Something happened some days ago that reminded me a lot of what happened when all the drama happened in Syzygy that forced us to move guilds. A real life friend sent me a message on my birthday telling me there was no point in wishing me happy birthday because I don’t respond to her messages for so long, that I didn’t care for her even half the amount I cared for my stupid game and guild, and that I am a crappy friend.

This friend reminds me a lot of kittiez and nimn, in that they are more self-absorbed people who happened to really really like me. I tend to have trouble being very close to very self-absorbed people because I see the inconvenience and trouble they cause others, that they don’t see themselves, and this sort of thing really bothers me. Usually I can handle it just by not being overly close to them, but perhaps because of the pandemic, it has been much harder for me to feel ok with people only focusing on themselves and ignoring how they cause others trouble. So as time went on and I saw more and more of inconsiderate actions caused by self-absorption, I distanced myself more and more from these people. And so then the exact same thing happened, they went from constantly professing how they think I’m an amazing person and that they really adore me, to lashing out at me and trying to revenge themselves upon me by doing hurtful things to me that won’t even make themselves feel better.

Now, this sort of thing was relatively common in the past when I was leading Syzygy. The degree it affected me was far less, since most people weren’t my friends for years, and as Guild Master myself there was no way anyone had any power to torture and kill my baby, my guild. But as Guild Master, naturally people cared a lot about their relationship with me, and a lot of people in this world are self-absorbed, so people lashing out at me when they feel that they cannot have as close a relationship with me as they would like, this was normal. The worst direct insult I had from a guildie was him calling me a cunt, because I did not reply to his messages for so long. The guildie that caused the biggest exodus of Syzygy also told me that I just shouldn’t be a guild leader of an American guild because I lived in taiwan and was always asleep when he and other guildies wanted to hang out. And of course all these people always said how much they like and admire me until they get upset and lash out at me.

And always, in the past, as well as with the recent drama with nimn and kittiez, I recognized these people were projecting their own problems onto me, lashing out at me, expecting things of me that were simply unreasonable. Yet, I always took their side. Yes, it was my fault for not replying to people soon after they message me. Yes, it was my fault for not adjusting my schedule so that I could sleep during my daytime and hang out with guildies at night. Yes, it was my fault that my past trauma made it so I could not deal with people poking my trauma well. I mean, it is ENTIRELY true that a different person may handle any of my above faults much better. More extroverted people would not find it fatiguing to reply to messages, and would derive energy and happiness from socializing with guildies more, so they’d probably naturally adjust their schedules. More mentally healthy people would not allow their trauma to prevent them from offering support to others who need it and be fine with receiving a lot of criticism. And I felt, FELT, how much they were hurt by my faults and weaknesses. Though my brain recognized one cannot expect others to have no faults and weaknesses, my heart and feelings were entirely focused on the pain of these people, pain that wouldn’t exist if I didn’t have my particular faults and weaknesses.

As time went on, I became depressed and suicidal. It now is my default reaction that I am a shit person who doesn’t deserve to be alive whenever I receive comments or actions like those from nimn and kittiez, or from my real life friend. But, I think my therapy has created a change in me. Last time, with nimn and kittiez, it was all I could do to stop myself from committing suicide. My thoughts kept vacillating between thinking that their actions were unforgivable to how I was a failure of a person to cause them such pain that they would not try to stop themselves from pushing me towards suicide. These thoughts overwhelmed me and I felt like I could not breathe, could not rest, could not stop myself from hating myself and being angry at them.

Certainly, I understand my friend’s point of view. I have been distant from her for a long time. When she occasionally messaged me to say hi, there were times I didn’t respond for weeks. Each time this sort of thing happens, when I eventually respond, I almost always explain it is because of my game and my guild (indeed, the last time this happened was when the nimn and kittiez drama happened and I was really struggling). So, I can understand that for her, I am ignoring a real life friend, making her feel like the absolute lowest priority, that a video game is by far more important to me than her. For a person who doesn’t understand the gaming world, it is not surprising that she believes that a video game should never be nearly as important as a real-world friendship. And being that she is self-centered, it is not natural for her to try to empathize with me, so it is even less likely for her to change how she feels about video games vs. our friendship. To top it off, her recent action was triggered by her saying she wasn’t feeling well and planned to skip the birthday dinner our mutual friends were planning for me, and as she has flaked on us last second with similar reasons every time for the past few years, often after asking us to change plans to accommodate her, none of us responded beyond changing our plans back to what we preferred. So now she feels that she has told us, and me, that she’s feeling really bad, and I cannot even be bothered to ask her if she’s ok. For her, I constantly ignore her for a video game, then when she’s not feeling well I don’t care about her enough to even ask if she’s alright. She is certainly very very hurt, I was an extremely important friend to her, someone she really relied on for support and helped her get past a lot of her struggles before. It is very easy and natural for me to see her point of view, indeed, nimn and kittiez treated me far worse, and I also easily and naturally saw their point of view and felt their pain.

This time, however, I feel like I’m leaning into just accepting that my real life friend is being unreasonable, and that I am not necessarily a crappy friend, that it’s ok to not feel a need to kill myself over this. In a sense, it’s great. It’s not a nice feeling to completely hate myself and feel I do not deserve to live. But in another sense, I’m a bit scared. I do not want to become a person who is blind to my own faults and weaknesses, to cause others pain and easily exonerate myself for it. And to be sure, there are common themes in how I cause others pain: almost everyone who gets upset at me does so because they feel I do not care for them as much as they feel I should, and I am really the worst at responding to messages. I could be a person who makes others feel unvalued, which really is horrible. But these thoughts aren’t overwhelming me, I seem to be ok with accepting that this friend is unreasonable and that I’m ok. So, it is an interesting experience. A change, one to explore more in therapy. Am I better for it? Worse? I don’t know. But, it is a change.