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Is it wrong to imagine?
Ok so...
I am a 15 year old girl and the youngest of all my siblings (20,28,38 and 31) I dont really get to do much with them as they work all the time.
I watch Anime a lot.. and it identifies with me. That's why I love it. But you see, my family is religious so i cant watch anything with religion not present (such as Fullmetal Alchemist) or Black butler.
I feel lonely a lot since my 'friends are sort of jerks.
So, I imagine that I'm talking to the characters I watch and I act out all sorts of scenes. I even had a crush on one of them... My family looks at me like i'm crazy and like I said they dont like the stuff I do.
My question overall is, is it wrong to be imagining the characters talking to me and doing things with me (like being a pirate/detective ) ? Also, is it wrong to feel like I have a crush on one?
(No I am not crazy, just lonely. I read and write fanfiction all the time, which my parents and family dont like either. Also, I have A and B grades.
Please give me some advice, any advice at all is appreciated.. thanks)
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You stand upon the precipice of a deep, dark, dank, depressing chasm of loneliness.
There's nothing wrong with liking Anime. FMA is one of my favorites. There's nothing wrong with fantasies either. I write myself into books in my head all the time.
I also keep it to myself. My private fantasies are, well, private. My girlfriend knows about that stuff, a little. And there is a reason that it stays mostly private and isn't out there written down for people to see and read, and disapprove of.
Plenty of people indulge in escapist fantasy, but see for me and for most other people who do it, those fantasies are there to pass the time and to amuse ourselves, nothing more. I used to drive across my state on a regular basis, 4+ hours in a car with no CD player in the rural south where country is omnipresent. I hate country. Lacking music to entertain me, I fantasized. It shortened the hundreds of hours I spent into something mentally manageable.
And I have never had a crush on a character.
Signs point to you liking fantasy because it's preferable to your reality. You have a religious family that won't let you watch FMA, so that's an understandable thing to want to escape from time to time mentally. But when you begin forming emotional attachments to your escape like that, you cross a line into dangerous territory.
Dangerous because it literally gets in the way of you creating a meaningful life for yourself which you can enjoy. Real life should be preferable to your fantasies. Real life is real. When you crush on a character, you're forsaking real life for those fantasies, and that is straight up mentally and emotionally unhealthy. Taken too far it can be diagnosed as a personality disorder.
Which brings us to the chasm. Ever heard of the geek social fallacies? It's a list of five things that make geeky (and anime fanfiction counts) social circles into pits of despair inhabited by troglodytes.
One of the five things on the list is the idea of inclusiveness. See, these things aren't acceptable to most people. When you flaunt it, that makes you an outcast. When your fantasies become important enough to you that you have to share it with others because it's a seriously big part of your life and you're not publishing books, that just makes you someone who's disassociated from reality.
So, when you make an outcast of yourself because you refuse to embrace reality, who do you hang out with and relate to?
Other outcasts, of course. And it should be noted at this point, this is not something due to religion. Most atheists still find fan fiction obsessed people weird and uncomfortable to be around. Go look up Bronies and see if you can understand why adult men fawning over a badly animated simplistic show for 8 year old girls gets disturbing.
Some people in this group of outcasts are just people with overactive imaginations, too much emotional attachment to the subject matter, and too little balance by way of other interests.
Some people in this group are obsessive socially repugnant broken individuals.
And you can't separate one from the other, because when outcasts band together a central theme of the group is acceptance. So these people who wouldn't be acceptable to most people in normal society anyway will latch on obsessively to things like anime or video games to become accepted and suddenly you've got Fallout Equestria.
Do not google Fallout Equestria. You would never be able to explain it to your parents. The only things you need to know about it is it is a fan fiction that is longer than War and Peace (you can google that if you don't know how long it is), it combines My Little Pony with a video game world, and it has a seriously disturbing amount of rape.
Yes. Rape. When I told you these people were disgusting troglodytes, that's what I meant. They wrote a massive book about My Little Pony characters being raped in a post(nuclear) apocalyptic world. And when you become an adult and have the freedom to search out corners of the internet that are eager to read your fan fictions and such, these are the people who you will be seeking acceptance from, who will expect acceptance from you in return.
That is the chasm. The deep, dank pit of despair that is the internet fan fiction community.
You can identify with more than anime. Watch some movies. Read some books. Not manga, books. I guarantee if you can find things you can relate to with anime you can find things to relate to in books written a decade or a hundred or more years ago too. It's all about being human in one way or another. Branch out. Develop interests in addition to anime so that when you want to relate to people who aren't writing disturbing sexual fantasies about cartoon characters you have something to relate to them with when they aren't into anime.
And go outside and do things. Escape is a time waster unless you do something with it and the vast majority of the members of the fan fiction community are members of it precisely because they have little to no writing talent. That's not a dig, most people have little to no writing talent. Doesn't mean you can't write, it just means you shouldn't throw it out there and expect to be accepted as a writer for it.
And a final note.
You're weird. That's ok, so am I. I have learned at times to hide my weirdness around those who don't share it and seek out those who do who are still functional human beings in the real world. I met them by going out and being a part of the real world and having a conversation that tangented onto whatever subject of mutual interest. I have a buddy I can talk superheros and comics with, there's nothing wrong with that. We also talk about life, relationships, politics, work, school, etc. Because we're both people who developed more interests to relate to others with than just comics and nerdy things, and we are both interested enough in those other things that we don't want to only ever talk about comics.
Learn when sharing is appropriate and when it's not, and accept that many people will not share all your passions. Find outlets for those passions with people you know, who you can see and hang out with and do things other than just share the passion you have in common that gave you a reason to get to know each other. Do not let yourself become one of the obsessed anime people who lives and works for the purpose of supporting an escapist lifestyle where you fill your room with anime figurines and live alone as an adult with your anime body pillow and are incapable of connecting with people unless it's through a computer screen.
I know you're probably thinking "I'd never let myself turn out like that!"
Famous last words of a ton of people who will never have sex in their lives. I know your parents are religious, but trust me, you want to have sex some day. With someone who doesn't need you to dress up like an anime schoolgirl to be interested in you.
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I agree with Natalka16, Imagining and creativity is something people try to take away. They cannot take away what you think, Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die tomorrow. I also feel like you're christian? If so, I am too, my parents aren't as strict with shows I watch but as long as I do the right thing you know? Try my best to make the world a better place. If you also write, PLEASE check out Wattpad, my user is Regularity and I'd LOVE to talk to you on there. It's a website where you post your stories to share to others, MANY fan fics, animes and roleplay is on there, hell it's encouraged. Think, imagine, create, anything. They can't take away your spirit, nor your mind. That's something you will have for the rest of you life no matter what. So make the most of it, change the world, don't wait for someone else to do it. You have something that is completely yours, why you're worried about peoples opinions flusters me. There's more to their opinions, there's a whole world out there, promise me one thing: Explore it. Take a car and explore, don't go to school, read books, make your own education because the school system is just memorizing things they want you to. Learn about other peoples cultures by experiencing them first hand, make friends across the world and definitely make a journal. Write down your memories, travels and adventures so that others could find it or you could share it to your kids. Go to an empty bathroom, write down on a sticky note something you've always wanted to tell someone, love like there's no tomorrow. And most importantly stand for what you believe in and be yourself, because everyone else is taken.
Excuse me for the babbling I was just really into it. (: I hope to see you on wattpad. Godbless - S.A
You've also made your first WORLD FOUND friend from: USA, Virginia
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There's nothing wrong with imagining these sort of things. Everyone is entitled to have their own private world as it comforts you when life gets difficult.
You say that you're family looks at you weirdly. In all honesty it is a bit weird but everyone is different right-if everyone was to be the same the world would be boring. You have your own world which is good. I can see you as a very creative person. You have good grades (congratulations, they'll help you to have a better future) and writing is very good for developing many skills such as creativity and intelligence.
Having a crush on certain characters is perfectly fine. You're reaching the age where these things (boys) start to naturally interest us girls. No one will tell you straight but every girl/woman has her own private image of the 'perfect guy' and the stories that come with it. You're having a fascination and that's perfectly all right.
PS: Just remember don't get you're imagination mixed up with the reality.
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Is it wrong to fantasize? No, just as long as you are aware it is just that a fantasy.
Dreaming or fantasizing is an escape mechanism which allows us to take a vacation from the reality of life. Especially a life which we may find inhibiting or overly restrictive. If it weren't for dreamers, as some may be called, some of the things we have or can do today would never have come to pass. Think about all the modern conveniences we have today. They all started out as some ones dream.
Your 15 and you dream and write about a different reality. You are aware this is all fiction and not reality. There is nothing wrong with this as it allows you an escape from your reality which you find shall we say constricting.
Relax your normal.
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