Hey everyone, it's been nearly a year since I last posted in this thread. I originally stopped because I was told that my posts were causing concern among my peers, which I don't definitely want to do, but I once again find myself in a place where I want to be able to just get all of my thoughts out without feeling like I'm imposing myself on others, burdening them with my issues and making them feel obligated to respond.
A lot has happened in the months since I last posted here. Probably the biggest change has been changing my name and therefore my identity on here, PS, Discord, and just about everywhere else. I was never very public with the reason for my name change, but the reason was basically that, under my former name, I had a lot of issues, irl and not, and I saw changing my name as a way to leave behind a lot of the pain and trauma that I had undergone whilst identifying with the old one. A new start, a better me, all of that. And that has worked to an extent. Obviously you can't just make years worth of that kind of stuff go away with a simple shift in identity, but it has allowed me to compartmentalize a lot of the really bad stuff into neat mental boxes and put it away because that happened to a different person, not me, and I'm not going to let all of that rule my life anymore. One downside though has been that I feel like a huge pain whenever someone calls me by my old name and I correct them. I know that they're not doing it out of malice and that I went by some version of my old name here for four, almost five years, so I've kind of tried to do it less since I don't want other people to feel bad if they forget.
The other big change has obviously been my promotion to SMod and further involvement in Smogon. Last time I talked in this thread, I was just a PS Admin and Community Leader. Honestly, surprisingly little has changed in the transition between Community Leader and SMod, mostly since I'm doing the same work as a SMod that I did as a Community Leader, mainly handling user safety issues or evaders when they're reported to me. I've also gotten involved in other aspects of the community, most notably tour hosting. A lot of people ask me why I do it, and some tours make me question my sanity sometimes, but I've found that there are a few reasons I continue to volunteer for or accept hosting positions when asked: First, tour hosting keeps me busy. I like being busy and having stuff to focus on because it keeps my mind busy too and out of dark places. Second, it honestly doesn't take up a lot of my time. It's a few hours on a Sunday night/Monday morning and a few cumulative hours over the week, and I'm more than happy to offer up that time to help out the many communities around Smogon.
I have made an effort to be as open and friendly and approachable as humanly possible to everyone across both sites. I want people to feel like they can come to me for any issues at all, because when someone here was manipulating and abusing me, I didn't have anyone I could turn to or anyone I felt like I could trust, and I never want anyone to be in that same situation. But sometimes, and I know that I am extremely selfish for feeling this way, I look down my DMs list on Discord and see how few people actually come to talk to me because they want to talk to me instead of because they need or want something from me, and I wonder if anyone cares back. Obviously no one is obligated to care about me and I don't expect someone who is just PMing me asking for a custom avatar to be transferred over or an alt check to be done to care about my life story. But with my irl support system non-existent at this stage of my life, I think I can count on one hand the number of people I feel like I can rely on. Of course, my primary focus is, always has been, and always will be the safety and happiness of the sites' users, and I never want to dissuade people from approaching me about any help they need, so I just kind of keep that to myself.
Probably the last big thought that I find on my mind is of my own view of myself. It doesn't take a genius to realize that I don't value myself very highly. Those who know me on a close personal basis may know that I generally see myself as, well, kind of useless. No matter how many new ways I try to involve myself or how much work I try to pick up, it never truly feels like I'm doing enough. Recently, someone on one of the teams I'm part of told someone else that I "don't do much anymore," which really reinforced how I view myself and my workload here, since other people feel the same way. This also ties into one of my biggest fears: that I won't be enough, that everyone around me views me as uselessly as I view myself, and that they simply won't want me around anymore, as a member of a staff team or as a person. And this has led to some behavior that has been genuinely bad for me, such as handling a case where a user exhibited behavior similar to that of my past abuser by myself when I definitely should have asked someone else to take it over for me.
I know that was kind of a scrambled word vomit, and I'm sorry for how long it was. Really, I just wanted to get rid of all of that in a place where no one is obligated to read it or reply to it. I'm kind of lost as to how to escape my negative mindset since it seems to constantly reinforce itself.
Thank you for listening as always.
A lot has happened in the months since I last posted here. Probably the biggest change has been changing my name and therefore my identity on here, PS, Discord, and just about everywhere else. I was never very public with the reason for my name change, but the reason was basically that, under my former name, I had a lot of issues, irl and not, and I saw changing my name as a way to leave behind a lot of the pain and trauma that I had undergone whilst identifying with the old one. A new start, a better me, all of that. And that has worked to an extent. Obviously you can't just make years worth of that kind of stuff go away with a simple shift in identity, but it has allowed me to compartmentalize a lot of the really bad stuff into neat mental boxes and put it away because that happened to a different person, not me, and I'm not going to let all of that rule my life anymore. One downside though has been that I feel like a huge pain whenever someone calls me by my old name and I correct them. I know that they're not doing it out of malice and that I went by some version of my old name here for four, almost five years, so I've kind of tried to do it less since I don't want other people to feel bad if they forget.
The other big change has obviously been my promotion to SMod and further involvement in Smogon. Last time I talked in this thread, I was just a PS Admin and Community Leader. Honestly, surprisingly little has changed in the transition between Community Leader and SMod, mostly since I'm doing the same work as a SMod that I did as a Community Leader, mainly handling user safety issues or evaders when they're reported to me. I've also gotten involved in other aspects of the community, most notably tour hosting. A lot of people ask me why I do it, and some tours make me question my sanity sometimes, but I've found that there are a few reasons I continue to volunteer for or accept hosting positions when asked: First, tour hosting keeps me busy. I like being busy and having stuff to focus on because it keeps my mind busy too and out of dark places. Second, it honestly doesn't take up a lot of my time. It's a few hours on a Sunday night/Monday morning and a few cumulative hours over the week, and I'm more than happy to offer up that time to help out the many communities around Smogon.
I have made an effort to be as open and friendly and approachable as humanly possible to everyone across both sites. I want people to feel like they can come to me for any issues at all, because when someone here was manipulating and abusing me, I didn't have anyone I could turn to or anyone I felt like I could trust, and I never want anyone to be in that same situation. But sometimes, and I know that I am extremely selfish for feeling this way, I look down my DMs list on Discord and see how few people actually come to talk to me because they want to talk to me instead of because they need or want something from me, and I wonder if anyone cares back. Obviously no one is obligated to care about me and I don't expect someone who is just PMing me asking for a custom avatar to be transferred over or an alt check to be done to care about my life story. But with my irl support system non-existent at this stage of my life, I think I can count on one hand the number of people I feel like I can rely on. Of course, my primary focus is, always has been, and always will be the safety and happiness of the sites' users, and I never want to dissuade people from approaching me about any help they need, so I just kind of keep that to myself.
Probably the last big thought that I find on my mind is of my own view of myself. It doesn't take a genius to realize that I don't value myself very highly. Those who know me on a close personal basis may know that I generally see myself as, well, kind of useless. No matter how many new ways I try to involve myself or how much work I try to pick up, it never truly feels like I'm doing enough. Recently, someone on one of the teams I'm part of told someone else that I "don't do much anymore," which really reinforced how I view myself and my workload here, since other people feel the same way. This also ties into one of my biggest fears: that I won't be enough, that everyone around me views me as uselessly as I view myself, and that they simply won't want me around anymore, as a member of a staff team or as a person. And this has led to some behavior that has been genuinely bad for me, such as handling a case where a user exhibited behavior similar to that of my past abuser by myself when I definitely should have asked someone else to take it over for me.
I know that was kind of a scrambled word vomit, and I'm sorry for how long it was. Really, I just wanted to get rid of all of that in a place where no one is obligated to read it or reply to it. I'm kind of lost as to how to escape my negative mindset since it seems to constantly reinforce itself.
Thank you for listening as always.