My name is Koda. Most know me as Kodak, which was my username when I first started on Galaxy Citizen. Posts like this are nothing new. Some might even think it's pointless, especially in this context, but I felt it'd be a healthy step for me, and a good way to hold myself to what I want to say in this post. For two years, this community has been one of the most active and meaningful experiences I've ever had. This community is important to me, and has been since I started back in 2019. I've made some meaningful friends here, lost others, had many experiences both positive and negative, and I feel as though, overall, even if slightly or miniscule, I have improved as a writer, which is something I never saw myself getting into. I'm not new to roleplaying, I've been doing it since I was eleven years old, even if the quality of it was subpar at best. I've discovered a lot about myself from using roleplay as a medium, such as my sexuality, my identity, and traits of myself I never knew I had. I've met a lot of people through this medium, some didn't last long in my life, and some left an everlasting impression upon me, even at twenty years of age, at the time of writing this. I was introduced into this community by a veteran, a person named Alxetora, who played the character Yacke. Before this, I spent a short period of time on another SBRP community known as Frontier, and before that, I was introduced into more serious RP through one of Alxetora's own projects, Snowblight, which reignited my love for the medium. My character, at the time, was nothing special. Some black feathered avian that I made on the spot out of vanilla assets through the character creator. I didn't know of the fame, or, to some, infamy of playing this character. Xander was my first, and pretty much only character in Galaxy Citizen. When I first started out, he was like me. New to the setting and the people around him, looking for an escape. He was a blank slate, one I didn't expect to become so attached to. And, like me, he went through many changes. Some good, most awful, which I didn't think about at the time. He changed alongside me, and I changed alongside him. I let myself become consumed by him and the setting around me to an unhealthy degree. My anxiety, my frustration, my sadness and my depression started to take a steady uphill rise. I reflected that upon him, and he reflected upon me. He became me, and I became him. As I spent more time in the community, I let the love others had, and the love I had for him, get to my head, inflate my ego, and corrupt me in a way that started becoming more and more noticeable as time went on. I started to take his frustrations out on the people around me, some who, despite that, tried their best to help steer me on the right path, which I ignored, as I was stuck in my own little world, until they were tired of it. Tired of me, and rightfully so. I hurt some people who cared about me, who bent over backwards for me. I still don't forgive myself for how I treated them, and I wouldn't blame them if they don't forgive me. Some have lowered expectations of me, and I would continue to fortify their thoughts of me. I promised to improve, but, I never did. I didn't know how to. This all came to a head when a certain event took place, which saw Xander in more harm and danger than he had ever been seen in before. When people like me see their creation in a setting like that, they expect them to triumph, and overcome the adversity. He didn't. He lost. Horribly. He was maimed, mutilated, and humiliated. Inside, I felt it all. I felt humiliated, by letting him experience such a thing. I felt like I, not as a character, but as a person, failed. I started to damage control, to try and find ways to mitigate it, to at least give myself some form of a win. It ended with me getting banned from the server. It wasn't a long ban, mind you, but, it was something that struck a nerve with me, and I never recovered from it. Since that event, since my short, three day ban, my mood dropped even more. I became more anxious, more closed off, more frustrated and, frankly, more depressed. I let his suffering control me as a person. I started having fight or flight responses to seeing certain characters in the server. I was afraid to interact with anyone, because I felt as though I had tarnished the once positive reputation I had, and no matter what, I would never recover. No one would want to be around me, interact with me, because they knew how I was. They knew how toxic I've become, and how easy to set off I could be. I hated myself, and I felt as though everyone hated me. I had multiple meltdowns with people in private, TriReef and Zecon especially, which would never amount to anything as even I didn't know what I was upset about. Just that I was upset. I was always upset. I took a few hiatuses from Galaxy Citizen. One due to stress from my workplace building on top of my unhealthy obsession with the community, the other due to the death of my mother in May of 2021. My most recent hiatus was when I was moving into my new home, starting to live alone and enjoy independence. I forgot about GC, and I stopped taking part in it for a while. It was after this hiatus I fully realized how unhealthy I really was. The moment I returned, and started to take part in the community again, after what could be considered an emotional high point for myself, my mood plummeted once more. I started being anxious again. I started being depressed again, thinking about my past failures IC and OOC. I reverted back to my most negative traits associated with the community. And this is where I am now. I announced my leave from GC semi-publicly, but I felt as though I could elaborate here, and it would alleviate some of my lingering feelings of anxiety and abandonment. I am taking an indefinite leave from Galaxy Citizen. After I finish tying up some loose ends within my story, such as the fate of Xander, that will be it. I have been seeking mental help through the use of medication and, soon, therapy. I hope that through the help I will receive, I will not only improve as a writer, and maybe an artist like I used to aspire to be, but as a person. I hope that I can eventually return brand new, and put all of my past mistakes behind me, and move forward. I will still be active within the main discord to keep up with people and events. However, there is the chance that I may not return at all. Only time will tell how this pans out for myself. Thank you all for the two years we spent together, not only as fellow writers, but, to some, as friends. I'll see all of you later. ♥
This is a Healthy step for progression and we will welcome you back with open arms when you're ready to return if at all. It was really fun roleplaying with you!
It’s sad to see you go (for now), but understandable. I’m in much the same way, taking a step back and re-evaluating life. Sharing anxieties with your character, constant depression/burnout, it sucks. I know that feeling all too well. At some point, all of us have to take a step back and think about what the hell we’re doing. Godspeed, man. I’ll be rooting for you.
Lord Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words. Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? Hamlet: Between who? Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. hamlet
