I think you hit that one on the head. I also think—maybe???—that kerfluffle was inspired by other fanfic writers being asked by readers to include claims in their fics. I might be making that up, but I do know that I’ve read A/Ns where the author specifically says that those requesting a claim in reviews were going to be disappointed. If that was the case, I can definitely understand why those writers were annoyed.
And you’re right—fandom is definitely a different place now. I’ve only been “back” for a couple months and that much is very evident. And the whole pseudonym stuff had died well before I phased out… I am just struck now with how HUGE a deal that seemed to be to me at the time—everything, from the kerfluffle onward. It was a thing that happened that seemed to dominate my life in ways that were way out of proportion to what was actually happening, if that makes sense.
I can look back and identify behaviors from my childhood that are clearly stemmed in my anxiety disorder, but those behaviors were more overt. I’ve always had a tendency to catastrophize, which can distort one’s perception quite a bit. Part of that is either over-inflating or inventing threats to things you care about. When this manifests in my life now, it’s more likely to be a slightly abnormal medical test (as happened earlier this year) that has a simple, innocuous explanation, but my mind takes immediately to cancer. At the time, it was “people don’t like this = people don’t like me = I can’t write fanfic.” And since writing was pretty much the only thing I enjoyed doing, my anxiety disorder attacked it.
Like I said above, I don’t recall who was involved in that kerfluffle, but I certainly don’t think anyone who was involved was in any way responsible for the way I took it at the time. It’s just easier to see how I got there now.
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Date: 2017-05-16 01:15 pm (UTC)And you’re right—fandom is definitely a different place now. I’ve only been “back” for a couple months and that much is very evident. And the whole pseudonym stuff had died well before I phased out… I am just struck now with how HUGE a deal that seemed to be to me at the time—everything, from the kerfluffle onward. It was a thing that happened that seemed to dominate my life in ways that were way out of proportion to what was actually happening, if that makes sense.
I can look back and identify behaviors from my childhood that are clearly stemmed in my anxiety disorder, but those behaviors were more overt. I’ve always had a tendency to catastrophize, which can distort one’s perception quite a bit. Part of that is either over-inflating or inventing threats to things you care about. When this manifests in my life now, it’s more likely to be a slightly abnormal medical test (as happened earlier this year) that has a simple, innocuous explanation, but my mind takes immediately to cancer. At the time, it was “people don’t like this = people don’t like me = I can’t write fanfic.” And since writing was pretty much the only thing I enjoyed doing, my anxiety disorder attacked it.
Like I said above, I don’t recall who was involved in that kerfluffle, but I certainly don’t think anyone who was involved was in any way responsible for the way I took it at the time. It’s just easier to see how I got there now.