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im-thinking-arson · 3 years

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Hi wow depression is a hell of a thing.

I'm sorry for the relative silence here, considering everything that has been going on in the last (roughly) year and a half it has been really hard to focus on any creative outlets. Everything has felt pretty heavy as I have been piecing together what exactly happened to myself and the people I used to share a community with.

Although my former FC is basically non-existent at this point, I feel it is appropriate to say that I no longer associate with its' leader @morganaux (sernoudenet on Twitter and formerly here) and to clarify why.

I have been struggling with what to even say about the situation. There are so many layers that I don't honestly know if any single cross-section could explain all there is to unpack. When it takes multiple people six months to explore everything they know as fact... I think that shows its not so much of a 'he said, they said' scenario as the few people who still support Morgy have tried to claim.

I feel guilty not speaking up sooner, considering this person is a member of the FFXIV community who I'm fairly sure some of my mutuals follow. Its so hard to speak out when he publicly acts innocent, like he has quietly moved on and refuses to acknowledge what he's done.

The reality feels so cold in contrast, with the knowledge I have- that he has done this multiple times before, burning down or wearing down those he has hurt with false sincerity; claiming innocence, claiming people misunderstand the significance of the intentions behind the knives in their backs, claiming he is the truest victim of the mess wrought of his own actions.

He quietly retweets fan art, cute animals, head canons, and all kinds of fandom things- but also others' tweets to identify with their own traumas- the same traumatic thoughts and feelings he incites in others through a mixture of gaslighting, lashing out, and playing the victim. He tweets passive aggressively about people he feels the victim of, (justified or not) even amid posts about his dearly beloved OC.

At this point I should just block him and try to scrape all memory of what I went through from my mind, but un-fucking-fortunately I know him too well to believe it's over when it's over. He still makes passive aggressive tweets about people he hasn't talked to in one, two, ?? years, a person who was a good friend to him for 10 years before he scapegoated them to maintain his own sense of righteousness.

Seeing as I witnessed him maintain not one, not two, not three- FOUR venting channels in his own discord, including at one point one specifically made for sh*tting on a single person, defending it's use and encouraging others to participate saying 'this is how victims cope'...

I know it's not over, and if he had a single shred of...anything... He could leverage against me he would have already tried to 'cancel' me. I'm not turning my back again to see if he decides to throw another knife.

For a long time I wanted to believe I had simply misunderstood the situation, that his intentions weren't so self-serving. The more I saw, the more I heard testimony from others that matched my own, the more I began to un-repress and process my own memories and connect the dots... And the less sense his own account made.

While I tried to maintain my friendship with him I ignored all the red flags, my own rise in anxiety, the isolation I felt. I felt so much pressure to fit into his equation, to be a supportive friend, to keep track of how he was feeling that I stopped taking care of my own mental health.

All the while he got angry for people not checking on him when he asked for space, threw a fit when anyone failed to accommodate his whims, and even accused his three closest friends of purposefully excluding him by taking screenshots without him in them or even hanging out together when he was offline..

And he would have people believe that most of the issues he was involved in centered on his friends not communicating with him. But in my case at least, nothing could be further from the truth.

I told him I felt uncomfortable with the fact his (at the time) friend had publicly lashed out at me in his discord server for stating my opinion. He suggested I work harder to befriend this person, that he couldn't and wouldn't approach his friend about it because he wasn't a FC member and only there as a friend of himself and his two closest friends.

He lashed out at a former friend (and FC mate) of mine -on my behalf- because they wouldn't stop messaging me while I was at work... And when this person subsequently put me on blast thinking I had put him up to it I mentioned considering posting my side of the story- to initially be shamed (by the person mentioned above) for suggesting I protect myself, stating it could make things worse for the people who had already publicly attacked this person...

I approached him about another former friend of his angrily ranting about a character I had though at the time they knew I was planning to RP (I had spoken about it both in-game and in a discord we all shared) because I didn't know them well enough to feel comfortable saying that made me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in the space. I approached my former friend because I knew from experience he took things like this seriously and he was the one who had invited this character TO role play in the first place.

He reacted by telling this person he had no idea why I was upset, asked them to address an issue they had no context for - prompting them to write an apology, and then reinforced their worry that I hated them by saying I "probably disliked them since [I] hadn't written them an apology" in return. I had thought they both wanted to drop the subject because he stopped responding about the situation.

He decided the situation was resolved and kept inviting us around one another for at least four months while keeping up the illusion that I disliked this person despite me trying to remain friendly- and said nothing about the situation until AFTER he had nuked his FC and almost everyone was done with his bullshit. I had asked him to be honest about the situation and finally got "[name] thinks you dislike him" ???

(I might add more details about these situations because it's honestly much more of a mess than it might seem, but I'd probably have to write a fucking book to explain everything well in-sequence of events.)

But those examples aside, I told him up front that the favoritism he showed and my concerns being glossed over was messing with my head, that I didn't know if I felt safe in his FC, that the whole situation was making me feel like I was losing my grip on reality, that at one point feeling like I was being discouraged from defending myself was beginning to make me feel su*cidal. These are things he knew.

He reacted to this ignoring both cause and effect, ignoring me unless I reached out first or it concerned RP, continually inviting me to hang out with people he knew I felt uncomfortable with (or vice versa) and normally turning down anything I invited him to do otherwise- including several times that I offered to help him with Eden or dungeons he wanted to farm when he previously said he was free to do so. A couple of times he declined saying he was waiting to see if he could convince another friend... and then threw a fit about 'no one wanting to help him' despite declining my offer and not reaching out to me after his other friend declined (I was still online but he decided to vent on discord instead).

Behind my back he talked shit about me, enough that someone who had known him 10 years and was familiar with his behavioral patterns qualified it 'constant' bashing, whenever I came up in conversation. And even included confronting me about the three situations I mentioned above in a plan he was working on to 'fix' his FC, as if he thought I was reaching out to him to stir up drama.

Eventually it came out that the friend I mentioned in the first example was emotionally abusing his friends (and I found out later told him two of them were talking shit about him- prompting HIM to lash out at them). One of them mentioned that person had still been talking shit about me 6 months later on a private account and when I got upset that THREE people I had thought were my friends didn't tell me, I made a few jokes in poor taste (that I do now regret) about the situation to try and prevent myself from having a mental break down.

The person he led to believe I hated left the discord server at that point and he decided to divert some of the blame for (in his words) 'being worried for this person's life' -whom he had attacked over the situation- to me... blaming them leaving and him having trouble contacting them on me.

I told him if this former friend was indeed attacking people and he was so worried we needed to talk about the situation, since in other situations his response was to ignore the hurt caused. He blew up about me messaging him at work, he blamed me for every situation I had brought to his attention. He went to his mods to rant about me and sent one of them to scope out the situation in hopes they could shut me up.

This is the friend of 10 years, who quickly became concerned and not for the reasons he had hoped. They shared a few screenshots of things said to gaslight me behind my back as the conversation progressed. Eventually the other mod jumped in and, knowingly or not proceeded to gaslight me FOR him, based on what they were told. By him.

They reinforced everything he was saying in guise of a neutral perspective and my efforts to prevent a full-scale breakdown failed. I lost all grip on reality for several days- in which at some point I wrote an apology to him for accusing him of several things that were later proven true- and one thing he, himself, proved he'd lied about to the other person involved.

I spent almost two weeks in a self-imposed social break to sort everything out and attempt to cope with what I was told was reality. I fell into the deepest depression I've been in since I had to run away from home, and honestly if it wasn't for my wonderful SO and our house mates, I might have really hurt myself.

It turns out another situation had been brewing parallel to my own. People had been coming to the social mod, the friend of 10 years, with their own worries about him. Almost every. Single. Member. Including at least four people who came forward with fears that if they did a single thing that he interpreted as an insult or threat they would find themselves exiled, called out, and ranted about in a jumbled mix of truth and fictional-malice until their own friends turned on them to support his victim complex.

These four people came forward on the condition that their names be kept anonymous to protect their identity. He didn't take kindly to this, quickly demanding names so they (his mod team) could handle the situation. The mod refused, knowing he has a history of lashing out at any criticism against him and to protect those who were already afraid of bringing the problems up to Morgy.

He reacted by lashing out at this person, claiming they ruined his life, and attempting to weed out those who had spoken out against him by kicking anyone he didn't feel 'safe' being around from his FC. He posted a message in his FC discord about resuming his 'reign of terror'... Which, even if it was a joke, was in in poor taste after pruning his FC of anyone he didn't think could be convinced of his 'good intentions.'

I missed this first culling of his FC members, I assume, because I had apologized and at the time submitted to his version of events. He approached me soon after I noticed the changes in the discord and FC roster; claiming he really wanted to work things out and remain friends- going as far as to say he was so nervous about my reaction that he was shaking.

I wanted to take him at face value despite everything that happened because yeah, I did want to believe he was sincere, that he was a good friend, and that all of it had been an unfortunate misunderstanding. And at first I did until I started talking to other people who knew him and getting their side of the story. Nothing he said added up. Between first-hand testimony and over a hundred screenshots from multiple people the ONLY things that were clear and consistent were that he lied and fit his narrative to whatever he wanted to achieve.

He tried to reduce conflict by omitting information, he controlled people's perception of one another by how he spoke about them and how close he let them to himself and others, he built a support group by polarizing his friends against his 'enemies' and if anyone had a problem with him... They were wrong, and got added to the pile of 'aggressors' he had accumulated over the years, to be bashed and spit on for years to come.

He may have sensed my change in opinion when I directly asked him to help me reach out to the person who thought I disliked them- managed to come to an understanding and we mutually apologized for the situation... Without his meddling. Or maybe when he realized I was still on talking terms with the people he had lashed out at and directly asked him why he had kicked people who did absolutely nothing to him... Or it could be that I kept in contact with the person who 'ruined his life' by trying to protect his friends from him. I don't know.

While we were still talking he tried to identify with me and bond over the feeling of loosing the FC, a group of people that despite the anxiety, and pain I had felt in the environment he'd built I did deeply respect and care about... Despite the dissolution of that group and the abuse I suffered being -at the core- his own fault. He even went as far as to say my description of the PTSD and fear I was experiencing described exactly how he was feeling, too.

As our conversations further weighed on my mental health I had to take a break from interacting with him. I was honest again, with what I was told, what I knew, and asked him for honesty about the situation... What he had said about me behind my back and why because I wanted to hear it from him. I wanted to see if he would acknowledge the harm he caused both to me and the rest of the (former) FC.

He never did, and probably won't. He asked for some time to tend to his own stress levels and mental health and then blocked me on all social media and discord, and kicked me from his FC without ever making an effort to reach out.

Of the few people who are still close to him, one of them suggested that "maybe he just decided he didn't want to be friends anymore." But after him begging to have a conversation to iron out all the facts, claiming to be so anxious about such a conversation going well that he was 'shaking', admitting that what he did hurt people and that my being wary of him was understandable, asking me -directly- to let him know if he did anything 'shady', and stressing he REALLY wanted this conversation to take place when we were both able to handle it because of how important he felt it was...

I feel like its fair to say that him suddenly cutting off all contact isn't quite so simple. He could have done that at any point. Before pointedly ignoring my concerns, before gaslighting me, before blaming me for the results of his own actions, before accepting an apology for accusing him of things he did legitimately do, and certainly before directly telling me had no real problems with me, that he it was super important to him that we remain friends, and that I deserved his honesty.

I'm not going to try and tell anyone who they should be friends with or not. Frankly, people can change and in a lot of cases experiences with individuals will be different.

But on that same note, if I had known then what I know now I might have saved myself from roughly two years of anxiety and avoided the state of dissonance I now find myself in. I still have moments where I want to doubt the things I experienced first hand. My mind is still trying to repress my own memories to cope.

A part of me still cares about him despite everything because as far as I knew, he was my friend and I am still trying to reconcile what I found to be true.

At this point I feel like I should say please don't harass Morgy if you read this, but honestly? If you have any reason to hold him accountable go for it. He needs it. And if you have any gut feelings about him or anyone in his circle please listen to it. The few supporters he still has are willing to ignore anything he has done previous to the fall of his FC and have shown they are willing to debate and accuse people who speak out about legitimate concerns involving him.

If anyone has any questions I am willing to answer them and share the proof I have.

And in the off chance anyone wants to (further) argue with me about my experiences or whether or not I suffered enough to be considered a victim, please Google some images of a hand giving the middle finger. But if after that you still really want to play stupid games? I can find you some stupid prizes.

I don't owe him my silence. Or peace of mind. The only thing I owe him is to be as entirely, brutally, honest as possible given the information I have. I think it's a fair offer considering the mind-numbing volume of honesty he -still- owes all of us.

- - - - -

I may add more onto this. Unfortunately the entire situation is a lot more complex, but I wanted to get the backbone of my own experiences out there and there is so much bullshit it can't all be seen from any one direction. A lot of the circumstantial evidence loops back into other situations and makes it hard to comprehensively represent everything on any sort of singular timeline. As I said in the beginning there is a reason it took a small group 6 months to piece it together.

I am far from the only person hurt, and the entire situation was a mess with people feeling unnerved or pressured into going along with his agenda. For the most part now that I have more context I don't blame most of the people involved for their own actions. I fully support those who can't or won't come forward about the situation whether they just want out of his drama, or are afraid to come forward.

#ffxiv community #ffxiv rp #Morganaux #Morgy #Ser Noudenet #ffxiv twitter

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maurzbar · 5 years

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A Public Personal Statement & A Thank You

Hey guys. I know that this blog has changed throughout the 9 years that I have had it. At first, it was just a place to put things that I liked, art, share personal experiences. Then once my friends had also joined tumblr, it became a place for us to share things that made us laugh. And for about the last two or three years, it has been a place for me to shitpost and occasionally bitch about whatever I was dealing with at the time - though it has become more and more vague. So, I apologize if this seems out of the ordinary, but certain events have inspired me to put together a post like this, despite how nervous it makes me. It will be long, and there will be mentions of abuse and suicide, so if you find those things triggering, feel free to skip. But after years of staying quiet, I would like to share my experience I had with my ex-boyfriend of nearly 4 years.

Please, I also beg you to read the post that inspired me to put this together: https://exponentialentropies.tumblr.com/post/182844053068/a-resignation-statement-to-the-fc . Even if you don’t roleplay, even if you don’t play ffxiv - this is a very good demonstration of the man that I was involved with and receipts to prove it. I also would like to send my condolences thanks to @mihowinter, as she had the immense amount of courage to speak up when I did not, and as a result, helped me and many other women gain closure.

Where else to begin but when we first met. From here on, I’ll refer to him as Claud. As much hurt as he caused me, I have no interest in doxxing him.

It was August 2012. I was only 17 years old and a senior in high school and he was 19 and in college. We met on Gaia Online and started as just roleplay buddies, but quickly gained feelings for each other. It only took us about two weeks of talking before we were completely obsessed with each other. I used to blame it on the fact that I was just so young and a sponge for attention at the time, but, in reality, it was because he is a master at charming people, and it’s something that you wouldn’t understand unless you have met him. During this period, we were talking every moment we could. I would text him during class, and the moment I got home, I would be on skype with him until we fell asleep, and we got into the habit of letting the call run while we slept. Eventually, after we were involved for a couple of months, I told my parents that I had a boyfriend, but he lived in another state. They weren’t particularly happy, mostly because this was not the first time that I had been involved with someone online. My boyfriend before him was verbally abusive (remember this), and the moment my parents found out, they made their disapproval very known, and shortly after, I had ended things.

Despite this, my parents did not want to break us up, they just wanted to be more involved and meet his parents over Skype. The moment I told him his, he was very against it. He didn’t want to give a reason, but, he just didn’t want his parents to know. First red flag. So, after an argument over text, I told him that I didn’t want to be with him if he didn’t want to be exclusive. Not just with friends, but family, too. This was the first time we broke up. Less than 24 hours later, he texts me a long apology, telling me how much he cares about me. If you have read the linked posts above, you’ll know that this is something he does often, and is very good at. At the time, I was a bit stronger than I am now, and clarified that I would only get back together with him if he agreed to tell his parents about me. He did, and for the next month or so, things were just back to they normally were. We didn’t have any other fights at the time other than that one. Things seemed really perfect to me.

At the time, we were both very into playing TERA Online, and were a part of a pretty prestigious guild. When I had first joined, he did not introduce me as his girlfriend, but as people asked me about myself, I would tell them that we were dating. It soon became common knowledge in the guild that we were involved. It was the first time we had ‘come out’ as a couple together and began to make mutual friends. We were exclusive. I even changed my status on Facebook to ‘in a relationship with (his real name)’. Then, during spring break of 2013, we had decided that he was going to come out to meet me in person for the first time. His mom had bought a flight as a birthday gift to the both of us and he would be staying at my house for three days. Although a lot was stressing me out (someone had hit my car and I was trying to figure out what to do for college), I looked forward to seeing him more than anything, and would count down the days in my school planner. People in Tera knew that he was coming to see me and would cheer us on. And when he did come, it was great, and I was under the impression that I had found my forever guy.

Of course, things began to change. Because our relationship started from roleplaying, we thought very highly of it. He constantly told me that I was the most talented writer he had ever found and only wanted his characters to be involved with mine. While it was not a rule that we had made for each other, it was certainly something that we both preferred, as all of our characters had been together. However, as months passed, it was clear that he was interested in wanting to find other roleplay partners. At the time, it did hurt me, but I didn’t want to disallow him from doing so, and instead, I tried to find other people to roleplay with as well. We were still together, and that’s the most I could have asked for, anyway.

I went away to college in August of 2013 and stayed in the dorms while I finally decided to study psychology. It was during this time that we had started to fight more and more about a variety of things. Sometimes it was things that I said that he took offence to, or me not calling him within the 30 minutes that I said I would. I started to cut class to talk to him more if he said he needed me to. That happened a lot. And it started negatively affecting me and my grades. I started to grow very, very depressed. Nothing mattered to me except him, and unfortunately, I was not seeing my family often enough for someone to notice. It wasn’t until we had a very huge argument about him finding out that I was roleplaying with someone else (despite him doing the same with other people) that I finally cracked and saw a therapist. That was when I was diagnosed with clinical depression, social anxiety, and body dysmorphia. I was prescribed three different medications and was required to speak with a therapist once a week. During this time, I was completely miserable. I would constantly reach out to Claud for help, and he would only get angry at my attempts to discuss how I was feeling. When I would tell him how hopeless I felt, he would snap back with, “Are you saying that to guilt me?” even if the matter had nothing to do with him. If I told him that something in particular he did or was doing was a trigger for me (as my therapist eventually encouraged me to do so), he would say “I never said that,” or “you’re making me out to look like the bad guy.” Bad gaslighting techniques that worked wonders on me.

In the end, I never really got help, because my parents decided for me to drop out of that university and let me come back home. Because I had to do that, I didn’t get to see the therapist anymore, and I could not receive refills for my medication. So now, I was just at home, and still attached to him like glue.

It’s 2014. It was around this time that we had started to ERP. It wasn’t something that I was a fan of, but I had done it here and there because he requested it, and I thought that it wasn’t going to become an everyday thing. And it didn’t start out that way. It would be something that he asked to do once in a blue moon, and then wouldn’t mention it for a few weeks or so. But soon the request became more and more, and I finally began to feel myself growing more reluctant to give in. And when I told him, that’s when the fights started. And every time we would fight, it was seriously an uphill battle. He would constantly gaslight me and make me feel like it was my fault, and that I should feel terrible for not giving him what he wanted, even if I didn’t want to do it. And then, after fighting for hours, days, even, he would apologize for the things that he said. He would be an angel for a week or two, spoiling me with long declarations of his love or buying me things, and then next week we would have the same fight again.

That continued for months. The on and off with him, and constantly feeling like he was using me for ERP was really taking a toll. His requests at first were for vanilla things, but the more I indulged him the more he would push, and soon he started asking for stranger things. They were small things at first, like requests for a certain character to talk dirty when they normally wouldn’t, or to do bondage with some characters. At the time, the content was not major, but my only issue was the frequency in which he requested to ERP. Eventually, I told him that I wanted to focus on doing other forms of roleplay, and that instead of ERPing for pleasure, I would prefer to do it in person. That pleased him for a while, but, little did I know, he was just finding other people to ERP with behind my back, even when we both had declared that this was considered a form of cheating and that we would never to it with anyone else but each other.

And so, we stopped ERPing for a little while, unless it happened during our regular roleplays. While that particular weight was lifted off of my chest, we were still fighting at least once every two weeks about nonsensical things. My friends began to notice how frequent we would fight and would openly say they didn’t like him, but, did not encourage me to break up with him. A few people we had as mutual friends would tell me something about him was off, but I wouldn’t listen because I was in love. The highs in our relationship were high, but our lows were very low. And this continued. All the way through 2015, there we moved from game to game. We poured countless hours into The Secret World and once we had gotten our fill of that, we moved to Guild Wars 2, where we made new characters to roleplay on. But it wasn’t long until he was hungry again.

This time, the fights were about our sex life. I will keep it as brief as I can for privacy’s sake, but, whenever he would come to visit me in person (which was about twice a year), he would constantly complain that we were not having enough sex. If it wasn’t every moment of every day, he was unsatisfied, and began to try and turn the tables on me. He claimed that it was my fault and that I was being a prude for not giving enough to him. Even if we were not together in person, we fought about it. He would say I could make it up to him by doing ERP, and because I wanted to stop fighting about it, I would do it half-heartedly. So we started ERPing again, against my will.

Highs and lows, lows and high. Little by little I was beginning to fall back into a depression, and every fight was just another nail in the coffin for me. I started self-harming regularly, whether or not we fought, because it was the only way mind knew how to deal with things. My parents started to notice that things were not right. I was on autopilot for months.

Then he decided to start playing FFXIV. I had wanted to join him, but my computer was not good at the time and could barely run it. Instead, I stayed in GW2, while he would Skype me while he played. At first, there was lots of conversations between the both of us. And then, he stopped talking all together. We would sit on a call for almost 10 hours where he would just be playing on FFXIV and not talk to me. Not one word. The most we would say is small talk and then that would be all. That went on for two months. Eventually, I got sick of being ignored and broke up with him for the second time. I was devastated.

This time, we were separated for almost a month. I got a job, and enrolled back in school. But then, he reached back out to me again. For about a week or so, we were just “friends,” but, it wasn’t long until he had asked to start dating again. He had assured me that he had changed, that he had worked through his anger, and he was ready to give me the attention I deserve. So, I accepted. And before long, I decided to bite the bullet and play FFXIV with him, even though it only ran on 15 FPS on my computer at the time. I played by myself for a good while, as he already had a roleplay partner at the time (who I won’t name). I had suspicions that he was romantically involved with this person, as he would often disallow me communicating with them, and spent all of his free time with this person. But because we had just gotten back together, I didn’t want to start another argument, and just assumed that I was being jealous, so I didn’t mention it. Eventually, they left the game unexpectedly, and the moment they did, he needed someone to fill the space in his heart, and finally offered for me to join his company (this time introducing me as his girlfriend!) and roleplay with him.

After our characters were established, it wasn’t long until he started asking to ERP again. I still did not want to, but I was scared to lose him again, so I obliged to all his desires. Just as before, he started make requests, but, this time, they were very extreme. He would request for my characters to participate in gangbangs, for my characters to cheat on his characters, and even to have his character have sex with his own daughter (this one I flat out did NOT do). He knew that these kinds of roleplays made me very uncomfortable, but he continued to pressure me into doing them, and when we did, I would weep the entire time because of how disgusted it made me. It was a constant topic of contention for the both of us for the next year of being together. No matter how miserable these arguments made me, and the amount of people that were telling me to leave, I stayed because I believed I was nothing without him.

It was about the spring of 2017. We were owning a company together that was mostly for friends, but we were beginning recruitment. We were still endlessly arguing about the same old things and trying to keep up appearances for our mutual friends and company members. Claud and I had another big argument about ERP of all things, where he screamed at me, berated me, and spoke to me in a way I never thought he would. I left the guild, thinking that he certainly was going to break up with me. 5 hours later he was apologizing, as he always did, and I asked, how are we going to fix this issue? It was clear that I did not want to ERP as much as he did, but I also did not like the idea of him ERPing with anyone else, because we had both agreed that it was cheating. He agreed with me, but there was no compromise to be made. It was at that moment when I realized that this was not something that was going to be solved and it was probably best to end the relationship, but because we were so involved and I feared what he would do if we broke up, I did not end it there when I should have.

The next two months (March and April of 2017) were probably the worst of our relationship. He asked me to quit my job in order to spend more time with him, and I did. With much pressure with him, I finally agreed to allow him to ERP with other people, (mostly because I felt like it was my last-ditch effort before ending the relationship entirely) my only stipulation was that he tell me when and who it was with. Of course, he never did tell me. Every time I would ask about it, he would get angry at me and say that there wasn’t anybody he had found. It was just a whole new topic for arguments. Nothing had changed, even though I had finally given him what he wanted. In fact, it was just worse now. And by May, I had had enough. I ended it, and this time, I didn’t look back.

You’d think that it would end there. But it doesn’t.

To keep it short: I left our company, for the second and final time. I continued to play with my raid group at the time and full intended to just find another company and move past it. Until I heard that he was spreading rumors that the reason I had broken up with him was because I was cheating on him. Part of me had suspected that he would do such a thing – mostly because throughout our entire relationship I had realized a pattern of him playing the victim and refusing to take responsibility for his actions. I realized that he was trying to turn all of our mutual friends against me and spinning the story to turn me into the devil. I felt conflicted, because the few friends that still reached out to me did not want to hear about the drama, and even made rules to not discuss Claudien in order to “keep the peace between us.” I didn’t want to make my friends pick sides, but it also meant that I had no one else to talk to about all of the abuse and manipulation. I was still silenced. And that meant that when he approached me to ask for my small house, I felt obligated to give it to him because I was scared that he would spread lies that I refused to let him have it. (Additionally, once he found out I was quitting FFXIV, he texted me telling me he wanted to sell my medium back to the person that I bought it from, which I later found out he never did sell it back to them.) And soon after, I felt so paranoid about being in game and running into him or one of our old friends, I decided to quit the game. Cold turkey. I mentioned it to my raid group, but that was about it.

This may not have been the best decision. I try and debate that constantly. But there was really nothing there for me anymore. He had turned everyone I had known against me and the only thing that had kept me so dedicated to that game was my friends. Now I didn’t have them. So, I quit, and no one reached out to me afterwards, because he had told them that I purposefully abandoned them.

During this time, I stayed off the internet and put all my effort into trying to work on my offline life. I became a full-time student again and plunged myself into my hobbies. I also started working out, as it was a good stress reliever for me. I would get home from class, workout, work on cosplay, then bed. Rinse, repeat. I still had moments where I would get very depressed and miss my friends and even him, and I was trying to find distractions every moment of the day. And that was about when I delved head first into my eating disorder. That’s something you might find well documented in my blog already. It was a very strange coping mechanism for me. Thinking about weight and food was a great way to keep my mind off of him and all the other horrible things that went wrong, but also, it was a form of self-punishment for me. He had made me feel like less than dirt and this was my way of becoming it entirely.

I suffered with anorexia purging type from July of 2017 until April of 2018. I don’t even want to say I have recovered, because I never will. I still have relapses and switch from one eating disorder to another, but it’s something that will be with me during the rest of my life. During that time, I gained and lost well over 60 pounds, and at my lowest weight, I suffered from a seizure that really made me wake up and seek recovery.

Right around January of 2018, however, I returned to FFXIV. I name changed and server changed and met new people. Joined a new FC. Got a new raid group. Even started roleplaying. I was learning to enjoy the game again and even making some new, fantastic friends that I’m lucky to still call friends to this day. I was still going to school and making plans for the rest of my life. Everything seemed stable until I ran into him again, around May of 2018 (or sometime around there), in Eureka. He wanted to talk, and I thought that maybe it could be brief and we could learn to be civil again. Though many people encouraged me not to, we did end up having a conversation, where is was mostly him asking me to ERP again. I showed a bit of reluctance, and so he dropped the topic, and then the next day I woke up and saw he had blocked me again.

I was confused, but I wasn’t going to seek him out again. I just left it as this.

However, this continued on for the rest of the year.

After a few months, he reached out again. This time, he texted me. After chatting again with him on discord, the conversation came back to ERP. I said sure this time, but set very strict limits. He agreed, but then blocked me again before the first post.

Then again, he added me on discord. Said this time he just wanted to catch up and talk, no ERP this time. We did for one conversation, and in the middle of it he started screaming at me saying that I just used people to get what I want from them and that I never changed from the last time I met him. Blocked again. Internally I told myself that perhaps I should stop answering when he tries to talk to me.

It was a few months, around the summer time of 2018 when he reached out to me on discord last. He was in Japan at the time. He had been trying a few different times to add me on discord, but I kept declining his friend request. He tried about 4 times and then texted me, saying that he was only trying to add me because he wanted to roleplay again. I told him, firmly, that I only was interested in doing non-ERP, and he said that was fine. We made about 3 or 4 posts back and forth in discord, until one day, out of nowhere, he sent me a long text, calling me a parasite and saying that he wished that he had never allowed me into his life. He told me that I was better off dead and that I should hurry up and kill myself. And that was the final straw for me. I blocked him on discord and blocked his number.

And you think that’s the last time?

He texted me twelve different times through the entire month of December (2018), frantically apologizing for his behavior and begging to ERP again. He lied to me in these messages and said that he was “talking through things” with a therapist. I did not respond to any of the messages - in fact I didn’t even see them until the middle of January. But, weirdly enough, on the 19th of January, he called me three times on my cell phone (which all got blocked), and messaged me on tumblr (the last place I hadn’t blocked him) asking to talk. Despite my entire body screaming at me not to give him the time of day, I worried that maybe something was very wrong with him, and I got into a voice chat with him on discord.

In this chat, he spoke very poorly of Miho and spread lies about her while also saying that I was the “good ex-girlfriend” of his because I had chosen not to speak up about his behavior. He attempted to apologize for the years of abuse but, as it always is with him, it was insincere and was just a ploy to make sure that I, of all people, was “on his side,” when I was not even involved. At the time, I had not seen her post, nor did I know any of the drama, so to this day I have no clue why he fed me lies. He very briefly told me about the drama within the FC, told me about his new girlfriend (which was a lie as well), and then asked me if I wanted to ERP again. I said no. Once again. He proposed the idea of doing normal RP instead. I said perhaps. We parted way and two hours later I was blocked again.

I thought it was just an odd circumstance and reminded myself not to bother with him again. That is, until the post that Leo Arkwright made was brought to my attention. Then everything started to piece together.

The last few days I have been reaching out to Miho and the various women that have been unfortunately harmed by him and his behavior. I’d found out that he had been cheating on me since as early as 2015, and maybe even sooner than that. You must be wondering; how there have been all these women and you are just now finding out? Well, it’s because while he was in my home, he would log on to my FFXIV account and block all of the women that he was involved with so that they would be unable to contact me and I would be unable to contact them. Fortunately for all of us, we’ve been in good contact, and I hope to remain good friends with most of them. 😊

It baffles me that there are more out there that he has played and abused, and probably more that have not spoken out yet. And I really encourage you to. If not publicly, then privately, with me, Leo Arkwright, or Miho. If anything, I beg you to send your love to Miho. Out of everyone involved with him and his abuse, she was affected the worst, and deserves nothing but support and love. I also encourage those who to not understand or question either of our actions to do some research on narcissist abuse to understand just what kind of person my ex truly was.

Thanks for reading. I’m truly ready to put this to bed and move forward with my life.

#thank u next #the bold parts are for ppl who want to skim through #it is a very long read #but im done now

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moonlit-nightingale · 6 years

Text

An Analysis

I was thinking...and that’s never a good thing!

Summary: It takes a patient person to deal with a broken character. And most don’t have the dedication to do so.

Quick Intro

Firstly, Sari is not my usual RP archetype. Not one bit. Typically I play the playboys, sarcastic assholes, rogue types. Many like my other spread of FFXIV personas.

In fourteen years of roleplaying, I have never played a ‘cinnamon roll’ type character.

Likely I never will again.

What drove me to it this time? Xaela are known as a warmongering tribal race. War is in their blood, as most Xaela roleplayers hold true.

However no race is completely 100% the same. So what happens to the outliers?

If you think making Mr. Stoic and Aloof break out of their shell is difficult, Sari’s development has been one of the most turbulent and frustrating RP experiences in my life.

For me, remaining true and realistic to your character is more important than bending their concept to ‘fit’ other people’s expectations. I believe doing that has pushed many people away from wanting to interact and help Sari.

I have a feeling people think I’m being difficult as he’s been called ‘mopey.’ Well, why is he?

A (kinda) brief lookover into what made Sari into his current state:

Parents killed when he was still an infant, no memory of them.

His memories begin and continue for NINETEEN years of being with the Buduga.

There he was physically, verbally, emotionally, mentally, and sexually abused for being a nurturer and submissive individual.

He didn’t fit the mold. So he was a target. So he hid in the Steppe when he could.

When he was forced into a scenario he never wanted, fighting in the Naadam, he froze up, failed and was maimed.

He was called useless and weak, further reinforcing a mindset groomed in him for years.

Arriving in Eorzea, the trauma showed. He couldn’t look anyone in the eyes, he was instantly cowed by authority figures, and flinched away from physical touch.

I am no mental health professional but I think those are acceptable learned behaviors from what he’s encountered in life thus far, aye?

His first romantic interest physically bowled him over more than once. But why did Sari finally take that scary step into a relationship? Because he wanted to HELP that individual who was struggling to find his own place. Literally Sari’s words were, “I’ll be your mate if you stay” in the tribe.

It wasn’t a healthy move. Now I believe this person left because Sari showed no sexual interest right off the bat. Unrealistic? Me being stubborn? Again, no. His only encounters of that nature had been acts of control and power. Sex never represented love.

By the time the second romance rolled around, Sari was in quite a time in his life. He was out for revenge for the first time. The Buduga had hurt his family, he’d kill them in return.

Note: Sari never turned against the Buduga at ANY point in his life because of what happened to HIM. It was because they purposely targeted his family. That is when he finally turned to a violent solution.

In the midst of this, I did allow another relationship to begin among all the other issues going on with Sari at the time. The killing of former tribemates and his racial discrimination in Ishgard that nearly drove him to a sickbed were two hurdles ongoing during this time.

This one led to Sari overcoming a big fear. To approach his tribe leader for permission to openly court a mate. Issues from this include Sari’s lingering hesitance about being visibly open about his sexuality.

When he was still fresh from the Steppe, he’d been asked about this very thing in the middle of a huge social gathering and publicly embarrassed about it.

But he did it and asked for the right to court.

A few days later, an OoC altercation led to the relationship being broken off suddenly with no IC resolution.

How did he find out ICly? The individual openly flirting with another in the tribe right in front of him.

So the midpoint recap.

Two partners who left him because, in my perception, Sari didn’t want to hop into bed with them. This was me being true to his character, not just being difficult to extend ‘the chase.’

I think there is a large group of roleplayers that are looking for a quick lay and I encountered two of them on an unfortunately fragile character.

This second failure hurt him tremendously and he had little support in its wake. A bit of OoC drama in the aftermath of all this led to Sari being ICly being isolated.

It’s when his drinking began. Thanks to three friends that have and still are there for them (bless you Yesui, Khal, and Odoki, truly), he recovered and began a life in the Adders.

Finally!

POSITIVE! \o/

I was able to make Sari feel good about his decisions in life, give him a chance to lead. How? He was AWAY from Xaela. And he was more comfortable that way.

Fast forwarding to more current events.

The magitek arm. Despite the trauma of it, Sari recovered remarkably well. He’d grown mentally by this time thanks to the Adders and was going to push forward from the injury.

He finally had a support system of a large group.

Then things turned again.

One man he trusted (even had a crush on at one point) doubted his conviction during his recovery and outwardly marked down his worth.

A person that is fighting a mental battle of recovery needs support. Hearing such a thing from a trusted soul was a quick regression to his time on the Steppe and within the tribe.

You are worthless. Weak. Not good for anything.

Who would love you? Two haven’t now. They’d left you behind.

Who would want you? The Adders discharged him due to suspicion of Garlean tampering and he was kicked from the dojo.

So he shut down.

And that is where Sari is now.

He’s been broken more times than I think a normal sane person could handle if looked at from a realistic angle. Some persist in the face of this and some surrender to it.

I’m not sure what will happen to Sari in the future.

Summary of My Rambling

I in no way purposely play Sari to be ‘difficult.’ I do my best to stray true to a twenty year old that has known abuse for nineteen of his years.

A soul that has had little support and a constant swinging pendulum of positive and negative experiences.

I have also been told I set him up for all these terrible things to set him in a downhill spiral. Things that I have purposely orchestrated:

His past (of course)

Torture by the Buduga (set up for a FC mini-arc)

His drinking (coping mechanism)

Magitek arm (set up for a FC mini-arc)

Everything else has been through interactions. This involves responding in a way I feel is true to his character, not necessarily what I want behind the screen.

I’m very protective of this songbird and it hurts me to see him hurt.

Anxiety, depression, feeling unwanted, not having a social circle to call your own, constantly being shuttled on to the next encounters of your life and knowing they’ll likely hold no positives.

These are all reflections of me.

And as cliche and cheesy as it sounds, that’s why it hurts me to see Sari so discarded and kicked like a can down the road.

Aye, I understand RP and FFXIV as a whole are hobbies people play to have fun. And if someone doesn’t enjoy an encounter, they want to move on to something that is fun to them.

Totally cool with that, I hold zero anger towards those souls. But respect each other and give a heads-up and be honest. Don’t leave people hanging in a void. There are people behind those screens that may be using this game as a way to cope.

*deep breath*

If anyone actually read this far, thank you. I just had to get some thoughts out there that have been plaguing me as of late.

#ic and ooc analysis #shower thoughts are best thoughts #mental recap

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wetoddidirl-blog · 6 years

Text

Please... Help me

I honestly do not know what I am doing here, or even really how to use this website. I... feel this is one of my last real hopes to try and find something in my life. I want to start off that on paper... my life shouldn't be this hard. I've been told by a lot of people they have it worse and that I am just... doing something wrong. I also wish to let... anyone and everyone who reads this know everyone I talk about... I do it from love. They are not bad people, or have done anything wrong in my eyes. Please do not think ill of anyone I talk about. I will also not be mentioning anyone else’s name other then mine.

Hello, my name is Levon and I’m scared and in need of help. I’m not in any physical danger other then what I could possibly do to myself. I’m not asking for any hand outs or money, or help with anything. I am merely seeking out help in the form of understanding and information. There is something rather wrong me with and I... am not sure exactly what, or even how to approach fixing myself. Thank you to all that read this... and try to help, or even send me good thoughts. I love you all, and wish the best for you.

I don’t really know where to begin or even how to talk about my problems... and I apologize if this seems like I’m rambling. I guess I will start with why I hurt. I seem to have the ability to find people and make them feel better about themselves. From there I seem to be able to build... what I think to be strong bonds, and even form groups of friends. That doesn't sound too bad... until after a good deal of time goes by... I try to come out of my shell... completely. I am too afraid to show any pain... or issues I might have around people. I don’t try to hide myself... I just was raised where emotions and feelings was something I shouldn't have or show. Every time I reach out to my friends for help it drains them... it hurts them. I don’t blame them as the more I think about it, the more issues I have. I always find myself... slowly being left behind in my groups of friends to the point they don’t talk to me anymore. Again, it’s no one’s fault other then mine... I am a drain on anyone and people shouldn't be expected to carry another’s burden.

This is a pattern that has followed me from grade school and still haunts me to this very day. It wasn't until I started playing FFXIV on Balmung that I seemed to be able to... actually start to form words and actually talk about my problems. I have made so many friends... which I’m grateful for, and always will be. I have turned them all against me. I honestly couldn't tell you what I said, or done that always turns the people I love against me. I don’t know if it’s the fact I pour everything into my friendships until I stumble slightly. Maybe it’s because when I stumble... I don’t think I’m worth being their friend (thought to self).

I have recently made a group of friends... and by recently it has been longer then a year ago since we ‘formed’. My depression and anxiety has been eating me more and more, and it wasn’t helping that it seemed that for as quickly as I could make a friend, I could make two people dislike me and stop talking to me. I won’t lie, I am a needy friend, in that I need to know I’m wanted. It’s hard for me to build up the courage and strength to ask others to do something with me. It usually requires me to start drinking to do such a feat.

On my birthday this October there was a conflict in my group of friends. I’m the kind of person that will stick up for anyone and everyone, because... I would want someone to stick up for me (rarely if ever happens). I put myself in the middle... trying to stop everything... trying to calm everyone and defend everyone which didn’t work. One thing led to another and... I came forward about my crippling depression and how I... thought it would be easier for those around me if I just kind of ceased to exist. How the only thing really keeping me sane was that I was surrounded by people that I love. This was something I don’t have at home. I’m a constant reminder to my mother that I’m a failure and the reason her life isn’t better, and I’m told it quite frequently.

Ever since outing myself one of my friends... I thought she was my closest friend as she seemed to understand me more then anyone else has in my life. She stopped talking to me completely and has even dropped all forms of communication, as I have become to much to bare.

My newest friend in the group, was very understanding and fun to be around. We hit it off and become fast and very strong friends. She liked to talk out her problems... which is hard for me because I struggle with words of my feelings... but I’d do it for her because it’s best for her. I never succeeded in making her feel better in doing so and I always felt like a failure in her eyes. She’s tried to help me with my depression. Between wanting to talk about my feelings, and not hurt anyone elses... my words are jumbled, and often misleading or seem very hurtful or very manipulative. I hate it... that is how I come off when I want nothing more then my friends to feel loved and wanted from me. I never lie to my friends, and I never say anything hurtful... at least purposely. I’m not sure how I did it... but I have made her angry and rather then wanting to talk her problems out with me like she usually wants to... she hardly messages me now.

My third friend which honestly is a good guy. He’s not selfish or rather he is but not in a mean or unkind way. He just knows what he wants, and wants what he wants. He is still very nice and even though he doens’t really understand depression or understand how someone can be depressed. He always made sure to message me from time to time and check up on me... to see how I was holding up and let me know if I wanted to do anything with him. I decline almost every time now as he spends a good deal of time with my other friends so I don’t want to make them uncomfortable. I would rather be alone and miserable then to cause discomfort to them as they are all nice people I am... just to much sometimes.

My fourth friend of the group doesn't fit in with the group. She doesn't really catch social queues the best or always know what to say. She doesn't feel welcome by the group for some time, because she can and does get really emotional about some of the silliest things. She to is a close friend and one that actively still talks to me often. I hate the fact I feel like she is my only remaining friend... and that no matter how hard she might try... I feel like shit and alone. I have started catching myself pushing her away as well because I would rather lose her as a friend then cause her to hate me as well.

I’m sorry I don’t know how to word the help I need, or really anything. I’m not even sure if anyone will read this or if I care. I needed to write this out in hopes I could find my own answer in what I am to do, because I’m so scared... of how badly I want to push my friends away... so they won’t have to go through the pain of me. Regardless if it’s the pain I cause when I’m anxious or... if I choose to take the cowards way out. I’m so terrified that I used to loathe the thought of suicide. In the events in recent weeks and months... I have re-evaluated my thoughts on the subject.

TL:DR: I am unable to talk about my feelings or problems, and do nothing but push the people I love away from me. No matter how hard I try I always end up failing my friends.... the only people I love. I’m at my wits end, waking up crying every day for how alone and pathetic I feel. I am scared I will hurt others should I lose my fight for life.

P.S. I should add in when I’m feeling really depressed... I push people away and make it hard for them. I am not an easy person to deal with... I never push people away because I think... I am punishing myself. I push people away because I think I am saving them from... me.

#deppresion #help me #balmung #ffxiv #steel bison #confused #desperate

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