Self Care For a Fandom Rotted Girl

I was going to wait until I set up my profile with all the cool stuff first but I can't wait to get what I've been feeling for weeks off my chest. 

Although I've never been formally diagnosed with anything (and to be honest, I have no interest in seeking diagnosis because I fear being discriminated against), I have a strong suspicion I am neurodivergent in some way. I have accepted that I am intrinsically different from the rest of society, therefore I have to navigate it in a way that is different than everyone else in order to appear functional like the rest. 

Although, that tangent is only partially relevant to the core of what I wanted to discuss, I just wanted to give a bit of context to why I am so vexed. 

In about a week I am going to attend university, thus I Need To Get My Shit Together. I've always struggled with taking care of myself, even in the simplest ways and lately I've become utterly determined to change that. I've been trying to develop an all encompassing system that I will actually use and benefit from. Currently, I have developed a binder with coloring pages (I've always liked cute, often childish things so I thought it would help to encorperate that into my self help system,,,), each page is dedicated to a task that I must complete daily (for example: washing my face), each section of the image is labeled with a day, I get to color it when I've completed the task. If I don't complete the task I must leave it blank so when I finish the image I can see how many days I was unable to do the task (I hope that made sense).

The downside of this system is that the binder is somewhat big and not very portable, making it very easy to forget to color in a section to mark a task as completed, especially if a task requires me to move to another room to complete it. I decided to try and create a system on my phone since it was smaller, and easier to check than my binder.

I stumbled upon a tiktok from a yumeshipper who made custom notifications to make it seem like their f/o was messaging them, and reply with premade messages. I'm not a yumeshipper myself (and I may hold the tiniest bit of distain for them, but nothing truly hateful) but the idea of having a fictional character message me, telling me to take care of myself, asking me how my day was and having an option to reply back, even if it yielded a premade response was utterly intriguing and desirable. I wanted a system of notifications of my favorite characters telling me to wash my face, brush my teeth, sleep, stretch, do my work, I wanted it to seem like somebody was taking care of me even though it's just me. 

I searched for tutorials to achieve this and saw that apps most people use are only available on Apple, I am an Android only user (sorry to disappoint, Apple fans!) so the only apps that I could find to use for this purpose was Macrodroid and Yumeshipper. 

The Yumeshipper app is geared towards yumeshippers, it had sections where you could write about your f/os, create profiles for them, etc. but it also has a feature to make notifications, but you aren't able to reply back which is what I really wanted. (Also while I was looking at tutorials about this app on tiktok people were talking about some controversy with the developer? I never found out what it was,,,)

Macrodroid seemed exactly what I wanted it's relatively complex in what you can do and customizable enough for what I wanted to do, but it had a paywall. You could only make 5 "Macros" and would only have access to the app for a week before you were hit with a paywall for a premium one time purchase. I pride myself on having never spent anything on an app, so even though I desperately wanted and knew this could benefit me, I gave up.

I gave up for weeks until I decided to try one last time before forcing myself to abandon it completely. I researched how to pirate an app (shhh don't tell the cops) and found out somebody had a version of Macrodroid with the premium unlocked for free! Huzzah! I downloaded it and surprisingly it wasn't malware (I Cannot Stress Enough That You Should Not Download Random Shit From Random Websites). I've had it for a while now and messed with it a bit. Maybe I'm just not using it right or what I want is too complex for the app's capabilities but I haven't figured out how to make interactive notifications how I want yet. 

This is not the end of my journey, I'm slowly figuring it out but I really want and need something in the meantime to fulfill the gap that I can't fill myself yet. I decided to look into self care apps.

I've tried self care apps before like Finch. I'm sure you've seen plenty of ads for this but if you somehow haven't or never paid attention to the advertisements it's a self care app where you complete tasks to get points to help take care of a virtual bird. You can decorate its house, give it outfits, do self reflection, basically you're tricking yourself into taking care of yourself using a cute little pet game. I see why others like it but its simply not for me, I don't like how bland the art style is it's simply too shallow for me. What you do or don't do doesn't really affect your pet. It doesn't get happy when you buy it things, sad when you don't do your tasks, it wasn't as interactive as I wanted. 

Another app I remember trying is Voidpets, I actually remember seeing it in some of its early stages online before completely forgetting about it, it was pretty cool to see it finalized though! I had almost the opposite problem with this app, there was too much game. From what I remember there were options to do self reflection stuff and a larger section just to play what was essentially off brand pokemon. There really wasn't too much in terms of self help yet there was so much to do in the game section it barely delivered on the main premise. 

I'm pretty sure I tried more than these two but I doubt I spent more than a day with them if I can't remember them in the slightest. Please don't let my experiences affect your relationship with these apps or discourage you from trying them, as I've already explained what works for me is vastly different from what works for the average person. 

After reflecting on my experiences with these apps I realized I was trying to shove myself into that box again. I knew these apps were made generic to appeal to the average person yet I kept getting frustrated that I wasn't able to stick to them long enough to reach any of my goals and actually improve how I care for myself. 

I found an omegaverse productivity template.

If you don't know what the omegaverse is the door is over there, we're clearly too different. (just kidding I just won't explain what it is it here)

I was randomly scrolling online and found someone (Ashlynn.Aspires) created a Notion template where you are an omega, in debt to an alpha. It's fully customizable, you can set a money goal and tasks that are worth different amounts, change the pictures of the alpha and omega, etc. The amount of money you have determines if your alpha is mad at you or not. It's pretty simple, nothing too complex or crazy but it struck a cord with me (seriously, if this sounds appealing to you in any way I encourage you to check it out, it's free). I loved it, and I knew I needed more like it. 

I found an app called "Self care Vampire"

I was scrolling on Instagram at like 5 in the morning and saw an ad for this app. I immediately downloaded it, I didn't even finish watching the ad. The story is that you're a human running through the woods and must seek shelter in a HOT vampire's mansion in exchange for your blood. Unfortunately, your blood tastes terrible and now you have to do self care tasks to make your blood sweeter for him. 

I cannot describe to you how much I adore this concept. It checks all the boxes for me. A silly premise that keeps me coming back? Check. Customizable tasks? Check. Visual appeal? Check. Game like without too much game? Check. 

Unfortunately for me, this app is in early access and as it is, you can only set 5 tasks, which is way to little for what I need. I know I'm definitely coming back to it when it's fully developed (but again, I seriously recommend you check it out if this sounds interesting to you) but I STILL need to fill the void until it is!!

With these two applications giving me hope that there's something out there that could work for me, I started to look specifically into anime themed self care apps to which there is surprisingly little. 

I found an app called "burn your fat with me" where anime girls encourage you to work out, I haven't messed with it too much but the energy is on point (there is also a male version, ladies). 

Most of the few apps I found are very surface level, aesthetically vaguely "anime" themed and are functionally the same as the other self care apps that don't work for me. The apps I've mentioned are the only ones that truly encapsulate what I want mechanically and visually. 

I feel like I am going crazy trying to find something that will actually help me. Don't get me wrong, I haven't only searched for apps, I've been working on things to add to my binder such as a visual schedule so I can combine online and offline systems to keep me in check. Honestly, none of the routines I've tried to establish have worked. It makes me think that I am beyond help, that I won't ever find a "perfect" system and I will be stuck in this cycle of self destructive habits.

Does my plight make sense? Can you understand how deeply I need something that appeals to the girl that has been within the world of fandoms for her entire life? Can you tell that I've been beaten down by all the things I've tried that never worked no matter how hard I try? I know I'm yelling a bit into the void with this one, it's a bit of an odd problem to have.