I have this…anxiety about talking about a single thing too much at a time.

This probably started back when I was young–when I got involved in something, such as Pokemon or Teen Titans, that would be all I would ever talk about. Yeah, it was probably an obsession, but at the same time I don’t feel like it ever got to the point of being unhealthy. I still spent time with my friend and I still managed to do my schoolwork, so my obsession wasn’t interfering with other things in my life.

However, my parents didn’t care about any of the things I was interested in. They hated video games and cartoons, and they didn’t even make an effort to seem interested in something I was talking about. After a while, every time I started talking about the object of my obsession with them, I would get in trouble. They would take away privileges associated with my interest, like my TV watching time or my Game Boy. They punished me because they didn’t want to hear me talk about my obsessions any more.

Eventually, I did start to get quieter about them–and quieter about everything as a result of it. Talking about things I liked got me in trouble, so why talk at all then? My parents started accusing me of being anti-social, and it didn’t help that in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade I was bullied to the point of coming home in tears often.

So where am I going with this? Well, now that I’m all grown up and I have a place to talk about things I like away from my parents…I still don’t like to. I get nervous, and I worry about ‘what if I post too many things from this series in a day’ or 'what if I talk too much about this one thing today’. So I consciously try to spread my interests evenly–if I post something from a game, I try really hard not to post anything else related to that game for a while. Posting two things related to one series in a row is sometimes really nerve-wracking for me, because I worry that someone following this blog hates that series and will get upset that I’m posting several things related to it.

This anxiety of mine reflects on the way I respond to other people’s interests. As much as I hate to admit it…I think I’ve picked up on my parents’ low tolerances for 'obsession’. I have a very hard time listening to people talk about things I’m not interested in. Sometimes I start resenting the thing they are talking about, and eventually I stop wanting to hear about it at all.

And my attitude towards the interests of other people, interests that I don’t have in common with them, is alienating and upsetting my friends.

And that terrifies me.