I had the lovely combo of getting mocked and ridiculed by both “friends” and “family” for sharing my tastes and interests, and now I struggle to share them with people and in spaces that seem safe, but my stupid fear and anxiety keeps me from reaching out 😅
I've hid a lot of stuff simply because I don't want to answer questions
My mum (who tbh is honestly otherwise really kind and understanding) once made fun of me being into "video game music" to some of her friends.
I'm only just now getting back into listening to music and trying to figure out what I like, rather than avoiding listening to new music at all.
Are you me?
Nah, I decided not to hide. I got targeted too, but the nice thing is that I learned (really young!) not to care what other people thought of me. Which sucked at the time, yeah, but was incredibly liberating as I grew older.
Nah, it's just that they didn't care because I wasn't genetically related to my dad. What I did learn to hide was my emotions because I would be berated if I was anything but happy.
I couldn't hide it, gaming was a very hard special interest and hyperfixation, I literally grew up in a console gaming golden age too (early-to-mid 90's kid so 4th and 5th generation consoles, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64, arcade transitioning to 3D as a standard, etc.) so there was no escaping it from anyone
And yes I got made fun of, mostly by classmates but I got some family teasing too
I had the less popular choices with the Saturn and Dreamcast, which didn't help.
They were great though, I owned those two later on and still have a Saturn, some absolute gems for those systems
I never realized it was something I was supposed to hide or be ashamed of untill I got older. By then I just no-longer cared.
Normal is extremely overrated, and so are the opinions of most people. I can't recall being especially concerned with the opinions of strangers or enemies.
Worse, I didn't learned to hide it.
That's perfectly normal when you're bullied, made to be the black sheep and ridiculed by family.
I'm doing better on my own now
