Our farm did not go very smoothly today. And I cannot help but wonder if it is in part because of the fact that I did not say anything or do anything to help almost at all. Normally I remind people of things that I believe will make them focus on performing well, but I was told that I make raid feel like a job and not fun when I do this, and now I will probably never be able to do this freely like I used to again. Normally I try to pipe up at key moments to help with morale, and today I didn’t help with that at all. Though shandare really really shined today, he was able to turn around the bad morale that comes from bad farm nights, and make things better. And he was even more of the recipient of the negativity than I was, somehow he has been able to power through and be great for us all. Thank god for shandare. But I can’t help but feel if I had used my voice today farm would have gone much smoother.

Of course, I spent most of raid crying, so it’s not like I could really speak up and thereby somehow boost morale. But overall I could feel myself actively making the choice in all circumstances when I would have said or typed anything, to not say or type anything. I know I have to do this. With how deeply I am retraumatized I have to take care of myself, I am too close to committing suicide again. And thank god shandare is here to shoulder the burdens and stay strong so that we still have great leadership. And thank god shandare has given me the confidence and the support to allow me to make this selfish decision for my well being.

But still, I can’t help but wonder if my lack of input and help was a reason why our farm today was so (relatively) bad. It might just be hubris, my thinking that I can make such a large difference. But if there is truth in it, my assessment that this situation will drastically cut back on our progression levels may turn out to be true too. And so we come to how my choice to take a step back also involved the entirety of how I think about Syzygy. Knowing that, by not speaking up, I am holding back an important element to better progression, this is something I can only do if I truly do not care about our progression. So, I have been schooling myself on it. I have been working on changing how much I care, accepting that if progression becomes horrible, if we lose people and have roster problems, even if we disband, that’s all fine I don’t care.

Hopefully, it’s all hubris. Maybe the difference my voice makes is not at all crucial. With shandare around now at least it is certainly less crucial than when I was the only guild leader. It would be better for Syzygy if the difference my voice makes is far less than I judge. If not, and I actually make a big difference, then I would like to state here and now that sometimes when people insist that what they think is important should be made a priority, and care not what they do while pushing their thoughts forward, they may miss the big picture and inadvertently cause everyone much more harm.

I recognized this in the other times I saw guild leaders break down because of what guildies did. I myself have done it, the one action I am ashamed of during my time in WoW. I remember being in a guild and insisting that we would progress much better if we only changed a tank who kept dying. I was probably right, but in pushing so hard for it I inadvertently added a lot of stress to our guild master/raid leader who was not prepared to make the change yet. Eventually, the guild fell apart and he left, never to return to WoW. Obviously, this hurt that guild far more than a weak tank would for a couple months. When people pushed me to make changes in a discord music bot when I was overwhelmed by other things, when people pushed me to lead more forcefully or less depending on their own assessment of things, when people push shandare to change the way he speaks or thinks to be what they think is the right amount of flexibile and responsive, what all these people also did was push me into a mental state where I could no longer help them. And I worry that it can seriously harm shandare too. Again, perhaps my help is not nearly as much as I think. But despite the possibility of it being hubris, I have some good reasons to think my voice can make a difference, and with my current state of being mentally crippled, I think it likely we will suffer.

People who felt such a strong need to provide feedback, in a way that would obviously hurt the emotional and mental well being of the few people who do basically all the work for the guild, are too short sighted. Maintaining a guild depends 100% on the good will and motivation of its leaders. These leaders have to be willing to be there through thick and thin, to prepare even if they don’t want to, to do the non-stop, time-consuming, exhausting work of making sure everything, from big to small, is ok. Every single raid I check to make sure the roster is correct, every single day I check our attendance channel and often when people post out I follow up with them. Do I want to do this? No. I do it because I am motivated to help the guild. Every single week shandare and I both spend 10s of hours preparing for the raid. Neither of us have to do it, we do it because we want to. While being leaders, neither shandare nor I ever took time off or rested just because we personally needed it, not even to celebrate a birthday or recover from sickness. We were always, ALWAYS there for the guild. We do it not because we gain anything out of it, but because we want to make things as good for the guild as possible. Truly, without its leaders, no guild in WoW would exist. What problem is big enough to merit tearing down our leaders?

Maybe if the leaders are toxic, abusive, or somehow harmed others’ well being, it is worth putting their good will and motivation to do all this grueling work for the guild in jeopardy. But seriously, because he said “we won’t discuss this strategy change now, if you want to input you should come to the strategy meeting”, and because he said “shut up” once when he needed to make a callout during raid and too many others were cluttering up voice communication, and because sometimes he did not reply to some messages? Most guild leaders do not even make the extra time and effort to provide the MANY different ways for raiders to bring their input into strategy decisions. If the many ways do not happen to suit specific raiders, that does not make the raid leaders problematic enough to tear them down.

At any rate, I am already ruined. I was like this before, and though I stuck around for another year, I was only a shell of my previous self, and our whole guild became much weaker. And now I need to make the sad choice of entirely giving up on caring about the guild, to preserve my own life, and only do the barest minimum of what I can (which I can say with confidence will still be far, far more than what most of the complainers do). I just hope that Shandare has more resilience and strength than almost anyone else I know (certainly more than me, and I think I have quite a large amount of resilience and strength when objectively thinking through my actions over my time in WoW).

Really, it was not worth it. It has never been worth it in Syzygy. Both shandare and I have been nothing but self-sacrificing and dedicated to the well being of the guild, without regard to our personal desires or needs. Neither of us are perfect, but neither of us are anywhere near bad enough to warrant people acting in ways that demoralize or demotivate us. Once he and I fall, what would we be left with? No guild, no organization, nothing in life improves by tearing down the few people we all rely on. If you’re going to do it, it better be for a damn good reason.