Alright, you want to truly know why I'm gone? Alright, let's figure this out then.

So, to preface, I struggle greatly with my workaholism. I'm not going to delve too much into my personal life, because it is very complicated, but know it's not having "too much time on my hands". It's moreso being too efficient with my time management to the point I greatly challenge my bodily limits. I'm talking medically defined workaholism. I've never been of a stable mind, that much is true.

When I stepped down, it was because I realised I was working to satisfy the compulsions that workaholism gave me, rather than trying to help the community that accepted me for who I am. Perhaps you could say it was a bit of both, I'm still working that out. But, I need to honour God in my work as well, and that's something that began slipping. I'm a very principled, spiritual, careful person, I want to keep to that and not roll in the mud.

I knew that I was probably going to get asked to do more than I already was, which some told me was quite literally comparable to Tier Leaders at the time, which was just...yeah.

I made a lot of mistakes during my tenure and I'm glad that it's all over now.

There was once another RBY Discord, but the owner of that server got banned for various things that are irrelevant to this statement. There were plans to have ownership transferred, but negotiations went completely wrong. Thereafter, making a new server was required, and that involved me making something to compete with a large server that I poured a year and a half of work into. That ate into me heavily, I regret much of what transpired there. You wouldn't get it, but I worked on RBY's renaissance with the intention of uniting the community under one flag for the first time in years, and I feel like this entire situation was a crying failure. This is one of a few areas where I just started thinking "Why am I here?". People pep talked me a lot and helped me figure that out, but that one thing just ran counter to everything. Am I unhappy with the result? I don't think so. I think the new server is better than the old one by a country mile. Oh well...

I can certainly remember the RBY UU Dragonite Suspect Test. In hindsight, I see much of it as me trying to please chatters that were getting way too big for their boots. A couple of people who have since become good presences were profoundly corrupt during that time period and I had a horrible time trying to get them to realise that. I think that these days things are going to be a lot better, especially without my compromising nature. People love to take advantage of that, they know the buttons to push and I need to make sure that's not happening. Again, this is my nature at work.

On that note, a couple of my staff positions were filled with that button-pushing. I worked to fix a lot of systemic laziness within past gens on Smogon, and it worked, but it cost me dearly. I would spend entire days getting stuff up and helping good, unbadged users push their agendas. And I mean entire days, sometimes I wouldn't sleep. But the minute I asked for help with anything, I would be met with stonewalling from fellow staff members a lot. Not to name anyone, but one quite literally said they were ok with a section dying off if it meant not touching anything that isn't this one specific tier. I get why, context-wise, but good god if that wasn't demoralising towards my mental state at the time. This was where I think I stopped honouring the community that accepted me, and was no longer having God on my mind when working. It was compulsions and the stress that came with it. This was a key mistake.

Anyway, enough of that, you get the idea. The conditions for me to work optimally have to be extremely specific, this reflects in my real-life conditions that I won't delve into.

But, this also means there's a lot I have to work on as a person.

I often grapple with an old mentality I was goaded into through years of abuse at the hands of family, "friends", and others around me. That mentality is, well, resigning myself to being a tool. I've been referred to as a factory, a tool, things like that, by people who take me for granted, "relying" on me when they sure as shit can do stuff themselves. I want to break from this and find my own freedom. That word is something that's often on my mind, and I'm trying to find a definition for it in my headspace. There's a complicated reason for that, but if I explained further, I'd look more unhinged than I already do.

Now that I've stepped down, I've set up a period where I can work on myself: streaming and working on finding my old competitive spirit I lost a few years ago. I'm going to build on these two areas while I go soul searching, trying to fix the approach I have. There is no black and white answer here, I simply have to work within the grey areas. It'll be hard, but it'll also be worth it.

Anyway, thanks for hearing me out, reader. I hope you understand me better now.

I do not want badges until this is over. If you try, I'll probably cuss you out. Please, leave me be.

~ Plague von Karma's Boardroom, 23rd Jan 2022