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RickSWEF
Strangest of the Strange
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Mental Health
Maybe it's the season for lots of problems, or maybe things are just happening all at once. I don't expect anyone to know which it is. All I know is that there has been a lot of personal stress rampaging about lately. Most of it due to personal issues.
So, I felt it could be a good idea to start a topic to let everyone discuss what is bothering them and get things off their chest. Whether the topic gets used or not, is completely up to you.
So, to start off, I'll make the first reply to this topic...
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I'm CRAZY!!!!
Rick
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fm@swef.net
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14/Mar/07, 12:40 pm
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RickSWEF
Strangest of the Strange
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Re: Mental Health
... here we go.
I've been pushing myself hard lately, and dealing with all kinds of pressures.
First is the pressure of buying a house. I either had to find a house or sign a new lease. The new lease has to be signed by the end of March, but my current lease isn't over until the end of May. So I worked hard to find a house. Hours upon hours of searching the web and papers for homes that fit my needs and budget, as well as entire days looking at houses, only to not find something that said "I'm yours forever". Then once I found one, the owners didn't know what they were doing and trusted a greedy lawyer to handle the deal. Unfortunate for them, I have a great realtor who caught the bad deal and we walked. We found another house and made an offer. A couple days of sweating, hoping to not get a repeat of the last one, we finally had an accepted offer. All we have to do now is get the house inspected and wait for the closing in May. So far, my budget is going to be very tight for the next year or so, until I can get into a new routine.
In the meantime, a friend of mine, who lives in Las Vegas, wrote me to ask for help. He is going to be homeless after he lost his job and his wife took everything (and I mean everything), and all of this before he could even file for a divorce. Anyway, due to buying a house, I couldn't offer much for help, other than a plane ticket back to family and friends. I sent him $20 and haven't heard from him since. I'm worried that something bad may have happened to him.
Another story is that I did my mother's taxes. She forgot to bring the previous year's tax information, so I couldn't file things properly. Needless to say, I need to go to her house to fix the errors and refile her taxes... tonight after work. She lives over an hour away, so I'll be late getting home tonight.
There is another SWEF related issue that has me a bit worried. In a matter of two months (more or less), I've lost two players from my game. That means I'm working with half the people. It also means I'll have to work a bit harder to keep the game going, though I have some good ideas on how to do it.
However, this problem seems to extend to other games, lately. It concerns me that this issue is not being handled nor addressed how I would have expected it to be. So, I'll have to get some thoughts together and try to get things smoothed out so SWEF can run as it has for the past several years.
OK, after hearing some of everyone else's problems, mine aren't too bad, really. But they are still my problems.
OK, I'm done. Who's next?
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I'm CRAZY!!!!
Rick
SWEF Forum Manager
fm@swef.net
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14/Mar/07, 12:58 pm
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RickSWEF
Strangest of the Strange
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Mental Health
Well, it's been a while, and the house stuff seems to be going alright for now. The waiting is gonna kill us, I think. I'm a patient person, but this is a lot of excitement to deal with.
As for my friend, I haven't heard from him in almost two weeks. I don't know if he's doing OK, or what. He could be dead, in jail, or homeless, for all I know. It's kind of frustrating to not know what's happened or happening to him.
The tax thing still has time to be resolved for my mother. She's not worried about it, so neither am I.
I haven't taken the time to address the player issues in SWEF, yet. For that I must apologize. I'm thinking that things may be getting back to normal in a few weeks. Hard to say.
There is one concern I have, lately, and that is with Ron. I'm worried that he is under a lot of emotional strain and I don't know how I can help him. I wish I could just hop over there and give him all the support he needs. All I can do is curse my limitations right now.
That's about it, for now. I'm sure I'll come up with more next for time.
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I'm CRAZY!!!!
Rick
SWEF Forum Manager
fm@swef.net
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25/Mar/07, 10:23 am
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RonSWEF
Overly Evil Overlord
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Yes, Ron's Crazy
Okay, I doubt anyone but Rick's gonna read this but here's a rundown about why Ron's a mess.
Self-Esteem Issues: Dating back to grade school. I ain't gonna give you the whole sob story, but suffice it to say school and I (not to mention other kids and I) never got along. When you have the audacity to be both big and smart, you don't fit anywhere.
Religion Issues: I was raised a Mormon, which to be frank is just as cracked-out a version of Christianity as pretty much every other one is. Never fit in there either, and so when I realized I didn't believe the doctrine I had nothing to make me want to stay. Unfortunately, the rest of my family still believes and to make it worse they're the best kind of Mormons. It ain't easy maintaining your own sense of identity when all around you are people who genuinely believe you would be happier if you (lobotomized yourself and) came back to the One True Church. Especially when you really do love the loonies.
Employment Issues: Ties into the self-esteem thing, but my mother tried to teach me the value of hard work while simultaneously showing me that hard work got you nothing but tired. In response, I've never mastered the "turn your brain off and do whatever the moron tells you so you can get paid" mentality that everyone else seems to practice to get by in this insane working world we've created. I think my record for holding any job stands at around seven months. Of course I've still got the voices in my head that tell me I should be able to do better than this, but I haven't figured out how yet. I don't suffer fools, and how in the heck did so many fools get into management?
Family Issues: My dad died in January, though to be honest everything that made him a person had gone long before that. As a result, I'm here looking after my mother, who I strongly suspect couldn't handle living alone on an emotional level. Right now she's in a nursing home, trying to fight off the after-effects of a nasty infection and some other difficulties with her back that have made it very hard for her to walk. On one hand, I like having the house to myself. On the other, I wouldn't wish a nursing home on a dog. Throw in the fact that I'm constantly fielding phone calls from EVERYONE AND THEIR FREAKING DOG who wants to know every last freaking detail about what's wrong with her and how can they help, as well as being regularly told what a good son I am, and it all adds up to Ron not getting much enjoyment out of his 'peace and quiet'.
I am not a good son. I'm the son who couldn't get out of this freaking house and get his own life. It's not kindness and decency that keep me looking after my mother, though I must confess to having a few shreds of those left. It's the fact that if she dies, I've got nowhere to go. If I moved in with my siblings, inside of a month or two either I'd commit homicide or they would. I've never been able to get enough mammon together to pay for my own life, and I'm not interested in screwing up someone else's life to qualify for welfare, so what am I left with?
Anyhoo, there's probably a few other things rolling around in my brainpan, like the fact that I turn thirty next month. In this culture, thirty seems like the beginning of the end of your life, and when you feel like you've never accomplished anything...
Anyhoo, throw all that in the pot, stir a few times, and you get something like River Tam without the benefit of cuteness, psychic powers, or mad ninja skills. For years now, I've been able to keep it somewhat together by being creative, running these games and writing a story here and there. But lately, even that's been drying up. I've been in counselling for years now, and I'm trying to keep myself afloat, but it's really hard. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do, but I'm not inclined toward suicide unless I can take a few dozen people with me who would make the world a better place by leaving it. And picking which people is much more trouble than I feel like going to.
That was a joke, for the most part. 
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"Define interesting."
"Oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die?"
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27/Mar/07, 8:56 pm
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RickSWEF
Strangest of the Strange
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Re: Mental Health
See? I knew Ron was around. I doubt there is anything I could do or say that hasn't been done or said before. If I could help anyone out, I would. (Wisconsin is still a very nice state to live)
It seems that problems with life are abundant. It's probably how a person deals with them that helps to get them by in the world.
I syill haven't heard from my friend who lost everything. Not sure what to do or think about it all. Not much I can really do, I guess, short of flying out there and searching for him. But he's a big boy and should be able to figure out how to contact me. He did before.
The home thing is trudging along. Right now the issue is getting teh financing straightened away. Once that is done, I can breathe a little easier. That is unless the financing is going to break me. I can give up family life and work two jobs, right?
Anyway, thats just an update. Hopefully there will be more to tell on the existing stuff and no new stuff to add.
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I'm CRAZY!!!!
Rick
SWEF Forum Manager
fm@swef.net
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28/Mar/07, 12:43 pm
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