Daydreams
Thursday, June 25th
When people I know are dealing with depression and having a difficult time seeing a path forward, I suggest they do what I do: make plans to do stuff. A date, a day off, a vacation, anything you can reasonably manage. Just something to look forward to, have a goal to reach, even if it’s just living through a certain number of days.
Things are going alright for me right now, my mental state is the most stable it’s been in several years. Medication is even helping turn things that would usually send me over the edge into manageable inconveniences. My anxiety has still been overly-active, though; I spend way more time and energy ruminating and worrying than I’d like. It really takes the wind out of me, makes me cranky, and keeps me from having enough imagination play time as I know I need.
In the past, I’ve been a hardcore daydreamer. I’ve seen the term “headworld” online recently the describe people’s interior fantasy realms with worldbuilding and lore and stuff, but I was not doing any of that. I mainly had elaborate fantasies regarding near-future events, things I wanted to happen or wanted to accomplish, and creative projects I wanted to take on. I never reflected much on this aspect of my mind until I got serious about managing bipolar symptoms, and recognized many times when this kind of imagination veered directly into delusions of grandeur and very out-of-character personal or financial decisions.
It’s been tough, recently, for me to feel safe playing in my own imagination without potentially taking it too far. That combined with the grind of just trying to keep my head above water in Current Year, I just don’t feel like I can have fun in my own brain anymore.
Sometimes I can be pretty envious of the kids I work with, whose free time seems to revolve entirely around Roblox, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and whatever animated YouTube series is popular today. When I was their age, I was starting to deal with overwhelming and irrational anxiety, strange gender feelings, and a growing sense of being out-of-place amongst my peers. But honestly? I didn’t even care that much, because I was only thinking about, like, Homestuck, probably. I was so deep in daydream imagination play with the various online fandoms I was interacting with, that I had proportionally far less time to feel bad than I do now. Nowadays I’m a full-time furry, nearly all of my online activity and real-world social life is based in the fandom, but I spend less time than ever just thinking about cartoons.
Since my job and life situation has evened out a lot this past year, I’ve also been able to save money and rebuild some of my savings account again. Anthrocon 2026 will be the first Furry convention I’ve been to in a year, and if it weren’t for all the crap I have to finish before then, I’d be so excited. Half-consciously, I’ve also started making plans to go to more cons, giving me something to look forward to over the coming months. I’ll be in attendance at Furry Migration 2026, (my first time back in Minneapolis since I moved away in ‘22!) and I’m also going to make an effort to attend JMoF in early 2027. Money is hard to hold onto, and travel can be an expensive hobby. But a little money and lot of forethought can take you very far.
I don’t know if I really have ‘fandom brain’ in me anymore, or if it would even help whatever adult melancholia I’m experiencing to get really into a cartoon again. I do love the life I have now, I just wish there were a little more romance (in the aesthetic sense) to it. A change in perspective is likely needed.