Editor, Experienced player (848)
Joined: 5/2/2015
Posts: 696
Location: France
This post is pretty hard to follow because there's a lot to think about so my thoughts are not organised and laid out all over the table: sorry in advance. I also write this post very much like I would in French, so some ideas I want to convey may be lost in translation. So I am hypersensitive and a premature child. I live in a somewhat defavorized area (not sure how to word this in english). My earlier life, in college (which, in the french school system, is from 11 to 14) has mostly revolved around an odd sentiment, probably bred from the abuse and bullying I was being the target of at school: the idea that, to survive, it is okay to live only for yourself and to take advantage of others when you want. (After all, most of the other kids lived by this idea, so why wouldn't I?) Because of this, naturally there were two classes of people: the abusers, which had free reign over most and were effectively separate from the rest, and the abused. But even within the abused (which I was part of because I wasn't physically strong at the time), there's the same sentiment: each seeked to separate themselves from those who were 'worse' than them, even if they themselves were the victim of abuse. This led to a school environnement where nobody really tried to seek friendship, other than either for being praised, or for manipulation. Because I was new to this kind of environnement at the time, I got in a lot of manipulative 'friendships' which doens't help self esteem. There were very little people who understood the futility of this (and were very mature): I met three people like that, who I still am friends with to this day. Unfortunately, although those two friends helped me a lot, my toxic relationships also damaged me a lot (although I've recovered from them now). One of those was a group of LoL players which I joined: there your worth was decided by which rank you reached. (LoL is an online game with a ranking system.) In a way it seemed 'fair', just be good and you will be appreciated. I lost a year of my life this way playing LoL and quit shortly after I finished college. It was very dumb, because LoL is a game which, instead of respecting the player, treats the player like a piece of shit. Each game of LoL is a random team of five versus another team, and lasts 20 to 40 minutes: each match is ranked and whether you win or lose determines if you climb in your ranking or sink down. But because of the team nature, often some people felt the only reason they lost was because of their teammates, etc, and you would have a lot of people telling you you're a piece of shit, and insulting you, going back to the school environnement. Yet because I was seeking appreciation in school, I continued to play.. Sometimes the games went longer than expected, and I delayed eating by several minutes. If I gave up the game to eat, I often felt very bad; the game punished you severly for quitting (you couldn't play again for a while and lost extra points if I recall correctly.) And of course, because of playing a lot, I didn't work a lot (although I still got good grades because I'm premature and don't have to work 'as much'). So this game undermines your self-worth a lot, up to the point where you think your existence is linked to it. In a way it was a little ironic: once I got out of the six-to-eight long farce that was school, I went to the computer and subjected myself to more torture in order to be able to feel better about myself, and maybe be less alone tommorow. Ironically, when I was in college, in this state, I didn't fall into depression and want to kill myself: even worse, I felt it was all fair. There was this idea, that it was just the natural way of life, and that if you worked hard you would then deserve to be well treated, to be not abused anymore. Unfortunately I didn't have anyone to pull me out of this mindset.. I didn't have to worry about my abuse because I was just a "temporarily embarassed millionaire", and I would show them all when all my slavery and unending loyalty to the system well deserved hard work would pay off and I would have the right to treat people like shit and take advantage of them because I survived through former abuse, and then probably indoctrinate my children with that ideology. In the college where I was we all mostly knew most that we learned was really useless for later, so there was even more of an incentive to just do what you want. But to go back to toxic relationships, another one I had was with a girl who sat next to me in a certain class. Here women were mostly treated as objects of social status. Naturally, I wanted to get a girlfriend, and there was no better targets than the one next to me, who was pretty cute. When I look back, there was quite a lot of implied discussion about porn (although I didn't really "get the hint" in most cases, I still understood some). So to survive in college, a vague interest in porn and sexuality was required, because then we could tell ourselves that life is actually super exciting and everything is great, when in reality it's mostly bleak and we wouldn't even get close to doing what was in the exciting displays of porn. I think my 'love" of the girl that sat next to me also came from that. (I didn't watch porn at the time, and still don't; but the descriptions alone and the vague idea of having sexual relations with someone made it, even for an 'abused' like me who was denied of most things, exciting.) I didn't have any idea how to approach her, so my best idea, as someone forced into being shy, was to exchange papers starting discussions while we were in class (because I couldn't approach her otherwhise). Yet I didn't know who I was dealing with: this girl was by far the most manipulative and unstable person I know (and still know as of today.) In fact, my plan to approach her, was actually the opposite! This is important because I thought the decisions I made were purely because of my own accord, but I realised much later it was her that baited me into it. In a way, there was a giant red flag at the start: why would a well off person in college talk to an abused, a loser like me? The answer was that she was playing with several other, easily influencable men at the same time; me, one of the three good friends I mentionned earlier, and a guy I started to know which was her 'boyfriend". I was really into it at first, thinking I'd struck real love: we even got out and went to the same bus stations, and lived not too far away, saving myself from the painful thing known as "having to put effort in" - I could just manipulate her to love me! My actions were very rash, because for the very first time I thought I was above someone. I'd been abused all this time, yet I had someone who loved me (or so I thought) and I could just use her as I wanted, dropping a hint of affection every so often - that was my perception of love, from catching others boasting and mistreating their girlfriends. The girl in question, along with playing with three boys at the same time, had us mostly hooked the entire ride - except for my friend who got the whole picture halfway through. After that she tried to go out with him, and they were lovers for a whole four hours - before she spent an hour in class writing a letter of apology about how it's 'not gonna work out", presumably in the intent to hurt him a lot. When I asked what she was writing during class, she concealed it and lied about it - making me think this was maybe a strategy she was going to use against me later. She was also surprisingly good at keeping a straight face for fooling us. I was the one most affected by this of course - I went through all her hoops and jumps, and slowly lost the manipulative aspect; because I thought she really loved me. After a few months, I was completely struck, yet we had never even talked about liking each other, and nobody knew I even talked to her.. After this, it was time to hurt me: and I jumped through more bullshit, learned to dance her tango and put up with her ignorance about me one day, and sudden affection the other - because I think I loved her. This culminated, through some dumb turn of events I can only describe as expert engineering, to me stealing her phone on a school trip - I had a pretty good plan, but made a fatal mistake. This was the culmination of manipluation: I took an action I thought I took of my own accord, to only realise she was expecting this all along. When I had stolen the phone and went back to the dorms, two hours later, she went to where I was and looked in my eyes. Without any more communication, like being led by strings, I took the phone out of where I had hidden it, and gave it to her. On talking with the teachers, I later asked how they found out: they said the girl rung the phone and found where it was - which was bullshit, because it never rang since I had it with me the entire time! So I had been set up. By far the most frustating thing was the straight face she kept - always playing with you, making me ready to do the dance for her next trick, making me feel like I had a chance at ever escaping the abyss of losers - a glimmering light that led the peasants to dance, and me to feel hope to be better than the others. I was blamed by her after for stealing her phone: she did a single remark, knowing where my weakness lies, in a little irony in the train when nobody could hear, and it stung me for weeks. For me it was my fault, if I did this mistake I simply deserved it. And so this was the wierdest love I had for someone: a mix of raw hate, pure anger, combined with the tiring facade of love. We were in a hate relationship, coordinated by love on the surface, love that I sincerly believed in, yet I hated at the same time, and that she used to manipulate me. Never had I seen anything else than the straight face she kept to toy with me. I learned with some side invesigation that she used drugs often. And at the end of college, I felt like a victory - but looking back, it was a big waste of four years. I learned nothing but how badly people can treat each other, and how there is no bottom to the trapdoor of misery: you can always go lower, so does it ever end? More than anything, the whole construct I had going on with myself, the lies I told myself to keep going, were not applicable. I wasted four years playing nothing more than a card game where I hold no cards, and play the gester to get some crumbs; led on and able to do anything for anyone because I knew I just would be superior to them one day. By far the worst thing was that I was nice and hard working. In this dumb waste, I still believed hard in this meritocracy - isn't that the scariest thing? I worked really hard for no reason - I had nothing to keep me going, yet I kept going. Because my mom told me "you will get somewhere if you work hard". Because I believed in a better future if I spent my living hours dumbing myself down to repetitive learning. Nothing was of value, nothing mattered; work was dumb and repetitive - yet I kept going. Why? I never admitted to myself that life was unfair, despite all that I was living through. It was all the nature of man, and I was ever so insane as to think of an alternative: although I didn't ever think as to another because I was fine with what was going on. After all, you just have to work harder if you want to be rewarded, right? [Unfortunately my small story does not end here, but it's 1:30 and I'll type up the rest later..]
Experienced player (704)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1798
Location: Brasil
don't get me wrong but somehow i really enjoyed your story,you wrote it in a very engaging way and i guess i may have similar feelings,please take your time to write the next part
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Editor, Expert player (2329)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3933
Location: Germany
I had been a child with challenging behavior due to my autism. We have a playground right behind our house where the children in our little commune would go to all the time. At before 7 years, I was not able to make friends with other kids my age. I caused mischief, kicked other kids, kicked their sandcastles and stole their soccer ball and ran away with it. I grew extremely afraid of the playground that I wouldn't want to go to that place behind my house even today. Or anywhere in my town at all really. For a very long time I had been afraid of being seen by anyone, whether they remember me or not. I was a lonely child with parents that didn't really plan on having me in the first place and a sister who was 8 years older than me. With my sister I had a so-so okay supporting relationship. I had visited a child psychiatrist on a regular basis. I got enrolled in what is called Sonderschule (school for mentally handicapped children) for the first three classes. It was the first time I really got into contact with other kids. The female teacher would go against what had been the standing order at the time, and would pull us by our ears or even slap us. During break time there was almost always a battle going on. I can remember someone had raised me from the ground holding me on my throat with one hand. We beat each other with sticks. Very little guidance from the adults in that place. I later visited a day hospital for children and a school there that was under the same roof. I didn't really understand what was going on at the time. I did notice my mother became very serious at the time. I was threatened to leave my parents and live in a boarding school which I tried to avoid at all costs. Not much later I was enrolled in Realschule and a class later, in Gymnasium, due to my behavior improving and my potential. I was mostly accepted in class, but was unable to form any deep friendships. It was mostly a struggle just dealing with the school homework and exams. And a struggle during break time where fights were going on; we threw at each other with paper, bottles, chairs. I was the one often initiating it and the others picked on me more often than not. When I went home, first thing I did usually was to be at the computer, browsing Youtube or whatever caught my interest, eventually leading me to TASvideos. Later on I started spending most of my spare time on random animations or TASing. A girl had confessed her love to me, but I didn't really understand it at that time and she left me later. In my impression, she was someone who really just wanted to get in the bed with anyone. She started smoking. Prior to all this, I saw her crying over her bad grades and I blamed myself a lot for not helping her at all at that time. Things could have gone differently. My big sister has suddenly left the house and I only saw her for a little while afterwards. We kept in contact over email but this was the time when I became really silent in general. Then there was another girl whom I loved but never confessed to out of fear. I was so very different from everyone else, I was ugly and silent that I didn't build up enough courage. My grades worsened, and then there was an incident with me basicly fucking up a math exam. I had noted down the starting time wrong so I was an hour late, noticed it and panicked. I had talked with the teacher who was supervising us during the exam and turned in the exam early, but got the worst grade for it anyway. I became seriously depressed but everyone else in class never really noticed. My grades were unbearably bad that I decided to redo the class, so suddenly I stopped seeing everyone; my class mates I had been seeing for 7 years. I had a facebook account at that time to keep in contact. I told my sister via email about my crisis but then we never really wrote each other anything anymore. I had been seeing a psychologist but he didn't help me much. I just ended up waiting at home for next class to start half a year later, and after it started, things were like before; I was accepted but never really got in deep contact with others. There was one girl who was important to me as a friend, and I regularly went to a place with her to take private lessons. Finals came along and I finished school. Now in 2012, I suddenly was alone all over again. Facebook blocked my account because of my fake name. Since I didn't want to give my real name, I lost contact altogether. There was an accident shortly after, with me having a major seizure after I had looked at an animation on my computer. I felt motion-sick and couldn't read any letters for a week and for the next year, I had a recurring headache and became dizzy whenever I looked into bright light or projections. No neurologist or radiologist I visited could give me any diagnosis on this. I ended up just spending my time at home for a year and a half, alone. I started an education in computer science for which I had to move away and live on my own. I had diarrhea for about a month because I felt just so insecure and uncomfortable. Living on my own, I was not able to keep up a healthy standard. Just like had been the case in my room at home, now at that place trash was lying on the ground next to me, plates were stacked, fruits became moldy. At that place, I was even more alone than before since I didn't even have my parents around anymore. In the school, I had once again been in a class environment but without anything deep going on. I was still the same silent person as before. The female teacher who taught us Java was nuts and everyone agreed; The way she taught us was very unforgiving. This along with some other subjects made me struggle a lot. If I had to say which was the worst time in my life, then I would say this was it. Somehow I managed to make it through. The second year of the education would entail 1-year internship at any computer-based business. I started sending my applications a bit late, but in time to get about a dozen job interview invitations. No business wanted to take me in the end. Thanks to my parents looking for a business for me themselves back in my hometown, I could continue the education although I was not compensated for my work. Pretty much all my classmates were paid $500-$1000 a month while I got nothing. This was very frustrating for me and I was really unmotivated to work 8 hours each day for no gain other than a headache from sitting in a bright room and having to work down all the mostly pointless, monotonous and not even programming-related tasks given to me. My headache and eye situation worsened but we couldn't really figure out what it was. The school year and internship year have not been completely in vain, at least. I did learn a few things and met a few nice people during the time. By the end of the internship, I was somewhat burned out, but more importantly, hopeless and depressed again (like I had regularly been ever since my school time when my sister left). It was so bad, my parents urged me to interrupt the education to undergo therapy at a psychosomatic clinic. Over the course of three months, I had spent most of my time not on the computer anymore but in a "normal" living room environment with other people. Not very far into this time of my life, I got really attached (I didn't think of it as love yet) to a girl I had met there, although she was quite a bit older than me. She finished her own therapy and left so I was in a mixture of hopeless and heartbroken for quite a long time. She was an angel to me; there was so much kindness in that person that I decided to write her a long letter as a parting gift. I only saw her again a month later on the street but then we lost touch. It had turned out she was already in a relationship. Since facebook blocked me, I had always wanted to somehow get in contact with my former classmates. I tried calling and writing a letter to the girl I had 3 years ago taken private lessons with, just asking what she's been up to. I got a message from not even her phone saying she is not interested, but the way it was written made it feel like I was a stalker to her. I seriously didn't expect to get such a cold message back, and I was feeling frustrated about this for a long time. Soon after older girl I had felt attached to left the hospital, someone from the stationary part of the clinic switched over to the day hospital; a girl that I also fell in love with, surprisingly but for everyone else, unbelievably. She was a rash and puzzled young girl who was my age. The time I spent with her went to a point where there was something more going on than just a friendship, or so I thought. She did tell me at the time "year sure you can come by my house any time". Later on, since she was going to leave the hospital before me, I was trying to talk to her about how we keep in touch. She was very difficult to find access to, especially for me who struggled with social fear as it was. She was aware that I was attached to the girl that left before, so outright confessing love would have been unbelievable and strange. When I did get a hold of her and talked with her, despite what happened between us before, despite her "yeah sure", she said to me I'm not a friend of hers. I'm just an acquaintance. When she leaves, it's going to be over. She is going to move away in a few months anyway so what would be the point of trying to keep in touch. I was never so heartbroken in my life. I just started walking back and forth from the hospital that day and looked into the forest for what felt like hours. The final come together, where we usually sit together and talk about how we feel and what happened during the day before we leave for home - I didn't attend it. I continued just walking through the forest, the others found me but I walked by them. I sat behind the hospital in the yard until it turned dark until someone approached me two hours later and said I should talk with the senior doctor or whoever. He talked at me for a few minutes and I didn't say anything back except something along the lines of society just fucks you over no matter what you do. I ran out and into one of the hospital bedrooms and cried there for another hour before heading home by myself at night. That was when I started this thread. I earned myself a warning from the clinic, should something like this happen again I'm dismissed. I somehow recovered from all this shit. With the therapists I had been seeing during my hospital stay, I had mostly discussed my relationship to the two girls at school and the two girls at the hospital. It felt like I was wasting the precious therapy time on what I deemed was something rather trivial instead of trying to fix my life and my shitty lifestyle. My main therapist left and I was assigned to a new one, so I had to start at square one. I felt like he was worse; I didn't make much progress with him. In fact, I didn't make progress with him at all. By the end of my hospital stay, he gave me a few numbers and addresses I should call or visit. One place I had visited, I sat there in the waiting room for an hour until I decided to stand up and leave. The number and any other papers he gave to me, I never bothered with them because it was difficult for me to get it done. I expressed my dream to work at a kindergarten so after the clinic time I focused on finding a kindergarten where I could complete an FSJ. The one I had visited was a nature-based, outdoor one and so it was a really good scenario for me. I could be in the sunlight and exercise in the open air. I had never interacted with children before but slowly I could form a good friendship with all of them. I was attached to a few children especially, since they had something innocent and depending about them and I loved being there for them and guide them. It was good to have something to do every day as opposed to being at the computer and just passing the time with whatever. Looking back at it, it was the best time in my life. I was content and happy in my heart. The adults were mostly supportive to me although the female supervisor (whom I otherwise get along with nicely) was angry at me because I hadn't tried to look for a therapist, which was apparently necessary - although I can't fully remember why. The kindergarten staff had wanted for me to find a hobby and just do something outside of the kindergarten. Apparently I was feeling depressed at some times. The clinic-appointed advisor who guided me to this kindergarten in the first place has convinced me I could just do a 1-year regular and paid internship rather than the FSJ. So I ended up not doing the FSJ, but after struggling with the job center it turned out such an internship is not going to be financed by them. I got fucked over. And someone else, a woman a bit younger than me, came along and is now doing the FSJ. End of August this year, the female group leader left and a new one came, someone I could not get along with well. We had misunderstandings all over the place. I was frustrated to not get paid for my work and being assigned work not related to the children (such as watering flowers). In her eyes, the children were too much out of control whenever I did play with them (such as when I play catch with them). Eventually an incident on the 28th September led to me basicly getting thrown out without me understanding the reasons. All the reasons they ever gave me have been based on the misunderstandings, such as the group leader telling me to do something, and I pretend not to do it to mess with the children, and I actually do it but the leader thinks I'm not, or I'm not doing my work properly (the flowers had not been watered, although I had always watered them whenever I was ordered to do it). Since then, I could only go there on Fridays. A day before the incident, on the 27th September we had a festival and I was very happy to talk with all the staff and watch over the children that had come. On the next day it suddenly all turned into darkness and I'm left to wonder why they do this to me. Everyone I love and trust just fucks with me so I have again had suicidal thoughts. The time right after this "lock-out" was unbearable. I had cried, especially during the night because I kept dreaming of the children and how they want to show me something or wanted to give me something. It feels like they have died. I'm never going to see them again. I could never really make friends in my childhood and now that I can make precious bonds with people, it falls apart. It was unbearable at a particular night, that I had to wake up my father so he could drive me to the city hospital because I was seriously losing it. I was unreasonable. I stayed there, talked with people, went home by myself at noon. And the following months until now, I just somehow spent my time at the computer while feeling like shit and ended up going to the kindergarten on Fridays. My relationship to the staff had not completely broken. I talked about it with all of them and it is mended, more or less, but it's a disturbed relationship. I never was as carefree as I was before. I had been trying for them to give me a second chance and have tried to show them I want to do the extra tasks and be reasonable with the children. But they keep postponing and excusing, that I was considering leaving the place after all. But then I would be at home non-stop which would be even worse. I have tried finding alternatives, but only one other nature-based kindergarten invited me for a day. It went well and they planned for me to start working in December. In the middle of December, they called and took back their offer, on the note I talked with one of the parents too much (about my past and the current happenings and that I'm glad I can continue working in that kindergarten now). The parent I talked to, I had made sure it was ok for her to talk this much. She always signaled and said back it is fine, I was a nice guy, etc. I didn't understand the reasoning they gave me at all. The phonecall ended, and I was extremely furious. I had looked forward to working there and I can't because of another bullshit reason. People from my day hospital I had been meeting during monthly get-togethers would stop contacting me, so the get-togethers never happened or I was not informed on the details. A girl whom I was friends with, we planned on meeting but she kept postponing or just never messaged back. We ended up ending our friendship. The two therapists I had visited since the lock-out, one was not helpful and the other was an asshole. I'm basicly left at home since nobody wants to do anything with me. I dedicate most of my time luascripting, TASing or just passing the time until the Christmas holidays are over so I could get at least my one day out of the week back. Although, due to the postponing behavior of the kindergarten staff (and actually due to the lock-out to begin with), the only sane decision would be to stop going to that place. I'm not sure what's going to happen now. I had emailed my sister shortly after the lock-out, after 10 years of no contact, just asking what has she been up to. She was quite negative. She critized me for never messaging again after my school crisis. And overall she was non-personal, only giving little information on her life.
Editor, Experienced player (848)
Joined: 5/2/2015
Posts: 696
Location: France
I said I would finish this, but didn't really have the time until now. Up until now, my life in college had been nothing less than a farce, and it gave me some serious psychological problems which I still have trouble dealing with to this day. I want to kind of link this with how I found out about TASing in the first place. Perhaps my biggest problem is that I set out perfect expectations for myself. I got into a lot of high skill hobbies like this (like playing shmups). This comes from, I think, my desire to be recognized, to have some attention drawn to myself: displaying high or near-perfect skill was my way to try and get that recognition. But it also comes from my family. My family consists of me, my mom, my grandmother, and my uncle. My mom still lives with her grandmother because we don't have the means to move out. My mom used to sleep in the center room, where she was close to my uncle's room. But my uncle didn't really care about my mom at the time: he would play on his whatever-console at the time up until 2 to 3 am (and later on yell audibly, as he was playing online. This has been happening for as long as I can remember and was the start of my mother's destruction. She tried a few methods to supress it, including asking nicely, using ear plugs, and finally listening to audio books to fall asleep. But no matter what, my uncle was still hearable. They fought verbally. Gradually, over time, my mom and my uncle started to get on more and more verbose fights, lasting for longer. My grandmother was also kind of an enabler for my uncle, as she didn't really give a shit as long as it didn't affect her. And then the fights weren't about my uncle staying late, it was now about other things in addition, like telling her that she was a leech and a piece of shit, and so on. It escalated to its summum when I was at the end of college: they fought for two hours, and it ended with my mom pinning my uncle to the ground and trying to strangle him, which followed by my grandmother calling the police and my uncle leaving the house for a few days. While my uncle was walking out, my mom tried to kill him by throwing a rock at him (it missed). Since then my uncle doens't have internet access (which gets him to sleep earlier, depending on his degree of benevolence in the current day) and I've taken my mother's room because I was worried she was actually going to kill him one day. After all this, my mom didn't go much better. It was very gradual (over a couple of years, and still going on today) and she became much more angrier in general, and lost the ability to care. She still keeps the habit of listening to audio books before sleeping (which makes her very angry, as in yelling at me really hard, when I'm not able to get her music ordered right on her physical MP3 player - yet she keeps all her audio books unsorted in a single folder..) It's a little hard to explain, but she kind of shifted a lot of her anger on me instead. Basically I'm the only hope for her now (as she hopes I get a good job and miraculously save our entire situation) so I'm told to study hard and mindlessly to get good grades for now and a good job for later. I used to have a motherly figure that I could mostly always rely on when things went south, where I was not sure how to proceed, or simply needed some affection (which I relied on a lot since I had very little good friends in college). That figure faded away gradually and since I'm out of college, that figure doens't really exist anymore.So basically I don't really have much to rely on anymore. Going back, this is why I aimed for perfection. I wasn't able to see this and thought that to get back the love I had been denied, I simply had to be perfect, or something really close to that. Because when I wasn't, then I would get blamed by my mom, so it was my fault as I could simply improve and not be blamed anymore, right? On a tangential point, although I am trying to supress this logic today, it still comes back a lot when I don't expect it: a derived idea, the idea of being a perfect individual so that I don't have to withstand blame. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm hypersensitive, so for me it hurts a lot when I'm blamed. I don't mean blame as I can withstand criticism (which is pretty constructive for me) and can withstand all negative comments, but blame really gets through and eats straight at my heart. It goes somewhere along the lines of I could have avoided to have done [something bad], but now I've done [something bad] and it's your fault. I'll go more into detail into this as we go in lycée (the equivalent of high school). Along with this demon, was something else: the urge to fit in. I knew that keeping up a facade was useless, yet I kept hanging out with people who did not care about me, and I ignored their mockery about me, motsly because I didn't get it at the time. In fact I was physically there with people a lot in college, but got to talk so little at some points the extent of the words I said to my 'friends' were hello, and getting anything else in (usually related to videogames) was a blessing in itself. So I craved for affection because I was starting to be denied it, and I tried to be perfect because in my mind it was how it would get people to care about me. (It 'worked', and I got some people who were interested in my skills, then I then hanged on to those relationships as long as possible, in fear of being alone again.) When I entered lycée, it was a very scary environnement, because I knew nothing. I stuck to some faces who I knew from college, and they recognized me, so they slowed down, and I slowed down to stick with them. Then they told me to fuck off and sped up. I stuck to other familiar faces from college who wouldn't reject me, then got thrown into a class where I knew mostly nobody. At this point the same thing repeats: I get some friends, then hang to them for as long as possible. And I got in some toxic relationships again, where I would accept being trashed over and over in order to satisfy myself. In fact there was a guy who took advantage of this, mostly toying with me for the entire school year because he knew I would come back for more. And in my relationships, I made mistakes. And with the mindset I was in, mistakes were the worst kind of things to do, because they were things you could actually avoid. The people I were with in particular basically were in a completely different level from me (and I managed to butt in because I had good grades and was useful when they needed to do some homework) and so would know to blame me really hard. For example, I followed them when they were going to the forest to smoke some joints, and I found that the scenery was quite beautiful, so I took out my 3DS (with camera) to take some photos around. And then I had a kind of sudden realisation. These people I hung out with and really hated, couldn't I take a photo of them in the woods smoking and then do something with it eventually? So I suddently turned around and took a picture, then they mostly understood, went away from me, and faked going back to school but taking a different path (knowing I was going to follow them under mine). I followed back, went back to school and they went happily without me. This is the kind of "mistakes" I made: ones fueled by anger about my situation. I would say something out of pure hate, and they would blame me. And it would be all the blame of me, because it was my fault for even hanging out with them in the first place out of the fear of being disliked; I was a piece of shit and they had given me the honor of letting me accompany them, and speaking up was disallowed. Eventually, in the middle of the year, one guy from the group told me how and why I was a piece of shit, giving me examples from all my mistakes I made. And I tried to argue, but I couldn't argue against my mistakes because they were half mistakes and half anger. He told me, I cried in the back of the classroom, they called me a piece of shit for crying, and I couldn't hang out with them anymore. I spend the last half of the year geniunely alone, without anyone to talk to; the only things I said were to the teachers, and I didn't speak a single word out of the classroom. I still desesperately craved for affection, but now I was a piece of shit (and the guy's rebuttal made sense to me since I couldn't refute him, so I unfortunately believed him) so I didn't have the merit to have any friendships or affection. When I was back home I thought I had a source of love, something that could keep me going - but it wasn't there anymore now. In my opinions these were the darkest days of my life, and also the most useless. I can't remember anything that had actually happened within the last half-year of my first year of college. I hated myself, and the world seemed to agree that I was a piece of shit, so I was destined to be one. I would have probably killed myself here if it weren't for the fact that my mom told me to never killed myself (as I would totes have a better life later) which I believed fervently, and TASing! Unlike in the real world, in TASing you could actually be perfect. So all criticism was justified, and suddently the negative environnement of blame turned into something that could be geniunely refined into something beautiful and perfect. A full TAS is something you can really cherish in my opinion, because it's something you can really appreciate as a body of work. In my opinion, there is no greater feeling than destroying and mastering a game from inside out, and transforming and appropriating it to yourself (you can see this in good TASes, where the TASer masters and kind of expresses himself through the game). So TASing had made me goals to work for, something I could put constructive work in, and something where I could both enjoy something and express myself. It has mostly saved me from really killing myself, because if I could still create things like this, in spite of all my flaws, and that I though of myself as a piece of shit and so on, then my existence is worth it. I've probably rediscovered passion and joy through TASing, so that's why it still is pretty important for me. The means, in general, to work without pressure, as long as you want, on a single body of work, until it becomes perfect, while still giving the opportunity to really express yourself (I can't find a way to word this better..), is something that I can't find anywhere else.
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xy2_ wrote:
I said I would finish this, but didn't really have the time until now. Up until now, my life in college had been nothing less than a farce, and it gave me some serious psychological problems which I still have trouble dealing with to this day. I want to kind of link this with how I found out about TASing in the first place. Perhaps my biggest problem is that I set out perfect expectations for myself. I got into a lot of high skill hobbies like this (like playing shmups). This comes from, I think, my desire to be recognized, to have some attention drawn to myself: displaying high or near-perfect skill was my way to try and get that recognition. But it also comes from my family. My family consists of me, my mom, my grandmother, and my uncle. My mom still lives with her grandmother because we don't have the means to move out. My mom used to sleep in the center room, where she was close to my uncle's room. But my uncle didn't really care about my mom at the time: he would play on his whatever-console at the time up until 2 to 3 am (and later on yell audibly, as he was playing online. This has been happening for as long as I can remember and was the start of my mother's destruction. She tried a few methods to supress it, including asking nicely, using ear plugs, and finally listening to audio books to fall asleep. But no matter what, my uncle was still hearable. They fought verbally. Gradually, over time, my mom and my uncle started to get on more and more verbose fights, lasting for longer. My grandmother was also kind of an enabler for my uncle, as she didn't really give a shit as long as it didn't affect her. And then the fights weren't about my uncle staying late, it was now about other things in addition, like telling her that she was a leech and a piece of shit, and so on. It escalated to its summum when I was at the end of college: they fought for two hours, and it ended with my mom pinning my uncle to the ground and trying to strangle him, which followed by my grandmother calling the police and my uncle leaving the house for a few days. While my uncle was walking out, my mom tried to kill him by throwing a rock at him (it missed). Since then my uncle doens't have internet access (which gets him to sleep earlier, depending on his degree of benevolence in the current day) and I've taken my mother's room because I was worried she was actually going to kill him one day. After all this, my mom didn't go much better. It was very gradual (over a couple of years, and still going on today) and she became much more angrier in general, and lost the ability to care. She still keeps the habit of listening to audio books before sleeping (which makes her very angry, as in yelling at me really hard, when I'm not able to get her music ordered right on her physical MP3 player - yet she keeps all her audio books unsorted in a single folder..) It's a little hard to explain, but she kind of shifted a lot of her anger on me instead. Basically I'm the only hope for her now (as she hopes I get a good job and miraculously save our entire situation) so I'm told to study hard and mindlessly to get good grades for now and a good job for later. I used to have a motherly figure that I could mostly always rely on when things went south, where I was not sure how to proceed, or simply needed some affection (which I relied on a lot since I had very little good friends in college). That figure faded away gradually and since I'm out of college, that figure doens't really exist anymore.So basically I don't really have much to rely on anymore. Going back, this is why I aimed for perfection. I wasn't able to see this and thought that to get back the love I had been denied, I simply had to be perfect, or something really close to that. Because when I wasn't, then I would get blamed by my mom, so it was my fault as I could simply improve and not be blamed anymore, right? On a tangential point, although I am trying to supress this logic today, it still comes back a lot when I don't expect it: a derived idea, the idea of being a perfect individual so that I don't have to withstand blame. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm hypersensitive, so for me it hurts a lot when I'm blamed. I don't mean blame as I can withstand criticism (which is pretty constructive for me) and can withstand all negative comments, but blame really gets through and eats straight at my heart. It goes somewhere along the lines of I could have avoided to have done [something bad], but now I've done [something bad] and it's your fault. I'll go more into detail into this as we go in lycée (the equivalent of high school). Along with this demon, was something else: the urge to fit in. I knew that keeping up a facade was useless, yet I kept hanging out with people who did not care about me, and I ignored their mockery about me, motsly because I didn't get it at the time. In fact I was physically there with people a lot in college, but got to talk so little at some points the extent of the words I said to my 'friends' were hello, and getting anything else in (usually related to videogames) was a blessing in itself. So I craved for affection because I was starting to be denied it, and I tried to be perfect because in my mind it was how it would get people to care about me. (It 'worked', and I got some people who were interested in my skills, then I then hanged on to those relationships as long as possible, in fear of being alone again.) When I entered lycée, it was a very scary environnement, because I knew nothing. I stuck to some faces who I knew from college, and they recognized me, so they slowed down, and I slowed down to stick with them. Then they told me to fuck off and sped up. I stuck to other familiar faces from college who wouldn't reject me, then got thrown into a class where I knew mostly nobody. At this point the same thing repeats: I get some friends, then hang to them for as long as possible. And I got in some toxic relationships again, where I would accept being trashed over and over in order to satisfy myself. In fact there was a guy who took advantage of this, mostly toying with me for the entire school year because he knew I would come back for more. And in my relationships, I made mistakes. And with the mindset I was in, mistakes were the worst kind of things to do, because they were things you could actually avoid. The people I were with in particular basically were in a completely different level from me (and I managed to butt in because I had good grades and was useful when they needed to do some homework) and so would know to blame me really hard. For example, I followed them when they were going to the forest to smoke some joints, and I found that the scenery was quite beautiful, so I took out my 3DS (with camera) to take some photos around. And then I had a kind of sudden realisation. These people I hung out with and really hated, couldn't I take a photo of them in the woods smoking and then do something with it eventually? So I suddently turned around and took a picture, then they mostly understood, went away from me, and faked going back to school but taking a different path (knowing I was going to follow them under mine). I followed back, went back to school and they went happily without me. This is the kind of "mistakes" I made: ones fueled by anger about my situation. I would say something out of pure hate, and they would blame me. And it would be all the blame of me, because it was my fault for even hanging out with them in the first place out of the fear of being disliked; I was a piece of shit and they had given me the honor of letting me accompany them, and speaking up was disallowed. Eventually, in the middle of the year, one guy from the group told me how and why I was a piece of shit, giving me examples from all my mistakes I made. And I tried to argue, but I couldn't argue against my mistakes because they were half mistakes and half anger. He told me, I cried in the back of the classroom, they called me a piece of shit for crying, and I couldn't hang out with them anymore. I spend the last half of the year geniunely alone, without anyone to talk to; the only things I said were to the teachers, and I didn't speak a single word out of the classroom. I still desesperately craved for affection, but now I was a piece of shit (and the guy's rebuttal made sense to me since I couldn't refute him, so I unfortunately believed him) so I didn't have the merit to have any friendships or affection. When I was back home I thought I had a source of love, something that could keep me going - but it wasn't there anymore now. In my opinions these were the darkest days of my life, and also the most useless. I can't remember anything that had actually happened within the last half-year of my first year of college. I hated myself, and the world seemed to agree that I was a piece of shit, so I was destined to be one. I would have probably killed myself here if it weren't for the fact that my mom told me to never killed myself (as I would totes have a better life later) which I believed fervently, and TASing! Unlike in the real world, in TASing you could actually be perfect. So all criticism was justified, and suddently the negative environnement of blame turned into something that could be geniunely refined into something beautiful and perfect. A full TAS is something you can really cherish in my opinion, because it's something you can really appreciate as a body of work. In my opinion, there is no greater feeling than destroying and mastering a game from inside out, and transforming and appropriating it to yourself (you can see this in good TASes, where the TASer masters and kind of expresses himself through the game). So TASing had made me goals to work for, something I could put constructive work in, and something where I could both enjoy something and express myself. It has mostly saved me from really killing myself, because if I could still create things like this, in spite of all my flaws, and that I though of myself as a piece of shit and so on, then my existence is worth it. I've probably rediscovered passion and joy through TASing, so that's why it still is pretty important for me. The means, in general, to work without pressure, as long as you want, on a single body of work, until it becomes perfect, while still giving the opportunity to really express yourself (I can't find a way to word this better..), is something that I can't find anywhere else.
Nintendo and their stupid camera shutter noise ruining people's lives...
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success." - Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Drama, too long, didn't read, lol.
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pirate_sephiroth wrote:
Nintendo and their stupid camera shutter noise ruining people's lives...
For that you quoted the entire post?
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Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Warp wrote:
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
Nintendo and their stupid camera shutter noise ruining people's lives...
For that you quoted the entire post?
I didn't want to quote the relevant plot element and spoil the anime
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success." - Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Drama, too long, didn't read, lol.
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I just realized that right about this year, give or take, I have been now living alone for longer than with somebody else, during my entire life. I moved out of my family's house when I went to university, and have lived alone since then. Now for longer than my age at that point. I had a couple of girlfriends at some point. The last one over ten years ago (I don't remember the exact time anymore, but maybe about 15 years ago.) Nobody since then. Nothing. That's like over 20 years living alone, and about 15 years without any sort of relationship whatsoever. It's hard to explain why that's so. I'm not hideous-looking. I'd say I'm relatively decent-looking (you might have seen my recent photo in the new year's resolution thread). So I don't think it's that. I sometimes get temperamental online, because the anonymity of online communication removes inhibitions, but I'm nothing like that in real life. I'm really collected in real life. Maybe even too collected. Maybe I just don't communicate all that well, especially to semi-acquaintances. Anyway, whatever the reason, it's just not meant to be. It takes a really long time, but at some point one just stops caring. There becomes a point when one just accepts it. It's not even depressing anymore. It just is what it is. Life sucks, but it could suck a lot more. I'll just enjoy what I do have, and will just cope with that part of the human brain that craves companionship and contact with other human beings.
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[URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcuV2JdaBYY]Streets of Rage 3 (2 players)[/url]
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atro city wrote:
Out of curiosity Warp, do you regularly go out anywhere on your own volition (not counting things like groceries and other necessities)?
I go every week to an MtG playgroup, where I play for 6-8 hours. The problem is that it's a nerd hobby, and such hobbies are notoriously lacking of social interaction outside of the hobby itself. I'm not exactly sure why, but they tend to not be the sort of hobby where people become close friends and start interacting with each other outside of the hobby, like eg. inviting the others to unrelated events, or to simply hang out, and so on. Especially not at this age.
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I suppose that I could try to give some advice to younger people here. Perhaps if I could save even one person from being chronically lonely, it would be definitely worth it. If you have a rich social life, and romantic relationships, you regularly hang out with people and interact with people, and you have a busy life socially speaking, this post is not for you. You can safely skip it and go do something else. If you are, however, a young person (late teens, early twenties), and you are quite a nerd, you eg. play a lot of video games, and you don't socialize much, and you don't have many hobbies that you do regularly and which involve socializing with people in real life, and you don't have many or even any romantic relationships at all, I would like to tell you something. There's nothing inherently wrong in being a nerd, and there's nothing inherently wrong in liking video games, but for your own sake, try not to do it at the expense of your social life. Seize the social opportunities that present themselves. If somebody invites you to an event, say yes, even if you are not interested at all and you would be bored out of your skull. Try to enjoy yourself. (If drugs are involved then I wouldn't recommend it; stay out of those. If alcohol is involved, personally I wouldn't recommend it, but it's your choice. But there are so many other possibilities as well.) It doesn't matter if you are bad at smalltalk, and you don't know what to say, or perhaps even constantly make a fool of yourself when you try to. It happens, and it is a skill that can be learned. The more you are exposed to social interaction, the more you learn. With time, you'll learn how to interact, what to say, and how to talk with people. When you witness it happening frequently, you start catching the little tidbits and the little ideas, and with practice you get better at it yourself. The important thing is that you stop saying "no" and start saying "yes". Maybe not to every single possible event under the sun, but in general to most of them. Don't let the opportunities go by. If you let them pass you for long enough, they will stop coming. People will stop asking you. Don't let that happen. If you don't seize the opportunities now, it's not going to get any easier as you get older; on the very contrary, it's only going to get harder and harder. You don't need to go to social events specifically looking for something (such as making friends or romantic relationships). Just being there frequently is enough. Be there, interact with people in person, participate. Try to find the fun in it. Shove aside your prejudices and try to see the events as enjoyable. Look for the enjoyable things. You want to want to be in these events, rather than them feeling like a chore. Start doing it now, while you still can. Or one day you might realize that there are no social events where you can participate. They are gone.
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I think that's outstanding advice overall, Warp. I wholeheartedly endorse everything you've said. I'd especially like to reinforce what you've said about drugs and alcohol, however. Yes, many people are able to partake in them in moderation, but don't assume you will be like them. First, you never know how your body will react to an addictive substance and you can very easily find yourself dependent through no fault of your own except that you happen to have some "bad genes" that predispose you to addiction. And second, if you're already a lonely person, I think you're more likely to succumb to addiction as you displace your social life with your vices. Those are just my two cents. I'm sure there's plenty of disagreement here, but frankly, I've seen far too many lives shattered by addiction, even to substances that we hold to be "socially acceptable".
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My story is probably out of place here, but I still feel like joining the discussion, in the hope to give some inspiration. My life never was harsh, but I still have a huge problem that disables me from living properly: myself. I'm affected by schizoid syndrome. To make it simple, I have little to no interest in human relationships, despite being perfectly able to interact with others. And over time, I lost more and more interest in living at all. In the last years, there were times in which I was depressed to the point to be unable to eat. It's kind of strange: you feel hungry but you can't swallow anything. Though, every time at some point something happened that gave me some will to live, for example when I got my first dog. I'm not scared of death. There was even a moment in my life in which I totally thought to be a goner, but didn't felt scared at all. But I've never tried suicide, because I'm constantly contended between the sense of void and a spark of hope. It's really a torture. The good new is that during the last year I've started to get better. Now that I think about it, there is one base reason that caused the change: I've started to be less rigid. It's not just being more open-minded, but it's also being more open to new ideas, experiences, and possibilities. But it's not like I've done something in particular... It's just that I've come to understand that being rigid is wrong no matter what. And when I still notice to have some rigid thought or behavior, I call it into question and reconsider it. By the way... Maybe I'm not qualified to try to help people that had an actual harsh life, but I still want to try my best. I think that the secret is to never give up. Always believe that you have hope and that you have value, doesn't matter what! Doesn't matter what others say or what happens, keep believing in youself!
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
GoddessMaria
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Joined: 5/29/2009
Posts: 518
Location: Hell...
So as for lately, I have been becoming more and more anxious and increasingly depressed... It also doesn't help matters that I might have had a hint of Autism either. I've constantly been a massive nuisance to everyone (even though unintentional) and lately finding myself thinking about just giving up and wanting to leave this world for Hell where I belong. Bad things always happened around me and it only will get worse... I feel far beyond broken nowadays. Life situations haven't improved much and "help" hasn't truly been good to me... I honestly am losing more faith and trust in everyone and everything... shutting off from the world on all sides. ... Dark toned post, I know, but it conveys how I feel internally.
Current projects: failing at life
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GoddessMaria wrote:
I've constantly been a massive nuisance to everyone (even though unintentional) and lately finding myself thinking about just giving up and wanting to leave this world for Hell where I belong.
Those who belong to hell (and deserve it) intentionally destroy every sphere they enter. And they enter it in certain ways that gain them trust at first. Those who belong to hell want to channel destruction and nastiness, and can't ever be honest. I've seen so many of such people. You shouldn't compare yourself to them. The other part that I find important (and that was probably overused by others already), is that leaving this world hasn't ever guaranteed that anything would become better after that. It mostly just depends on what a person believes will happen. And it's commonly believed that "at least it won't get worse" after suicide. Yet there's literally no ground for that hope. People tend to think about some insane and unbearable situation that things can't get any worse. Oh they can, they can endlessly get worse. And if you think of it, the reason that actually makes them get worse is rarely known for sure. If it's the very fact of one's existence, then it should be the kind of person I described. But such people also rarely wish to end it all, they enjoy their nastiness. What is the actual probability that if a regular person experiences suicidal depression, the reason behind it will get cured by the suicide? I'd say it tends to zero. If something was that risky, I wouldn't consider doing it without some positive sides that it's known to have. What can be positive about murder? Murder isn't the kind of action I'd trust when my entire future depends on it. Decision is an important thing, and one's entire life can depend on it. So when deciding something, one should use their brain to always verify how logical the decision is. Because in the world of endemic insanity, logic is literally the only hope that never fails, if you don't drag lies into your decisions.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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GoddessMaria wrote:
So as for lately, I have been becoming more and more anxious and increasingly depressed... It also doesn't help matters that I might have had a hint of Autism either. I've constantly been a massive nuisance to everyone (even though unintentional) and lately finding myself thinking about just giving up and wanting to leave this world for Hell where I belong. Bad things always happened around me and it only will get worse... I feel far beyond broken nowadays. Life situations haven't improved much and "help" hasn't truly been good to me... I honestly am losing more faith and trust in everyone and everything... shutting off from the world on all sides. ... Dark toned post, I know, but it conveys how I feel internally.
I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this hardship. I'd like to help you, but your post is fairly vague. Would you like to clarify it, possibly in a PM? To the extent that you've included details, your post resonated with me quite a lot. I recently fell into a similar depression because I was underemployed, nothing seemed to be going right in my life, and a sudden breakup capped it all off and left me completely without energy. (If you PM me, I can talk about some other aspects as well.) I imagine our specific circumstances are quite different, but what you've written pretty much checks off all the boxes of how I'd been feeling: anxious, depressed, "hint of Autism", a nuisance... I've never been suicidal in my life, but when this latest bout of depression hit, I had this overwhelming feeling of, "What's the point?" I still never seriously imagined taking my own life, rather I was just completely demoralized by what I saw as a long, inevitable downward trend for the future-- for me, my loved ones, and the world around me. The good news is that just two days ago I secured another part-time job and I'm now "mostly employed". I've also been in regular contact with my ex-girlfriend and while we still have a lot to work out between us, I think that if I'm pulling my own weight, we might be able to patch things up with a lot of hard work and dedication. I suppose the "bad news" is that misery loves company and as my mood lifts, it will be a little harder to empathize directly with you. I am still not out of the woods and I hope I can be someone you (or anyone) can vent to. I guess in a weird way I see you as not unlike myself two weeks ago, before I knew about this job opportunity. If I could go back in time, I'd say to myself something like, "Times are rough. You can feel bad and you don't even have to force yourself to work. Not everything is going to be fixed, but if you just hang in there a little bit longer, some aspects of your life are going to improve. While it won't be great, you'll be okay." Since I can't go back in time, I'd like to say that to you.
GoddessMaria
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Sadly when it comes down to clearly explaining things, I am terrible at it...
Current projects: failing at life
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Posts: 696
Location: France
Well, I should probably wrap things up here before I turn this thread into my personal blog. I've changed quite a bit in the six months separating my last post and the one I'm writing now. The only thing I want to correct from my previous post is well, not that I've rediscovered "passion and joy" through TASing. Here's a different insight on that - rather than focusing on the big, heroic thing that "saved" me out of nowhere, I've taken into account the small things that, here and there, make your life something else entirely - random acts that stay surprisingly solid even when given the test of time. I don't feel any resentment for what has happened; mostly because I have no real reason to resent against what happened back. In my opinion, maybe the things I have gone through might be considered horrible, or sad, and an onlooker would "pity" me or arrive at some other moralizing conclusion; but there's no harm in forgiving for these things, and easy forgiveness rather than hate long after the facts only hurts you in the end. This is why I forgive rather easily; much like I don't consider that I'm building myself towards being a perfect human being, I see the mistakes I make, as well others make as well, and forgiveness comes rather easily. (Of course, this isn't a golden rule; each situation has its approach, and living according to stuck up morals is dumb in the first place; the world won't adjust itself to your ideals, or your globalising one-liners on how you've figured the whole world out.) Basically, kindness to others is the greatest gift one can make to another, given the circustances. We act in a capitalist world and its framework can, a lot of the time, encompass people and blind them; but just the opposite is true as well. Effectively, treat each human you come across as a person, not a commodity, and suddenly the world changes gracefully. Understanding, as I've come to appreciate, leads you a lot farther than hate, or going with the flow or what-have-you. In a more casual paragraph, I've started to take care of my body; right now I'm doing some 30-minute runs every two days with a friend. The thing I currently enjoy the most are visual novels, which are no doubt the greatest things humanity has blessed us with; I'm reading The Fruit of Grisaia at the moment. Other than that, I don't have much in the way of grand conclusions I've taken from my experiences. I've found some great friends, who will no doubt go the way of wine and get better as time passes, and I otherwise take my life lightly - not taking a lot of something big to purpose my life, or something dumb like "loyalty to the nation", or some other cause that causes you to close your field of vision to whatever suits your ideals and ideology the most; but opening them as much as I can.
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1358)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
Hello again. Despite the fact that I'm feeling much better this year, I'm still unable to be productive. Basically, my only activity is TASing, and oddly, I need to rest a lot all days and save energy in order to do it. I'm not even playing games casually anymore, from about 2 or 3 years now. In my previous post I've given a precise diagnosis of my problem, but despite that I'm still unable to understand why I am like this. I've always thought to be doing fine all alone, but the truth is that I'm not. Yet, I'm the one that is keeping the distance, even if I feel lonely. I don't know what I want. Thanks for reading, and sorry to anyone who could have been waiting to read about how I did overcome insomnia and paranoia. Maybe I'll write about it at another time.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Skilled player (1003)
Joined: 10/13/2014
Posts: 409
Location: nowhereatthemiddleofnoone
Life is strange, hard and when I read all that your life's tells, I feel not good... I haven't had an easy life and i have now a pulmonary illness, due to aerosol gas that I had can to breathe during long hours, since long years. I cannot pity me, because I know that I have do my choices and that I haven't no regrets... But sometimes, I 'm sad, because I'm lost in my thoughts. I'm not afraid to die, but I know time fly and it's not possible to catch up! I 'll had want to tell it at my father but I haven't the force and it's an old man now, so... I tell this on this thread, to get rid of it. I don't want of people's pity, they can to keep her, my life don't be sum up at that! I running away my life, behind a keyboard or in my job, not for to forgot, but just because I choose to make all I love and nothing other. After have listen all of your told and give a little part of myself, I think that I will shouldn't keep just the bad moments in my head, but thinking to positive day, sometimes! Thank to permit us to get it off chest ! Life is strange, hard, but I hope she give your a best in the future!
GAW sms... Totally destroyed
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
With certain topics, like this one, I sometimes feel like the YouTuber TL;DR is the only voice of reason online. I really liked his latest video on the subject of social isolation and involuntary celibacy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J93U-iokyw
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1358)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
I suggest, to anyone who stumbled into this thread, to read this: https://agileleanlife.com/soft-indicators-of-emotional-pain/ I think it's a very well written article.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Post subject: Confession
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1358)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
There is something personal I feel like sharing, right now. The thing is, when I stop and look at some people that constitute this community, I feel like an impostor. I do really like to TAS, but beside that, there is nothing else. Here I write scripts, yet I'm no programmer. Here I work with logic, but I even dislike math. I'm no nerd, even. I read some manga online, but I'm not really into the otaku life. Even when it comes to internet knowledge in general, I'm not nearly as much experienced as the average user on this site. But most importantly, I'm not even a real gamer. It's been about 6 years since last time I've really played a game. Now I can't really find any enjoyment into playing games casually anymore. And before that, there were few games that I really was into (Pokémon games Gen I,II,III, then Call of Duty 4 and Monster Hunter Tri). So sometimes I wonder if I really deserve to be considered as part of this community. But despite all that, I'm still staying here, as long as I share even a part of the interests of this site. Because there are things here that I won't find anywhere else. First of all there is the TASing activity itself, and the fact that it's niche means that I can perform it extensively only within here. And beside that, here there are some of the most smart, open-minded, and kindest people I've ever met, so I really feel that the ambiance here is so much friendly that I can keep frequenting this place even if I have only one interest in common. By the way, even though TASing is the main activity related to this site, I really think that other people beside me can be part of this site even if they don't like to TAS themselves. As long as there is anything in common, it doesn't matter what, I really think that it will be enough to justify the desire of being part of it, without any shame.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
You think that's bad, I've been hanging around since late 2004 and haven't really progressed beyond basic memory watching. You're doing better than I am.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
fsvgm777
She/Her
Senior Publisher, Player (226)
Joined: 5/28/2009
Posts: 1213
Location: Luxembourg
Over the past few months, I started questioning whether I was just male, as it was pretty evident to me that I have a side in me that's clearly female. As a matter of fact, I personally stopped minding having longer hair than usual, even if it's just slightly longer. In fact, I actually like that. Likewise, I feel that my overall behaviour is clearly feminine in a way. I used to see myself as some highly effeminate man, but I felt not even that would define me well enough. That is....until April 10th, where I found the identity that defines me perfectly. I am bigender, meaning that I identify as both male and female. I am by extension a non-binary person. Due to my accepting nature, though, I can be referred to as either male, female or the neutral "they". I've personally started using female gender expression to refer to myself. It felt weird, at first....but at the same time, it felt great to just let it out. I could finally embrace my female side....and it feels so great. With that said, I still retain a male side for some specific situations, like at my workplace, and might still use male gender expression to refer to myself. My intentions, however, are to come out to several of my workmates that I can trust and my brother. I, however, am happy that I finally found some peace in my mind, because it was bugging me for a long time.
Steam Community page - Bluesky profile Oh, I'm just a concerned observer.