Fandom School (3rd period): How To Deal With Feels

Settle down, students- it's time for Fandom School. This week's topic: feels. A while ago, I wrote a post about what feels are and what causes them (note: while feels could be positive (I think?), in this post I'm focusing on negative feels, as those are the ones you have to deal with). Now, I'm going to go into detail about what to do to deal with all the feels that are an inevitable part of a fandom.

1. Remember that feels are inevitable. When you join a fandom, there will be things that make you cry. Some fandoms are particularly sad, while others will only have a few things that make you cry. All the same, you will have feels, so you need to be ready to deal with them.
2. Find people who share your feels. You need to find people who are in your fandom (click here to see my blog post about how to find other fans) who will be upset about the same things as you. This sets up the opportunity for number 3.
3. Commiserate. Don't be afraid to share those feels with others. As John Green said in "The Fault In Our Stars" (a great book that I wrote about yesterday), "Pain demands to be felt". (If you feel the need to break your friend's basketball trophies in order to feel that pain, be sure to ask permission first.)
4. Write (or draw, sing, etc.) about what's giving you feels. The Fault In Our Stars, the book I just mentioned, was written in a furious period of grief after Esther Grace Earl, a teenage girl who was friends with John Green, died of thyroid cancer. I'm not saying you should expect to write a bestseller because of feels (nor am I comparing feels from a fandom to somebody dying in real life), but sharing your thoughts can help you deal with the pain, and sometimes others might appreciate those thoughts.
5. Find something to cheer you up. For example, ice cream. Since I don't have a lot of real life friends in my fandoms, I have had many a virtual ice cream party (through comments on Google+ posts) to deal with feels. Whether your time together trying to deal with feels is online or in real life (except that online stuff is real life, so I need a better expression...), don't forget the shock blankets.
6. Find something to take your mind off the feels. For example, another fandom. Of course, that could lead to more feels... and depending on how obsessed you are, you might not be able to take your mind off the feels no matter what you do. That being said, spending all your time on something that makes you cry is not a good idea, so it's good to spend some time doing other things, even if you can't keep your mind off of the fandom(s) you're in.
7. Realize that it will never be "okay". Whatever fandom you're in, something sad will happen. If the writer(s) in charge of your fandom(s) are being honest, they will show that bad stuff happens. You're going to suffer, but you're going to like it.