it all started with 5/6 vhs tapes of blue's clues. at the end of each episode, the same closing cards were present. starting with the 1999 nick jr productions logo, then the silent buzz of the haybale, young me was terrified and would almost always hide whenever an episode ended. most of my memories are me being alone during these, which absolutely contributed to the "i'm not alone" part of the fear. face was the only thing that made me feel safe, and i always dreaded his final signoff before the credits, because it meant that the nice guy was going and left me at the mercy of the scary end credits people.

nickelodeon (more about that on the next section) has absoluetly played a large part in my phobia of closing credits, and i mean phobia in its true definition and not just "ooooh i'm scared of end credits :o!" the fear has absolutely affected my ability to function in the past, and has even driven me to sleep deprivation induced psychosis in mid 2023. if i think about the wrong thing while trying to sleep at night, i might not be able to sleep until i force myself to think about something else or turn on the tv. i have to have all of the tvs in my room either covered or turned away from me, for example my small magnavox tv sitting on top of one of my vcrs. it's turned towards the wall because i bought a sanyo plasmascreen at goodwill for $16, and have no use for the tv, thus turning it turned towards the wall because i don't need to turn it on and watch something whenever i feel like it (but i still need to hook up a vcr to the sanyo.) on the topic of me having vcrs and cassettes, i do not have my grandma's blue's clues tapes. they're long gone (to value village) by now.

NICKELODEON'S ROLE IN MY FEAR

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looking at this, you may be confused. "but rex, 3 of your favorite shows are nicktoons!" well, yes! through the power of my own exposure therapy i've been able to overcome my fear of nick (not the shows, just the credits) and it mostly consisted of getting hyperfixated on mlaatr and invader zim between the ages of 10-11 and watching them all the time. avatar, which is a newer fixation that i've only aquired around november of 2024, took multiple months for me to get around to being comfortable enough to let it play through. even then, when i get the chance, i still skip them. i usually turn something on when i go to sleep almost every night, and if i still have consciousness, i will get my sleepy ass up and skip the credits. however, and i feel this is notable, last night (as in the night before i wrote this) i think i woke up from a dream, and raised my head for no particular reason. i looked right at the big, orange splat apparent at the end of avatar's credits, and went back to sleep. i'm pretty sure that was the last episode on the disc as i think it went to the menu after that. anyways

for many years, and at least the first ten years of my life, the phobia of specifically nickelodeon was way worse than it is now. i've been able to kind of get over it, because what is my phobia without nickelodeon? like yin and yang brother

every nightmare that i've had in my life has been about nickelodeon (or at least... i consider them to be nightmares because i'm actually scared of them.) the latest one was when i was 12, and the prevelence of nick in it wasn't that heavy anyways.

DEALING WITH SOMETHING SO STUPID

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the fear has also lead me to become interested in end credits as a hobby. i like ripping logos from my dvds and watching compilations on youtube, as well as reading up on various logos on fandom wikia sites (at least half of them are maintained by what most of you may think about when the subject of closing credits autists are brought up.) HOWEVER i do need to be insanely careful with how i'm endulging in my interests. lights must be on, sanyo must be on, and i must make sure the scary people can't grab me from under my bed. all screens must be flipped over, turned away, or covered. i also need to make sure i don't see the wrong logo or another episode of psychosis regardless of if i followed protocol will occur. (really now that i think about it, i wasn't fully following protocol when mid 2023 occurred... monitor screen wasn't on/covered behind me.)

im still updating this stay tuned