Since a couple weeks ago when I went through a succession of events of various people talking to me about things that triggered various parts of my trauma, I’ve had a hard time recovering. Almost every day, I’m upset and in a bad mood. Almost every day, I notice things in the game that anger me. As a result, much of my energy is spent on managing my emotions so they don’t affect others, and I have very little motivation left to do all the things I normally do to help make things better, like studying bosses, helping people, etc.

Fortunately, we have moved on from the many-progression-bosses-a-week phase to the at-most-one-progression-boss-a-week phase, which drastically cuts down on the amount of work needed to study bosses. And fortunately, our roster is pretty stable and healthy now (with only 1 or 2 spots that I personally want filled for more diversity, but it’s not dire if we don’t). Also, fortunately, our recent raid nights have all been really smooth, and our progression good, despite the fact that we are back to raiding just 8 hours a week. So in a sense I can afford to be unmotivated right now.

But I’m a bit amazed by how grumpy I am. Literally any little thing angers me. When someone makes a slightly snarky comment, I think of all the snark I used to deal with and I feel all this rage in my heart. When I look in guild to see whom I can help with getting gear outside raid, and see some people who obviously are making almost no effort on this front themselves, I can feel my grumpiness increase. Recently in raid, some people decided to use certain powers for fun, and people were happy and chill about it, but those powers are the type that potentially cause harm to the raid while making things better for the individual who chose them, and I was unable to interpret it as a desire to just relax and have fun in easy content (indeed, no problems were caused by it and if anything it may have made put the people who took those powers in a good mood), all I could think was “here is another example of people choosing to be selfish”.

My negative mood and thoughts are in this vicious cycle, this feedback loop. Despite my cerebrally realizing none of the stuff is a big deal, and despite realizing that I can simply think of it from a different light and appreciate the good side of some of the stuff, I cannot seem to stop myself from choosing the interpretations that are most likely to anger me and remind me yet again of my past trauma.

Before, since I came back to the game, I had always skirted on the edge of my trauma. Everything in this game can take me back to the events that traumatized me before. But I had always bobbed and weaved just out of range of falling back into the whirlpool of my trauma. But now I’m back in, and it’s not easy to get back out.

I am not the type to lash out at others or create burdens for others just because of my own trauma. But the consequences of my struggle is still tangible. My not having energy to help as much as I was able to before can have a myriad of different results. I had been cultivating a type of relationship between raid leaders of different guilds to try to get them to help each other and have everyone benefit, but I have let this fall a bit to the wayside. And cultivating bonds like this, during these beginning stages, are like cultivating gardens: when ignored, will require even more work to make up for the weeds that have grown, when returned to. I also have been preparing for bosses less than I normally would do (which was already significantly less than when I was a raid leader myself), and this lack of preparation will start showing soon in our progression if I cannot hurry up and pull myself together. I had also been working to develop more of a culture of friendship and socialization in the guild, by being around more and hanging out with everyone, hoping that with stronger social bonds people are less likely to do things that would hurt the guild and each other (like flaking out last minute, or assuming negative intentions from each other’s comments, etc), but I recently have been hanging out less and letting this fall to the side as well. My trauma has also affected my ability to deal with interpersonal guild issues. One example of this is that those who know I get upset when they poke my trauma are themselves upset and feel burdened by needing to try not to hurt me (I have been told explicitly that I am hurting them this way). Another example is that I am less willing to deal with people with almost any issue that upsets me, because I’m afraid my anger and upset will show and I will not be able to handle the situation well, and since almost every issue upsets me now, that means I am doing far less of the behind-the-scenes calming situations before they get bad.

And this again beings me back to what I feel is my fatal weakness as a leader. Just after a week or two of people poking my trauma, I am now basically crippled, unable to do much of the work outside of the basic motions involved in leadership. In some sense, I feel like a truly strong leader is someone who has unlimited energy, and my energy is way too easily sapped away, leaving me an empty shell of what I normally am.