RL Sads

[HorrorHound]

I'm not sad, per say...I'm...not sure what the word is.

I work high up, sometimes very high up. Not as high as I used to (such as outside of skyscrapers) but high enough (yet low enough) that I can still see and interact with the world. Hear it, see it, smell it - you get it. (By the way, none of you look up enough.)

I'm...not sure what I am. But I am a Thing, possibly negative.

I'm trying to hold on to things that matter, to put value in day-to-day routines and goals like every other sane person, except...I have a problem: I work high up. From my perspective, I can see things that make a lot of things just...not matter. Material ownership becomes almost pointless when you can see the city is literally falling apart from the rooftops in front of you, day in, day out.

Or that the area you're in is running out of horizontal space. That one is good. You can see the homes getting smaller because the space is running out.

Ohhhh, or the scramble of shoppers into the building that has a sinking roof, and vertical cracks in the foundation that no one knows about except you, the other inspectors, and the owner of the building.

I dunno what I am. But what I am, has made it very hard to give a fuck lately about a lot. From the top of a chimney I can see good things too, amazing things; beautiful views no one else gets because no one else bothers to climb as high as I do. I got to watch a proposal once, two streets over - that was cool.

But man, lately? My views have only made me question the value of things.

Rant fin.

[mietze]

Well it looks like my cousin's husband will either not pull through or if he does is going to have pretty significant damage to his body. They booted her out of the hospital on home oxygen but she is still not in great shape and was told to expect a long recovery. The kids are all out of the hospital though the oldest kid is also on home oxygen. Cousin is now endorsing some MLM essential oil blend as what's helping her recover from covid with no hint of irony or shame. So now she and her kids (surely hubby will not be mentioned) will be cited by people as "hey i know someone who got covid and says these essential oils helped them get better!!"

To some degree i understand, who wants to lose their enmeshed high demand community they've been a part of for so long. And it feels real good to be the success story about how you refused the mark of the beast, went through your tribulation, and survived.

And now it will be a relief to just not monitor it in any way going forward, now that I know the kiddos are not in danger of dying.

[Derp]

@mietze said in RL Sads:

And it feels real good to be the success story about how you refused the mark of the beast, went through your tribulation, and survived.

Then they failed to read the manual. You aren't supposed to survive refusing the Mark. That's the whole point.

[Testament]

I can no longer tell if I'm being distant from my online friends or if my online friends are being distant from me.

I have to physically restrain myself from asking repeatedly what I did wrong or how can I fix it.

Problem is, I haven't done anything recently to warrant that kind of question, as I've taken kind of a hiatus from most online presence, at least in regards to game playing. Even on my own game, I'm only doing things once a week.

But the absence of people I tend to talk to once a day hasn't gone unnoticed. But I have to remind myself that maybe just everyone is busy with life/work/whatever.

Still, I often wonder if I said something. Or something I didn't say. And it just becomes a vicious circle.

[Derp]

@testament said in RL Sads:

I can no longer tell if I'm being distant from my online friends or if my online friends are being distant from me.

I think this is really relative. For me, online friends remain online friends, but if we aren't actively playing together or on a discord server somewhere, or here, then it might be a year or more between chats because I will just get tunnel vision and flat-out forget to check in.

It's not that I don't care about them. I very much do, and would still consider them friends. But there aren't any flashy things or warning bells or whatever telling me to make sure to stay up on my contacts, and most of my social stuff is done through just random interactions on channels or whatever, rather than me trying to reach out to them specifically.

I have two friends in Michigan, one I talk to regularly, and one where we don't talk as much now that we aren't actively playing together anywhere. But I'd still go to bat for both of them in a second and I've got the gas to drive to their respective houses should something go terribly, horribly wrong and they need a friend for something. Because they've absolutely been there when I needed one. The one I don't talk with as regularly isn't less close than the one I do talk with. I just consider us less chatty than we used to be because we aren't in a space where that chatter comes organically to me.

[Misadventure]

I read something saying that some folks don't have the same sense of decay of the value or intensity of a friendship over time. That's how I feel, whether it's mixed, negative or positive.

Maybe more people who make friends online are like this, or maybe they stand out more over time.

[Derp]

@misadventure said in RL Sads:

I read something saying that some folks don't have the same sense of decay of the value or intensity of a friendship over time. That's how I feel, whether it's mixed, negative or positive.

I am definitely one of those people.

High school friend that I haven't talked to in twenty years? Doesn't matter. We're still buds and I will act as such.

[GreenFlashlight]

@testament said in RL Sads:

I have to physically restrain myself from asking repeatedly what I did wrong or how can I fix it.

Not for nothing, but I've always had the best results when I just ask if we're still okay, instead of letting myself spiral into certainty that I have been abandoned again. The other person almost always feels the same way.

[Kestrel]

@misadventure said in RL Sads:

I read something saying that some folks don't have the same sense of decay of the value or intensity of a friendship over time. That's how I feel, whether it's mixed, negative or positive.

big mood.

I'll be honest it kind of broke my heart recently when someone told me that I'm their oldest friend because usually they have a tendency to move on from social ties and circles over time — and that this realisation makes them feel we're likely coming to a close soon, too.

Now I'm subconsciously pulling back because of how much that hurts and I can't relate at all. I don't move on, when people genuinely mean something to me it's more of a forever kind of feeling unless there's serious conflict or a change in values that makes it start to feel unhealthy. Even then, for me, it's hard.

[HorrorHound]

@testament said in RL Sads:

I can no longer tell if I'm being distant from my online friends or if my online friends are being distant from me.

I just have ADHD, homes. Time is an ocean, and I am flying upside down, staring at that floating eyeball speck.

[LittleLizard]

Everything makes me sad right now.
Having social anxiety and being exposed to CNN and/or the weather channel these last few weeks has been exhausting.

I'm fighting my social anxiety to reach out to make sure people I never contact or page or talk to ooc are safe.

[eye8urcake]

My daughter's boyfriend/fiance, someone we all love and think so highly of killed himself yesterday morning after a brief struggle over a firearm during which my daughter tried to disarm him and failed. He was very important to all of us, but obviously she's utterly shattered right now and his mother my heart literally breaks for given their whole story. This is making me take stock of pretty much everything in my life and I'm stepping back from a lot of things to do that, especially online.

I don't usually do big 'I hope you miss me, farewell, cruel world' type posts, even in games/communities I've been super active in for a super long time but I'm kind of making one right now not because I want attention and to make sure people miss me, but because I want to leave expressing my gratitude to this community for having helped provide discussion, debate, and anecdotes to me time and time again that have helped me analyze, decide and deal with things.

I see a lot of people here referring to this WORA thing, and making comments about how horrible and toxic it was and how this place is in some measure that place, but that's not been my experience here and I didn't want to go without saying that. I'm hoping this doesn't sound stupid, but so many of you are so open about communicating your thoughts and feelings about things and I wanted you all to know that someone appreciates it and feels that, overall, being a part of this community has been beneficial to me.

Thank you for that. I'm not someone who asks for help very easily, and I'm the person in my closest circle who is always expected to have the answers, and act, and be the impetus for everybody else acting, and appropriately, in crises and having people here who have been willing to share what they learned from having been in the same or similar situations has been absolutely cathartic and invaluable to me on the times when I had to come here to talk about those things.

That said, it's time for me to go, for reasons, and I'm going to leave on the above positive note with a public request to Ganymede to please ban me.

[GreenFlashlight]

@eye8urcake I can't even find words for how horrible that situation is. You have my deepest condolences. I'll miss your perspective here very much, but I understand, and I hope this change is helpful to you.

[Roz]

@eye8urcake Jesus. I am so, so sorry, for you and your daughter and her fiancee's family and anyone else who cared for him. I lost my brother to suicide almost a decade ago, and the things I didn't say were enough for intense guilt. I cannot even imagine how even more horrific it would have felt going through the experience your daughter has. I wish I had words that could help more. It's just awful. Please take care of yourself and your daughter as best you can.

[Carma]

This post is deleted!

[Derp]

@eye8urcake

I'm sorry that you're going through that.

We're still here if you ever need us for anything at all.

[Lotherio]

@eye8urcake

You take care of yourself and your family, you know how best to do that. You've been appreciated here as much as you appreciate the community. I know I'll miss you around these parts, but you'll be in my thoughts. Definitely focus on you/you're family and I'll be one of those here if you ever decide to come back, I'll be here if you find something better that's not here just the same. But focus on you and yours. Best of luck to you, been close to similar a few years ago, you do what you need to do.

[Ganymede]

@eye8urcake

When you’re ready, you know where we are.

Your request is effective immediately.

[Mr.Johnson]

Every couple of months like clockwork I vomit up a lot of blood and the doctors have no idea what's causing it. It makes me really scared and depressed because I've got no idea what's going on or how to fix it.

[Sunny]

I am covering for a friend at work, publishing a newsletter on the day off. Reviewing said publication before sending it out is how I just found out another one of my work buddies died yesterday (while we were closed for a funeral). I am so tired of being surrounded by death.