Posted October 27, 2023 by My Big Little Brother
Where-o-where has Heavenly Peaks gone!?
Hello fellow daoists, it's been a while. This post is mostly regarding my personal circumstances (90%) and the state of the next update. Feel free to skip it if you're not interested in reading anything heavy.
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I've been dealing with a maelstrom of personal issues behind the scenes. Essentially, I'm living with a narcissist who believes it's okay to sabotage me (under the guise of "helping"). Their goal is to create a situation in which I must rely on them, even as they abuse me and derail my life in a subvert way that makes *me* look like I'm ungrateful.
This has been ongoing since March of this year and it's only gotten worse with each passing moment. As a result, I've been having some dark thoughts. In my situation, this person has sabotaged my vehicle (several times now) so that I can't do delivery jobs (and therefore it's harder to fund myself or leave), along with a ton of other bad decisions. Once I stopped listening to their faulty advice, poor judgement and excluding them from my life, things got progressively worse. So...basically text book narcissist stuff.
Still, I've been dealing with anger, resentment, even wrath (irrational, uncontrollable bouts of anger) - thoughts of violence and even thoughts of self harm. My only saving grace (or self destruction?) is that I genuinely would rather hurt myself than others. This translates into a never ending battle with myself that consumes time, energy, focus and mental strength. As you can imagine, after months of waging this sort of battle constantly - I'm just weary. I've reached my limit and, frankly, I can't do it anymore.
That, coupled with the fact that I'm constantly surrounded by people who demand my time and energy without thought for me or my well being, means I also never have a moment of peace. I have no rest and no time recharge my battery. I'm constantly forced into situations where I'm expected to give up my time and energy without my consent or care for my own mental state. What's more, multiple people conspire to put me into these situations when it's beneficial to them. As you can imagine, I'm just depleted. This has been going on for nearly 6 years now and I've had enough.
It's annoying - especially since the dagger came from people I trusted - but I have no intention of allowing it to continue. Regardless of my personal situation, I'm leaving this place at the end of this year. Whether I have a dollar to my name, whether I have to sleep in a car - doesn't matter. I refuse to remain present for it any longer, and frankly its dangerous for my mental health to be here as well. The number of times I've thought of death as "peace" or a solution is troubling. What's worse is that, even though I realize my mental state is on the precipice - I still drift towards that thought.
If it were anyone else but a family member, I'd have 100% cut them off by now. It was my fault for letting it continue this long. Now I'm on the backfoot. I'm remedying that now.
There is good news about all of this, however -
Despite everything going on - I've been getting some work done.
I added a lot of polish to the game during that time. I'm doing a playthrough right now and noting everything that needs to be changed, fixed or improved. It takes longer but ultimately it will be worth it as I now feel more comfortable making a consistent effort to grow the game. This is something I shyed away from as I wanted to get the project to a certain level first.
Since it's been a while, I might also see about adding some new content here and there (nothing major, maybe just a few events!).
In a perfect world, I'd be done next week - but I sort of have to play it by the moment, given everything happening. Just know, it's on the way - and soon.
- My Big "Little" Brother