Forums → The Tavern → Incident report: Five years after first contact

Well guys, this is it. It's been five years to the da since I first joined. So I thought I'd give a little overview of what's happened since then.

When I first started I'd just turned 13. I was depressed and basically had no friends, also rather annoying. As time went on the only thing that really changed is that I got more and more depressed, but I also grew up a bit as well. I didn't really have any real friends for several years, but one thing I did have was Armor Games. AG was on many occasions the only happy thing I had each day. It was the only place I ever felt like I'd belonged, or been even slightly respected.

About 2 1/2 years ago my depression further nose dived, as I recall that's around the time my activity here started to really decrease. I don't look fondly back at that time, I can't think of a single thing I had back then that I wish I still had. At that point I mostly just kept to myself, but starting then I started using my situation to help me grow up. A lot.

About a year or so later my self esteem hit rock bottom, but I did get a job. I really didn't have any sort of people skills so the only way I could come up with to get to know people an make something of mysefl was to relentlessly work. And I did, I've been told, and am still told, that I work harder than anyone else there. After a few months of that I finally had regained some small sense of self worth, and even made a few friends, better friends than I could have possibly hoped for.

A little while later I developed a panic disorder, but oh of the blue I wasn't depressed anymore, a pretty good trade off if you ask me. Anyways, I made more friends, started to think something of myself and by that time I my personality and how I thought was completely different. In fact even now there's still about a 6 month long (give or take) cycle where I grow up and change to the point where I see myself essentially a different person ever ~6 months.

After all that, I stopped (mostly) having panic attacks and went on to anxiety attacks, which were far worse. A couple of months ago I'd finally decided enough was enough and I couldn't live like that anymore, even though I did still consider myself to be happy. So now I'm on antidepressants, which have been doing a great job so far.

Anyways, I just turned 18 a few weeks ago, I'm taking my first GED test to graduate from highschool and I've been promoted at my job. But nowhere near having a girlfriend yet 😢. There are, of course plenty of other details, but I think I mostly highlighted it all.

Part of why I haven't been posting much at all is work, part of it is having friends IRL now, /land partially because I'm so much different I don't even know how to act here anymore. But nonetheless, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you for helping me get through some really tough times and sometimes being the only thing I had to look forward to.

I'll try to be a little more active. You guys have done so much for me, it's the least I can do. Thank you, all of you.

~Manly