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lindanimated · 9 years ago

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On Shipping and My Attachment to Fictional Love

Brace yourselves, folks, this is going to be a long one. I practically wrote a dissertation under the cut. This is much more serious than what I would normally post (especially since it contains a bunch of super personal information regarding my real life relationships and mental health), but if anyone is interested, read away! I've had the idea for this essay in my mind for ages, but I just got the drive to write it today since one of my current ships was just sunk. :( But enough about that, on to the essay!

1. Introduction First things first, I’ll make it clear that I’m not talking about UPS! If you’ve been around any hardcore fans of any sort of media (meaning films, television shows, comic series, books, etc), you’ve probably run across them. Shippers, as practitioners of this hobby are called, support two (or more, depending on what you’re into!) fictional characters being a couple within the realm of the media that they come from. They might draw fan art, write fanfiction, or create other offerings to the shipping community they’re involved in, or just sit back and emit squeals of happiness as they consume such products created by other shippers. If you’re new to this, let me assure you: I understand that some people might think this is weird. I get it. Why are we placing such an emotional investment in the love lives of fictional characters? What does it matter who gets with whom, if the overall story in the media is well portrayed? Some people who aren’t shippers just honestly don’t care, and it’s not at all important to them whether two characters end up together. That’s fine, of course! Different strokes for different folks, as is often wisely said. But for those who harbour any curiosity, I’m going to delve into an introspective look inside the workings of a shipper’s mind: namely, myself. For the record, I completely agree that in the big scheme of things - in the complex, real world mess of a thing we call life on planet Earth - shipping is quite insignificant. I’m an adult with real adult responsibilities, and by this point in my life I’m mature enough to assign appropriate priority to things like who’s in who's bed in a fictional universe. But when I have nothing from the real world inhibiting my brain from wandering into less important territory, I like to indulge myself with a nice fanfic and coo over how perfect some characters are together. We all have our vices, no?

Actually, when looking at me from the outside, not knowing what I get up to when I’m free to wander the internet and the recesses of my own mind, you probably would never guess that I’m a shipper. If you asked me about relationships as they exist in the real world, especially in relation to myself, you might come away with the belief that I’m a total cynic. To be honest, I can’t even refute that - I didn’t use to be, but these days I’ve done a pretty clean 180° turn from the hopeless romantic I used to be as an adolescent. This is actually going to be a large factor in the content of this essay, because to dive into my own personal reasons for being a shipper, I must first air out a lot of my dirty laundry. So if you’d like to leave now, I do completely understand! But if you’re staying and reading on, you might want to buckle up.

As I mentioned above, the content in this essay is extremely personal and specific to me. Through plenty of thought and introspection, I have discovered what I believe is the primary reason that I am such an active shipper. I don’t believe I’ve ever consciously acknowledged this reason until recently, but the subconscious mind is certainly an active and influential aspect in many of the decisions we make and the preferences that we have in life. Another important thing to mention is that I cannot speak for any other shippers and their own reasons for being as they are, nor will I ever pretend that I can. Once again, this is extremely personal and others might have completely different reasons for shipping. That said, if anyone can relate to this, I’d be happy to hear from you!

2. Personal Information and Background

So let’s go back many years into my youth. I remember having my first crush when I was about eight years old, back in primary school when lots of boys still thought girls were icky (this was the nineties, today that might have changed…) I continued to be, in the words of a wise and talented singer, an infatuation junkie for many years after that. Especially in my teen years, when I, like most other teens, housed a cacophonous stew of overzealous hormones which made me fall for one person after another. I was quite literally never without a crush on someone, if not more than one person simultaneously. This would have been all well and good, and certainly normal, if something had ever come of most of these crushes. I had one relationship in high school, but that has - and I’m really opening up my vault of sensitive secrets here, so step lightly please - been the only steady relationship I’ve ever been in as of now.

I didn’t really worry about this until I started getting well into my twenties, as my friends all began to get married and start families and take on this aspect of adult life that I hadn’t yet had the chance to experience. At first I thought that there must be something wrong with me as a person. Maybe my personality was somehow off putting, or perhaps I just wasn’t physically desirable enough? I held onto this self doubt for an unfortunately long time, until I started to see people actually taking an interest in me, at least on some level. This didn’t happen often either simply because I’m such an introverted and asocial person. I don’t go out very much, and therefore I have few opportunities to meet new people. But when it did happen, I started to notice a different problem. It was me, not them, but not in the way I had originally thought.

I met people who would get a tick mark on every item of a hypothetical “traits I look for in a significant other” list. On paper, they seemed absolutely perfect for me. But when I stopped and let myself just feel instead of think, I realized something: I just had no feelings for them. Any of them. They were fantastic people, but I drew a blank on the crush card every single time. It was like I had somehow flipped a switch and was no longer able to feel romantic affection for anyone. Not even a simple crush - that first fluttering of giddiness you get when you fall for someone, familiar from my younger days - let alone anything deeper. I was like an automaton when it came to romantic love. I didn’t feel like I could reasonably explain this to anyone (outside of a novel like the one you’re currently reading - hang in there!), so I’ve just basically given up on trying to find someone. If it does ever happen, it will likely be by pure chance instead of from me taking the initiative to meet someone new.

I can think of a couple of reasons why I ended up having this feeling - or, more precisely, a lack thereof. The first one is that I may have subconsciously just shut myself down and built up metaphorical walls around the part of me that used to get attracted to people, due to how often I’ve been upset by crushes in the past. Maybe I’m employing some kind of self defense mechanism without consciously even trying.

The second reason is something I have discovered more recently, and it has more to do with hard science than the first. I’ve been on SSRI medications since I was nine years old due to some mental conditions, namely Tourette’s Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. My conditions are severe enough to warrant regular medication, and the medication I take did use to help me in the early years. But recently I have read about neuroscience and the effect SSRIs have on your brain chemistry, especially the side effects that they may cause.

One of the most common reported side effects of SSRIs is a dwindling of one’s sexual drive. Curiously, I haven’t experienced this, but as I described above, I have experienced and continue to experience something very similar. There is a difference between purely sexual and legitimately romantic attraction, as most people would assert, and I have stopped feeling the latter. I decided to read up on exactly what SSRIs do to one’s brain chemistry in an attempt to understand the issue better.

What they do is restrict serotonin - a chemical present in our brains - from being reabsorbed by neurons (brain cells), leaving you with more serotonin in your brain. This increase in serotonin can alleviate the effects of mental conditions such as mine, as well as depression. The problem is, while SSRIs increase serotonin levels, they simultaneously decrease dopamine levels. Dopamine is another brain chemical, and I learned through my research into the chemical processes behind feelings of love and attraction that it is extremely important. Dopamine plays a huge role in sparking that initial attraction to someone - in other words, it helps you form a crush on another person. My dopamine levels, after taking SSRIs for 18 years, must be well and truly smashed into the ground and stomped on.

I suppose the reason why I’ve only recently been having this side effect has to do with my hormone levels balancing out. As a teenager, perhaps my cocktail of strong hormones was enough to overcome any dopamine reducing effects of my SSRIs. But now that I’m an adult, those hormones have calmed down and left me feeling the way that I do now.

To conclude my foray into my real world love life, I will quickly outline the primary reasons why I continue to be eternally single, as far as I understand them:

1. A simple one: I don’t get out much. As I stated, I’m very introverted and rather asocial, so I don’t meet many new people. Statistically, this clearly lowers my chances of meeting someone.

2. I may have subconsciously shut down as a means to protect myself from further upsets, scared by how often I’ve been rejected by those I’ve had crushes on in the past.

3. My brain chemicals have been tampered with for many years by SSRIs, drastically decreasing my dopamine levels and making it much harder for me to feel romantic affection.

I should likely touch on another subject here briefly, just in case it is something that has come up in anyone’s mind. I am certain that I am not aromatic, considering how easily I felt romantic feelings for everyone and their brother in the past. I did for a brief moment ask myself if I could be aro, but I quickly dismissed the idea. I just do not believe it fits with me. Rather, I think that I certainly have the capability to feel romantic affection, but this part of me has been lost somewhere.

4. In Relation to Shipping

You may be wondering how this long tangent about my real world love life that I’ve brought you on relates to shipping fictional characters. A very good question! Now, I am finally in the position to be able to explain my shipping tendencies, having covered relevant (I promise) background information.

If you’ve ever heard a parent be accused of “living vicariously through their children”, you’ll have a good idea about the direction I’m going here. Sometimes parents who haven’t experienced everything they wanted to in their own youth will push their offspring to pursue a certain field or specific interest, hoping that they can get some satisfaction from watching their children live the parent’s own dreams. This is very similar to what is going on with me and shipping.

As detailed above - perhaps more than strictly necessary! - I have had a supremely difficult time finding a romantic partner. It is feasible that I am so attracted to fictional couples because they give me an opportunity to feel a tiny bit of the satisfaction a real life relationship might bring me. I basically channel their happiness into myself and find joy through that. I am so involved with some pairings which I support that I literally feel a palpable, visceral happiness when seeing them interact, akin to what I might feel when interacting with a real life partner.

This is also why I react so strongly to something negative involving a couple I like, such as them breaking up (if they were canon previously) or one of the characters starting to date someone else. It honestly feels as if I was having my own heart broken through breaking up with someone or seeing a person I have a crush on start dating someone else. I have been brought to tears by fictional relationship trouble as much as I have by real life romantic situations - if not more.

Is this healthy? I can’t say. I will admit to having done some extremely stupid things in the past after something went wrong with a ship I supported, but I firmly believe that such naivety is behind me. I still might have a good cry every now and them, perhaps have a piece of cake or a glass of wine in solidarity (comfort food/drink...best thing ever). But I have learned to move past ships being sunk, even if it does continue to hurt. Isn’t that what you have to learn to do in life, to soldier on even though you might still carry some scars from past upsets? I am still sad about some ships, and will likely continue to be for many years, if not for the rest of my life. But I have dealt with this sadness like an adult will continue to attempt to do so.

4. Conclusion

Naturally, another attractive aspect of shipping is simply that it’s fun. It’s enjoyable to delve into character’s relationships and watch them develop, and it helps fans feel closer to and more in tune with their favourite media. This is most likely something which is felt much more universally among shippers, and I am no exception to the rule. My reasons for being a shipper do go further though, as I have attempted to explain in this essay.

If you don’t understand shippers - or indeed, me specifically - that’s completely okay. Everyone can and should continue to enjoy media in whatever way is most satisfying to them, whether or not that includes shipping. But I do hope I have helped you understand, at least a little bit, why shipping can be so rewarding for some fans.

#shipping #shippers #long #essay #mental health #ssri side effects #love life

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