Different kinds of dealing with a conflict

[Ezra]

Due to my mental health situation, I have not been easy to deal with, especially with my friends in an online community, which I consider my home and my family.

I do not want to get to much into detail about the conflict here, just so much to say, that I caused it, and that I am trying to make everything good again. But different people react differently to me.

D.

D. is the head of the community, she is a streamer, and her discord is small but with great people in it. D. reacted to my fault with pouring a lot of frustration over me, also about things that were not my fault. She triggered unintentionally some childhood trauma with the way this talk went - and I went into full defense mode reacting by writing her a letter with some mean accusations - but also with how much she and her community means to me.

D. first reacted with distance, but she showed me that she cares for me on several different occasions. As I thought it might be a good time to have a talk with her, what made me write that letter, she refused, she said everything was fine, and she didn’t want to deal with the negativity of the past.

R.

R. is one of the mods. He was not directly involved in the conflict, but shortly after, I also have chosen the wrong words towards him in a DM, putting words in his mouth, that made him really pissed. I later wrote an letter of apology to him, explaining him my situation but also regretting what I said, and promised to be more careful in the future.
R. answered to the letter, telling me that he was not mad at me, and that he understood what was going on - he didn’t mean to ignore me (what I was assuming) and since then we seem to get along as we used to before.

S.

S. is also one of the moderators. The conflict started about him, as I accused him of a selfish behavior, which actually happend to blew up in the whole moderators group. Despite I could have cleared all with all who were involved, and the general situation seems to have cleared. S. however is fully ignoring me on all levels. He does not react to greetings, or anything I write. I also have written him a letter of apology, to which he has not responded. He deleted all of his earlier DMs in discord to me, If I react to messages of him on public chat, he somtimes deletes his message. If I enter a voice chat where he is attending, he sometimes leaves. He soemtimes makes comments, of which I think they are in my direction. I try to react friendly to him at all occasions, but meanwhile I consider his behavior as micro bullying. There are some general issues I have with him, but I still want to get along with him.
S. usually hangs out alone in a VC channel, somtimes listening to a music bot. At one occasion another used did exactly the same, but invited other users to join him to chill, and I entered the channel. After a while S. created a new channel in the discord, moved us and the bot there and entered the original channel alone. After we left this new channel after a few hours, it got deleted again. I do not know what to make out of this.

All 3 mean much to me as they are part of my online family. I do hard with D.s way to deal with the conflict as I have the wish to explain myself to her, but also do respect that she doesn’t want to deal with it any longer, and it seems our relation ship grows slowly back to as it was before. Still my guilt of the happening remains. I do hard finding an end to this.

R.s reaction seemed to me as the healthiest one for both of us. we both could speak out what was on our chests, and even if there is something that is left unspoken, it seems that we have a good base to carry on our friendship.

S. reaction is the worst to me. I do not push him to talk to me again, but he clearly makes me feel unwelcome, and being ignored on every level gives me the feeling he does not want to have me around. It gives me sometimes the feeling of a mental death sentence as he does not acknowledge my existance any more. I do understand that I have hurt him extreamly, but it’d be easier if he would tell me at least how angry he is. I am feeling to be constantly punished by him with no chance to resolve the situation.

[blast_hardcheese]

Sounds like S is going to need a while longer to cool down. It’s good that you can give an honest appraisal of the situation, and I think that’s worth cherishing on its own. Given your account, S seems to have some issues of his own that prevent him from wanting to talk things over. That’s definitely making things hard for you. It always feels pretty terrible when somebody avoids you to the point of deleting public messages when you respond to them(like really, dude? Come on)
But your awareness of your own behavior and your willingness to reach out and make amends speaks volumes about your own character as a friend and community member. You can’t go anywhere but forward from there.
Whatever happens from here with S depends on what he’s telling himself and others about the situation. Whatever the case may be, you made your attempts so far. Maybe he’ll come around, but you may just have to forgive him if he doesn’t. That makes things pretty complicated when you’re in a group where everybody’s got mixed feelings, but D and R might be talking him down for all we know. And if they don’t talk to S?.. I say let him stew until he’s done. Your internet hometown clearly means a lot to you and there’s likely a good reason for that, but don’t forget that there’s way more to experience out here.

[Ezra]

I have learned this morning that S additionally blocked me on discord. I wanted to show him my support on one of his posts, and my emote got removed instantly.
My paranoia (I wrote about that in earlier posts) kicked in heavily. I am imaging again that conspiracy in the background trying to bully me out.
Addtionally that feeling pushed up again, that I am a burden to this community, and that I am draining everybodies energy by tolerating me being there.

I know that isn’t the case from a logical perspective. But the feeling pops up, and it is intense. I had two different impulses, leaving the community, or provokining an escalation. I talked with another member of the community and he adviced me trying to chill and lurk for a while to see how things develop.

Right now I do not really know where I stand with this, and if I should react at all.

I can feel the effects on the trigger even physically, as my chest and arms hurt, and I feel like falling into depression again.

edit add-on:
The action of S. blocking me makes no sense at all, after he is mod he still can read my posts and is reacting to them (eg to show his disapproval to an opinion of mine) so his only action was to show me that I cannot add emotes to his posts - as I wasn’t sending him DMs anyway. It is just a form of additional punishment in my perception.

[leonafan000]

The way it is that you got blocked like that becuase you said someone was selfish sounds like something I would do.