Writing Prompt 3:
How do you replenish or recharge after an exhausting emotional situation?
I don't have anything specific I do really. Everything I do when I get all worked up is stuff I do when I'm not all worked up.
Generally, though, I rely on my friends too much. I rant at them about whatever crap is getting me down. Or I get myself even more worked up if they're busy and can't give me the attention I'm craving. Which is definitely unhealthy. I've managed to push away a good number of friends that way.
Generally, whenever a situation gets really bad, I just try to take a step away from it. Now this can be seen as good or bad. On one hand, I'm taking control of the situation, and keeping myself from saying or doing things that I'd regret later. But on the other hand, I'm stepping away from it because I can't deal with it, so I'm just distancing myself from the situation, and trying to act like it just isn't there.
Exactly a year ago, give or take a day, I nearly quit Gaia for good.
I'd been really down about Gaia for a really long time by then. I'd been on Gaia for all but it's first 6 months. I was surrounded by people who hadn't been on Gaia as long as I had but who were more popular, more famous, had stuff I wanted, and had more poeple willing to help them get even more stuff.
I was a bitter, jealous person.
When profiles first came out, I saw this as an opportunity to make something of myself. I loved web design, and I was pretty good at it, and pretty decent at making layouts.
I started making layouts for tektek, using themes that were popular in an attempt to make myself popular. I did a Ragnarok one, a Gir one, a FFX one, even a couple Naruto ones. And people liked them because not only were they featuring stuff they liked, but they were done well.
Then I got back to my profile. I'd only been making skins up to that point, it was time to start breaking out of the box.
So I made a really cool layout. Twobit even said "flippin sweet profile" and Jak's response was "you know you're getting patched" and I was all happy. I had a layout that wasn't just a skin, and people were impressed with it. This was sometime in early December, back when they had the flash header, and the visitor's avy still appeared at the top of the screen.
Then one day in January, I was wandering around profiles, and I decided to look at the profile of this one girl I knew of. I knew she was really good at graphics, so I was expecting to see a really nice looking layout.
Instead, I saw my theme, with her images.
Right down to the fact that one of the things I'd done to make a "column" I'd done with an image, and she'd just recolored it.
Right down to the code I'd used to reposition the visitor's avy, that didn't actually do anything anymore.
I freaked out. At least three of my friends got to see me string together swear words in caps with no spaces. I was so angry I was shaking. On a whim, I decided to look at some of her friend's layouts. The first one I clicked on was using the same code, different images. So I went through her friendslist. She'd given my code to 5 people on her friendslist. This was an artist, someone I'd expect to have more respect for other artist's work than that.
I was livid.
And I became more so as it became obvious to me that there wasn't anything that anyone could do about it.
Here, I'd made something that might actually make people take notice of me, and someone else was reaping the benefits of it. And no one could stop her.
So... I ranted to my friend about it for a bit, trying to calm myself down. And then I decided that I was going to leave Gaia. I started PMing the girl, asking her why she thought it was ok and whatnot, handling it much better than one of the PD mod's at the time would have expected. She was even friends with the grl and she was like "if someone had done that to me, I'd definitely not be as calm as you are"
But I knew that getting angry and yelling at the girl wouldn't change anything. Plus I'd already decided I was going to leave Gaia.
Of course, it didn't last. Even though I spent hours sending all my stuff to Reddy, I still couldn't stay away.
But I didn't want to go back to where I'd been. I didn't like the role I felt stuck in on my old account, and I didn't want to deal with people accusing me of saying I was going to leave just to get attention.
So I ended up where I am now. I ran away from the old me, and started fresh.
And it actually worked for once. I made a whole lot of new friends right off the bat, and people liked me. I didn't feel mopey about how no one knew me because no one should know me, I was "new". And it actually was ok smile
Fast forward to this past weekend.
Somehow it had come up in one of my chats about how code theft can't be dealt with, and I gave a real quick readers digest version of the story above.
And someone just goes "lolz profiles are serious business"
I HATE when people belittle someone else's feelings by saying that. Just because you don't take things seriously doesn't mean that other people don't. And that doesn't mean you're any better of a person because you don't.
I wanted to tell the person off. But I knew it wouldn't do any good, because obviously they didn't understand if they were willing to just scoff and say "serious business"
So again, I took a step back, and kept myself from making the situation worse. I logged out of the chat for at least 15 minutes, calmed myself down and went to the Line-Art Jam thread to find something to color.
So pretty much, I just take a step away from the problem, rant at my awesome friends who deal with my lameass ranting, and I try to do something that makes me happy: designing/coding a profile, coloring a picture, video games, whatnot. Stuff I do when I'm not stressed out too xd
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Elindranyth
Gaia Staff |
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ok i will!
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Please note - while my username is orange and my title says "Admin Lead", I am still an Omni Moderator, I'm simply helping on a special project.
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User Comments: [5]