Fangirl Therapy

Jennifer writes,

Came across this book and site recently and have a fangirl question. I wouldn’t say I’m an obsessive fan, but when I fan over something I love it intensely and deeply and blog about it all day. When they’re celebrities and there’s a fan meet, I feel a real need to meet them. For the last 3 years, about once a year, I’ve been buying tickets overseas to attend fan meets in secret (often having to lie to others about my location and purpose for travel because it’s embarrassing and very last minute). I also fly 8-10 hours just for 2-3 days because I often have to get back to work. But I have a huge problem with plane anxiety and feel the guilt of lying to people I love…though I don’t mean to deceive them. I feel nervous that if something happened to me, they would be really upset…and all because I wanted to meet my favourite celebrity! Yesterday, I made the decision to not go on a plane to attend a fan meet I really wanted to see because it would mean that I’d have to get back on my sister’s birthday the next day, and I was nervous about the plane ride. I feel less guilty and relieved that I don’t have to ride on a plane, but also really empty and sad that I didn’t go through with my choice. How can I stop myself from feeling this way? What would you suggest I do about my addiction to overseas fan meets?

Hi Jennifer,

Thank you for sharing. To me there are two questions here:

1. How do you get more comfortable with being honest about your passions?
2. How do you determine whether a fan trip is what you really want?

In thinking about question 1, I don’t think we always have to share everything about our fangirl interests with our friends and family. HOWEVER, there is value sometimes in being able to communicate what’s important to us, regardless of the reaction we might get. In therapy, this is sometimes called “defining yourself.” How do you want to define yourself to people close to you? What do you lose when you hide or edit what really excites you? We can’t control people’s opinions or reactions. All we can control is how we want to present ourselves to the world.

As far as question 2, I wonder what it looks like to do your best thinking about these trips. If you’ve evaluated the cost, the time off, and the value of the opportunity to meet a fave, then you can make the best decision. Sometimes as fangirls we make very emotion-based choices. Feeling anxious or left out makes us reactive and we act quickly without really thinking it through. So I would ask yourself, what does it look like to bring my best thinking to these choices? Maybe that means sometimes you’ll sit out and sometimes you’ll go. Just make sure your brain is doing good work.

Finally, if you want to work on anxiety about flying, I’d recommend talking to a counselor. There are also a lot of great resources on the internet for flying anxiety!

Just be yourself, Jennifer, and do good thinking! Those are the two big tasks of life.

Tagged: anxiety, celebrities, fan meets, fangirl problems