I haven't been doing well lately.

This blog post was intended and made for my Personal Blog from Insomniac Flames.
Also, Insomniac Flames is currently down so lololololol. Good thing I have WACHROO. >_>

Ever since I made that large blog entry, I've been very mentally unstable. It has taken me a long time to start liking myself but I finally started achieving that earlier this year around January and February. That is partially due to the fact I recently became part of a group of friends. Since a lot of those people have a really high view of me, it has made me feel a lot better about myself.

Lately however, things have been going to fucking shit again. I really hoped my new major would work out but I probably failed my second test in my Fundamental of Programming class and programming is just getting too damn hard for me to be able to figure stuff out. I've also grown to kind of hate programming so clearly my new major was a bust, but worth trying. What really fucking sucks is that I started attending Cal Poly last Fall but dropped out because my Political Science major didn't work out and they wouldn't let me switch to Computer Science. A month before I made my decision to leave the college, congress dicked around people's futures and made it where financial aid now only covers six years of education, not nine. This means there is now no way in hell I'll be able to finish my education without getting into a massive debt since I'm currently in my 4th year of my education...AT FUCKING COMMUNITY COLLEGE!

Late last year, I made a topic on Sonic Retro called "Retro, I'm in a terrible bind with my education." I got some decent advice from one guy. He brought up that since I already have my AA degree, some universities would be willing to accept students even if they're applying under a major different from what they got their AA degree for. Sadly, he told me this the day after the deadline for university signups. What shitty luck. Not much else happened in the thread until many months later. I bumped the topic last week with an explanation about what has happened since then and how my major didn't work out at all. I got a variety of advice and this one from Sonic Retro's site owner was probably the best advice I've gotten since I've bumped the topic.

"I'm actually going to offer the opposite advice from everyone else here: go do a bunch of things you've never done before or never thought you'd be interested in doing. Give yourself permission to go try something you otherwise might not, and just...dick around with new stuff for a while. You'd be surprised what you discover—for instance, I found out last weekend I really enjoy hanging out with old British dudes talking about obscure vehicles and racing down hills. I don't think that would have even occurred to me as a hobby, let alone one that I'd want to do once a month, if I hadn't just tried it on a whim.

Take an African history course! Make a cake or try sewing something! Paint a picture or a house or your face! Go to a protest! Do what the fuck ever crosses your mind as interesting that you haven't done!

People lock themselves into hobbies as identities sometimes, and it can be so freeing to not do what you feel you're "good" at." -Scarred Sun

While good advice, I can't really experiment with classes anymore thanks to congress's changes to financial aid. Then when it comes to other things, I'm definitely going to try to do things outside of my norm (largely to broaden my limited interests) but my current academic situation is quite awful. I have no idea what to do with my future. I want to make video games as a career choice but I'm too terrible at programming for that aspect of game design to work and I don't know what other majors I could go into that would help me get into the gaming industry. I'm mostly interested in things like level design, coming up with level based gimmicky, etc. Unfortunately, positions like that are difficult to gain. While I have more interest in creating indie games than I do in taking part of mainstream video game development, it's kind of hard to make good indie games if you aren't a decent programmer or artist.

Besides just career and academic related stuff, I recently started to think less of my myself again and have been a lot more fragile. This started when I wrote my previous blog entry. Bringing back all of those memories and putting them together in a really large blog entry put some of those things into a different perspective. A very negative, emotionally painful perspective. I hate who I was so much and have made so many awful decisions. I was such an idiot back then and I still feel like a complete fucking moron. A large part of why I've been so fragile is because I feel like such a goddamn idiot all the time and I hate it. Some events that happened a few of days ago have not helped my view of my intelligence.

I am permanently banned from Sonic Retro (unless an admin at Retro changes their mind). I've been posting there for over two years and I don't think I have gotten in trouble with the site staff at all until a recent idiot move on my part. A beta for Sonic 4: Episode 2 leaked early on Steam because either some person at SEGA or Steam fucked up. This made me want to play the beta so I asked some people on the site if they could upload game on torrents or something else. Probably my most memorable post of the bunch was "Great sir, would you be kind enough to upload the game files on a torrent site?" The site owner was not pleased and permanently banned me for asking for torrent files of the beta. While there isn't a written rule in the official rule list explicitly stating that asking for something like that is against the rules, linking to stuff like that is definitely a major rule breaker.

"16. Do not link to final copies of games. Do not link to prototypes before the final game is released.

Under no circumstances should you post links to final copies of games, be they old Genesis games or something that has just come out. We do not condone piracy—period. In regards to prototypes, do not link to prototypes before a game is complete, and as a general rule wait until after a few months. It'll still be there when we can handle it without getting yelled at." -Scarred Sun

With this rule in mind, most people would view it as a "common sense rule" to not ask for things like torrents of an unreleased game but I have garbage common sense. When I was a mod on Insomniac Flames in the past, a large reason why there was such an issue when it came to the "no porn" rule was that I absolutely had to moderate a website in a very black and white fashion when it came to what was and wasn't allowed. Some people felt some of the images I threw in hide tags or links was over censorship. That's probably true, but my common sense was too poor to determine what should've been considered acceptable and I'm still in a similar situation. I rely on what's specifically stated to not be allowed. Unfortunately for me, my poor common sense skills have caused me to be permanently banned from one of my favorite websites on the internet because I suck at following rules that rely on common sense.

The site has brought me a lot of happiness and brings me hours upon hours of entertainment every week. While I can still visit the main site and lurk as a guest (I'm not IP banned), there's several boards I frequent that only registered members can visit and I post there all of the time. I love creating new discussions, taking part in discussions that interest me, and trying to be helpful. For some recent examples, there's one thread I created that inspired four rom hacks and I love giving suggestions in threads on what to do for certain projects.

I also want to create a Sonic fangame. I've found some of the site discussions to be influential and I definitely want to promote whatever I make on Retro. It would feel kind of pointless to bother making a Sonic fangame if I can't even post about it on the only big Sonic forum I've ever cared about. Not to mention the site was also very helpful when it came to help for the sprite in my sig and I was going to post a lot of fangame related sprites so I can get suggestions on how to improve the game's art.

Call it pathetic, but I've been insanely depressed over my permanent ban and it has lowered my view of myself. I feel what has happened just reinforces the fact I'm a complete moron. The fact my stupidity has caused me to get permanently banned from the website has made me so fucking mad that it makes me go to places in my head where I want to die simply because I hate being so goddamn dumb. I got so goddamn angry while talking to snake last night that there was one instance where I totally lost control and punched my skull four times really hard. I used to hurt my head all of the time as a way to deal with shit as a punishment toward myself. I have not done something like that in a really long time so I'm very mad that even happened.

While I thought I got rid of most of my strong suicidal desires that I gained last December, a lot of those tendencies started to come back on the week I made my previous blog entry. By Sunday night of that week (I consider Monday the start of every week), I was in such a fucked up state that I felt like I could barely function. I turned off my computer to work on homework, but all I did afterwards was sit in my chair for 90 minutes. I spent that time staring at a wall, shook a bit, and went in a sort of mental rage over how much I hate who I am. For reference, that was the day a bunch of you guys teased me with your "wacist" jokes. I was very fragile that day and not feeling myself. The jokes didn't help.

When I was at my most suicidal last December, I felt so bad for snake. When I admitted to him that I was "seriously considering suicide" sometime before he was going to go to bed, he cancelled going to work that day and some other plans to spend around six hours trying to talk me out of killing myself. Since my mom was going to be out of town, I planned on going to a local train station that weekend and letting a train destroy my skull. I figured the chance of survival would be low so it seemed like a good idea to me. Thankfully, snake talked me out of it at the time.

The only people I originally talked to on IMs about it were just snake and Kaze because I didn't feel like telling anyone else that I desired death. Since I was feeling desperate however, I did make a post about it on Retro in a topic about suicide. I'd quote what I said, but I can't since I'm banned and can't access the topic in Firefox's offline mode. I don't remember the details, but I remember posting my plan on how I wanted to kill myself and essentially asked them for advice on my situation. If Insomniac Flames was online, would I have posted about it? I don't know. A large reason why I began to view my intelligence in such a low light was because of some people from this community. In the past, I've taken a lot of insults very literally. It generally doesn't bug me and it often makes me laugh, but it can affect me a lot worse when I'm in a less stable state or when I'm constantly being reminded that I'm a fucking idiot. In other words, you guys sometimes made me feel like shit about myself.

I honestly don't know what to do. I'm so mentally unstable that I could want nothing but death, but then feel somewhat normal an hour later. Part of me just wants to give up and end my life. Another part of me really wants to make something of myself and do things worth being remembered for. I feel very conflicted and not well in the head. I originally started going to counseling when I was attending Cal Poly, but that ended sometime before I began to view suicide as a viable option. Personally, I didn't find the professional help all that helpful but I only saw the person about 3 or 4 times.

Just to give you guys an idea of how fucked I am in the head, last night I thought of possibly going someplace obscure and slitting my throat. If that failed to kill me, just wait for my body to die from not drinking enough liquids. Maybe I'm being over dramatic but that suicide plan seemed like a good alternative to my previous plan when I thought about that option. Hopefully I won't make a stupid decision like that someday, but who knows when I'm in a state like that. I'm fucking nuts.

-William