It’s sudden.

Everything was fine a day ago. But now I can’t sleep, I’m breaking out in all sorts of allergic reactions, and my brain won’t stop running at full speed.

First there were the 3 ppl of the same class posting out in various ways right when we’re on the type of progression boss that needs consistency and needs their class.

Then my brain jumps to the need to recruit again, only now it will be even harder since we are nearing the end of our progression, which means the likelihood of finding reasonable replacements is much lower. My estimate now is that if one person flakes on us, this will translate into 40 hours of work for me to find their replacement.

Then my brain jumps to thinking that we must really push our progression faster, to head off any future potential problems that seem to always crop up whenever I think I can relax. So today I spent 5 hours researching our progression boss and writing down the results of my research.

Then I remember the past, when sometimes I would do my best but people would take things badly. So then I start worrying that by writing down the results of my research it would turn raiders off. After all, in the past, people had interpreted plenty of things I worked hard to do negatively, and then based their subsequent criticism of my leadership on those interpretations. After all, I am no longer the guild master/raid leader, people may not take well to my giving them advice. And after all, the guild has changed since my time, and perhaps people don’t want to push themselves as hard.

And now, my mind and my body are in permanent fight-or-flight mode, and I cannot relax. I cannot sleep. And then all the times I was upset in the past kick in, where people told me it was my own fault for being thin skinned, or stressing myself out, or overextending myself. So I berate myself for caring this much, for putting myself in this position where I feel responsible for the guild again, for being so weak that this minor problem can have this effect on me. And I feel an immense amount of guilt over the fact that I’m stressed at all.

The last couple weeks had been so good too. I thought our roster was extremely healthy. I was in a good place, gear-wise, and I thought I could rest. But a new fire has started just when I thought I could relax after putting the old ones out. And though this new fire is minor, and we will survive fine… still, suddenly, I feel staggered, swamped, sinking under the weight of this stress.