Caveat. It’s 3 am here, I can’t sleep because I twisted my ankle and I’m in pain. So this is a grumpy post. Also affected by the fact that my upstairs neighbour is clog dancing around their apartment. Lately, I’ve been reconnecting to people in general about role-playing games and my role in the Swedish RPG scene. I’m a reviewer in the Swedish RPG magazine Fenix, and as such I’ve been fairly alone in reviewing table-top games.
I’ve had some company here and there, but many of them quit due to pretty harsh criticism from players in Sweden. I’ve been put through that criticism as well. I’ve been told a lot of crap about my person, my knowledge and my skills.
This is the point where things have started to change. Instead of hearing that I’m pretty much useless, people are telling me that they thought I was pretty much useless, told me about it and have now changed their minds.
I’m not sure what to do with that.
What you did to me was make me doubt myself and my skills. You made me think not just once, but five, six times about what I wrote. You made me feel horrible the day before publication because what if something was wrong in the review? You made me feel as if I didn’t belong, I had no right to speak and that I was unworthy of the hobby that I love.
You made me lose my enthusiasm about games.
This change of heart, this sudden praise, this turnabout just confuses me. I’m used to fighting for everything, and now, all of a sudden I’m accepted. I don’t get it. I can’t handle it. It feels awful because I don’t want to forgive you. I want to keep being angry at you for making me feel as if I wasn’t good enough. But you apologised. If I forgive you, where do I put all this anger that you made me carry? All this shame? Where do I put my resentment and my hurt over the fact that I wasn’t welcome then, but suddenly I am now? How do I handle the praise when I’m used to being slammed?
Where do I put all the anger if I can’t be angry anymore?
Why do I feel you took that away from me?
2017-04-25 at 20:37
In my experience several people tend to see the ones writing and doing things openly on the internet as highly instrumental *to them*. These people might have changed their minds but the fact that you’re playing a role in their world, which subordinates your own humanity, doesn’t absolve them from the anger you feel. It is OK to still feel like that.
I can share the feeling as someone who has been in a very similar situation but with close ones. People who I considered friends who secretly felt anger at me for years because it helped them cope with their own issues. Issues they never really voiced except through continuous bitterness on our relationship that I mistook as friendly banter. Until they suddenly confessed they don’t feel like that anymore. I was not their friend, I was a puppet in the story of their lives. I’m angry at them because of it. But also sad given the way they handled it.
Some people can’t forgive you if you shine any light that doesn’t align with their expectations of you. That’s their problem. Not yours <3
2017-04-26 at 13:00
I think you’re allowed to be angry until you’re done. And if the apologisers say “B-but I apologised..”, maybe just explain what you did in this blogpost? “I know you apologised but it will take me some time to accept that apology.” Assuming that you will be automatically forgiven just because you apologise is a mistake, I think. There’s more to it, like showing in action that you’ve changed, earning back trust and so on. Otherwise it would be like walking around in the street, punching people in the face, apologise and then go “hey, you can’t be angry with me now that I apologised”. An apology doesn’t remove pain, but it might start the process.