Now with added Ko-fi

Let me tell you something about being bullied.

It does cruel things to you. The constant bullying teaches you that you are doing something wrong, while tricking you into thinking that if you behaved “correctly” you’d be accepted, make friends, and not feel so alone. It makes you crave validation — or even just confirmation — that you’re doing “human” correctly. Even friendly jokes can be salt in an oft-opened wound.

At the exact same time, it teaches you that social interactions are dangerous. If you make a mistake, you will be hurt, physically or emotionally. You pull away from attention and mistrust your self-confidence. You lean against the wall and wait for others to approach, because even introducing yourself is risky. You get a reputation for being standoffish, elitist, or smug.

If you’re autistic, all of this can be exacerbated: behaviors that seem natural to you are the source of your bullying, but you can’t quite figure out what it is that you need to do differently. Perhaps you become a people watcher, and try to copy the behavior you observe, but it never seems to work reliably. At times, the bullying seems random,

It’s especially limiting when you’re a creative. You find a community of sorts among other actors or writers, but you can’t ask anyone to come and see your plays or read your work. You let people know if they ask, but you don’t want to put pressure on them — you’ll just wait here by the wall until they approach. Besides, if you did put pressure on them and they didn’t show up, it would hurt really bad: are you not “human-ing” correctly? Are they pretending to like you? Are they just being polite?

Eventually, it becomes a part of you and your self-narrative. You’re just someone that people don’t “click” with. You still mention your work off-handedly, as an expected pro-forma performance, but you never expect anyone will actually bother. You realize you aren’t creating to communicate or for others to enjoy, you’re mostly doing it for yourself; because you are compelled.

My first blog was started over a decade ago: a WordPress blog that was simply a place to publish The Macabre Tale of Edmund Moulde. I even started up Twitter and Facebook accounts, because that was how you were supposed to network. Of course, I was not good at that part of it; social media has never clicked with me. Nevertheless, I found myself consumed with the “website hits” meter on my blog. Here were numbers — quantifiable data — on how many people were visiting my website every day.

I did not have a healthy relationship with that number. Every time it was lower than it had been before, I felt like a failure. Every time it was higher than usual, I assumed there were bots visiting my site. I averaged maybe three to seven hits a day, and most were from Brazil. Besides, almost no one ever left a comment.

The number quickly became a subtle way to hurt myself, to remind myself how hidden I was and how little everyone else cared.

Now, it’s pretty rich to set up a website, do little to no self-promotion, and then bemoan the fact that no one stumbled across my work. What, was I thinking that I was just so sexy-awesome that my mere presence would draw people to me like moths to flame? On the internet? Even in the 2010s, the Algorithm was doing its job. There are lots of people out there, busting their butts to collect even a scrap of attention from the public, fighting attention-eating juggernauts and meme-factories like Twitter, Facebook, Disney, Netflix, et. al…and I thought I deserved any attention at all? For doing the bare minimum?

Well, I didn’t really expect attention. I wanted it, sure, but expect it? Nah.

Didn’t stop me from getting disappointed, though.

One person did leave a comment, once. Yes, whoever you are, I still remember you. You found my website, somehow, and commented on how much you enjoyed my writing. You said you had followed my work since finding The Watch in the Sand on Smashwords, You were impressed with how insightful and prescient it had been, and how interested you were in seeing where Edmund went.

I’m tearing up just thinking about you and what you could have given me, had I only been in a place to receive it.

But I wasn’t. Reading that comment was only a moment; a moment of respite instead of validation, of rest instead of victory. Then it was right back to feeling alone. Depression is a powerful thing.

Eventually I shut down the site and moved on. I put together this site — with no comment section — and made sure to both ignore neocities’ site-visit number, and eventually set up an external upload/update process so I wouldn’t even be tempted. Even today, I don’t know how many people are following me, or even if anyone is. It makes everything easier for me, emotionally, because you are all really just a big bunch of imaginary friends. I can pretend there are as many or as few of you as I want, and I don’t have to worry about if I’m meeting your expectations. It’s freeing.

Then, a year ago, I got a new job.

Several times in my mental health journey these past years, I’ve undergone perspective shifts; from realizing how deep of a hole I was in, to recognizing that I’m not as far along on the road to acceptance as I thought I was, to acknowledging that my past has included actual social trauma…I’ve re-framed how I’ve looked at myself and my life many times. I’ve celebrated the Goblin, embraced the Rat Queen, and started to move in a more positive direction in my life.

I find myself returning to the phrase I used before, when I finally left my apartment and accepted a position at the local library; I feel ready. Can I say that again?

I originally wrote the first draft post almost half a year ago, when I was filled with anticipation about how far I had come in what felt like so little time. My head was full of a future where I was regularly engaging with multiple communities: Friends, family, RPGs, Chicago theatre, LGBTQ+, autism…all my fears and anxieties conquered. I wrote a whole paragraph about how I was going to proudly take “the next step,” one that felt impossible before.

But I don’t feel ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel ready. I’ve tried looking at my social anxieties as just that — anxiety — and I haven’t progressed the way I want to. After talking with my therapist and doing some soul searching, I think I’m not giving my fears enough credit.

Way back when, I wrote an RPG Errata on Safety tools. I discussed the people who argued against safety tools in their games, and how they were “Didoing,” a term coined by Innuendo Studios to describe the weak argument: “it’s not so bad.” Perhaps I’ve been Didoing myself, saying that I “just” have social anxiety. Whenever I use the phrase “social trauma,” it feels a bit like exaggerating. I’ve seen people with trauma in movies and plays; it’s dramatic. It’s powerful. It’s consuming. I’ve never felt like that I imagine it would feel…

And yet, if I were to describe my life “objectively,” just listing actions and patterns of behavior, I can understand why someone would think I was a severely traumatized individual. If I describe my history with bullying, I can’t argue that some of it wasn’t extreme. If I look at how much I still resist taking “the next step…”

I have social trauma. Maybe that’s a miscommunication, and the image you have in your head of me isn’t accurate, but it’s the way I am going to try and look at myself. Maybe treating my pain with more respect will mean I can find better ways of healing.

That said, while I’m not ready, I certainly don’t feel like standing still. If I won’t ever “feel ready,” then I’ll need to move forward in spite of not feeling ready.

So I set up a Ko-fi account.

You may say, “so what?” Well, this is a big step for me. A dangerous step. I can’t even clearly explain why, save that when I was finished, there were tears in my eyes and a pain in my chest. My partner had to hold me for a while afterwards. Was it fear? Relief? Dread?

On the one hand, I love the idea of getting tips from people who’ve found something valuable in my work. It circumvents the “business” side of internet culture, while challenging the feeling that I’m just navel-gazing in a private journal. At the same time I know I’m in danger of looking at the “number of subscribers” or “amount made this month” and only seeing how many people aren’t following me; how much I’m failing.

But let me be honest with both you and myself, If engagement is slow, it’s not because I’m failing, it’s because I’m not trying. As cliché as it is, that’s probably where a lot of my lack of trying comes from; self-protection. I can’t fail if I don’t try, right? At least, that’s the less flattering way of putting it. A kinder way of looking at it is: I honestly believe there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who are doing just as much work as me, if not more, and they deserve your attention just as much as I do, if not more. Self-promoting feels like bidding for your limited attention, which is more like joining a social economy rather than a social community.

But is that also an excuse to keep myself safe? I don’t know; sorting through all that is my problem, not yours. Don’t donate to me because you want to make me “feel better,” or “heal my trauma;” your donation won’t do either.

Donate only if you honestly think I deserve a dollar for what I’ve brought into your life. If you don’t have the money, that’s fine. I’m not starting a Ko-fi account because I want to monetize my art; I’m doing it because I’m tired of being scared. I’m doing it because I want to be a better person, and I can’t be a part of a community if I cut myself off from people.¹

What does having a Ko-Fi mean for Oddscrawl? Let me make a promise: My work is and shall always remain free on this website. I don’t believe in gate-keeping my work from people who don’t have money to spare. I will never lock anything behind a paywall nor give benefits or bonuses to those who pay. You aren’t donating to get exclusive content — you’re not purchasing anything — you’re subsidizing my work and keeping it free. Any “exclusive content” I come up with will be for everyone.

If you can’t spend a dollar, no worries. Instead consider spending a minute telling a friend about my work; what you liked, what you didn’t like, or even what you could have done better. Word of mouth is a powerful method of building awareness, and it’s something I’m terrible at.

Or…don’t. You don’t have to “pay” for the right to be here. I’m doing this no matter what, and if you don’t want to feel like a salesperson or MLM hawker, please don’t! Gods know it’s kept me from mentioning my work to plenty of people.

The only thing I can really ask of you is keep hope and love alive, and strive to create a utopia worth dreaming of. Cyberpunk and Grimdark futures are cautionary tales; things to avoid, not aspire to. Embrace Solarpunk, seek loving and supportive communities, challenge narratives, fight hate and willful ignorance, reject oppression in all its forms, uplift those in need, question the world we’ve been given, support those in duress, and keep yourself, your community, and the world growing.

Scratch the heavens, my fellow goblins.