>>57911060A pov for normalfriends on how a real human bean ends up going schizo over anime girls on the internet.
My father was an absent man. Not in the sense that he wasn’t home for us. He just rarely came out of his shell. I thought he wasn’t interested in anything except fishing. Later in life I’ve learned that he had a lot more to him, but it was too late. In another timeline internet became a thing 30 years earlier, and he wrote this shitpost in my stead.
My mother was a fleeting artistic type. Her rules were simple: I could do whatever as long as I didn’t piss her off. I learned not to piss her off early on. Being praised as a prodigy at school was enough to give me an unlimited free time cheque. I lacked positive direction, but I wouldn’t become the way I am today, if it wasn’t for an accident.
I was age 11. Me and my friends went to an internet café to play some Warcarft 3. We ended up staying until 1 AM. When I came home, my mother was fuming. My father bought me a gaming PC, and I was grounded with my new computer for the rest of the summer -- two months. I haven’t left my apartment without a good reason ever since.
I started becoming increasingly weird, spending vast majority of free time online. I was becoming isolated. I was never bullied at school, but I did see the contempt and hear the sneers. Or maybe it was just onsetting paranoia. Paranoia, depression, manic ideas, suicidal thoughts, repressed anger issues, agoraphobia, neurotic tics. Combining puberty with poor nutrition, 3 hours of sleep, and daily 15 hours of internet psychosis induction was not a great idea. There was nobody to tell me that.
In the final year of high school, my mom asked, “Anon, are you gay? The school is over and you haven’t brought a girl over once. I’m worried if I’ll ever have grandkids.” It was the first time she mentioned school in months. I was seething like never before or after that in my life. “If you cared so much, you should have raised me better or had another kid,” I thought. I glanced at a panda tab with a Quzilax doujin I just tabbed out of and replied, “Sorry, mom, it’s complicated. But no, I’m not gay.” Saying ‘sorry’ while boiling inside, feeling guilt, and avoiding people became common.
“Anon, that’s enough credits for an A, but we both know you could do better.” “Why don’t you judge me by every other retarded chimp’s standard?” “I’m sorry, ma’am, there are things going on, but I’ll try to do better next time.” “Anon, do you really not want to participate in the play? We try to include everyone.” “Yes, I really don’t fucking want to.” “Sorry, sir, I don’t think I would be any good at acting.” “Anon, there is this CS compet…”
By the 2nd year of college, I stopped attending. I would go to campus every day and just phonepost in a random corridor corner because I was literally shaking at the thought of strangers. The more lectures I skipped, the more afraid I was of judgement I’d have to face. I did it for an entire semester, until the other shoe dropped and someone called my parents. My mother told me, “I don’t care if you drop out. I’m just disappointed that my son is a liar and a coward.”
I surrendered myself to a therapist. I was medicated, locked up for 3 weeks, and diagnosed with severe avoidant personality disorder. I have to admit, the asylum was one of the nicest places I have ever been to.
Years later, I was finishing my PhD thesis, studying Japanese, and thinking about learning an instrument. Then came the year of the coof. The lockdowns didn’t change much. That is until my mother went down with cancer and her treatment was delayed due to all the hysteria. She expired in 4 months. After the funeral, we found her will along with an illustrated journal she was keeping of her mental and physical state. She hated what her body had become and wanted to be cremated. We had to dig her up. 3 weeks later my cat died. 2 weeks after that my father went fishing and never returned. Do not mix alcohol abuse and bodies of water. A month later my elderly scientific mentor, the man in charge of the project my thesis was part of, drowned in his own lungs after getting ‘rona. 3 weeks later his son, too a professor I was working with, hanged himself. I never finished that thesis.
I gave up on forming meaningful relationships with other people. In that I found freedom to be more of a lesser human being. I work from home and I earn good money, not that I have anything to spend it on. I eat simple healthy food I do not care for the taste of, sleep well, and follow my fitness routine. I try out different creative hobbies, although I don’t seem to be able to stick to one. All I want is to live as long as possible in my concrete tower cell while observing the world. Maybe I want to support some cute vtubers too. I have many regrets in my life, and I wish for nothing but happiness for everyone.
