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Ghogargi -- I created an account on this forum just to say thanks for sharing your experience. I do not identify as a nerd and I know next to nothing about gaming but I do consider myself a generally open-minded person, especially when it comes to new experiences. So, when the guy I was casually dating said he was into vampire larping I thought ok this is new, I'll check it out and see what I think. Well, the novelty wore off quickly when I went to a game to watch and interacted with the other players -- within a short time I observed all of the behaviors that you address throughout this thread. I tried to be open-minded but after going to a few games and cons, the overt instability and questionable mental health of the players was what finally turned me off to it. So when you say it's an organization that attracts and ensnares the unwell, unsocialized, insecure, maladjusted, etc..I found that to be 100% accurate. Whenever I tried to point out any of my observations, or any criticisms of players behavior at all, I was quickly branded an enemy by all of my bf's "friends." The female players had no respect for our relationship, for example, and sometimes would try to sit on his lap or flirt with him with me sitting right next to him. Now, I don't know much about nerd social dynamics but I am not a person who is afraid of calling out bad behavior. So whenever something like that would happen, and I'd openly say to the the girl "uhhh, wtf do you think you're doing? that's not okay." I was somehow looked at as the bad guy for standing up for myself. And that is nowhere near the worst of what I observed. I guess I won't go into much more detail but I eventually broke up with my bf bc it was slowly revealed that he was also a larp lifer and held a major position in his region that took up unreal amounts of time (in the beginning of our relationship he hid how much a part of MES he actually was) For a long time his friends tried to convince me that larp really wasn't that bad and that I was overreacting, etc. etc. So when I came across this thread it was really vindicating and refreshing bc I admit, they did have me second-guessing myself thinking maybe I was just overly judgmental and harsh about a world I didn't understand. One more thing I wanted to mention is that I completely support a documentary on these topics and hope you consider it. I think it's almost negligent to create a larp documentary without acknowledging the behaviors, neurosis, etc of some of these communities and the players. I think you have an especially unique perspective having had a foot in both worlds, so to speak. I hope you will consider it bc it could have saved me a lot of time trying to figure out just what exactly was going on with this group. Edit: For a laugh, here's how I felt at vampire larp http://imgur.com/HzumHhX TAK2412 fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Oct 2, 2016 |
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Sep 28, 2016 05:39
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MES is loving terrible at all levels, and being in a position of organizational 'power' is a pretty good predictor of how lovely of a person someone is to interact with.
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Sep 28, 2016 08:27
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I'm not what you'd call a LARP veteran (I've been to a total of three LARP events ever), but a lot of people in my social circle are hardcore LARPers. I'm also Swedish so it's interesting to read this thread and see the big difference between American and Nordic LARP. Nordic LARP seems to be more one-offs exploring weird concepts (like that hardcore survival LARP someone linked upthread) or long-running campaigns with maybe one or two events a year. They also tend to be pretty rules-light. The few I've attended basically had some bare-bones combat rules and that was it - no character sheet, no skill values, no special abilities, no experience points. Mechanical benefits are tied directly to what gear you have, and maxes out at plate armour and two-handed weapons. So it's impossible for veteran players to *mechanically* dominate newbies. There's also a huge overlap between LARPers and reenactors in Sweden - and in Sweden reenacting means viking or medieval stuff. So there's a huge focus on historically correct clothes and gear in LARPing - not enforced by the organizers, mind you, but the LARP crowd is such that everyone knows someone who knows the correct thread count and colour of the fabric for a 14th century English tunic, which of course you have to have if you are playing such-and-such a character. From what I've gathered the Swedish LARP scene has slowly (over the last 10+ years) attracted people more interested in ~emotional experiences~ than hitting people with foam swords, and have thus become increasingly pretentious. The result has been almost the opposite of how Vampire seems to work, but driven largely by (I think) the same kind of broken people looking for validation in all the wrong places. Instead of everyone looking to play a super-powered badass or special snowflake, there's a disturbing amount of people in Swedish LARPs looking to play slaves, prisoners and low-castes of all kinds. There's whole groups of players posting on event forums about how they want everyone else in-game to despise and harass them. Individual players genuinely posting "Looking for someone to oppress me at <LARP event>". This has of course also resulted in a whole slew of LARP events focusing entirely on putting the players through uncomfortable or disturbing experiences. Organizers sell their events to players by literally saying "We promise you'll have a bad time".
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Sep 28, 2016 13:27
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Mr. Sunshine posted:I'm not what you'd call a LARP veteran (I've been to a total of three LARP events ever), but a lot of people in my social circle are hardcore LARPers. I'm also Swedish so it's interesting to read this thread and see the big difference between American and Nordic LARP. Nordic LARP seems to be more one-offs exploring weird concepts (like that hardcore survival LARP someone linked upthread) or long-running campaigns with maybe one or two events a year. They also tend to be pretty rules-light. The few I've attended basically had some bare-bones combat rules and that was it - no character sheet, no skill values, no special abilities, no experience points. Mechanical benefits are tied directly to what gear you have, and maxes out at plate armour and two-handed weapons. So it's impossible for veteran players to *mechanically* dominate newbies. I'm not sure that's just a LARP thing, although it's surprising to see it there. The MUSH community has a similar problem with people joining games to basically play out their slavery/BDSM fantasies, regardless of the game.
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Sep 29, 2016 00:52
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Mr. Sunshine posted:This has of course also resulted in a whole slew of LARP events focusing entirely on putting the players through uncomfortable or disturbing experiences. Organizers sell their events to players by literally saying "We promise you'll have a bad time". You should start a temp agency for this.
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Sep 29, 2016 01:40
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This would be a great dissertation topic.
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Sep 29, 2016 02:23
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This has been a great thread OP. The only question I have is in regards to you saying that you met with the writers of Vampire, and I'm curious if you had a chance to meet Phil Burcato, and what that was like.Mr. Sunshine posted:This has of course also resulted in a whole slew of LARP events focusing entirely on putting the players through uncomfortable or disturbing experiences. Organizers sell their events to players by literally saying "We promise you'll have a bad time". That's basically been any John Wick game for the past decade.
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Oct 4, 2016 18:23
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Mr. Sunshine posted:I'm not what you'd call a LARP veteran (I've been to a total of three LARP events ever), but a lot of people in my social circle are hardcore LARPers. I'm also Swedish so it's interesting to read this thread and see the big difference between American and Nordic LARP. Nordic LARP seems to be more one-offs exploring weird concepts (like that hardcore survival LARP someone linked upthread) or long-running campaigns with maybe one or two events a year. They also tend to be pretty rules-light. The few I've attended basically had some bare-bones combat rules and that was it - no character sheet, no skill values, no special abilities, no experience points. Mechanical benefits are tied directly to what gear you have, and maxes out at plate armour and two-handed weapons. So it's impossible for veteran players to *mechanically* dominate newbies. Yeah, this is a pretty spot-on description of most Nordic LARPers. While Vampire LARP people tend to be immature and annoying, "Nordic LARP" is a subculture obsessed with
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Oct 5, 2016 09:33
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pro LARP VtM oWoD tip - a friend of mine pulled it many years ago: try and trick the st into letting you become a Fomori (those can be immune to fire somehow) and blow everyone up e: ok looked it up, you have to be possessed by an elemental Bane of fire in order to become a balefire fomori Mr. Pickles fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 11:34
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TAK2412 posted:Ghogargi -- I created an account on this forum just to say thanks for sharing your experience. I do not identify as a nerd and I know next to nothing about gaming but I do consider myself a generally open-minded person, especially when it comes to new experiences. So, when the guy I was casually dating said he was into vampire larping I thought ok this is new, I'll check it out and see what I think. Well, the novelty wore off quickly when I went to a game to watch and interacted with the other players -- within a short time I observed all of the behaviors that you address throughout this thread. I tried to be open-minded but after going to a few games and cons, the overt instability and questionable mental health of the players was what finally turned me off to it. So when you say it's an organization that attracts and ensnares the unwell, unsocialized, insecure, maladjusted, etc..I found that to be 100% accurate. Whenever I tried to point out any of my observations, or any criticisms of players behavior at all, I was quickly branded an enemy by all of my bf's "friends." The female players had no respect for our relationship, for example, and sometimes would try to sit on his lap or flirt with him with me sitting right next to him. Now, I don't know much about nerd social dynamics but I am not a person who is afraid of calling out bad behavior. So whenever something like that would happen, and I'd openly say to the the girl "uhhh, wtf do you think you're doing? that's not okay." I was somehow looked at as the bad guy for standing up for myself. And that is nowhere near the worst of what I observed. There are a lot of people who've 'escaped' and have such similar tales. It's rarer to find Lifers who've made it out, but it's pretty amazing how we all look back and go 'what the flaming gently caress?'. Thanks for posting; it makes me feel good to know I'm not alone, especially since it was so many years of being told I would be alone if I left.
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Oct 10, 2016 18:03
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Every lifer I know who stopped has done so literally because their games collapsed, some going as far as to roleplay in chatrooms to keep their characters active after their player base quits. That's really what makes them lifers, that inability to let go. Then some people move to the area who are also players, a new game starts up and the whole process continues with the same results.
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Oct 10, 2016 18:23
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My local vampire larp has been on the edge of collapse for a while, and watching it hang in the balance of existing has been more exciting than the actual larp itself. We try to recruit college students so we can have free space on campus to use, but like a dozen people have quit and we recruited one poor sap about a month ago. Two (awful) storytellers are quitting, one guy said he'd step up to help out and then a few days later said he was leaving the game entirely. Every bit of news I hear is like hearing that another length of train cars have collapsed in an ongoing train wreck, and it is beautiful.
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Oct 10, 2016 20:12
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Graveyardstick posted:My local vampire larp has been on the edge of collapse for a while, and watching it hang in the balance of existing has been more exciting than the actual larp itself. We try to recruit college students so we can have free space on campus to use, but like a dozen people have quit and we recruited one poor sap about a month ago. Two (awful) storytellers are quitting, one guy said he'd step up to help out and then a few days later said he was leaving the game entirely. Every bit of news I hear is like hearing that another length of train cars have collapsed in an ongoing train wreck, and it is beautiful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAUY1J8KizU
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Oct 10, 2016 21:30
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One good way of telling how much fun a LARPer is going to be is their backstory. If it is long and miserable and involves revenge, trauma, etc then they are probably going to be insufferable. If they keep it short and actually give some positive motivations for being where they are in the game they are more likely to be fun and engaging. In a fantasy LARP the guy who is adventuring in order to feed his otherwise happy family is more fun then the guy who claims to have been victimized by three enemies and lives to kill them all. This is another reason World of Darkness LARPs tend to go wrong. Everyone is supposed to be a victim of something in the game no matter which of their games they play. In tabletop this is mitigated a bit by the players usually banding together to rise above the generally oppressive atmosphere. In a LARP everyone's goal tends to be to amass power and create the oppressive atmosphere.
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Oct 15, 2016 02:11
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Xenocides posted:One good way of telling how much fun a LARPer is going to be is their backstory. If it is long and miserable and involves revenge, trauma, etc then they are probably going to be insufferable. 99% of why Werewolf was the only good OWOD game. "gently caress it, we're just going to be superheroes." works there.
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Oct 15, 2016 05:27
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Liquid Communism posted:99% of why Werewolf was the only good OWOD game. "gently caress it, we're just going to be superheroes." works there. Changeling could be too. While they have the tragic dying out thing similar to Werewolf it also had the fanciful air of fae only being able to go on if they make the world a bettter place or, at the least, a more exciting place. I have fond memories of a Buffy Whedonesque campaign where we played a bunch of High School students who wandered off to slay dragons and quest for our noble baron doing great deeds between class periods. Just good fun.
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Oct 15, 2016 06:08
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Xenocides posted:One good way of telling how much fun a LARPer is going to be is their backstory. If it is long and miserable and involves revenge, trauma, etc then they are probably going to be insufferable. I subbed in for a player who had to drop out of what was basically a 'Fallout in Finland' game last year. They sent me his character which the player had written himself. It was about six pages long and full of angst and emotional turmoil and tragic past bullshit that was never going to come up in play unless I brought it up. I ended up completely disregarding that garbage and played a grumpy grampa who still tried to look after everyone else in our camp and had a hell of a better time than trying to play the character as written would've been. You could also easily spot the airsofters in that game because they were all kitted out in full tacticool gear and pristine camo suits. Also because none of them seemed to have a personality. Thankfully they were all contained in the other camp so we could make our lovely pop culture jokes and have fun in peace.
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Oct 16, 2016 09:43
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Liquid Communism posted:99% of why Werewolf was the only good OWOD game. "gently caress it, we're just going to be superheroes." works there. Eh, werewolf attracts its own band of morons. Also never, ever play that with somebody who thinks they're an alpha male (you know the type) because they'll max all their combat skills and spend the entire time challenging pack hierarchy until they're at the top. Then they'll make God awful decisions and blame everybody else when they go wrong. The other twits are insufferable furry pagans who want to spend all their time in the spirit world interpreting the symbols but fail to get the most obvious things you throw at them.
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Oct 16, 2016 15:59
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The other twits are insufferable furry pagans who want to spend all their time in the spirit world interpreting the symbols but fail to get the most obvious things you throw at them. I knew a bunch of tabletop oWoD Werewolf players who literally referred to other people as "hominids" outside of the game. Werewolf attracts furverts like flies to honey. Xenocides posted:One good way of telling how much fun a LARPer is going to be is their backstory. If it is long and miserable and involves revenge, trauma, etc then they are probably going to be insufferable. I have never, ever in all my time LARPing encounted a backstory that was both more than a paragraph long and interesting and well written. A lot of people seem to think that writing multiple A4 pages of teenage wangst is a substitute for a personality. At least you can laugh at all the edgelords who just want to be Neo/Alucard/Drizzt and let them brood in a corner without them trying to explain 15 years of their terrible made up life story to you
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Oct 17, 2016 11:39
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MikeCrotch posted:I knew a bunch of tabletop oWoD Werewolf players who literally referred to other people as "hominids" outside of the game. Werewolf attracts furverts like flies to honey. As someone who thinks anthro animal characters are really keen I'm not a huge fan of Werewolf, or Changing Breeds. However, that said, I notice the majority of furries REALLY like Changeling.
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Oct 17, 2016 17:21
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Skunkrocker posted:As someone who thinks anthro animal characters are really keen I'm not a huge fan of Werewolf, or Changing Breeds. However, that said, I notice the majority of furries REALLY like Changeling. And they all play as Pooka.
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Oct 17, 2016 18:07
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Xenocides posted:And they all play as Pooka. So there's the Chaotic Neutral-people, there's the Fish-Malks, and there's Pookas as well. This seems like enough of a thing that is needs a name.
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Oct 19, 2016 11:54
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Pondex posted:So there's the Chaotic Neutral-people, there's the Fish-Malks, and there's Pookas as well. There is, it's "lolplayers"
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Oct 19, 2016 12:07
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Pondex posted:So there's the Chaotic Neutral-people, there's the Fish-Malks, and there's Pookas as well. Fish-Malks don't needs names, they need measured and repeated kicking until they knock it off.
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Oct 19, 2016 13:06
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Xenocides posted:And they all play as Pooka. I joined a Changeling mud once and discovered they instituted a no more pookas rule because that's what everyone rolled.
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Oct 19, 2016 15:04
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See, I absolutely love the old Werewolf setting- racial stereotype werewolves banding together to be a hard-18 version of Captain Planet will never not be awesome. However the LARP rules are just /too/ ridiculous for me to even consider trying it, even without the baggage of dealing with WoD LARPers. The whole 'I represent transforming into a 9' tall slavering death machine by putting my arms up and making myself look big' thing just sounds so awkward and stupid..
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Oct 19, 2016 15:12
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When I did oWoD LARP in the late 90s I came thinking it was an excuse to be awkward and stupid and silly and just go with it for a couple hours, sometimes in a dumb costume, then get lovely diner food at 2am. I mean we played rock/paper/scissors to decide on battles ffs. I had zero experience with the tabletop game prior to going and didn't know how grim and serious a lot of people took it to be. Once I realized people were in so incestuously deep it negatively impacted their relationships, including their kids, I quit. The last one I attended a baby in a stroller was there. I never played Changeling. There was a WoD supplement called Blood-Dimmed Tides I picked up at some point and that was the most I knew about Changeling: merfolk and their creepy, creepy love magic. It was all PG-ish, sure, but the implications? Yikes! Years later I learned how young Changeling characters are meant to be. 
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Oct 19, 2016 16:20
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Camrath posted:See, I absolutely love the old Werewolf setting- racial stereotype werewolves banding together to be a hard-18 version of Captain Planet will never not be awesome. However the LARP rules are just /too/ ridiculous for me to even consider trying it, even without the baggage of dealing with WoD LARPers. The whole 'I represent transforming into a 9' tall slavering death machine by putting my arms up and making myself look big' thing just sounds so awkward and stupid.. Werewolf is one of those games that just plain doesn't work for LARPing. The setting is great if you do it right but god drat do people tend to never, ever do it right.
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Oct 19, 2016 16:50
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Werewolf is one of those games that just plain doesn't work for LARPing. The setting is great if you do it right but god drat do people tend to never, ever do it right. I mentioned the only successful Werewolf LARP I played ran on one-shot adventures and ignored a lot of the rules to streamline things. The best game was one where we invited everyone to bring their teenagers and older kids and had them play the tribal elders and veterans while the parents played the young wolves who were encouraged to do stupid things. Watching young teens chew out their parents for irresponsible eco-terrorism was one of the neatest things I have ever seen. I found few of the old WoD worked with LARPing. Mage was too overpowered to monitor without way too much staff. Werewolf is a combat-fest game which usually means the same thing. Wraith loses the Shadow mechanics which was one of the few neat things in that setting. Vampire and Changeling were the best for LARPing even if the players were, in general, not good for LARPing. Xenocides fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Oct 20, 2016 |
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Oct 20, 2016 17:28
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:I never played Changeling. There was a WoD supplement called Blood-Dimmed Tides I picked up at some point and that was the most I knew about Changeling: merfolk and their creepy, creepy love magic. It was all PG-ish, sure, but the implications? Yikes! Years later I learned how young Changeling characters are meant to be. The best part about merfolk is how confused they make the Technocracy. The thing where Technomancers kept running across depth-crushed people who used to be mer and couldn't figure out wtf is amusing. Peztopiary fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Oct 21, 2016 |
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Oct 21, 2016 06:11
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TAK2412 posted:Ghogargi -- I created an account on this forum just to say thanks for sharing your experience. I do not identify as a nerd and I know next to nothing about gaming but I do consider myself a generally open-minded person, especially when it comes to new experiences. So, when the guy I was casually dating said he was into vampire larping I thought ok this is new, I'll check it out and see what I think. Well, the novelty wore off quickly when I went to a game to watch and interacted with the other players -- within a short time I observed all of the behaviors that you address throughout this thread. I tried to be open-minded but after going to a few games and cons, the overt instability and questionable mental health of the players was what finally turned me off to it. So when you say it's an organization that attracts and ensnares the unwell, unsocialized, insecure, maladjusted, etc..I found that to be 100% accurate. Whenever I tried to point out any of my observations, or any criticisms of players behavior at all, I was quickly branded an enemy by all of my bf's "friends." The female players had no respect for our relationship, for example, and sometimes would try to sit on his lap or flirt with him with me sitting right next to him. Now, I don't know much about nerd social dynamics but I am not a person who is afraid of calling out bad behavior. So whenever something like that would happen, and I'd openly say to the the girl "uhhh, wtf do you think you're doing? that's not okay." I was somehow looked at as the bad guy for standing up for myself. And that is nowhere near the worst of what I observed. I was about to make this same post. When I was a senior in high school, I dated a guy who was really into role playing and would often serve as Dungeon Master for his group of friends. There were two other girls who were a part of his circle, and one of them would go through the exact process Ghogargi described - using their shared interest to leverage his time, using "playful" innuendo, and touching him as often as the game would allow. I found out through someone else in the group that she had been calling me a slut, saying that I only wanted to go to college so I could bang a bunch of guys (??), and that my boyfriend would either remain silent or agree with her during these conversations. I was already uncomfortable with how sexual their conversations were and believed she was trying to break us up, but when I confronted them about it, they called me crazy and said I was making poo poo up for attention because I was insecure. "She would never do that," "she has always supported me [and my toxic obsession with this hobby]," and all that. The thing was, I had no proof - she was clever enough to stop just before they actually did anything, so it was true that he'd never cheated on me and that she was "playful with all the guys." She was a manic pixie demigod who could do no wrong. It was immensely frustrating that she could openly joke about sex and have several guys on The Hook but I was a slut for having had sex with a few guys before, that she was Cool and Punk for calling herself a feminist but I was "feminazi" for being creeped out with how casually they talked about sexual violence, and other things that have been blissfully forgotten. Needless to say we broke up when I actually left for college and realized I could date guys who weren't horrible. He jumped at the chance to date her, and just like that, she stopped talking to him.I have always wondered if I really was crazy and seeing patterns that didn't exist, but I feel a lot better knowing that this is A Thing not isolated to that tiny circle. In many ways I feel bad for her now, because she had made herself into an object, a two-dimensional character so absorbed with maintaining a persona that she left no space for herself. Her act took up so much room, that she never gave herself the chance to grow up. I heard later that she got engaged to a dude in the circle, only to call it off months later because he came insanely jealous and threatened to beat her. I believe he saw her as a trophy to be protected, an ideal, and gave her no autonomy as a result. She is now in her late twenties, living with her parents and suffering from alcoholism. Ghogargi - thank you for sharing your story. You have added a a truly human aspect to something many people never consider in depth, and painted an excellent picture of recovery. I wish you the best - being vulnerable is really hard, and you have a lot of good things ahead of you.
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Oct 22, 2016 19:27
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Hey Ghogargi, thanks for posting this. I was into VLARP for a while between 2012 and 2014, and did some boffer LARP between 2013 and 2015. Now I mostly just go bullshit at the local games and crack jokes with a character sheet in my pocket so I can go to Whataburger with the people I like, afterwards. I have so many thoughts on this that I want to articulate, I'm not sure I'll get them all out in one post. I was flabbergasted by how laboriously, egregiously awful a lot of the people in the MES were, to themselves and each other. I have my own slew of issues, sure. Just, the amount of raw vitriol in that community, of people bitterly and passionately railing against one another, loving floored me. But then, here's the thing about Vampire: the Masquerade. The whole thing was originally made to be a small-group tabletop game. Your characters are established as awful monsters with shaky moral footing, at best, who engage in petty, hyper-competitive con games with each other. The sorts of things characters do to one another are reprehensible way more often than they are constructive. Even then, you spare your coterie of other PCs, and focus your super-dickery on NPCs, and vice-versa! You are not meant to cheat and betray real human beings on a regular basis, because no one can handle that kind of emotional compromise indefinitely! Even then, though, I can't really say I've been particularly loathsome to anyone, or received bad treatment in kind. I certainly haven't ever gotten that deep into the escapism. I kept trying to approach it all from a performative aspect, for being able to hone improvisational abilities, or public speaking. I found that my modest experience in theater and vocal music meant nothing, though. I spent most regional/national cons, and even most of the away games, feeling awkward and self-conscious. I feel particularly proud of few things I've done in LARP play. I've avoided direct involvement in any bullshit, though I've been caught in the crossfire of some atomic meltdowns. I can't say that I've ever gotten too into a character and been unable to pull myself back out. If anything, I've done a pretty good job of separating myself from these personae, thanks to prior experiences in theater giving me the know-how to just forget my lines and drop a character after a show is over, because the next production is coming up, and there's no time for that. But, for real. People in the big, old, established LARP clubs can get loving WEIRD. I've borne witness to some seriously weird behavior, where the lines between fantasy and reality blurred. Seeing it from Ghogargi's angle helps it all make more sense.
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Oct 24, 2016 07:13
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So, right now, I'm ordering picture prints of my dogs to take up to the Behavioral Health Center where my daughter is. Because she says she misses them, and won't see them for at least a few more days. Because she tried to kill herself two days ago and is going to be in the inpatient program for a while. And it's my fault. I'm so angry at myself and at nerd subcultures and the world right now, and so broken I can't even breathe sometimes. I thought I'd paid for my sins and I haven't; not by a long shot. Because my daughter grew up watching how I abandoned her in favor of LARPing, and submersing myself in fantasy to self-medicate and live in denial, and now she's doing the exact same thing. I mean that near literally. It's astonishing. And I can take it when it's just me in pain and suffering, but to bear witness to my ruining my own child's life is a circle of Hell I had no idea could exist. She's a furry. Not an otherkin, but she's a part of that community. She stole $1500 of her dad's money to buy furry art commissions. She's become a liar and is acting out sexually. I went through her phone after the suicide attempt and saw texts between her and several dudes and it was like reading my old messages. Same thing. Same song and dance. Same desperate cry for validation and attention masked in a pseudo-succubal act. Same fake persona (sorry, FURsona I guess) of the person she wishes she was - bright, happy, cheerful, angelic and adored. She's an white angel wolf in the community. And she messaged a bunch of her furry friends saying she was going to kill herself. Not a single loving one of them called 911. All of them sent melodramatic texts begging her not to do it, flipping out, keening and wailing and all sorts of utter bullshittery. I hate them. I loving hate them because I know from experience they don't give a single poo poo about my daughter. They were feasting on the drama. If they really cared, they had her cell phone number and they could've called 911 and gave dispatch her name and number. I ignored her while RPing online. I shut her up in her room on weekends so I could host games. I ALWAYS imagined myself as a good mom because I loved her and took basic care of her. And I did love her - she was, and is, the most important thing in my life. But I was so sick and so evil that I neglected her for my own sake. My mom says I was doing whatever I could to keep my head above water, and that's true, but it's no excuse and it doesn't do any good right now. Her dad was horrendous to her and I'm glad she lived with me instead of him despite all this, and I know most of her issues are Daddy Issues, but I did wrong by her so bad, too. Ugh she just called and she said she's doing well, and has done several group therapy sessions and gotten her meds adjusted. I want her home. We were supposed to make Rapunzel's Hazelnut Soup from Tangled and watch Mascots on Netflix (she loves Christopher Guest movies) and I am now falling apart live on the SA Forums like a loving piece of pathetic poop. I'm sorry. I don't know. This should be in my journal not here, I'm sorry. But gently caress nerd culture. gently caress me for choosing to be a part of it.
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Oct 24, 2016 17:27
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I'm just a random lurker in this thread who reads it for the bad geek stories, but take care of yourself. I'm not going to lay the none of it is your fault line on you but remember that you're no use to her if you're busy tearing yourself s new one. It sounds like you two have very similar issues. Perhaps consider some joint counseling in addition to whatever she's doing on her own? Just a thought from someone not licensed or educated to give real advice. Take care of yourself, though. You can't support her if you're spiraling yourself.
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Oct 24, 2016 18:38
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Hey, Ghogargi, don't worry about what we think at this point. Take care of yourself, and do what you need to do for your daughter. This whole thing sounds a hell of a lot like addiction, for which brain chemistry is to blame. Too much of anything is bad, by its inherent definition.
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Oct 24, 2016 18:57
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[quote="Veskit" post=""460629350"] If I've learned anything gently caress LARPing I'd lose it at some point and not in the fun internal loss but on someone. And then in a jail later. [/quote] Take a wild guess why I ate a ban from my Larp of choice after 12 years. Thank goodness that poo poo's over.
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Oct 24, 2016 19:56
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Ghogargi, there is no way to sweeten this-- you're right. Some of the problems your daughter is suffering from are rooted in your actions. Have you talked to her? Have you told her all this, how you see her actions mirroring yours, how you used to be the same? She might find strength in knowing that someone who loves her has gone through the same thing and come out on the other side-- maybe not completely healthy, but surviving, and maybe someday thriving. If you haven't, please talk to her. Tell her all this. But if you do, remember that this is not about you or your pain, it's about supporting her and using your experiences to try to give her strength. Best of luck, truly. E: Maybe you should make an e/n thread. There are a lot of idiots there, but there are also some smart people who may be able to give you useful perspectives too. Lysistrata fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Oct 25, 2016 |
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Oct 25, 2016 10:14
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Best of luck Ghogargi, I sincerely hope things work out. Seconding the e/n suggestion, and joint counselling. Really, take care of yourself and your daughter.
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Oct 25, 2016 12:07
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Lysistrata posted:Ghogargi, there is no way to sweeten this-- you're right. Some of the problems your daughter is suffering from are rooted in your actions. Thank you for the advice. She and I have started joint counseling, and the focus has been how she's going down the same path I did. I think it's hard for her to accept it, because adolescents by nature want to state unequivocally that they are nothing like their parents. But we're slogging away at it. My husband and I are going to get a plan together, and make sure my daughter is the #1 priority in everything for the foreseeable future. She never really had that before, and I hope it'll do some good. The saving grace is that she still loves me and wants to be around me, which is a huge blessing that can help with the healing.
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Oct 25, 2016 15:11
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My heart is reaching out to you and your family.
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Oct 25, 2016 15:17
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