FOBETEO 2024 Day 2: When Things Aren't Excellent

Posted by Kim on December 3, 2024, 9:00am

To be completely honest with you, I had some trouble getting ready for The Festival of Being Excellent to Each Other this year. I've been struggling with my mental health, and an intense feeling that things, in general, just aren't so excellent. I'm sure you can relate -- if not right this moment, I know all of us have gone through some low times in our lives. Times when it was pretty hard to see the silver lining in things.

There have been days where depression kept me not just from showing up for other people, but for myself. When the only thing I could do was lay in bed and leak from my face. Some days, the only thing keeping me going has been my community of friends and family. A lot of those folks are right here on the RP Repository.

The really ironic piece is that as much as I rely on community to help me cope with my depression, depression also makes it exponentially harder to maintain those crucial connections.

When your brain refuses to love itself, giving kudos to others can feel like an insurmountable task, no matter how much you love them, no matter how much they definitely deserve the recognition.

If you're watching the kudos fly, desperately want to participate, but just can't push yourself into it this year: please know that we completely understand. FOBETEO is meant to be a joyous celebration, not a burden. If it is hitting you hard this year, you're excused. It doesn't need to be something that you feel guilty about. You have my permission to rest.

The people you care about care about you, too, and they want you to be well more than they want a compliment.

You can rest if you need to. You don't have to be productive or happy all of the time. If you need to sleep, go do that. It's not required or even healthy to spend all of your time being "productive." Working and pushing all the time is actually counter productive!

And remember, while you're being excellent to teach other, be excellent to yourself! The RPR has a pretty decent collection of mental health resources, many of which you can use yourself without having to contact anyone.

Post tags: FOBETEO

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Comments

Cosmonautilus

December 3, 2024
4:21pm

❤️

Atheist

December 3, 2024
12:30pm

This has been me in a nutshell. I simply cannot bring myself to explore new avenues of role-play, or even rely on the old true-blues. I've been stuck in a hiatus pretty much since last year when my living conditions were so deplorable that I nearly became homeless. My mental state has not recovered from that and with the way things have been going, it seems to be on a steady decline... I sincerely hope it changes for the better one of these days. We could all benefit from a bit of good news.

I do, however, want to spread the cheer, the love, the recognition that people rightfully deserve, but I needed to hear this (see, rather). Thank you, Kim, for reminding us that we're all going through it and that we all need to think about ourselves for a change. It means a lot to many of us, I'm sure. So, thank you. I'm going to try and participate still, but I will probably continue my little mental health withdraw and maybe motivation and inspiration will strike again some day. Love and Light!

Kim