or blast Pandora. I can enter the life of someone else’s and leave mine behind just for a few hours, which is sometimes enough reprieve to convince me to wake up the next day.

So, in conclusion, I guess I’d like to thank you, my tragically unreal heroes. Thank you, to Sam and Dean Winchester for fighting the evil that I can’t fight. Thank you Hermione Granger for teaching me that it’s way more badass to be smart and kind than to be physically pretty or strong. Thank you to the Sherlock Holmeses, and to both Joan and John Watson, to Septimus Heap, to Nikki, to Link and Zelda, to Myka Bering. Halsey, thanks for crying and mourning with me, for cleaning me up when I’ve left stains that I can’t ever remove from my skin. Thank you to Amy Pond for telling me I’m beautiful even when I can’t get dressed in the morning. Thanks to Zoella and Tyler Oakley for alway making me laugh. Thanks to Brendon Urie, for telling me that I can be weird and fabulous and overcome anything, no matter how much life tackles me and tries to pin me to the ground. Thank you to the Doctor for carrying me when I can’t get off the floor, and to Ron Weasley for telling me to keep going even when I can’t see the happy ending.

Thank you, my beautiful, my wonderful, my real stories, for believing in me even when I can’t believe in myself.