So, this'll probably seem a bit random, as I've been at least semi-active on the forum again for a couple months now, but I figured I'd give a brief overview of why I almost completely disappeared from the forum for so long.
As most of you probably already know, I've been dealing with a creative slump of sorts for a while. The source of that slump was largely do to, for lack of better term, a mental breakdown. I had a bunch of stress built up, my health declined, and I ended up losing practically all confidence in everything. Sadly, my abilities to fake normality could only get me so far. I've dropped school, been online less, and generally just retreated from the world, rarely even leaving my house. I'm still not back to 100%, but my overall state has improved enough that I've been able to start dealing with people again, at least to an extent. During my absence, I frequently felt the urge to log on, as I missed talking to people here a lot, but I almost never managed to actually bring myself to do it, as the discomfort of human interaction was stronger than the emotional void caused by avoiding it.
After one of my brief appearances in that time, I got a message from wooly about him looking forward to starting MRPG once again. At the time, I told him a bit about how I was feeling, and that my lack of confidence was keeping me from being able to participate at the time. I assured him that I still wanted to be involved, and asked him to bring me to my senses if I ever started saying things about intending to drop out. He asked me to inform him once I felt as though I'd be ready to rejoin things, confident that people would be understanding of the delay caused by the wait for my return. Thankfully, I never needed to rely on him to talk me out of any foolish decisions, and now, after nearly two months back on the forum, I've been able to do a bit of writing again. I still don't feel as if it's the best I'm capable of, but my entire reason for joining MRPG in the first place was to help me return to proper form so I'd be able to write for RA again anyway, as my failure to produce quality results for Chief has been a source of regret and guilt for a long time now (which has only been made worse by the time I've spent doing practically nothing for so long), so it's not as though anything has changed in that regard.
I'm not looking for sympathy, nor do I wish to cause undue concern; this sort of occurrence is simply going to be a fact of life that I'll have to deal with as I continue to learn how to cope with my mental illnesses. I just don't want to hide something from you all that, at least in passing, concerns the forum and my place in it.
To get to my actual reason for this long-winded post, I'm just wanting to apologize to everyone for being gone for so long, for being foolish enough to hide my lack of confidence behind displays of faked pride, and for any other issues that I may have caused with my past actions (or lack thereof). I'd also like to make this my formal declaration of my preparedness to return to MRPG, regardless of the fact that I never actually dropped, and in spite of the fact that, by all appearances, the forum is in decline.
