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Well... It's been interesting.

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It's been a while since I have last shown my face around here. Many of you might not remember who I am, and if you don't, I do not fault you. I have went from a Bulbagarden mod to persona non grata within the span of a few months, and one may wonder why I would want to show my face here again. Indeed, sometimes I wonder the same thing.

So, who am I? It's a long story, but here are the basics. I am known as "leetic", though I have been known by other names such as PaulTheProtist and Bandido Banderas during my time here. I joined in May 2015 and quickly started making a name for myself here. At the time, I was 14. When the staff drive came around in February, I applied, and became a mod for the TCG and Collectibles section, becoming the youngest mod both by terms of age and join date. A couple months later and I was also a mod of the Fun and Games section. For a while, things seemed to be going well for me, but the cracks were already showing.

Before I get any farther, I would like to explain one thing that I probably should've explained a lot earlier: I am diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. For those of you that don't know, it is a mental condition that's part of the autism spectrum that has various symptoms, most notably is that people who have this condition have great difficulty socializing with others. I didn't tell people I had this because I didn't want people making assumptions about me based on my condition and I had suffered discrimination as a result of this in the past. However, as we go on I feel that this information is important for contextualizing some of my later actions.

I often have difficulty making friends in real life, and I am a very meek and quiet person. However, on this website, I felt that I had friends, or at least people that I thought were friends. I found socializing to be a lot more easy behind the anonymity of a computer screen. So, the next part of the story occurred in September 2016. The fall. Now, throughout the month of August things seemed to be going fine for me, but it's never that simple. Some minor tensions were beginning to show between me and a couple users, on and off staff, but most people were getting along with me just fine. But eventually, one of these tensions between me and another user (who I won't name) over something stupid proved to cause it all to come crashing down.

It was about a week into September when I received that fateful PM. I was being let go from the staff, it said. It still said I was a valued member of the community, but I began to doubt that. I felt very betrayed. Having few friends in real life (especially at the time), it was a major blow to see people who I thought were my friends all seemingly turn their backs on me. I was so insulted, I left for a few months.

Asperger's syndrome wasn't the only mental condition affecting me at the time. Another thing I had been struggling with, and which would only get a lot worse, was depression. At the time Bulbagarden had largely been an outlet from various real life problems, where I could escape from those things. When you combine the loss of such an outlet with the feeling of betrayal I felt, you have a recipe for disaster, and things were about to get worse.

I did eventually return to Bulbagarden in around December or so. By that time, however, you could tell that I had changed. Almost every post from that time period just reeked of bitterness. Previously, I had a perfect record with no infractions, but in that period I quickly racked up ten infraction points and didn't seem to care much. I started snapping at certain staff members, even ones that I knew likely had nothing to do with the fall. For my behavior there, I sincerely apologize, since many of the users did not deserve that treatment and there were many more mature ways that I could've handled those situations. However, it is the nature of depression that at the time I really just didn't care.

Despite my shoddy treatment of some of the mods, that wasn't what did me in for good. Eventually it was resuming the conflict with the aforementioned user that eventually brought me down. A bit odd, considering how petty the situation was compared to some of the events that happened before. But this event really didn't fix anything. It made my depression worse, and eventually was at the point where I was making alternate accounts and trolling the Discord server. I had soon become one of the, if not the most hated user on the site - a very sad reversal considering how well-liked I used to be.

Ultimately, a lot of things happened in the years since. I was very depressed for a while, and even got to a point where I was cutting. But the dismal situation didn't last forever - eventually I started getting more friends, working at a library and just generally doing more. I am in a much better mental state now that I was in the September of 2016. Ultimately, things have just gotten much better.

So, why did I write all this out here? I really don't know. Maybe I want to see if I could try again and things will turn out better. Maybe I hope people would understand me better if they knew my side of the story. Or perhaps maybe I just want to move on and telling my story would help me accomplish that. I don't know. Anyway, I hope that if I stay a second time, things won't be as bad.

Gracias

leetic
 
This is certainly a new attitude from you. And it might just be the one we've been hoping to see for the past two, three years.

Don't get me wrong. We're not giving you carte blanche to just return with a clean slate. But we're not banning you here and now either. Consider it probation: keep to the new attitude, play nice and fair, and we're not going to hold your past mistakes against you.

In the meantime, welcome back, Leetic.
 
This is a great attitude to have, and we are very supportive of this and hope to see this from here on out. On a side note, as someone who does get it, feel free to drop me a message, as I have asperger's and depression myself. Anyhow, welcome back to the forums
 
Please note: The thread is from 5 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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