Curry Zawa Kaoru's Creative Counseling - "I think one of my mutuals has me muted." That might be a kindness.

We should start by blaming Elon. X’s algorithm has been tainted due to Elon's mental breakdowns, and even mutual follower’s posts aren't displaying properly, making them easy to miss.

I know you didn’t mention X, but if you’re an artist using any other social media, the only viable explanation is because Elon sucks, so it’s his fault regardless. We can blame Elon for all these terrible things because there’s no way to prove it isn’t his fault.

But people who create things tend to be imaginative. So imaginative, in fact, that they're all scatterbrains who can't control themselves. So telling them not to let their imagination run wild is just unrealistic.

On the other hand, it might be a better idea to allow yourself to imagine the worst for a bit, rather than trying not to think at all. Even in your imagination, there's only so far you can go. You’ll either end up at “I can't ask them!” or “I can't kill them.” It might be wise to run a bad-imagination speedrun all the way to the end to help yourself switch gears as fast as possible.

But if you fully explore every bad possibility, yet find yourself imagining different routes again and again, trapped in an endless cycle of “Let’s play again, don!”... You might eventually decide you want to kill them after all, and that's kind of a serious problem.

If you don't have a way to find out the truth and the negative thoughts won't stop, there's not much you can do... but at the very least, try to stop thinking of all the possible reasons you might have been muted and, most of all, stop blaming yourself.

Even if you are muted, consider that it might be because of circumstances beyond your control—that it isn't you, it's them.

The most likely possibility is that you've been caught up in someone decluttering their timeline. 

Hearing that might make you feel down. It may sound like they've decided your connection is unnecessary. But that isn’t the case. It’s not about removing you from their life—it's purely about decluttering their timeline.

If they truly wanted to cut ties, they would unfollow or block you instead. Since they used the mute feature, I think that means you haven’t made a mistake or offended the other person, and they don't necessarily want to sever the relationship. It's simply a case of personal preference that they don't want a certain person’s posts appearing on their timeline.

Even though I think X is the biggest waste of time this century either way, I sometimes find myself wanting a streamlined timeline only filled with information I need right now. When I switch fandoms or interests, posts and information from my old fandom friends sometimes feel unnecessary. But if I unfollow them, they might take it personally, so I choose to mute them instead, hoping they won't notice.

While you might be hurting over suspicions that an old friend has muted you, they might be hurting even more. When you're emotionally distressed, things that grate on your nerves feel even more annoying, and you feel anger toward everything you see and a sense of inferiority.

To be honest, I've muted fellow industry members I was mutuals with more than once or twice, for a reason I can’t deny the pettiness of: They started selling well.

Why does hearing about others' success hurt? For me, it was obviously because I wasn't selling well myself. News about media exposure or breaking sales records was painful enough on the best of days, but when I was struggling, even a single mention of the word reprint was enough for me to mute someone.

Did I think it was wrong for them to get all famous and successful without me? Not at all. It was just jealousy, pure and simple, that had me muting their updates about their success to avoid pointless resentment.

Similarly, your friend might be in a bad mental state right now, and seeing your tweets about enjoying other interests or works that seem better than theirs might have made them feel bad. You might not think you're posting anything special, but if that's how they felt, there's nothing you can do about it.

Assuming it's your fault is, in a way, a self-centered way of thinking. The other person has their own thoughts and feelings, and frankly, their own reasons for thinking “screw you.” So it's better to assume being muted isn't your problem, but theirs.

Fundamentally, when you choose to mute someone, it’s not something you want to be noticed. Whether they’re trying to do you a kindness or not is unclear, but it's obvious that they don't want to cause trouble. The fact that you somehow noticed this and are hurting over it is unfortunate for both of you.

How did you even realize you were muted in the first place? I'd like to know myself, but asking would probably just make me paranoid about people muting me too, so I won’t.

↑ Feel free to send your troubles in languages other than Japanese, too.