Recently, both shandare and I have spent over 10 hours, often up to 30 hours a week every week doing the various preparation needed for raid. We also try a variety of things to accommodate everyone’s desires: running keys, hosting an off-night run, putting aside time to discuss strategies that anyone can join, having boss channels where we can write down discussions ahead of time and encourage everyone to participate, absorbing feedback that people made last tier and attempting to get better at that (for example, to try to spend less time during precious raid hours discussing things instead of practicing our decided strat). And our raid progression is quite good. But last night, in both public forums and private messages, many people showed me that they do not appreciate this, and think we overcomplicate things, that we pressure people into preparing for raid by doing this, and that overall all leadership is not good (for a variety of reasons, each person has a different one, the main common one being that we ignore people’s suggestions, which factually is entirely untrue, but people feel it and fault us for it anyway).

Just like my previous most traumatic moment, a variety of people piled on to talk about their personal gripe. Some people felt we don’t listen to their suggestions in raid enough (to be sure they said we don’t at all, though I can list offhand many examples of times we did). Some people felt we discuss things that simply aren’t essential and thereby waste valuable time. The times this sort of thing happened in the past to me was often worse, because it would be all sorts of things like my voice was not good, my sleep schedule made it so I don’t have it in me to be a guild leader, I am too stubborn, and I am not confident enough in myself and follow what others want too much, to list a few and show how the complaints against me are often contradictory. And in the past, it was all directed towards me only, and I do not remember anyone defending me in any of those times. This time it was towards both shandare and me, and some people stood out to defend us to say we had good reasons that were explained for not following specific suggestions, just people didn’t listen to those explanations, or that as raid leaders we should overprepare, whether the topic is essential or not.

But, after several weeks of hovering just on the edge of my trauma, then a couple more weeks of my trauma actually being triggered, this is just the final death knell for me. I spent the entire night crying, then I fell asleep for half an hour to wake up to a panic attack. I am constantly thinking of what a failure I am as a leader, to deserve this sort of treatment when I devote almost all of myself to these people. How awful I must be for them feel the need to do this. And then how awful I am to even feel upset and not hide it well, because I was told I am impossible to communicate with because when I receive criticism, like saying I overcomplicate and don’t focus on essentials, I apologize and and say I will do less, and people feel guilt tripped, and feel that they are not free to offer their feedback and criticisms of me.

It’s too much.

It’s really too much.

How much of a failure must I be to, when I so obviously do everything at all I can for the guild, still inspire people to get so angry and annoyed at me and find me to be so unreasonable and a negative influence (I was told this all was triggered by me because I wrote some stuff I thought would inspire people to work harder, but apparently it was instead a mood-killer and felt to people like a threat, and that’s why they got upset and wanted to criticize us so harshly).

My mental state is right back at where I was when I committed suicide before. I don’t think anyone acted the way they did to push me to this, and I am certain they don’t want to push me to this. But it seems that they cannot help themselves because I am so unreasonable and uncommunicative. And I am simply being myself, so the problem is that the human being I am is what is causing others to inadvertently and uncontrollably hurt me.

So I am going to take a step back. I will from now on only do the bare minimum of what a raider does. I will continue to support shandare emotionally, and perhaps with boss prep. But I will stop interacting with guildies beyond what is absolutely necessary. My fear is so large that I do not even think I can interact with guildies that did not pile on to tell me what I am so bad at, because who knows, the people who are doing this now had for months proclaimed to think I’m wonderful, and the change was, at least to me, entirely sudden. I will stop trying to inspire guildies in any way. And I must stay away from these people who cannot stop from hurting me. I must also stay close to those who deserve my support, like shandare. But that is all I can take.