Musings

Tonight was a pretty wearying evening in DR. As usual, RP is srs bizness, in Elanthia. It gets like that when you've poured years and years (for some people, over a decade) of training, backstory and interaction into your character. Gotta try really hard not to take it too personally, sometimes. 'Cause it's a game, and not RL.

On the other hand... my games are sometimes all the interaction I have with people. I've not hid the fact I've been practically a shut-in for 3 years, I suffer from major depression, I have serious anxiety issues and hardly any self-esteem to speak of. I don't have many friends, online and off, and I have trouble trusting the few I do have. It means I often feel alone even if I'm not, and I'll expect betrayals even if none are there.

Sometimes they are there. But that's another thing entirely.

Well, I'm a bit better today. Probably going to be pretty distracted today though... I threw off my sleeping pattern when I had to lie down. I was so sick with stress I was too weak to get up for several hours.

I did rest though, and I talked a lot to Jon and spent time with him. I always worry about the repercussions when my frustration gets the better of me, or my paranoia, my trust and control issues, my anxiety or so on. He is so often my target, because 1) he lives with me, and 2) he is probably the only person I'd hope would still talk to me after I show him my cruelest and most selfish side.

I'm the type of person to expect people to hate, abandon, or discredit me. As friendly and accepting as I can be, I'm very hard to get close to. I'll purposefully withdraw from people when I feel too asocial or anxious. It's easy for me to just disappear, when I don't expect anyone to miss me.

Mostly I was playing DR yesterday (and this early morning). Oh, and I did play a bit of Rosalia with Nekira, too. There was a week timeskip so now she's noticing her servants getting ominously ill... dun dun dun!

At one point in the afternoon I came on to reboot and totally forgot to actually do the reboot. *boggle* Ah well. Also meant I wasn't on anything but AIM all day.

I think I'm suffering some pretty severe stress symptoms right now. Like... my chest feels like there's pressure sitting on it. My shoulders are strained and sometimes I can't feel my extremities on my left side. I went out to take a walk earlier in the day and the combination of stress and heat made me so lightheaded I had to turn back.

So I guess I really just need to rest and have some time to myself, again. I may even see a doctor if this continues beyond the next couple days, despite the fact I don't even have my health insurance set up yet. Just feeling really bad right now.

It's a mystery how people behave
How they long for a life as a slave

Jon went and pulled out my Cardigans albums and I've been listening to them lately. It interests me how that band started out being known for these rather sugary-pop songs (at least in the U.S., where I first heard them) and ended up producing such darkly beautiful love songs. Like "Paralyzed" on Gran Turismo, "Please Sister" on Long Gone Before Daylight (which Kraken says is his favorite song. I don't blame him!) and "And Then You Kissed Me" parts I and II (the first on Long Gone, the second on Super Extra Gravity, which I just finished listening to.)

Yesterday made me rather grumpy.

It's not even anything in particular. Just things that are slowly starting to wear at me emotionally.

Various conversations.
RP issues.
Stuff.

I can't say much detail here... there's personal things involved. In at least one case it's someone fairly close to me.

I had this thought late last night about looking into some of my old writings. As I've probably said before on one incarnation of my site or another, I've saved my writing from 4th grade (9-10 years old, I think?) onward. Most of it before I started using the web is written on journals rather than typed out or put online.

I look back at them now and then, I guess partly to remind myself how far I've come as a writer, and a person. Holding those old journals in my hand is like looking at a relic. I mean that was 19 years ago, when I wrote the first one. Nearly an entire decade has passed.

This time, though, I was looking for something in particular. I was thinking about...

I feel very asocial lately. I've hardly even been going outside (again). I should try to walk at some point tonight... maybe... but I might not get to today *sigh* Just completely lacking energy.

I know I'm hitting another depression phase, all the signs are there. Don't feel like doing anything, don't feel like going outside, don't feel like talking to people. For some reason, though, playing DR and poking around in RPoL games (couple posts a day each, really... nothing big) doesn't count to me as talking to people. I guess it's because I can be fully IC in those cases, or at the least relatively anonymous.

The "why" is probably partly overstressing myself and partly just feeling disillusioned. Oddly enough, around when I said I wasn't feeling lonely, I *started* to feel more lonely. I'm not sure how the hell THAT works.

(I write about some strong sexual themes and abuse in this post, though pertaining more to fictional characters than my RL. Still, might not be something everyone wants to read, so I figured I'd give a warning.)

I've wondered at times why I chose Ryshassa's more abusive parent to be her mother. It's created some... unusual situations, I must say.

I'm realizing I really like the RPoL tools. It's a pretty good system to run tabletop games by forum. I think I'm pretty much sold on using it for my Exalted forum game, unless I could find a way to install their software on my server (ha, yeah right...)

It takes a lil getting used to, but things like being able to create custom groups (i.e. if your PCs split into smaller groups, everyone won't necessarily see what the others are doing if you set the permissions right) and having a built in die roller. The roller has privacy settings, accounts for many different types of tabletop systems, and even options for GMs to fudge rolls. So, it's cool :O

The ONLY complaint I have is that the games are rather slow. But, it's the sort of pace I can definitely keep up if I'm going to college or working, or even just doing my own projects and things (which as you know can take a lot of my time as well).

Talking to sis this afternoon, I'm thinking that I'm way more intolerant than her. Hmm. I don't mean on a large scale (i.e. prejudice against certain types or groups of people, 'cause I tend to take a "do/be whatever you want, long as it doesn't hurt anyone" stance with that) but more on an individual scale.

Basically, she's more willing to put up with people than I am. Actually, I think plenty of people out there are more tolerant than me. I get easily annoyed by certain traits, and as soon as it registers to me that it bothers me, I just try to minimize or even cease communication.

I wonder if that makes me seem like I'm not giving people enough of a chance. Personally, though, I think there is a danger in being too permissive, as much as there is a consequence to shutting too many people out of your acquaintance.

...though, I'm not lonely any more, I've realized that much. Looking back on my old entries, I can't even fathom why I could have felt that way.