User blog:BelladonnaTook/Things to know about Me and why I'm back and why I love you guys

A lot has happened this year, well to be fair a lot has happened since 1 April 2011, but for now let's just look at this last year. I feel it's finally time I owe you guys a real explanation, not just why I left or stayed away (well pretended to stay away because I could never detach myself completely from the wiki and was always in the shadows doing my best to support you guys) but also why I came back and why I am now once again running for rollback.

Spring of 2014 I had a long three years on the wiki coming to a close, I'd lost friends for numbers of reasons, the worst of which through what seemed like petty disagreements, lack of communication, distrust and losing a once common vision. I am not going to name names here because that's not what this is about, and those people that I disagreed with back then, that I fought with at times, they may have had faults, some of which that hurt the wiki, but I wasn't blameless. When I left I wasn't just disappointed in certain unnamed people on the wiki, I was disappointed in myself because I believed I had failed you. You guys (ok not some of you reading this now because some users have left the wiki that were there and some reading this are new) but in general you guys over the years put me up on a pretty heady pedestal, I worked hard to be the person that you guys needed, but over the years I lost site of that, not just of what you guys needed but what I needed. I left because ir I blamed myself, because I was weak and a coward, so I ran away, I turned my back and tried to believe I could just walk away from this place and not look back, but I was lying to myself.

Now stuff on chbrp wasn't the only shit I had going on last spring 2014. I was failing school, my like 4th attempt over the last 15 years at getting a university education. Yet another thing going on that I saw myself as a failure for. See a pattern? Leaving the wiki, failing classes, tipped me over the edge and I opted to put myself in inpatient psychiatric care for a week last spring. Since then this last year has been a long road not just from the struggles with online stuff and the wiki, but personal things. Come to find out I have what some call High functioning Autism, some call it Aspergers, some in the Autistic community just say Autism, but whatever you call it I have been coming to grips with it and trying to re-learn and discover who I am.

One thing it always came back to was you guys and this wiki, you guys aren't just strangers with a common interest to me, even the users I disagree with and get annoyed with and don't get along with at times (some of you know who you are ;) ) you guys have also been my home, my family and my dearest friends. So despite seeming VERY adamant that I would never step foot on this wiki again, I made the choice to come back. Coming back under this new account was never a bid to stay secret, but at the time I really wasn't up to any fanfares or tons of welcome back comments, I wasn't in the mood to do this blog back then. I wanted desperately to be back and with you guys again, but I wasn't ready to make a big deal about it yet. I was still scared and unsure if I'd made the right choice coming back.

Since coming back I've forced myself to stay slow and steady here. I didn't want any races up the Admin team ladder, but you see I know myself, if I had even entertained the idea back when I came back, I might have caved, and that is why I seemed so determined never to be on the Admin Team again to some of you. It was my safety belt, my way of taking my time, dipping my toe in so to speak. The last month though a lot has changed once again, I can't completely explain why now, why the last few weeks, but sometimes a life awakening doesn't come slowly, it hits you in the head one morning you wake up and finally see the path ahead again. I woke up a few weeks ago finally me again, finally feeling myself, finally totally come to grips with having Autism, with my needs and my shortcomings, finally ready to embrace life and move forward again. That's why I started editing even heavier to help the wiki and why I asked Oli to nom me for Rollback. I still want to keep moving slowly, I don't have plans to run for Crat at all, and only a flickering thought at maybe after awhile considering Admin.

I need you guys to do something for me though. We aren't perfect, none of us, we ALL make mistakes. We have good days and bad days, we have days that for some reason our brain seems to be stuck on stupid. We have days we say things we shouldn't, days we let our tempers get the best of us, but guys, we have something here, something that goes beyond just some stupid wiki to accumulate edits on, we have a community, a family, friends. I didn't come back because I had the urge to edit 5000 templates or be "Bach" again, I came back because this is where I belong, with you guys, facing all this together, the good the bad the inbetween.

I need you guys to let go of the past, let bygones be bygones. I need you to stop comparing the wiki now to what it once was. I need you to stop fighting amongst yourselves as much as possible. We need to stand united as the community and family that I know and believe with my whole heart that we can be. We need to fight for this wiki, to make this wiki ours, not mine, not his, not the users of the past, not what it was 4 years ago, but what we as a community now in the present can make it. I'm asking for a clean slate for all of us, any users I have expressed problems with in the past (I don't feel naming you here is appropriate but some of you may know who you are) I will extend the first olive branch, I am truly sorry for anything I have ever said or may have done in the past that was either intentional or misinterpreted, that may have hurt you. I forgive anything that was ever done against me or behind my back by anyone out there reading this that may have done something. We don't have to love everyone, we don't have to roleplay with everyone, we don't even have to be best friends with everyone, but while we are on this wiki, we ARE a community, so we do have to try and get along. I am now ready to stand next to you guys, not in front of, not behind, not in the shadows, but next to you and try and bring this wiki into a new era of peace and prosperity.

Forever and always your Bach....