RL Struggles, Strife, and Sadnesses

Aloli

I'm so sorry for your loss, Lin.  This is the worst feeling to have to experience. I wish you strength when you are ready to process your feelings. And I'm sending you much love and many hugs. 

You have friends here who will want to be there for you, reach out to them, don't isolate yourself. 

Nonatea

I am so sorry for your loss.. I have no words to give you relief or comfort, but know you have friends here, even those you don't know. It's not much, but sending you digital hugs and all the love I can today.

Zeheia

Lin said:

My brother died this morning. 

I don't know what to do. 

I don't understand the emotions it's causing in me. I don't understand how to think anymore. I don't know how I'm supposed to act like everything is normal after this. I know deep down my body will reach its natural capacity for grief and essentially flush the system, but right now I'm like the crab in the bucket. I can't see outside of this feeling at all. 

I don't know how I'm supposed to sleep tonight. 

I don't even know why I'm posting this here, except that the alternative is to somehow hijack a news stream and tell the entire world. 

Sometimes, knowing you're being heard can help you find a single ray of light to even begin to comprehend, or breathe, or anything.

When it was confirmed to me that my husband had passed away from suicide (nine years ago this year), I was surrounded by employees of the apartment complex we lived in, and a police officer who'd had the misfortune of being on the premises when I went to the rental office for help with getting past our privacy lock. As I fell apart in front of them, I distinctly recall hearing one of the women ask another, "Should we get some help for her?"

There's no help with that kind of grief. Time eventually eases the jagged edges a little. Sometimes talking helps, sometimes it makes things worse - and there's no guarantee each day, each moment, which one will be the right thing. When nothing else helps, just breathe, and let your brain disengage if you can.

Lin

Thank you. Disengaging is the only thing I've found to work - after that it just takes time, which by the way, sucks complete ass.

I think I've reached a point of stability; haven't felt like crying the instant I woke up. Thank you to everyone who reached out to me. It's not better, nor is it ever going to be, but it hurts a little less today. 

Rhine

Zeheia said:

There's no help with that kind of grief. Time eventually eases the jagged edges a little. Sometimes talking helps, sometimes it makes things worse - and there's no guarantee each day, each moment, which one will be the right thing. When nothing else helps, just breathe, and let your brain disengage if you can.

I can't agree with this more.

I woke up crying this morning from a dream I've had countless times since I was 9 years old. It's always the same. I'm running up stairs in a building and each floor I run towards the elevator where my younger brother is.. and just as I reach the elevator, the doors close and I head back up the stairs to the next floor. Robbie was 15 years old when he passed away in a car accident Feburary 26th of 2005. It's two weeks shy of that horrible day that's burned into my memories. I didn't allow myself to grieve for the longest time. I don't think it was even a conscious decision. It wasn't until the end of my first semester of college (on his birthday later that year) that I realized that my life was going on with out him. I got so angry and finally.. after a long day of drinking myself sick, I cried. Most days now I am just fine. Others, like today, I can't function.

I've learned that the old saying isn't 100% true. Time doesn't heal -all- wounds. It does, however, lessen them as Zeheia says. Everyone grieves differently. So talk. Don't talk. Disengage. Do whatever you need to do to grieve in your way. There's no right or wrong.

Brax

When I was struggling with a loss, the below analogy helped me a lot. Just sharing in case it could also help anybody else here. Spoilered for length, but very much worth the quick read.

Tetchta

I have it better than most, and all of the things that I deal with seem like first world problems-- but I also literally never talk about my life ever, at all, with anybody these days, and that's probably not great haha.

My spouse went to grad school a couple years ago, and it was really hard. We just got through it, barely, financially, and I was the only one making money. I had to give out several IOUs to contractors in order to keep the lights on during COVID-- it was terrifying and stressful. But we made it through.

All of that threw me into a massive depression spiral, one that was hard to get out of, and was only aggravated by moving to a new state, without any childcare, without any support network. Then to top it all off, my spouse literally broke their back in January (making me temporarily a single parent and a caretaker for my spouse, as well as trying to work full time)-- I nearly had a mental breakdown (or did have one) when the combination of decompressing from the financial strain of the past several years plus all the other obligations and responsibilities I have became extremely overwhelming.

The silver lining is that my spouse is feeling better, and after a medication boost, I am too. I can't wait for COVID to be over so I can get back in therapy and also stop feeling like a bad parent 24/7 because my kid is essentially locked inside away from the world.

Maira

Hi this is an absence post. I couldn't find a section for absences but basically my life has been a spiral. I don't know when I feel like socializing with anybody which makes it hard to play game. I hope you're all doing good.

Life has been a constant struggle for me which makes it hard to play because I'm exhausted by 4 pm. Hugs. i miss playing with everyone 

Nonatea

I've been going through a really rough patch too, which has made playing really difficult. I don't mind mindless bashing or questing, but I lack the focus for rping.
As things are now, I am desperately looking for my own place and obviously failing completely. I had contact with one of the bigger landlords in town and was pretty much told I would get an apartment any day now, so my mom (who I am staying with) terminated her lease to get a smaller place. She will be moving in June. I got two offers on apartments, went to check them out and said yes to both (cause you never really know which one you might get or if you even get one, due to a point system). Once mom terminated her lease, I was told that no, you're not getting any apartment with us cause you're unemployed (which they already knew before).
So I was screwed out of an apartment. I have talked to other landlords too, but they all work with the point system and I won't have enough points for the coming 3-6 years. I have tried talking to my financial aide administrator to beg for help to find a place, but since I am debt free, not an addict or alcoholic, and well-behaved, I won't get any help there either. So I am pretty much screwed. Thankfully, I have a good relationship with my mom, so I will be able to move with her to her new place, but since it's a lot smaller, I will have to keep my stuff stored with friends and family, cause there's no room for it.
Since that whole crap went to Pit, I've had horrible anxiety attacks almost daily, but I am slowly getting out of that too. My energy is mostly focused on my unemployment stuff and packing and I am trying to get a hold of someone from the landlord where was denied an apartment due to unemployment, to see if I can get one if I have a guarantor. However.. they are basically impossible to get in touch with, so it might take some time... Also, if they do agree to a guarantor, I will need to find one to fit their demands.
It's been rough for a while, but I am doing my best to find things to calm my nerves. I try to draw a few times a week and I have picked up crocheting again. I am also taking steps towards taking better care of myself through getting help with my dentist phobia to get my teeth fixed and getting in touch with a dietist to help lose weight. All that is missing now is that damned apartment, so I can start putting up my own routines and be an independent adult.

Teotl

Hey darlings,

My pain levels have hit stupid highs for various reason you don't need to worry your sweet pretty heads about, but if my writing seems... off... or I miss things, or I seem particularly grumpy or impatient in character, I promise I am trying to not let it bleed into my writing but damn does pain ever do stuff to your brain. You are more than welcome to respond in kind, I don't expect anyone to make bad writing choices for me, I just wanted you to know that irl I am in fucking pain and it sucks a whole hecking bunch.

Mati

@Teotl We haven't interacted all that much but it was a delight when we did and I'm sorry to hear you're going through that. If we do again soon (and I hope so!) then I will definitely keep that in mind! Hope you feel better.

Teani

While it's a small thing for a lot of people, though one should not compare, I have to say I am getting tired of being stuck in a perpetual wheel of substitute positions. I've been a licensed teacher for almost 4 years, with glowing recommendations from every school I've worked at, and have yet to catch a break when it comes to any permanent positions. It is wearing me down, mentally, never knowing where I'll end up working next year, or if I'll have to go back to bouncing around from school to school as an on-call substitute until a long-term substitute gig pops up.

I'm a good teacher. I have students chasing after me in the corridors at the current school, asking me why I can't be THEIR teacher. I just want a position where I can follow the same group of students from one course to the next, and delight in watching them grow, seeing those light bulb moments when they finally grasp something they've struggled with. I want to devote myself to improving my school environment, cooperation with colleagues, expanding on materials to use, and even take on larger projects like sustainable education. Instead I'm given a few measly months here and there. 
I want security. I'm worth it, and I'd like to think I've earned it by now.

Oriana

Unfortunately, I have been placed on chemotheraphy.

This time its not one they can hack and slice the bad pieces out, at least not with their current testing.

So, if I or Oriana seem short or distracted, I promise its not you, its really just me struggling to not be sick, not be utterly exhausted. Coming to grips with my hair falling out, with the sores the medicines have caused in my mouth, my throat and stomach.

I am trying. Those that know offered up words of encouragement that I should fight and be strong...

But honestly depression is setting in when I have undergone surgery after surgery, med after med and still for some reason am given cancer again. I can't win for losing.

So.. I will thank those that have made Aetolia wonderful for me:

@Menelaus, @Aethir, @Wjoltyr , @Zenobia , @Zhukov , @Axius , @Yedan (Yeah I know he retired), @Agron, @Blaze and so many more in small ways, and some in large ways but I know that they would rather not have people knowing they were kind to me, just know..I appreciated it.

For those that continue to beat me down ICly, OOCly, on the discord, I forgive you. I've seen the cruel comments:
@Lin , @Araseth and the others that joined in that discord bashing of me the player. I forgive you.

I am too sick to be spiteful, to have anger or hate in my heart, as we can not heal with those feelings burning holes into us.

I hope I live, I hope I survive, I have three children that need their mother. But I have accepted that I might not, so I write this to say, thank you for joining me on this wonderful, roller coaster journey that has been Aetolia.

I will continue to log and play and interact as I can. I am sure my husband will write a post to the realm if.. well I don't recover.

-Darla.

Zeheia

That is some big feels @oriana. I don't have anything to say that doesn't feel trite, but I acknowledge the fight, from one mother to another, and I salute you.

Araseth

I apologize, and thank you for your forgiveness. I wish you the best and a speedy recovery from your illness. Go with the Goddess.

Maira

My laptop is malfunctioning much like several other parts of my life. Will be on when I can, more often when I get a new PC. 😟

Teotl

heavy stuff here

Pain is still pain. Several phonecalls about friends dead and dying. My news feed is the very worst nightmare fuel. More medical bills imminent. I am really tired. If my rp is anaemic it's because I am literally anaemic (I'm allowed to make bad jokes). I am helping to organize multiple funerals. I don't actually know how to process this much grief and illness at once. I feel like I keep loading a blue screen. I feel like I am seasoned in grieving. Loss is not new. Consecutive loss is not new. But this volume of loss all at once while ill is a new twist and I can't shut down the operating system despite the fatal errors. Fingers crossed for minimal long term damage until I can reboot and ride my safe mode into whatever fiery doom lurks in the numbed out parts of my psyche.

Gavramel

@Teotl I hope you've got someone you can talk to while you process it all mate. 

Aeryx

I recently drove back home across country, and it's affected me more than I thought it would to suddenly be away from @Erzsebet and our cats that have been everything I've known and loved for the past year. On top of now being alone in this house, and trying to get used to everything, I managed to somehow while I was driving across country or sleeping on my arms or hands wrong, to damage my ulnar nerve in my left hand. My left pinky finger and ring finger and that half of the hand down to my wrist on my left arm are numb. No pain, just numb and very annoying. So if I typo more lately that's why, until I can get my health insurance straight and get it looked at after the move.

Compounding all this, my grandmother, who has had a hard time he last two years and been staying with my aunt and being taken care of, was taken again to the hospital about two days after I got back, and while they thought it was a stroke initially, after a bunch of tests in a couple days hospital stay, they found that she had cancer on her lung, and it may have spread to her brain, and so now she has an inoperable brain tumor. I just don't know what to say, what to do, and I just find myself wondering what I'm supposed to do at all now after moving back, wondering if I made the right choice.

I've always for the longest time had a thing I was working towards or to make happen, and now after moving back, I don't really have that anymore. Just feels like sadness after sadness lately. I know that I'm supposed to take care of myself now, but it made more sense to me, I suppose, to take care of @Erzsebet and our cats instead of myself. I've lost a lot of family the past twelve years or so, starting with my older brother about 12 years ago, then my uncle, then my grandfather, then my mother a few years ago, and now probably my grandmother, and in the interim I've had a bunch of relationships fail for various reasons. Just sometimes lately feel like I'm losing everything and everyone, and though I have my close friends in real life too, its just different. In the end, I'm just trying to work to sit in this house by myself, until I join my family in whatever afterlife does or doesn't exist. Just feels hopeless sometimes, I guess.

Damonicus

After 25+ years of smoking I have finally taken proper steps to quit as of last week
 It is kicking my butt. Stabilizing myself after years of an added chemical in my system to slowly being without is a pain mentally and physically. I know in the long run it is a good thing. So apologies if I come off really bad recently to anyone.

Tetchta

Hey! I quit cold turkey in October and it sucked! I wish I had good advice but the early stages just suck ass. I will say, though, that at some point, your cardiovascular system will be noticeably better; like I think I noticed breathing and stuff was better in like six weeks tops. Now (8ish months later) I have some semblance of a singing voice back. I will say, if you haven't already looked into it yet, there's some meds out there that can help a lot with the process; wellbutrin, I think, is a pretty commonly-prescribed smokin cessation aid, and they can make the whole process a lot less painful. I tried patches et al but they just made me sick.

ANYWAY ROOTING FOR YOU!

Ayastia

Best of luck on quitting! I know how hard it can be to quit an addiction! Just remember, one day at a time!

Aeryx

I don't mean to make this post so soon after my last one in this thread, nor take any attention away from the hardships posted between my two posts, but I held this in for the last 8 hours or so and I've talked to @Erzsebet about it first and then also my real life best friends, and I just want to write about it here, since I spend so much of myself on this game.

My grandmother I mentioned before, did pass away in hospice this evening, around 6 pm EST, which was about an hour or so after we wrapped up the first stream earlier today. My family is all rather you know, happy that she's not in pain anymore from the brain tumor, and the hospice care all week did a good job of keeping her pain free. I went up to see her every other day this past week, which is why some of you may or may not have noticed my absence from the evenings and so forth off and on.

For me, I am very sad about it...I had my cry a bit about it earlier tonight, and I know its good she isn't in pain anymore, but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with emotionally. Early on in my life, we weren't super close and so forth, but these last few years we've done our best to look out for each other after my mom passed away. This house I'm staying in now belonged to my grandparents, and she was adamant the last couple of years she wants me to own it. I don't know how all that really works but I'm probably going to find out in the near future. I imagine I will be scarce in the near future for a little while while I am with my family and we do the services and things.

I know this is a part of life, I know many other people deal with it too. I'll be okay, my family will be okay. I guess I'm also glad that I moved back when I did, because she passed away almost exactly to the hour 2 weeks after I finished driving back and moving back in here. Is it some higher power, is it fate, or is it just random chance, I don't know.

Life, emotions, everything is so temporary. When you get down to the daily grind, and life feels regular and constant, just know that it isn't. We're all very fragile creatures, and we can only hope to live as long and fruitful of a life as some of our ancestors were lucky enough to do. 87 years, raising 5 children, and helping raise some of her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren, that's a lot of life lived, a lot of wisdom passed on, as worthy of a life as anyone can hope for.

There's a lyric in this song by Volbeat that I like, called Goodbye Forever, and it always touches me when I hear it and think about the fleeting nature of life.

"The final is a warning, wake up before you go
There'll be no second chances, that day you're on your own
Let out the feelings, tomorrow may not come"

I agree whole heartedly, all that you have is who you are, so share yourself while you can...you never know when tomorrow may not come.

Procyon

I don't know what I'm doing. Sorry.

Teotl

Hey lovelies,

I know I have been gone awhile again, so I just wanted to share that my brain has been working just a little too slow for aet. Nothing to worry your sweet pretty heads about, I am making sure to take care of my health. But I do miss you all dearly and I wanted to know that it's not you. It's me. I'll be back when the synapses are firing at a more novel pace.

Be gay do crimes

Aeryx

Not sure who all will read this who might be interested but the reason I've been gone the last few days from Aetolia is because I had to go to the emergency room early Monday. Once I got to work and started out I started shivering uncontrollably and then got very dizzy too. So the DMV called me an ambulance and I've been in the hospital since. Turns out I have Picornavirus in addition to Cellulitis in my lower left leg. They've been more concerned with the leg than the virus but I had a big fever Monday that I got through. Right now I'm still in here but feeling much better. Only thing is the lack of sleep. Hoping either tonight or tomorrow I get to come home. The infectious disease consultant or specialist told me he thinks I could probably go home with antibiotics and be fine. So I guess we will see.

Not fishing for attention or pity here. Just letting everyone know what's up who would wanna know that I haven't already told.

Tetchta

Hope everything works out my dude!

Nipsy

Get better dude, good vibes to you.

Aeryx

I'll need to check my Mine when I get home @Nipsy unless you can do that for me. :P

Procyon

Aeryx said:

Not fishing for attention or pity here. Just letting everyone know what's up who would wanna know that I haven't already told.

Not just directed at you, but at everyone. This kind of stuff is exactly what this thread is for. Don't feel guilty or like you have to defend yourself for posting here.

Hope you feel better soon. Being in the hospital sucks.