Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz.
In the time I’m writing this, I’m going though some type of insecurity that I haven’t felt ever in my life. In some way, it’s a new insecurity of mine; it’s something that I couldn’t do in my past due to my circumstances and quite frankly this post alone contradicts the whole damn point of this month’s installment of:
I say this because as I’m about to write how much I want to hide myself from the world, here I am exposing myself to it and here I am writing my feeling about me not wanting to be an open book anymore.
June was a really weird month for me. I found myself going through a new wave of depression that usually comes around this time of year naturally. I get bad seasonal depression, and that season is the summer for me. It started to creep up on me once June hit and the hot weather was constant throughout the weeks, and for still being out of work during out due to the pandemic (I work at a college), I didn’t have that distraction that usually helps me focus on other things besides the things that I overthink about.
The constant thing that kept me happy was Kpop, specifically building my album and photocard collection. During this time to myself, I decided that I wanted to collect photocards (mainly Victon’s) and open my trading account to connect with other traders and sellers in this community. As I’m writing this, it’s been a week since I opened up the account and I’ve made more connections with people than I’ve done in last couple of months. It’s refreshing to talk to people about things that you like and that they also like and just building a connection off of that (of course, with selling and trading in the mix!) At first, I felt embarrassed wanting to be so involved in collecting; I was constantly being judged by those around me for “having a teenage hobby” and liking Kpop music, and I just began to feel that shame I felt about something that makes me happy all over again, like it was 2019 all over again.
And because of that, I more than ever want to stop sharing myself on here and on the internet because I’m tired of thinking what other people think of me and my interests and quite frankly, I was a lot happier just being on my corner of the internet, by myself, secretly liking the things I liked and that made me happy.
But, I run a blog off of my experiences and my thoughts and quite frankly this post is doing the exact thing I don’t want to do. I’m a writer, and I identity being a write before than being a woman.
Like, let’s cut to the bullshit and get straight to the point: I’m tired of the little comments and looks and questions about my interests from friends, family, and possibly those who follow me on any social media platform I’m active on. I’m tired of the eye rolls every time something with my name comes in the mail, I’m tired of the anxiety I feel whenever I talk about my interest and current hobbies with a smile on my face, and I’m quite frankly just tired of constantly playing the judgments again and again in my head because deep down inside I also think those same things about myself and feel them as well.
I’m tired of other people amplifying them for me.
It sounds so stupid and childish, sure; like it’s totally an issue that shouldn’t be called an issue. It’s the fact that my anxiety disorder is making it feel like it’s a huge problem. My anxiety loves to feed off of the judgments and comments from people, and although I wish I knew how to stop seeking approval or validation that I’m not these things that I think of myself, I still do, and my anxiety eats up anything negative towards the things that makes me happy, whether it’s people, my personality, my interest in Kpop music and collecting; whatever it is.
That anxiety turns into self-loathe; it constantly tells myself I should be a certain way because I’m a certain age, and it makes me regret wanting to ever like certain things, for instance: Kpop. I’m so close to making a rational decision like sell my collection and album and make my side of my room appear more like a 26-year-old rather than a 16-year-old’s because I’m so tired of the internal I keep having with myself about whether it’s age-appropriate to like and be involved in something like this.
But like, it’s fucking music, there’s no age-restriction on music, so why do other people (myself included) feel like I don’t belong within this specific genre of music? I swear it’s such a stupid fucking argument with myself, but it’s been bothering me for months.
It started to bother me when I started to really get into Victon at the beginning of this year. I started to buy their previous discography to start off an album collection because I was really getting into them and their music, and whatever goodies came with the albums I just mindlessly left in the albums because I wasn’t collecting the photocards or anything.
Fast forward to April, and I got extremely into buying photocards to start off a collection. By the time it was June, I started trading with other people around the country for the cards I’d wanted and vice versa. I will admit I spent a shit ton of money on this collection, but it makes me so fucking happy and every time I get a card in the mail, it feels like Christmas morning.
But when it started to become noticeable that I was into collecting, I started to get judged for liking and doing this. “Liz, you’re 26-years-old.” “This is something I would’ve expect you to do when you were a teenager.” “Liz is living her 12-year-old dream.” “What’s up with you listening to those *Asian* boys?” (And let’s just say the word used wasn’t Asian, I just don’t want to repeat the racist comment) While the comments are meant to just push my buttons, I don’t find them funny because those comments and jokes are internal judgments I tell myself all the time, and it’s just so discouraging.
Perhaps I’m just not used to sharing myself like this. Prior to 2020, was very anxious showing or being myself publicly because of the situation I was in, but now that I started to embrace my identity and who I am more and more, I feel all the negative things that come being me.
Anyway, if you read this far into this very true rant, thank you. Also, if this even makes it to the blog, then I guess I decided to just publish the scheduled posts I had on here for July. I can’t say where I’ll be during this time that this publishes; maybe I’ll feel better and maybe this was just a short funk of mine! But as of right now, I just don’t want to be on the internet for a bit. I just feel like hiding for a short period of time and keep to myself until I feel better about whatever this is.
Thanks for bearing with me.
Letters From Liz. 