YouTuber Troubles
October 29, 2015 § Leave a comment
Anonymous Sufferer writes,
I’m a high school female and I just recently (2 weeks ago) fell in love with a YouTube star who has now become even more famous. He is so great in real life, not just singing heartless songs. I’m basically consumed by thoughts of him, and every time I get on the Internet I immediately go to Google to stare at pictures of him. Any advice on how to get my mind off him and actually get schoolwork done?
Google staring! Is there any greater activity? Being consumed by thoughts is the literal definition of being a teenager. You’re in a stage of your life where you’re exploring your identity, your sexuality, your everything.
What will you life be like? Whom do you want to model it after? What kind of person do you want to be your forever makeout partner? These are all questions that young adults explore through the experience of being a fan.
Scrolling through photos and replaying videos is a perfectly acceptable way to distract yourself from the worries of day-to-day life. The question is, how do you teleport back and forth between feels and responsibilities? How do you stop being controlled by an obsession and turn it into a passion?
Science and psychotherapy have a lot of answers to these questions, but here are some simple things you can try:
- Switch to angry girl music. When you need to focus, ditch the dulcet tones of your YouTuber. Crank up an angry lady who’s gonna motivate you to conquer. Your crush doesn’t have a monopoly on ambition. Why can’t you be as successful as he is?
- Visualize your success. Maybe you’re daydreaming about making out with dude, but you can also think about what it’ll feel like when you’ve gotten your life back on track. So portion out some of your brain time to think about what you want for yourself. Write down what you want. Frame it. Memorize it. Absorb it.
- Be a detective. Take some notes on when you’re likely to shift into obsession mode. Are you trying to avoid uncomfortable thoughts, or a challenging task? The reality is that our fangirling is less enjoyable when we’re using it as an avoidance tactic. When you’ve already gotten the hard stuff out of the way, you can sit back and cry without any guilt.
- Be patient. You have your whole life ahead of you! Millions of females who cried about boys or girls or whatever when they were teens grew up to be successful, healthy women. Be kind to yourself, and understand that your brain is going to be undergoing some major renovation until you’re around 25. Being able to laugh at your fangirl ways and see the humor in your behavior is a great way to cope with life.
Let me know how it goes!
Kathleen
Fangirl Therapy 
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