Hey there. As many of you may know, I’m no longer staff. I stepped down a couple weeks back. This is a post to detail the context and reasonings for that. I just want to preface this by saying I don’t have any negative feelings towards the heads or the staff at all, it isn’t nonsense drama that led to me stepping down. I want to give a warm, hearty welcome to all the new forum staff as well, I’m sure they’ll do wonderfully.
So. Where to start. I suppose I’ll start with the reasoning. I’m a mess of a human being if I can even be called that tbh. I constantly feel like crap, my motivation is below rock bottom, my mental health has been dying in a gutter for ages. I’m just not in a good place. I wasn’t giving anything to the forums, and I wasn’t helping. It was making me feel worse. So, I guess. Let’s give some context.
Context
I guess I should start around where things started going downhill for me. Not 2020, like people may suspect. Late 2019. When I moved back with my parents. I love my parents, my dad is a wonderful man and my mum was one of the most perfect human beings to ever exist. As such, I never felt like I was giving enough back for staying with them. No matter how hard I tried. But, it wasn’t all bad. In fact, it was rarely bad. It was a lot of good. I was in a wonderful relationship. I had friends. My family was supportive and things were looking up, I even got accepted into college. That’s when my mum came back from the hospital.
“Funky blood” she called it. I knew immediately. She did too, I bet. But it was later confirmed. A couple of weeks before Christmas last year I found out my mum had leukaemia. Particularly nasty leukaemia, too. We got to celebrate Christmas and New Year together, something I’ll forever be grateful for. But, when January came, so did the saying. “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst”. But nothing can really prepare you. My mum’s treatment lasted throughout January, and at the beginning of February, she passed away. By her own choice, because the pain and difficulty of the treatment were too much - and it wasn’t even a guarantee that it would work.
A few weeks after that, maybe less time, maybe more I’m not sure - it was all kind of a blur - I lost my relationship. In one of the worst ways possible. Then covid happened. My college course got delayed and then cancelled. This summer was by far and away this worst period of time in my life. Nothing was going right, everything was awful. The only thing that really got me through it was the forum and the wonderful people here. But, I was still miserable. And it just kept adding. More and more. A friendship of 5 years recontextualised in a negative way, being forced to question whether I’m even a remotely good person - for a while believing I wasn’t and having nothing but reinforcement for that idea.
It got a little better. For a short time, things were starting to look up. Then the college course I had managed to get into was also lost, I realised I’d need to start looking for work. My pets - gerbils I had had for over two years - passed away. Nothing to occupy my time but feeling like a useless waste of space and a failure. Which, if you’re curious, is how I still feel.
Here and Now
Well then. That’s the context. That’s been my year. Obviously, that isn’t everything. There’s more to every small facet of that, so much more. But that’s the gist. And that’s why I came to realise I had to step down as staff. I wasn’t gonna do any good in my state. I wanted to wait until the applications were sorted to say all this, I hope I didn’t wait too long. I know some people wanted context and reasonings. So, here it is.
I’m lonely. I’m angry a lot of the time, sad more often than that. I’m a state. But most of all, I just miss my mum. And I’m tired of needing to push that feeling aside. So, so tired.
Thank you for reading to this point if you managed. I appreciate it a lot, it was very difficult to write fully.
@ForumStaff if there’s a better place for this post or any tags you wanna add, go for it
I’ve just realized how awful 2020 has been for some people. I’m glad you’re taking a step back and focusing on yourself. Hope you see you around on the forums in the future 
