I had hoped to reach 10k, but I suppose we can't all have what we want...
Y'know, I'm not sure if leaving this place suddenly back in July 2016 was the first mistake I made, or if returning after about 8 months trying to pretend that I hadn't been absent for all that time was. I've tried to persevere with it over the last half year and feel like I belong here again like I used to, but I just don't feel that way any longer. Maybe I never did and I was kidding myself, which was why I left in the first place. That was certainly part of it back then. The rest of it is a lot of shit other people wouldn't remember or would outright deny that I can remember like it happened yesterday that utterly destroyed the confidence I'd built up on here.
But I was admittedly in a very bad place when I left, and I thought I'd gotten better. I thought I had a handle on my life, and that I could deal with being around other people again. Maybe I could even try making a few friends for once in my life. Like everything else, I messed that up pretty profoundly. But being here now especially is extremely damaging for me mentally, and I need to stop coming here before it makes me feel any worse than I already do. Because that's all this place does to me now - it makes me feel worse.
I can just hear the responses in my head too, have seen them numerous times over the years thrown at myself and other people - you're not trying hard enough, you don't engage with us, it's YOUR problem, we want you to talk, etc. And maybe it is an individual problem. But to have people tell you that, and push all of the blame - when it was never about blame, just a feeling that you wanted to express - onto your shoulders like you're doing something wrong to feel like this, and continually force their idea of negativity onto you when you're just trying to be honest about things, is pretty damaging.
It's toxic. It doesn't make you feel welcome at all - if anything, it just confirms what you were saying about yourself. You're not welcome, people don't want you here because they don't want to deal with you, and so on. You can say that it's also toxic to continually say these things...but when the same people who say that its toxic then turn around and say that oh, you can - MUST - talk about your issues to resolve them, where does that leave you? When you're not allowed to talk, but not allowed to say things either?
I think the long and short of it is that this is just not a place for everyone, and for various reasons I've fallen/been pushed into that category. This place brings me no joy any more, and I'm only here out of habit, because I have nothing else to be doing. It's time I started finding and doing things that aren't so utterly devastating to my mental health and frequently make me seriously consider why I'm still living if this is all there is for me. When I look at it from an abstract view I should have written this out months ago. I should never have NEEDED to write it out, because when I left in July last year that should have been it. I have done nothing but make mistakes on here since then and its time for me to do something right for the first time in months and leave.
So yeah, I guess that's it. For good, this time. I'll not be coming back after however many months pretending like I've changed enough to be here, because to do that I'd have to force myself to be something I'm not, and I'm done being a doll for other people when all it gets me is being abandoned whenever people get bored with me or decide I'm more trouble than I'm worth, when I don't do a good enough job at that.
For the first year and a half or so that I was here I had a lot of fun, and there were some good times on Discord too. But done is done, and I know that most people who read this either won't care or will be very glad to see the back of me. It's been a very long time since I had anything worthwhile to say, after all. I think we can all agree that this is probably the most positive thing I have ever said or done on this forum.
Take care of yourselves.