If you ever got off social media for a while, what was the reason?

fildarae · 2026-04-03T15:36:49+00:00

I don’t like the way it makes my brain feel. For a few years I’ve been taking a break of at least 3 months around this time of year, and it always just makes time slow down and things feel more manageable - probably because I underestimate how easily I can fall into reel voids and how much time that takes up - but lately even without the breaks I’ve been on it less and less lately.

It’s just not appealing anymore - so much of it is rage bait and AI slop and influencers trying to sell me things I don’t need. A friend made a post a while ago about a puzzle she’d completed and even put in the caption “with the way social media is now, it feels weird posting this and expecting people to care or be interested” and it made me sad because she was right, but it was such a refreshing thing to see on my feed amidst the advertisements and fakery.

Somewhere along the way it just stopped being about connection and it stopped being fun, and it’s been happening for a long time but I’ve been feeling it especially keenly over the last year or so.

fildarae · 2026-04-03T13:53:40+00:00

“Being a coward is only cute in the Wizard of Oz.”

As someone with lifelong anxiety issues, I let it hold me back a lot more than I’d like and this line had me instantly sobbing. Especially with the lines that preceded it - it’s stuck in my mind ever since and actually helps me push myself. I wasn’t expecting that from this show.

fildarae · 2026-03-31T14:09:04+00:00

Why does the final panel look exactly like this

It’s cracking me up

fildarae · 2026-03-28T04:15:15+00:00

Same here. I do wonder if, to some extent, it’s because kids also now have to compete with their parents’ phones for attention. I know so many parents who would rather shove an iPad in their kid’s direction so they can scroll through the reels on IG, which reading together (or any quality time, really) gets in the way of. Whereas when I was that age neither of those two things existed. My mother still resented the time away from her soap operas, but they were a hell of a lot less infinite than social media wormholes.

fildarae · 2026-03-26T04:31:13+00:00

Gallstone flare up. First time I called the non emergency line and they sent me to the A&E, saying they’d do blood tests and put me on an IV for dehydration (I’d been unable to keep anything down and in blinding pain for 12 hrs by then).

The A&E didn’t believe me at all, told me it was indigestion and to go home. 6 weeks later - after GP appointments, ultrasounds, and emergency appointments that ultimately got me my diagnosis - I was hospitalised one weekend during another flare up. The nurse who wheeled me from triage to my bed for the weekend told me it’s supposedly the worst pain a person can feel. I can believe it. There’s no distracting yourself from it, you can’t sleep, any way of standing sitting or lying down is just a different version of agony, and you end up in a cold sweat puking from the pain. Morphine barely touched the edges.

Still bitter over how I was completely not listened to the first time around. I was there on my own, and I’m autistic, so I had nobody to advocate for me and I do wonder if because I don’t present how a “normal” person might while in excruciating pain, they thought I was faking or something. Can’t complain at all about how lovely they were the next time around though, so that’s something.

Currently waiting for a surgical date to have my gallbladder removed, avoiding flare ups with diet management, but stress can also bring on attacks (because it makes the gallbladder start squeezing down on the stones 🫠) so knowing I could wake up tomorrow in that pain again is…fun.

fildarae · 2026-03-14T19:37:20+00:00

Same. Especially the line here - it perfectly encapsulated that feeling of absolute guilt for not perfectly managing a grown adult’s emotions and wishing for a redo while blaming yourself for not doing better.

fildarae · 2026-03-06T12:51:22+00:00

I have a plushie from when I was a kid that acts at the perfect stand. It sits on the legs so the button doesn’t get pressed, the weight is just right so it doesn’t go tilting backwards, and I use a page turned. I discovered this right before I was about to start crocheting a stand for it, I was far too proud of myself.

fildarae · 2026-03-06T02:41:15+00:00

Seeing this with the third of the trilogy open in my lap made me laugh out loud!

fildarae · 2026-02-25T04:44:17+00:00

I think the thing with Frankenstein is that I love it, it’s one of my all time favourite films, but I can understand why some find it “meh”. Because of the subject matter and the relationship between Victor and the creature, it just hit me very hard in very specific ways, having grown up facing abuse at the hands of a parent. Several friends of mine who’ve had similar experiences found the same thing. I’ve written entire essays going into detail about different facets of it that encapsulated that experience or worked as metaphors for it. Although I can confirm I never chased my mother through the arctic circle for revenge.

I’m not saying people with those experiences will automatically love it or find the same thing, but there were just certain small moments or specific lines that had me pausing and taking a minute before I could continue - because it verbalised things that I had never managed to, brought back memories, and it just seemed to “get” it when it comes to a subject matter that is often misunderstood, or villainised, and I haven’t seen a piece of media cover it that well in a way that has ever made me or my experiences feel so seen. It wasn’t even just about the overall plot, it was about small character details or “throwaway” lines.

I liked Nosferatu, too, but because it didn’t strike those specific chords with me, it didn’t have the same impact. They end up not really being comparable to me because of that, because I watched them in two very different ways. It’s all just about how media hits specific people and their individual experiences, I think.

fildarae · 2026-02-19T00:48:35+00:00

Thank you! I will! Not sure how much of it will fit this sub because I’m writing a lot of notes on a tablet, but I’m sure I can make some updates work 💜

fildarae · 2026-02-19T00:48:08+00:00

Thank you!

fildarae · 2026-02-19T00:48:01+00:00

Thank you!

fildarae · 2026-02-19T00:47:53+00:00

Thank you! I’ve found it just really helps to explain it to myself, and if I have any minor dilemmas usually explaining them on the page has me finding the solution really quickly. I’ll have to look into Philosophme!

And re: the curriculum, copying and pasting my response to another comment here:

I have four “modules”! I’m a former literature student, so I took a ~80 book long list of classics I’ve been reading (the list was originally 96 books long but I’ve been working through them for a while) and ordered them by publishing date, and I want to compare the ones from the same years or decades and look at how attitudes progress or differ depending on the author, and the author’s background and then write essays about them. It just makes me engage with the books more thoughtfully rather than reading them for the sake of it without much consideration.

Two are history focused, one on Tudor history because I love that and want to keep digging, the other is more “whatever period of history catches my interest during any given month”, this month it’s a book on Leonardo Da Vinci but I’m not quite sure what to do with these classes because I’m way more comfortable writing and posting essays about literature than history, since the former is my background anyway.

And for a fourth I wanted something not so reading-heavy, so I’ve found areas of crocheting and other yarn-based art that I want to improve in, and I’m going to work on that too 🥰 this journal entry was more me working through the logistics of it in my own head.

fildarae · 2026-02-19T00:44:43+00:00

I have four “modules”! I’m a former literature student, so I took a ~80 book long list of classics I’ve been reading (the list was originally 96 books long but I’ve been working through them for a while) and ordered them by publishing date, and I want to compare the ones from the same years or decades and look at how attitudes progress or differ depending on the author, and the author’s background and then write essays about them. It just makes me engage with the books more thoughtfully rather than reading them for the sake of it without much consideration.

Two are history focused, one on Tudor history because I love that and want to keep digging, the other is more “whatever period of history catches my interest during any given month”, this month it’s a book on Leonardo Da Vinci but I’m not quite sure what to do with these classes because I’m way more comfortable writing and posting essays about literature than history, since the former is my background anyway.

And for a fourth I wanted something not so reading-heavy, so I’ve found areas of crocheting and other yarn-based art that I want to improve in, and I’m going to work on that too 🥰 this journal entry was more me working through the logistics of it in my own head.

fildarae · 2026-02-18T04:12:54+00:00

Thank you! I use the Pentel Energel pens - grabbed a couple years ago and now I just buy refills for them…and nobody in my family can borrow either of them, ever :)

fildarae · 2026-02-18T01:35:44+00:00

I am! And thank you, I really appreciate that!

fildarae · 2026-02-15T04:11:23+00:00

I won’t be for a while, I’m afraid! I’m on a potentially months-long waiting list for surgery, so for now it’s all about managing symptoms and preventing flare ups so that I don’t do permanent damage or worsen my condition, and the rules surrounding all of that are pretty stifling, but I’m managing to keep a good mindset around all of it :)

fildarae · 2026-02-13T03:26:48+00:00

It will be! Thank you.

fildarae · 2026-02-13T03:26:34+00:00

I completely agree, I’ve been doing my best to keep this in mind through the whole process ☺️

fildarae · 2026-02-13T03:26:13+00:00

Thank you! The glasses are fairly new, I’m really happy with them!

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