Hi everyone! It’s been a long time since we chatted about mental health — probably since I mentioned I was seeking treatment for an eating disorder back in November.
I’m happy to report that I’ve completed the PHP and IOP portions of my recovery and am now in outpatient. It’s been a wild ride filled with challenges and successes, but needless to say I’m very proud of how far I’ve come.
One of the struggles I faced continually was body image issues and something called mirror checking, which is exactly what it sounds like. For me, this primarily centered around my stomach and insecurities there. People usually met this struggle with posting mantras or quotes next to the mirror as a reminder to overcome those urges, but because I live with other people with a shared bathroom, this wasn’t an option that was available to me.
Here’s what I decided to do: buy a lot of pins, preferably funky ones about anime and video games.
I would wear one pin each day, and every time I went to the bathroom, my eyes would be drawn to the enamel pin, rather than my body or what I looked like. In fact, because the pins were of something I enjoyed, I began to associate the mirror with positive things. I was able to look past my insecurities and focus on the fact that my body is the least interesting part about me. My passions and hobbies are what make me unique — they’re what make me, me.
And I started to remember that I’m a pretty cool person, all things considered.
I don’t necessarily need the pins anymore, but they serve as a reminder of how far I’ve come. Plus, I just like wearing them. Nothing says “talk to me about anime, pls” like wearing some Jujutsu Kaisen pins, lemme tell you. Here’s what my collection looks like so far:
But where did I get all of these funky pins? Mostly Etsy.
One of my go-to shops is Lion Heart Pins. All of my Haikyu!! pins came from there, as well as Yato/Hiyori rainy day pins, the four Jujutsu Kaisen mosaic pins, both Yuri on Ice!! pins, the A Silent Voice pin, and the Kamisama Kiss pin. Also on Etsy: Yato’s shrine came from Resadent Evil. The two Jujutsu Kaisen pins in the bottom-right corner came from Hanabi Corner.
Banafish pins came from Crunchyroll and the Killua pin came from RightStuf. All video game pins I purchased from Fan Gamer. They’ve got a lot of video game merchandise in general, and it’s worth taking a peek at their collections from time to time.
I hope someone out there finds this post helpful, or at the very least, gets them inspiration to start an anime pin collection.
Take care and watch on, Annieme-niac!
Annie
P.S. Did you know I’m knitting Yor Forger’s sweater from SPY x FAMILY?! Well, I am! Check out my twitch to watch my knitting streams, or join the annieme discord to see updates (and cat photos)!
Annieme 