Thank youuuu Beth for the long, long comment. Actually, I really enjoy your lot of text, your taking the time and energy to tell me about all this. It feels really good and rewarding as the author of the work, so please never worry about that, okay? Even if it was a critique, I trust you to not being mean.
You've said so many kind things, thank you. I am so amused that I "got you" as you said, because I was really like "this is not a game, this isn't not game-y enough" the whole time to my partner. I clung to the format of d6-friendly roll tables for my life, even it was clearly holding me back... But I'm glad I did, because I feel like in the end the result looks cohesive and game-y enough, you can barely tell the places where I stopped and paced around the room while flailing wildly.
And yeah, for me a lot of the work is based the idea that there's no "should". There's no "you should/should not feel this or that way" that can lead to lessening your suffering, because you need to be OK with where you are first, as in, you need to have that compassion and acceptance for yourself first. And that means being OK with "not being OK with not being OK" and such. So many layers of shame and self-judgement to gently peel and wash away. It's a lot of work. If my little piece can help anyone towards that, I would be very happy.
It made me very happy to read that you planned on coming back to this when you were not feeling better yourself. I really hope it will help you then. Please do feel free to reach out to me directly as well.
I love that it inspired you to make your own spin on this! I highly encourage you to do so. Please show it to me when you're done, okay? I would be super excited to have a look at it.
I love the idea of the worksheet too! It's what I meant to do with the Quick Fixes at the beginning, I wrote them almost last, like, "if someone is having A Really Acute Bad Time when they read this, they're not going to care about all my ramblings on safety, powerlessness, and why I hate CBT". And in the end they're not Quick at all, but hopefully they're Fixes anyway (not that I agree with the idea that anything needs "fixing" but sometimes you've been writing for three days and "quick fix" is the only phrase that comes to mind). So as I work on a fancy-formatted version that can even be printed into a zine (omg it's going to be so long as a zine, but I digress) I am definitely going to keep that in mind and try to create that alongside it. I will send it to you when I'm done! You can tell me what you think then, if you'd like.
It's true that our issues are very different, because I hate the idea that I owe anything to anyone, I find it more upsetting than anything else, and I struggle with being crushed under the expectations, like... even just thinking about "living ethically" or "in alignment with my values", what am I doing? I am not doing enough, I am not doing enough to help all those causes, the children starving as we speak, the burning forests, the oppressed people everywhere! So, as you can imagine, telling myself I am harming the world... will not help :p No, I have the opposite thing, where I find selfishness and possessiveness very empowering and self-affirming. This is my life, and I deserve to live it my way, that sort of things. The fact that my way implies "everyone's needs are being met" is sort of secondary :p