What was the Cause? · 1:37am May 19th
Something I don't know yet is the cause of the mistake I made more than seven years ago..... I know how the consequences happened. This mistake caused a conflict that affected my mental health. It confused me and made me say stupid things that hurt my friend. I felt guilty about this, the guilt was building up and it caused me to have angry, aggressive outbursts when the pressure in my mind became too big and this scared my friend. She sympathized with me at first, was empathic and tried to help me relax. When nothing helped and these outbursts just continued, her mental health became affected by them, she lost a lot of strength, the outbursts and the state of my mind caused tensions between us, fights happened, we talked less, she became distant to me more and more because the outbursts made her fear me and, eventually, she left me completely on June 28th, 2019 and blocked me.
After she had returned to me, my story idea that triggered her because of a past event in her life, my ungrateful reaction when she tried to motivate me to draw ponies more often, that I put my own mental baggage on her when she couldn't deal with that, how setbacks with my writing and Generation 5 analyses from 2020 to 2022 – because of covid-19, Generation 5's full-CGI announcement and the fears that Putin's nuke threats gave me, as well as depression resulting from these events – made me become cynical and bitter and, eventually, even unempathic and cold towards victims and that I used her Twitter account against her consent to save it from deletion because I was trying too hard to protect her, all of that contributed to it that she went into distance from me again in December. The insensitive tweet I wrote at the end of November that triggered her was the last straw.
I know how everything developed since I made this mistake and caused this conflict in January of 2017, I see the chain reaction clearly. But I don't know what made me act like this so that this initial conflict that started it all could happen.
For some years now, I had a theory about the cause for it. I don't want to say too much about it, because this goes into my own past and into something I consider a different life today, so I will keep it short.
For all of my childhood, teenage years and even my early adult years, I was raised by or lived with a person who, as I know now, was never truly my mother. She had no sense for my privacy or my personal belongings. She came into my room without asking, got upset and blamed me when I locked my door to have some peace from her, still invaded my privacy by trying to peek into my window from the balcony, even banged at the door and screamed in later years because she couldn't cope with it that she had no control over me, she ripped posters from the wall of my room and threw things of mine against the wall when I didn't agree with her on something or when I didn't obey to some crazy idea she had. Even when I could finally move out and far away from her, she still threatened me to take away my computer (that I paid at least half of). Shortly before that, she said she is going to chop up my desk (that I paid in full with my own money). She didn't take my computer away then and she didn't chop up my desk, but only because I finally stood up to her during the last two years I had to live with her under the same roof (I told her, if she chops up my desk, then I'll chop up her desk, which was old and antique, so she yielded), she was too scared of me in the end and simply didn't dare to do anything. She was possessing over me, my freedom (I couldn't make a step without her creeping at my side and it took me until I was 20 that I made trips without her) and my belongings. She thought that everything I own is owned by her, that she can do with it as she pleases, and damaged things I owned without batting an eye to break me. She committed a lot of emotional abuse that way.
In 2020, years after I reacted so extreme on it that the 2D Department Lead of "Legends of Equestria" changed the colors of Bubbly Greens, the filly NPC I had created for LoE at the time, I sometimes asked myself if the reason why I reacted like that was because the person who raised me touched things I owned without my consent and even damaged them and tried to destroy them. I drew parallels to it that the 2D Department Lead hadn't asked me before changing Bubbly Greens' colors. I had been wondering if the change of Bubbly Greens' colors without my consent triggered things for me and if it reminded me on it how the person who raised me treated my things as if they were her own. And if the procedure to change Bubbly Greens' colors by the 2D Department Lead brought back that feeling in me, that something I own is being touched and used without my consent. I was always unsure about this theory, because after moving out and away from this person, I hadn't thought about her for years and I never felt any mental pain over what she did and never traumatized. That past didn't affect me even years after moving away and I never reacted like that to anyone before, so it didn't make sense to me that it would all of a sudden crop up in my mind again and make me act that way. I pretty much discarded this theory for the reason why I had this reaction to the change of Bubbly Greens' colors.
In the last few months, I had asked myself again what caused me to act like this and why I made that mistake. A few days ago, I came back to that theory I explained above. And still felt unsure. On Wednesday and Thursday, during grocery shopping, I was thinking about all this and things became clearer. I was still unsure even after thinking on Wednesday, but then a nightmare I had on Thursday morning made me think again and made me remember things.
Last year, I was talking with some people about making a video game together and they agreed that I should write the story for it, after they saw my writing. Despite this, one of them voiced disagreement when I talked about a specific idea I had for the game's story and said that I can't write this. I felt uncomfortable with that. There was no big incident happening there, no shouting and no yelling and no fight, but inside, I felt very uncomfortable over it that they interferred with my ideas for the game's story even though they said they wanted me to write it. I felt violated and dictated in a similar way like I did when Bubbly Greens' colors got changed.
In the same year, I was sending my roommate a seething phone message after he took something from my tea without asking. And a few years ago, I think it was in 2022, I was shouting at him for taking something of my milk from the fridge without asking me if he can have some.
In 2015, I had to move into a different apartment because my roommate back then, who owned the apartment, wanted to sell it. The realtor he hired to sell it adviced him to paint the walls of my room white and to rip out a wall and a door he had built to separate the room better from the rest of the apartment. It took me a while to find a new apartment, so he let these changes get made while I still lived there and I had to move into his former room for a couple days. I saw this room as something I own, because I paid rent for it, and that he changed the room while I still lived there also made me feel violated and like something of mine is being changed without my consent.
I thought about all of this and I realized it has happened before and after January 2017, that I felt extremely uncomfortable or violated when something that was my own got changed or touched without my consent or when someone even just tried to change it. And that I sometimes reacted extreme on that. And the nightmare I had before made it perfect. I was dreaming about it that my current roommate had moved most of my ponies into a different room to do some work on the room I rent, without asking me and while I was sleeping. It tipped me off to the problem.
All of this is fitting together; the reaction I had towards the 2D Department Lead of the "Legends of Equestria" dev team when they changed Bubbly Greens' colors, the feeling I had when the first room I rented got changed while I still lived there, how I reacted when my roommate took from my milk and my tea without asking, how I felt about it when someone told me I can't write a story idea for a game we talked about working on together even though they asked me to write the game's story and the nightmare I had on Thursday.
I have major issues, more than most people, with it if someone touches, changes or takes something I own without asking me first and without my consent. It makes me angry and aggressive if that happens. And there is only one thing in my past that can be the cause for triggers like these. It happens because the person who raised me oppressed my freedom, claimed possession of things I owned and tried to destroy them.
I don't know yet what I can do about this and how I can prevent it from happen again, other than staying out of team projects that expect me to make compromises about art I create. And now I am asking myself if I am a hypocrite, because when I used the Twitter account of my friend against her consent, I was doing the same thing that I suffered from a long time ago and that, as I know it now, still haunts my mind today. I did this to save her Twitter account and to save her from the pain of losing it and because I was trying too hard to protect her, but still..... Does this make me a hypocrite, because I did this even though I am not okay with it if my things are being touched without consent? Or does it not, because I felt uncomfortable using her account like that and knew it's not okay to do that and because I only did it out of emergency when I thought that's the only thing I can do to save my friend from pain?
I don't have an answer on that question, either. But this is the core of the issue. Now I know why I reacted as extreme as that and caused that conflict in the LoE dev team in January of 2017 and what is the reason for it that all of this could start.
I was able to have a short phone call with my friend. I called her on Easter Sunday, to wish her a Happy Easter and she picked up the phone. She wasn't saying anything. But she has unblocked my phone number, picked up my call, let me talk and listened to me. I sometimes send her mails since she went into distance from me again, to keep up a bit of contact and to work on repairing our friendship and shortly before Easter, I was remembering that she has one other e-mail address and I was sending a new mail, together with all the previous ones, to it. Maybe she has been reading them all for the first time there and this is why she let me call her.
She has opened up to me a little bit again with that and I hope it means she will eventually give me another chance.
.
I've been in your coat. For almost every situation you have been through, and how you reacted towards them. I understand you perfectly, to the point that, if just a few things changed from your texts both this and the last one, I would think it was written by me. Believe when I say this. I'm also glad to hear you were able to cope on your own and retrieve from your actions. I understand it may be hard when it's something that is inside you and you're the only one that can deal with. That's why I'm happy for you. I have been able to improve too, just a bit, since it may be even harder for me for being in the spectrum and OCD, still I'm cheering everything, from now on, gets better and better for you, really.
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Thank you. It relieves me to read this, that you understand my situation. I am aiming to get better. And the hardest part still lies in front of me, rekindling with my friend and winning her trust and her friendship back. There are a few more things I have to work on before this can happen.