Here’s the soundtrack of this blog post:
Such a great cover, if I might say so.
Well, well, well. We see each other again in the internet-sphere.
It’s been a few months since the alst time I’ve been actively online in any form of social media. Active in the sense of posting, commenting, liking content. To be fair, I have been lurking all this time, but uncappable of actually taking the first step towards interacting with people. And, this does not only apply to social media like Twitter (fuck X), Instagram, or TikTok, I’ve also been pretty absent in IM apps. Basically, I’ve felt like I ghosted most of the people who I don’t see on a daily basis. Why, you might ask. I am not entirely sure.
This all started a few months ago when we went on our trip to Europe. My routine was working great for me, and I had been consistenly taking care of myself on a daily basis. My attention span was just good enough to keep this momentum going. Then, we flew to London, and my routine went out of the window. And with it my emotional energy to do anything other than just trying to exist as a person.
The stress of the trip triggered something in me that I have not been able to recover from. After this trip I feel like I’ve been going through very emotional demanding events, week after week. Month after month I’ve tried to recover from this, but it feels like I am on a downward spiral where I can’t seem to keep up with what is happening around me. Therefore, the only path forward for me to not crash is to “hide” myself.
Hiding worked the first few months. I was able to breathe a little, not worrying about having to exist online, or answer any messages. After all, we don’t owe it to anyone to respond any of their messages. Then, the weeks started to pass and I got stuck in a weird limbo in which I couldn’t reach out to anyone, or stop from just lurking social media. If I could’ve just detached and removed myself from social media, I think this would be a complete different story. But, I didn’t have the patience to do so. What followed was a series of emotional breakdowns happening in the span of a couple months.
A side effect that this “hiding” took on me is that it removed any kind of hobbies or activities that I used to be involved with online. Any kind of interaction that involved me reading and sending messsages with anyone online got paused indefinitely. That also meant that the support network that I had online was no longer there. I struggled a lot with myself because of it. It also didn’t help that I had been changing therapists to hopefully find one that can treat my AD(H)D. It is very hard to have to try and figure out a part of me that has been haunting me all my life, while also removing a lot of factors that made me feel happy.
Right now, I think that I am slowly getting better at keeping in touch with people, even if I have been as burnt out from my day job as I have been. One thing that helped me get out of this groove is that I have been attending local game development events recently. It is really cool to see young people starting their journey, and to be able to there for them in case they might need guidance. I guess that was the catalyst for me to reach out to people again. If I can’t reach out to anyone, how will I be able to help other people? So, that’s happening.
I decided to try and get back slowly. Mainly to try and go back to the projects that I enjoy working on. A big part of this is my small community/learning focused studio. I want to be able to make games, and also help other people make games. I don’t want to continue being in the limbo. I just want to help, create and share my passions. So, like one of the Good Ugly Bunnies I once drew, I am trying once again.
