Been a while...

[stitchwhich]

I don't expect anyone to read this, actually. It's been three years since I've written anything but my counselor is after me to write a journal and truth to tell, while I do have a pen and ink journal, I write faster and more coherently by typing the words. So my leather journal is a mostly-SCA-event item. That does make it fun for me to re-read. She also strongly suggested - more like "insisted" that I quit the SCA as what I'd been dealing with was quite toxic. But she settled for me backing out of our local area's stuff. I still kinda keep track of what is going on, and I'm theoretically teaching a class in August but it is only a workshop for folks who would like to cover their modern camp chairs with cloth. I don't attend any of our meetings anymore and I've been training myself to stay out of discussions on the group's Facebook page. It isn't easy. I'm breaking a 32-year habit of being involved. I'll succeed.

I am down to one SCA protégée now. One was elevated to the Order of the Pelican (YAY), one recently met with me to re-evaluate our relationship and we decided to release it (actually, I think she was looking for an opportunity as we had been growing further and further apart in viewpoints as she absorbs her very-Republican new husband's views) and one asked me to release her so she could swear to a dear friend who had been elevated last September. Her friend took over three protégées on the day of her elevation - more power to her. I could have never done that but they all had been talking about it "when the time comes" for eyars.

That last ex-protégée hurt my feelings today. I had asked her for the name & contact info for her soon-to-be Peer on the day she made her request but she didn't answer me. That bothered me a bit but I figured she was already juggling emotions and plans for her travel back to her old kingdom for the ceremony. Her new Peer lives in a kingdom about 18 hours away from our area, so she needed a local contact person in our polling Orders. Recently I wrote to my ex-protogee about it only to learn that she has asked another Peer who lives in a different barony to be the contact person. And that hurt. I guess that our friendship was more window dressing than reality since she's only known that person for less than a year. How could I have misjudged our relationship so poorly?

And I question myself now. Am I that horrible a person? In less than a year I've lost two protégées. Have I become a toxic individual? Maybe so in these last few dark years. I spent a few years wanting to die, constantly fighting the urge to weep, and trying to hide that. I'm still dealing with depression but that level of it has lifted. I'm starting to have good days now, with goals and activities I only daydreamed about previously. But has the last few years poisoned my personality while I was trying to cope?

I don't know.

Comments

[danabren]

So hey, hi.

It's hard, so hard, to walk away from the SCA. I know plenty of SCAdians who have made it clear that they are Not Coming Back who are still all over social media commenting and opining on shit. I had to literally cut myself free of it (and now my husband is getting active again locally, argh). It's not easy, because it was so much a part of your life for so long.

Sounds like that certain ex-protégée was socially calibrated, and you are better off without them. Consider yourself lucky that you are free.

Let them go. Let it go. It's okay to mourn the memory of what was.

[cellio]

This. The SCA has been a huge part of your life (as it has with mine), and yet, sometimes you have to move on. That's not a judgement about you or about the SCA. Things change. People change. Circumstances change. Needs change. And yes, groups change and that affects all the people who are part of them.

The SCA we joined doesn't exist any more. Today's SCA will not exist in 20 years. Something with that name might; who knows? It's ok to remember what was, realize it isn't now, and move on. It's sad but inevitable.

[stitchwhich]

I am not leaving the SCA - I have too many friends within the community to want to cut off seeing them - but I am ending my participation as a member of my barony. Yean, I might go to a local thing, or not as the mood strikes but the burden of "Being A Peer In The Barony" is one I am eschewing.

[montuos]

I'm glad to see you again here, and I'm gladder still that you're feeling better enough to try writing again.

[pearl]

That is what, if you hadn't beaten me to it, I would have commented.

I get the feeling that posting to dreamwidth is like yelling into a void, and not expecting a reply. But there are still people around. :-)

[kareina]

It took me a couple of days to see it, since I have had company and not touched a computer since Wednesday evening, but I, too, am happy to see you posting. I am sorry that your local SCA is having issues that mean you have to leave it.

Does it help to know that in the far corner of the known world, up on the northern edge of Drachenwald, we have a shire that is a warm, welcoming place where people seem to mostly get along, and the rare issues are interpersonal between individuals and not problems with the group as a whole?

I totally understand why you would wonder if the depression has resulted in issues with your personality--it isn't easy coping with depression, and being depressed can easily translate to one's actions in ways that aren't so nice for others to be around. However, I believe that if you are being aware of it and looking for it you should be able to either mitigate that effect, or, if needed, see it in action and send a note saying "sorry if that came out too negative--I have been dealing with depression, and sometimes it colours my interactions" or some such that will help others want to be around you.

Good luck finding ways to enjoy life and find the rest of the path away from depression.

[stitchwhich]

I'm glad your local group is doing well, happy and growing in knowledge and friendship. That is how it should be, isn't it? So good to hear.