...

Over the last few months, I've been tentatively exploring other options for similar communities in said creative space, in large part because of long held discomforts and doubts about the primary hubs I'd spent most of my time in. It's nice to have that option, and not nearly as intimidating: there's even a forum that I enjoy browsing, though I've yet to contribute post wise, since it's a slower, smaller, tighter knit space. With an anticipated rise in activity given the death of NaNoWriMo, though, I'm looking forward to participating more actively there to scratch that more formal, long form correspondence itch.

In having prepared in advance, and in more seriously considering my options- (there is, of course, the total hermitage of simply bunkering down and continuing to write in private with friends I've already made and who participate in our long running campaign, with a few potential heads I could scout and ask if they would be interested from previous conversations,) I do want to make one thing very clear: though hastened on by recent events, (which heavily feature emotional lability due to withdrawal symptoms: rapid, exaggerated changes in mood with expression of which may be elevated as compared to the person's mood, intense suicidal ideation that resulted in a near attempt and self harm, and recognition of those as being incompatible with staying in environments that already had a history of stressing me out) that this was a long considered stance, for the better part of a year, really. It's one that I've talked about repeatedly with close confidants and friends, brought up in therapy: and it is about as coherent and clear headed as I'm able to muster while dealing with side effects more commonly seen in brain damaged patients, though thankfully, temporary.

This isn't just a case of oh, the poor dear just so happened to lose their mind, it was something precipitated by a death by a thousand paper cuts, each incident in of itself difficult to swallow, but the resounding silence and inaction from those meant to safeguard their communities incredibly damning and disheartening.

One person reached out to me unprompted after a suicidal crisis, and it wasn't someone that I would have expected to, either. It's someone that I engage primarily with outside of the community context, which is what especially jarred me.

While ultimately, I do have experience navigating these situations- having walked away and not looked back after being covertly bullied behind the scenes by people who I had been friends with from ages 11 to 18, who I had considered my primary social circle, my family, even, for one- and, sort of funnily enough, one of whom silently condoned their actions, said and did nothing about it, and never mustered up the common decency to even give me an apology, though a few others did, mostly to soothe their own guilt and gnawing worries about the roles they played in systematically tearing me down at both a personal and creative level- weirdly, while the obvious example of the person I considered to be an older sister to me still hurts in a numb, vague way sometimes, it was the fact that one of the people with power in that situation who did absolutely nothing to intervene or even grant me the dignity of knowing so as to make my own decision on whether or not I wanted to stay around people like that- went on to become an indie games darling, contributing to one of the most popular games in the scene, years on. I still can't hear about the project without a sinking feeling in my stomach. So, while I have experience in handling leaving, it sort of is a weird sense of deja vu. It's a bit disconcerting.

Anyway- the same shock to the sense of coming to terms with how things have been for a very long time is a familiar, if unpleasant sensation. I had enough dignity about myself to make the decision to leave, back then- though it feels a little different, given how much more I contributed, this go around: no one could really say that I didn't give back more than I took, and if they did, it'd be a willful distortion of facts. Either way: I've been sitting faced with the same realities: though your absence won't mean anything in particular, and things will carry on- it ultimately might bring you more peace of mind, and the comfort of knowing that you aren't being dehumanized repeatedly, whether to your face or behind the scenes.

It was never about not wanting to stay. It was in deciding whether or not it was unbearable to.

And while yes, ultimately, it remains my choice in the matter; it isn't something that I wanted to do. It was something I felt forced to do for the sake of my crumbling mental health in such a corrosive context.

I have endured bouts of suicidal ideation and attempts since I was 11. This is old hat. When you experience such devastation permeating your life at such a young, malleable age, it distorts a lot about your life: your expectations of continuing on, of seeing further into your future, of any accomplishments you'd be able to commit to, or finish out. I know this rodeo like the back of my hand, and I know that no matter what happens: I have been able to pull myself away from the brink, all by myself, over and over and over again: that ultimately, no one will love or support or be present with you as an assured, given thing: and it is your job alone to take on the work of caring for yourself, because people do not care.

And if any of that distress feels uncomfortable, or grating- well, it was far more uncomfortable to experience, than it would have ever been to listen: something of course, people are loathe to do, anyways.

It isn't untrue that by and large, no one would have done anything, or said anything. One person did, unprompted. One did have a conversation with me after I reached out, and two others offered a passing line of condolences. Had I been slightly weaker in my resolve, had I not had years of experiencing that sort of gut wrenching agony and a desire for it to all end, rooted in the knowledge that my death would be ultimately, meaningless, and be forgotten, smoothed over into a comfortable story that obscured the facts of the situation and made palatable even in my defenseless death to the very people who pushed me towards wanting to die in the first place: I would have probably gone ahead and killed myself through a Tylenol overdose: slow, painful, unrelenting, once the liver shuts down.

Of course, I do appreciate the people who did listen. I don't feel as if I'm owed, or entitled to, that sort of compassionate care, because ultimately, it remains in my hands to look out for myself: no one else can ever be entrusted with that even in part, as people have shown time and time again. The safest way to be is to be alone. And that's miserable, and that's tinged with its own form of despair and agony, but at the very least, you know where you stand, and you know what you will do when it comes down to the wire.

I do think I was a little disappointed by the utter lack of response, though. It magnified some of the issues I've been chewing on for months, years- and it made it extremely clear to me, once more, how things stand. So, that's alright. I've been here before. I know how to move on, and how to take care of myself, even when I resent the task, even when I am steeped in self loathing: even when the compassionate, loving thing to do feels like ending my unrelenting years of mental and physical agony. But I hate myself just a little too much to grant myself that intense relief from that pain- and it isn't the healthiest perspective, but it's one that works just well enough to keep me alive at rock bottom, a baseline while scrabbling around for other things worth living for: coffee, and painkillers, and kittens.

So no- I'm not going to kill myself. Not over a community that remains intensely indifferent. Especially not when I'm working with the same capacity as someone with literal brain damage to the portions that rule over emotional responses and rational thinking. No good decisions were ever made while in absolute pain, because cornered animals can't think longterm.

But I certainly have been driven to that brink. My choice ultimately not to, is not the doing of any one other than myself.

In the meantime- time away from spaces that have scraped away slowly for months at a time, and exploring other venues to invest more of myself into, are likely what I'm going to continue doing. It's not out of a desire to. It's more or less because I have to, given my recognition of what it's all done to me.