A bit hesitant on posting this, but I wanted to get my thoughts out there…:

From when I was 8 years old (now almost 26), my life revolved around online communities which I’d feel closely attached with. I’ve had an overbearing amount of bad experiences, mainly because I have both high functioning autism as well as BPD, which has resulted in me having many, many unstable online relationships, while having massive misunderstandings. Being on these online communities really exasperated the problems I’d have, and I’ve shed many tears and experienced I feel more heartbreak than the average person. Which I now realise it’s really not normal for a human to experience, and I also phrase it in a way that we as humans aren’t evolutionary meant to be socialising online almost all the time.

Now that I’m almost a year on from being Discord-free, I feel my life has very much improved mentally. Although I still have severe mental health issues and trauma from the experiences I’ve had alongside social difficulties, I’m going through therapy to help with things.

I also go to real life gatherings sometimes and though I still very much struggle with forming deeper connections, it feels like I’m at a point where not every other week something traumatic happens. Which of course is better than being chronically online and having these communities instantly at your fingertips…whether you’re in a good/bad mood, whether everyone’s busy and people keep you on read and they end up forgetting…plus due to the nature of text itself, massive misunderstandings and conflict are inevitable. For me especially, I feel more ‘drunk’ as I have less of a filter online compared to in person.

It does make me think that it’s better to be alone, rather than put a bandaid like being on Discord servers, and while it may feel good a bit, it really did rot my brain.

Thought I’d get this out there, I also hope it helps someone too, as I don’t see many people talk about this specifically. My heart goes out to others who are also suffering, and I hope we can all overcome this together. :)