I feel that I know what it takes to be able to make a mythic team quite strong, regardless of the original strength of its individual members. If the raid leader(s) do a humongous amount of preparation for the bosses, if the raid team is incentivized or motivated to go beyond what they would naturally do themselves, if potential problems that arise from 25 individuals working on a difficult common goal together are nipped in the bud, etc.

So for the past couple weeks I have spent more than 40 hours a week doing boss prep; writing long paragraphs to inspire people as well as provide concrete, achievable steps they can take to become stronger; recruiting; talking to people who potentially have issues to nip all that in the bud. This is on top of the maybe 40 hours a week I spend playing the game to help myself and others get more gear. None of this is hard for me to do, though it is very time-consuming. All the time I spend awake, other than work-time, is spent on making us stronger in one manner or other. Some of the stuff I do I don’t particularly enjoy, but some of it, and in particular the boss prep, I truly love. And all of it is stuff I feel I do well.

But though I don’t mind doing a lot of this stuff, and don’t really mind too much the amount of time I put into this during these crucial few weeks, I’m starting to wonder if my heart is too invested in it.

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Since rejoining WoW I’ve wondered a good bit about what my role is in Syzygy. My original goal was purely to support Shandare and Xan, to be the type of support I wish I had when I led the guild. I saw them working themselves to death and experiencing the same types of struggles I had, and my heart broke for them, and I derived a lot of fulfillment through supporting them. And since then, though I would have my own opinions, all my effort was put into bringing about their vision for the guild, and since xan stepped out, shandare’s vision.

In this role as a supporter, I found I could contribute a lot and be what I think is a positive influence, without potentially triggering my trauma and throwing me too much back into the throes of suicidal depression. And though I still work day and night, previously recruiting, now also prepping for bosses, at least in my own mind I am “just helping”.

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I’ve started telling my therapist about my experiences in game. I had gotten to early on, talking about some of the drama between people during Emerald Nightmare. And something I didn’t expect happened. Instead of getting upset and tired and depressed, as I summoned up those memories, I laughed.

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Since I have returned to playing WoW, I have mentally frozen entire aspects related to the game in my mind. Frozen, as in I have put them on some shelf in some freezer, so I know it’s there but I don’t touch it, and if I even come near facing it I shiver and turn away.

One of the aspects is People From The Past. People who were part of Syzygy before I left, or people who were a part of my WoW life when I led Syzygy.

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When I couldn’t fall asleep last night I scrolled through some old posts I wrote in the Syzygy discord. It was amusing. Then I came across the post that led to my suicide attempt.

I read it and couldn’t see why it would lead me to suicide, so then I read the conversation it sparked because curiosity kills the cat.

Rereading that conversation brought everything back. Slowly, steadily, I became more and more upset, just like I did at the time. When I got to the part where in the past I wrote down one last comment, put down the phone, and committed suicide, I had a break down.

Not a smart thing to do the night before raiding sigh. Not a smart thing to do at all I guess. Big mistake.

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.

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A couple months ago I was hearing a lot of voices saying they wanted to have a guild rated battlegrounds (rbg) team, which requires 10 people. The leaders of the guild seemed to already be stretched too thin to host it, and no one who wanted it seemed to be willing to take responsibility for it, so I decided to host it to help out.

Since then I have gotten quite busy with recruitment as well, since a couple people flaked out of raid (though thankfully after maybe spending 70 hours on it over the course of a few weeks, we are stable again now…. though my trauma never lets me feel safe: how long before someone else flakes?). I’ve continued making sure these rbgs happen though, even going so far as risking losing money in my real life in order to keep my schedule clear for the times we set.

And it has been useful. People have gradually started learning rbgs more, and we are helping to get people good gear. It has also been useful as a recruitment tool, because recruits like to know they’re joining a guild that is active and has many activities. It is, indeed, positive enough of a recruitment tool it can balance out some of our negatives (which for many include late raid times, for example). So I have felt some pressure to keep this going, and worry if anything happens to make these rbgs difficult.

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Just when last night everything seemed to be looking up, everything came crashing down today. We did rated battlegrounds today, a form of pvp that requires 10 people vs 10 people, in pre-made groups. This means communication within the groups is key, and strategy and tactics could feasibly be implemented. I have been organizing these runs weekly for about a month now, but I have only been making sure they happen. I haven’t studied anything about it, and I really know very little about how to do them, and about pvp in general.

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After having been overwhelmed with recruitment needs for a couple of weeks, I suddenly realized today that I was enjoying it. I have gotten to the point where I am familiar with every single recruitment post on the forums and websites, and instead of needing to scroll through hundreds, feeling confused and dazed, I all of a sudden see everything with such clarity.

And most importantly, I am not recruiting under dire pressure. Since I have been able to provide our guild with on average 2 possible recruits a day, and especially since it’s looking like we have decided to take a couple of them, the pressure has been much lessened. We haven’t reached our recruitment goal yet so I don’t plan to slow down, but the stress of it is gone.

This is completely different from when I recruited while being guild master and raid leader myself. Then, simply being guild master and raid leader was so much work I never had time to rest. I could not really afford to recruit on average 4 hours a day for weeks on end, getting to the point I am now where I am highly familiar with the tens of people, at any given moment, advertising that they’re looking for guilds. Therefore, in the past, I only recruited at times when there was a dire need for recruitment, and no one else would do the job. So the act of recruitment had always been coupled with enormous amounts of stress and the negative feelings associated with people leaving and forcing me to recruit to replace them (something I still can’t stand).

But now. We are not in such a dire situation that an already completely overwhelmed and burned out leader needs to further overextend themself to recruit for hours every day. On the contrary, we’re in a rather safe situation as far as our roster goes right now, and our recruitment will just make it very very safe, or make it stronger. Suddenly, I’m looking forward to the conversations I will have with potential recruits, because it’s not a big deal if they don’t pan out, and there’s always the hope they will be great. And I have a complete and detailed grasp of the situation across all the recruitment mediums we use.

As far as recruitment goes, I no longer feel like I’m drowning; I’m cruising. It feels good.

WoW caused so much trauma and mental anguish for me before. Now I find all sorts of small things triggering that trauma. From the random toxicity of strangers online, to when my old raider said Syzygy likely fell because I started the weekend raid, to almost anyone complaining about the raid leader now like they used to complain about me, to even a hint that I am unreasonable in any way, even if that way is that I am taking too much responsibility.

My reaction is always out of proportion. I always end up crying and remembering the feelings I had before when I felt I was a terrible leader and a terrible person who couldn’t do anything right.

Every time this happens, it takes a day or so for me to recover. And each time it happens I feel I am tipping over again, falling off my path. I feel that I don’t have the mental strength to be here. But I want to be here. I see how hard the raid leader now works, as hard as I used to work, and my heart aches. And I want to be here for him, to help him in the ways I needed help myself before, so badly. So I straighten myself on this tightrope and keep walking.