So Let Me Explain Everything...

Once again, I'm not posting for attention. Just to explain everything and help you understand why I'm not a frequent poster.

It's difficult for me to stay motivated. I have a lot of self-doubt in my own skills and talents, so I haven't been as confident in my writing as I was when I was little.

See, I started this account when I was only fourteen years old. I was young and carefree. I had more confidence back then and I didn't care what people thought of my writing as much. The first story I posted on this site was called 'Daughter of Spike' and it wasn't well-received. I was surprised and shocked because I'd never gotten any kind of constructive criticism before, so fourteen year old Sapphire decided it'd be best to delete it. I still have the story 'Daughter of Spike' floating around in my Google Docs somewhere, but now that I'm older, I'm looking back on it and realizing that it's trash anyway, so I'm not gonna repost it. I mean, I look back on my old stories on this site and cringe at them because of how bad they were. I'm just like... how did you guys even upvote this stuff?

But yeah. Now I'm seventeen years old and in my last year of high school. I know it's only been three years since my account was created, but I look back on my fourteen year old self and realize that a lot can change in just three years. My self-esteem is practically destroyed compared to my fourteen year old self. When I was fourteen, I felt like I could take on whatever the world threw at me; whatever life wanted to send my way. Then Life laughed at me and decided to give me a severe case of depression. It was a downward spiral since the eighth grade. My depression continued to get worse and worse since I felt like nobody wanted to listen to me and my dumb problems. So I let it go untreated for three years. Finally, I told one of my parents about my depression and they thought that I could be helped by 'positive thinking', so they told me to think positively and that I'd start feeling better about myself.

But nope. The self-hatred continued to grow. So my parents sent me to a counselor. She was kind and understanding and always helped me to feel valid, but she was merely a counselor and couldn't give me any tips or advice on how to help stop my thinking patterns. So once again, things continued to get worse. I hated everything about myself. I hated all of the mistakes I made in the past and felt like an awful person. I hated my outer appearance and felt like I couldn't do anything to 'fix' it. I felt like I was stupid, untalented, and absolutely hopeless. I felt undeserving of love from my family and friends.

So I started self-harming to feel better again. It was... frightening the way it worked, to be honest. Every time I saw the blood coming from the cuts on my arm, I felt a twisted kind of 'euphoria' almost. Almost as if all of my bad thoughts and feelings could be dispersed by the blood running down my arms. I hid it under hoodies and long-sleeves, so nobody would see that I was cutting. Unfortunately, my mother found them and immediately sent me to therapy. My therapist told me that I felt "happiness" when I self-harmed was because it released endorphins, a happiness hormone.

Things got even worse again. Just when I thought that rock bottom didn't have a basement. I got a comment about my weight and got told I needed to start working out. Then it was almost as if a switch got clicked on in my brain. I developed an eating disorder and tried to eat as little as possible. I still have my anorexia and it's not getting any better. I still can't look at the numbers on the scale without wanting to cry, even though I've lost ten pounds and I'm still extremely young. I'm still a minor, but I already feel pressured to diet, work out, and eat less.

I've also had a lot of suicidal thoughts too. They've prevented me from working on anything I've wanted to. I've always wanted to complete my fanfictions, but the only things I've been able to bring myself to write recently are poems and songs about the way I'm feeling. I'm trying not to fall over the edge and end up killing myself, but it feels so... hard sometimes.

So the reason I explained all of this is because I'd like you to know why it's difficult to bring myself to write fanfics lately. I feel like my writing isn't good enough and that anything I put on this site will be awful. But I'm trying my best to continue all of my fanfictions. The last thing I want to do is disappoint the people who want them to be finished.

Thank you so much for being here. People are nicer to me on the internet than they are in real life. I realize how sad that is, but it's true. Most of the things that have lifted me are from comments on stories I've written, replies to YouTube comments I've posted, and PMs that people have sent me. So I can't express my gratitude enough to those of you who have been kind to me and are helping to rebuild my drive to write stories. Have a good night!