LogFAQs > #980320888

#B#

Part of this topic series is finding what triggers me and why, & I've made quite a bit of progress over the years. I'm able to listen to rap music now and Pink Floyd (that was the racist twit's favorite band, so it took quite a while before I could listen to them without the association), I don't have meltdowns over blatantly Christian music, I've gotten closure about the death of a certain relationship & can listen to songs that remind me of him without any emotional spikes... it doesn't seem like it, but I am doing better. So finding something that hits this hard is important. I knew I wasn't handling these memories well, but I didn't realize just how intense the emotions could hit if something triggered a flashback. So.. I can truly thank you for this nomination. I'm not in a position to judge this song with any type of objectivity--I'm not even in a place to read the lyrics without several emotional spikes--but learning to process these feelings is important.

[Later: Fun fact, I have absolutely no idea what score this song is going to end with. At least 58 points because I can't dislike something that's triggering this many emotional spikes, but I'm in absolutely no place to judge it. So... score. It will have one! Probably!]

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[Present Day]

Alright, let's go back to that DBZ RPG for a minute and how far gone I was mentally. I was barely sentient at the time, suicidal (don't worry about it, I don't want to die now), incredibly dysphoric, and completely uneducated. I was a wreck. But somehow I found my way to a DBZ roleplaying chat room which quickly became my home. The place was barely regulated; the owner almost never checked in on the rooms, there were no moderators, and there was no way to actually enforce any rules other than peer pressure. It was also an incredibly wild and lawless place--nothing forced you to actually talk in character, so it was just as much a regular chat room as it was an RPG. And there were no real rules about what your character be, so you could be anyone or anything! Lots of us just stole our characters wholesale from various anime and games. It allowed me to play with age, gender, species, and personality in a way that you don't really see these days. Absolute freedom isn't really a thing on the net these days.

Anyway, the relevant thing is that one of the members killed herself in real life and I was so far gone that I couldn't really have a reaction to it. From my perspective there wasn't any real difference between someone logging off forever and dying. Possibly because I was just that undeveloped mentally and socially, possibly because I planned on killing myself too and couldn't see anything wrong with it, probably both.

I didn't really know her well. I'd seen her around quite a bit since I basically lived in that chatroom, but we had different friend groups and interests, so I can't claim to have known her. I can't even recall her character name, to be honest. I have a lot of regrets about that time. About how dead I was inside, how I was literally unable to see her as a person. I've often wondered if there was anything I could have done to save her, if I'd just... existed in any real way. She had friends, so I doubt I would have made a difference, but... I don't know. Maybe if I'd been able to understand how much she was suffering... but it doesn't matter. I can't bring her back and I have no right to use her tragedy as a source of personal growth when I never knew her in the first place.

But, the one thing that proves that I'm not the same unhinged emotionless psychopath I was, is that I can feel things now. When someone I know and cares about threatens to kill themselves, I can actually feel things now. Fear of making things worse (it's all I can do), fear of my doing nothing also making worse (nothing hasn't worked so far), anger at the stupid way my life is scripted (I get a song about hoping someone doesn't kill themselves mere hours before talk of suicide comes up?), regret that maybe if I tried to be an actual friend than I could be part of some actual support network so things never got this bad...

...and you know the worst part? For one moment, just a moment, I wondered if I was better off being so dead that I couldn't comprehend these emotions. So if you're thinking of killing yourself, just... don't. I can't stop you, I have no right to try to stop you. I was suicidal for basically my entire childhood and early adulthood, so I know how useless platitudes are. But I'm sorry. I'm sorry I never tried to have a real conversation with you. I'm sorry for centering this on me. I'm sorry I don't have the life experience to know what to say or do. All I can do is ask you not to do this and assure you that your partiipation has always been one of the biggest highlights of my year. Even when I could never actually learn anything, the fact that you were willing to try to teach me anything meant a lot... historically people don't even try, so...

I can't do Discord right now. I'm not good at live chatting even when I'm not emotionally compromised. If anyone has any relevant information that they're willing to share, PM the Pony account. And if you don't know what sparked this present day section... well, that's not my story to tell. Hopefully it ends well.

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...On the plus side, none of the other Extra Songs are... quite like this. Hence why this was to be one grand finale. But here we are. At least until I delete all this and pretend this sequence never happened.