Last night I almost left my guild. I had to literally stand up and walk away from the computer to prevent myself from typing a phrase that I hadn’t typed in seven years: /gquit. I didn’t want to make a rash, emotional decision that I would regret in the morning. Only when I woke up this morning, after crying myself to sleep yet again, I regretted that I hadn’t done it.
Amongst other things, I had it out with one of our officers last night. And after feeling like I was being placed as a scape goat for everything, I flat out told him I would offer a simple solution: I would leave. I mean, let’s face it, I haven’t been happy in months, I’ve noted that in multiple venues, including my guild forums – if people were truly unhappy with me it seemed like a win/win solution for everyone. I advised him I wasn’t being melodramatic about it, I was truly miserable, tired of dealing with it and I wanted to leave. And I was told that if I did that everything would fall apart and I was needed to keep the guild alive. I found this odd, considering that I was supposedly at the root of all of these problems we are seeing in the guild at the moment.
Which lead me to wonder: If I’m not a replaceable member of our leadership team, why am I treated so poorly by the people I work so hard for day in and day out? Why is it that when I tell people that I’m at the end of my rope, and what is causing me to be there, they continue to perpetrate the exact things that drove me to where I am right now? Why do I feel unappreciated and outright disrespected by many members of our guild? Why do I not feel like I am not welcome or wanted any longer?
I was left with a heavy decision that I thought about while I was showering this morning, as I drove to work and as I booted up my workstation at the office. I was leaning heavily towards leaving, as I removed a few more of the “pros” from a pros/cons list that I’ve been building in my head for the past two months. And then came the PM that should have never been sent. From a raider that is equally, if not more, emotional that I am at times. A person that I had specifically directed to Brade because I couldn’t deal with it anymore. And my resolve eroded.
I wanted out. Now.
I responded less than charitably, because, well, I’m fresh out of charity to give. I’m tired of putting my feelings behind others, often to my detriment. And I’m tired of putting everyone’s needs and feelings ahead of mine. I’ve been doing it for seven years – and people (that I willingly invited into our guild) have unintentionally done to me what a group of people who set out to destroy our guild couldn’t do: they have made me want to leave my guild and look for a new place to call home.
I quietly closed my office door and started to weep in earnest. Ashamed and embarrassed that I was this upset over a recreational activity and couldn’t control my emotions enough that it was impacting my ability to work – especially when I have always prided myself on being able to bifurcate my personal life and my professional life when I stepped into the office.
I called Brade, looking for direction and advice. Hoping that the person who lovingly strokes my hair as I cry myself to sleep would offer me some semi-objective opinions. When he told me I should leave because I am clearly unhappy, I cried harder. The truth is, I still don’t know what I want to do. We talked about it a bit (well, mostly I cried and he tried to make me feel better), ultimately, effective immediately, I abdicated myself from all raid leading responsibilities going forward. (And you are probably learning about this change before half of our guild).
I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to stay and see if things get better with the guild or not. The truth is that my head knows Brade is right – when it gets to the point that I am crying myself to sleep at night and locking myself into the office for the same reasons, it’s probably time to move to something that is more healthy for me, regardless of where that leaves the guild. But my heart, lord my heart. It wants what it wants. It slaps on those rose colored glasses and romanticizes about the change that will happen with me stepping back, and tries to convince me that everything will be better now. It doesn’t want to walk away and abandon something that I’ve nurtured for so long.
I don’t know where I’ll land when this storm settles.
I know that I’m not done with WoW yet, but I do not know if I’ll be finishing out my love affair with the game with Monolith. Which is, quite honestly, not something I’d ever thought I’d say and may in the end kill WoW for me, as my guild has been a driving force for me in the game for so long. I have a lot of emotions and thoughts to sort through before I find an answer – and I strongly suspect the atmosphere of the guild over the next few days will play heavily into that decision.
In the end, is it so wrong to want to be happy and have fun again?
Falling Leaves and Wings 
We play this game to be happy. There are no right answers for what that means – but above all else, we do this thing to be happy. Sometimes just writing about it helps, but sometimes you just don’t know what will work – only that what you’re doing doesn’t work.
/hugs Beru
*hugs* In the end, you have to do what you need to do to be able to enjoy your leisure time and also be able to live with your decisions. Good luck!
Aww, Beru I’m sorry 😦
It’s hard to leave something you’ve been a part of and worked for for so long. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be happy and have fun. That’s how things should be, and if your current situation isn’t making you happy you shouldn’t be expected to stick around and continue feeling so badly. I hope things work out for the best, no matter which way things go.
Beru,
(note that these words aren’t meant to sound cynical, or like I am dismissing the loss that you will feel if you choose to leave the guild. But, sometimes some plain english from someone who does not know any of the details or power struggle can help. Take it for what it’s worth.)
Sometimes it’s easy to say “this isn’t right for me, I’m outta here.” And sometimes… it’s not. Sometimes it’s easier to burn the bridge than to find out what would have happened if you didn’t.
But. You are crying yourself to sleep; so torn up about this that you cannot put it aside at work (which you say is normally not a problem.) and calling your Sweetie for advice and comfort. These things are not healthy – especially for a leisure activity.
You need to either close the door quietly on your way out, or figure out what will make you happy, and try to lay things out for the officers in a matter-of-fact way. You need to have support, or find a home that will give you that support – but either way, something very obviously needs to budge.
I feel your pain, and I only hope that memories of this time are not what your lasting memories of WoW are.
=( I’m so sorry, Beru, that you’re having a hard time with your guild. I’ve cried through a gquit before, but I’ve found that wherever I’ve landed, the good memories outlast the bad ones by far. Not that that will make you feel any better right now, but once you land, maybe.
To answer your last question: no, not at all. Part of me wants to say that’s actually the point of life, but part of me is still skeptical and confused.
I don’t know what’s best for you, in the end, but you sound terribly sad and I just want to give you a big hug. Even with how much your guild means to you, if it’s causing this much pain you have to put yourself first. Good luck finding your path forward /hug
Why does we play? Fer to find our funs. If’n yer cryin’ yerself ta sleep at night, then you ain’t were yer funs is. You needs to make a change, you needs to do it damn fast, and go find them. Change sucks sometimes. Walkin’ away always sucks. But what yer tellin’ me here, in clear plain unfuhgginambiguosity, is that it be time.
/hug
This post made me tear up a bit. Trying to figure out what will make you happy can be SO stressful when you’re being pulled in multiple directions like you described. I do hope you make the decision that’s right for *you* – whatever that may be 🙂
When something is making you that unhappy it is usually the time to leave- which is scary and terrifying I know, but also hopefully the start of a new stage in your life that you’ll look back on one day & be glad you started. Hope it all works out.
I’m sorry you’re going through this, too. I’ve been in a similar position and there’s no nice way to say it: it sucks. Leaving my guild of 5 years was the HARDEST decision I ever made when it comes to WoW, and let me tell you, I was messed up about it for a week. I cried the first day and the second day, too. I felt very out-of-place.
It all worked out. I found a new guild home full of people I still think are quite awesome and treated me like family for a year. Since then I’ve actually moved back to my original guild and am very happy with the way it all worked out. It’s hard. It sucks. But do what you have to do, Beru–you deserve happiness in Azeroth, too. *hugs*
*hugs*
A lot of my guildmates are in the same place that you are right now (emotion wise, not situation wise). We’ve seen a lot of burnout with this Tier and people have been moving on. It got us into such a predicament that we’ve actually had to shrink our raid size from 25 to a 10. In it’s own, it’s a major challenge as people sort through their feelings and decide if they want to stay in a guild that now raids a 10 (some players were there specifically for the 25), if they are more interested in the friendships they formed or if they want to move on.
We play this game to have fun. If we’re not having fun, it’s not enjoyable. When we’re shedding tears because we care as much as we do about the group we play with, and we get doors slammed in our faces, it loses it’s appeal. I went through this when my guild imploded in BC. It’s not fun in the least, especially when we’ve built a home for others.
I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this frustration and make a decision that has a major impact on who you are as a player. 😦 Do what is right for you.
All the best!
Job #1 for a game is to have fun with it. I know raiding groups are really very much like rec sports teams, and you have these feelings of letting others down, but if you’re not having fun then you need to leave or make a significant change of some sort. And if your raid members don’t support you in making a change that betters your enjoyment, then they’re not really team players worth making sacrifices for in the first place.
For many reasons, players’s goals can diverge from a raid group’s goals and that player needs to make a change. There’s no reason good people can’t support that player’s move, understanding that its for their own benefit.
As in all life’s interactions, never tolerate disrespect. When people start treating you with disrespect, there is no longer a core to build any kind of relationship on.
I was in a similar position just over a year ago. For me the answer at the time was a gquit followed by an uninstall. I still have a copy of the email my old GM sent me after the fact (and reread it whenever I question if it was the right thing to do – his suggestions about what I should do to myself are both graphic and physically impossible).
This is a game at the end of the day, if people are poisoning your playing experience then something usually has to give. However it has to be a decision you make and don’t ever let people push you out if that’s not what you want.
((Hugs)).
Beru, I’m not going to tell you what to do. It’s not my place, at all. What I will say is that I’ve continued playing this game, MOSTLY with the same people for six years. I spent a year and a half away from them and I missed them terribly. All I could think was that I played this game to kill internet dragons — but killing internet dragons with those people meant more to me than just killing them surrounded by strangers. And that’s why I reformed my guild for Cataclysm. Along the way, I had met a lot of people who I thought might be a good fit. Some were, some weren’t and now we’re… well, an interesting group of people, many of whom I’ve played with previously.
When I think about being unhappy with the direction of the game, the upcoming expansion and such, I wonder to myself… if I quit the game, will I miss these people, still? If I’m tired of raid leading/being in charge after this expansion, would I really be able to continue to play elsewhere without wondering how awesome it would be to play with my people?
I think that something you should consider is… is it the guild as a structure that you would miss, or is it the people? Have the people you’ve cared about and had fun with moved on (Brade excluded, of course) or are they still there? Or is it just the name Monolith and all it’s represented for you in the past seven years and all those memories you have under that tag?
A guild, no matter how much has been done within it, is still just a game structure. I’d encourage you to look around at the people who are there right now and use that to help you figure out what to do.
As always, I’m just an email away.
Beru, get out and move on before it seriously starts to affect your health. High blood pressure, ulcers, anxiety and depression are a few of the things you don’t want from all this stress. It’s a game and it isn’t going anywhere. Take a nice vacation from it and step back in when you are ready. If your guild is as “Together” as you say they are, then Monilith will be there when your ready to return. But get out before its too late. Just reading your posts makes me not want to log into wow:-). Good luck, Megacode!!
*hugs*
I went through something similar with my guild about six months ago. My raid officer was systematically pushing me out of my own guild. It had actually gotten to the point where I stepped down, but then I had officers convince me to step back up again.
The RO persisted, actually benching me from raids and bringing in his friends from outside of guild. He was actually telling people that he was now able to raid with people he enjoyed raiding with.
I was asked numerous times why I didn’t kick the guy, and I replied because *technically* he wasn’t doing anything against the rules. There’s no law that states the GM MUST raid. And if I kicked him it would look like I did so only because I wanted to raid even though he was really trying to create a “guild within a guild.” I had one officer recommend to me to let him run “his” raids on the guild’s main raid nights and I could put my own team together on another night.
Eventually, after four months of misery (with him becoming increasingly verbally abusive and derisive towards me), we hit critical mass. He sent me an email demanding I step down immediately or he would leave and take the raid team with him. I passed the email to my other officers and my Founders and the mutual agreement was that this was an unacceptable ultimatum.So I refused. He left and as he promised (and tried to position it as if I made him leave), a good portion of my raid team went with him.
I spent over three months rebuilding my raid team and we’re now doing okay. We’re not progression, but we’re having fun. From the ashes of the old team I found an awesome new Raid Leader. I was able to get folks who the original RO would never have considered into raids. The new team accomplished things the old team never could – they got the guild our Dark Phoenixes. We got in some new folks who are breathing fresh life into the guild. There’s stil drama here or there, but that’s to be expected when you deal with people.
I guess the lesson here is even though times look bleak, sometimes you have to go through the fire. It all depends on if the reward is worth it. I built my guild on an ideal. I refused to give up on that ideal. The support of the guildies who stood by my side during those dark times spurred me on. Not everyone is as stubborn as I am, and it is really up to each individual to choose whether or this is a hill worth dying for. The only thing folks need to remember is that fighting or walking away are equally valid choices. Sometimes there is opportunity when one walks away from one guild. Each of us needs to choose what we feel is best for us.
As a final note, the other day I had my curiosity piqued when I noticed one of my ex-raiders in another guild, and not the one he joined when he gquit mine. I did a bit of research. The team that left never completed Firelands – they blew up. The guild they joined to “raid with their friends” has collapsed. Some of my ex-raiders left the server, others left the game. My old RO never ended up setting foot in Firelands and is guildless. I’m not happy. I am sad that it came to this. I see this more of a cautionary tale. I am happy for my ex-raiders who are seeing content. But overall, I am glad I stuck by my guns, since if I had capitulated, most assuredly the people who ended up leaving would have destroyed my guild if they had stayed.
My thoughts and well-wishes are with you. If I could offer you some of my Greek stubbornness, I would. All I can say is fight if you feel the fight is worth it. But a guild is more than just a tag, it is an ideal, and maybe the ideal needs to find a new home if the old home ill-fits it.
Best of luck.
~Ata
Beru, I can feel your distress. I’ve been there. I know we don’t know each other that well but I want to share with you what I did when I felt overworked and abused buy my guildies.
I told a few other officer I was take a few days off WoW to cool down. I’m stressed and I shouldn’t be. I should be having fun.
Then I logged off for 10 days.
When I got back, almost 100 people had gquit because I wasn’t there to run raids, recruit, answer questions in gchat or the forums. No one could motivate anyone to even run a 5 man, it was me. If I started a group or said I was going on a run everyone else would follow.
When I got back I announced that I was running 1 raid a week (I was running 3 10 mans and a twice a week 5 mans for new players. Plus I was the officer in charge or recruitment) and if anyone else wanted to step up & sign up to run others, that would be great. Signups are on the forums.
No one volunteers and another 80 gquit because we were only raiding one team a week and there wasn’t room for everyone. Two officers left because they were asked to raid lead, 5 man lead or take anything one day a week. They said no, and left. I was told too that I was crucial to the guild staying together and that is bullshit. If one person holds a family together then that family isn’t anything at all.
In a month we were down to a single ten man that I was in charge of leading. Another guildie stepped up as officer and lead another 10 man for alt or new player runs, another ran the weekly 5 mans for fun/achievement and new player. The few of us left agreed to no recruit for awhile.
We played for 2 years like that, it was amazing and fun. During raids, sometimes, I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face. We weren’t the best guild on the server but we had fun and all of us looked forward to signing on and raiding. For 2 years we were a self governing group, everyone cane to raids prepared, on time, buffed and if it was a new fight, the youtube video was reviewed. It was the best time of my WoW life.
What I want to get across is, you need to change your environment not leave it. Not yet at least. Think about what you want to do, what you are willing to do. And to that and nothing more. You are feeling used and mistreated and you need to stop it. People who want to play with you will stand with you. Anyone looking for a scapegoat or and easy ride will walk away from you rather then work out a disagreement. I think you may need to do some supportive housecleaning and surround yourself with not just players but people who support you. I hope this helps. /hugs
It’s a tough decision to make, and one I can say that a lot of us have been through at some time or another.
Do what’s best for your health; that’s mental as well as physical. It doesn’t do you any good to drive yourself to the brink of a breakdown simply for the sake of an activity that is supposed to be fun. You’re working yourself to a frenzy over this – and worse, you’re *paying* for the privilege.
Play WoW to have fun. Don’t deal with the drama, and get away from the negative BS. If you know you’ll be happier out of the guild than in it, then it’s time to leave. Stay connected to the people who matter, and cut yourself loose from the ones who don’t. At the end of the day, you know exactly who those people are.
– Pix
Oh, Beru! My first instinct, reading your tale, is to tell you to go ahead and quit, because when you slept on it, you regretted that you *hadn’t* quit and were still terribly upset about it. But after reading the other comments, perhaps if you just take a two or three or four week break from your guild — not necessarily from WoW itself, if you’ve got any “secret alts” stashed away somewhere that you can play without being bothered — they might get things sorted out a little better on their end and things would be better when you come back. But if you take a break and things are NOT better when you come back, /gquit. Whatever you decide to do, I hope that you will not have to endure this time of misery much longer.
You have my sympathies.
I’m happy for you right now because things can only improve for you from this point forward! If you are miserable now, then you certainly can’t get any more miserable if you make a big decision and do the right thing for yourself.
That can mean kicking out all of the bad guys.(Seriously, which would it be worse: if they left or you left?) It can mean scaling down to a more intimate group to lead in a raid or a smaller guild. (Out of 25+ raiders, who are you truly close with?) It could mean settling back as a mere raider, allowing someone else to tell you what to do, so you can read a book or watch TV on off-nites instead of making everyone else’s life easier. (Thank you for those POWA imports, btw!) And it could mean quitting the game entirely.
I just think that if you enjoyed the game at all over the last 7 years, there is still so much left to enjoy. But if it’s the people, not the game beating you down, then surround yourself with the people you want in your company, and politely ask the others to leave, or take your leave from them.
Your serenity is yours and yours alone, and no one has the right to take it from you. Good luck. I speak from experience.
Beru
You know how I feel about this. I am not going to say what the right answer is for you, but I can say personally, I have enjoyed WoW the last 3 weeks or so more than I have in the last six months.
For a completely selfish reason, I really hope you stay, I have said it before, Monolith would not be worth being in without you. If that means not raid leading, or even raiding for a while, so be it.
I hope to see you online.
Your post brought tears to my eyes when I read the first part on my phone. I rushed home so I could read the rest, and I am deeply saddened to hear that you feel so miserable. Last night, I was looking at your armory and admiring your numbers of boss kills on it. I thought of your resolve when you tried to see your raid unerringly through frustrating nights of wiping on heroic bosses. I thought, “that’s a raid leader I would love to have, she would walk through heaven and hell to make it happen.”
And so you have. As a fellow raider and druid, I have nothing but immeasurable respect for you and what you have achieved. As difficult as the outcome might be… it’s okay for you to do what you need to do, and no one else can tell you otherwise. I wish I could cast a healing spell to mend your heart and bolster your spirits again.
With all the comments here so far, and more to come, I hope you don’t feel so alone. We, the Druids and the rest of the WoW community have been here to celebrate your glorious achievements with you. It is now during your dark hour that we are also here with you for all the support you need. You have my sincere wishes for the best outcome however that might turn out to be.
*does the funny Night Elf scuffle*
All the best to you, Beru. We’re here for you.
Thinking that your guild probably does read your blogs, if they dont tell you its probably best to leave the guild I would be surprised. I know this game in a way is more than just a game because of all the hours and time spent on it, but in all honesty it is when you look at it from the outside world perspective it is just a game and if your that emotional about it and crying almost every night about it. Why continue? I know you may not read every post or take what we say personally and I hope you don’t! Everyone has a different opionion for sure so take each comment with a grain of salt imo. But I think it would be best to leave and take a break for a while. Try out SWTOR or something and come back for Mist of Pandaria. : )
Beru, this is what I’ve observed in your recent brain dumps:
1. You are burned out in many ways
2. You feel powerless to affect the change you need
3. You feel you don’t belong enough in your guild community
4. You feel personally responsible for others’ game experience
5. You have emotional stress around abandoning projects/”being a quitter”
6. This is a personal identity crisis and not an entertainment/gaming challenge
A /gquit is the nuclear option but it comes at a cost for you. #4 is a key point here. If you can set that aside, you may find it allows a way to reduce your stress, find a smaller circle in which you feel you do belong and become productively engaged again.
You need to replenish your energy. It sounds like you’ve run so low that you feel like you’re unable to live up to your own standards of responsiblity and leadership. Forcing yourself to step up doesn’t actually give you the energetic reserves to make it easy or a self-loving thing to do. You are ultimately responsible for your well-being.
My first thought when reading this post was that you should kick the people who are stressing you out. I do think that’s a good idea but you may be able to get the same results by stepping down as an officer, formally reducing your commitments and responsibility. Is that something you’ve considered? It seems like a way to avoid quitting and yet create some space to care for yourself.
Lastly, about the comment that “if I did [quit] everything would fall apart and I was needed to keep the guild alive.”
Besides reflecting a fragile organizational structure, this is emotional blackmail. Caring for yourself must take priority over “keeping the guild alive.” Another way to look at it is that you’re not doing the guild any favors by showing up if you’re tapped out. That’s not the cohesive, animating force the guild needs in order to excel.
Take care of yourself.
Since the first moment I read some of your previous post I knew you deserved better. It is hard to see others go through similar situations than the one you had to endure and telling them to move on. You have to move on. The huge red flag should have been the first tear that you had to shed because of an activity that is supposed to be fun. We all know leading a raid is not fun for the raid leader, but people that have not done it for an extended period of time truly have no idea. Every tell, every wipe, every bit of friction seems to sometimes linger longer than it should.
I am truly sorry you are going through this, but let me tell you about what helped me.
My story as a RL started to go sour the moment that some of our players wanted to start doing more hardcore raiding. I know I am capable of doing heroic, maybe not server or world first but def middle of the pack. I knew in a small server we could do well, but it was pressure that I really the group did not need. I still let it go on. Long story short, it divided people into those that could and those that could not… with some of the ones that could not always pushing to get into the “main” group, and people running the second group always though they could do better than me at leading people… always weird advise that really was not advise but more of a complaint.
I devoted a lot of time and energy into the guild, and raiding and in the end I started to feel the pressure. I was also told that if I was not there things would not run. I waited too long to move on from that server, from those people that did not really respect me.
Moving onto another server with the people that I still call friends was the best thing that I could have done. We are doing awesome things together and those that thought knew better than me are not around anymore. It was truly a cleansing experience in many ways.
I have not enjoyed the game this much since mid Wrath. I am playing with awesome people that don’t give me any grief and still get to do the things I want to do in the game. So far Whisperwind has been one of the best experiences ever. I love the server so far, and the months that I have been there I have made more friends with other guilds than ever before. It has really made me love the game much more.
This game is all about a good community, make sure you end up in one… the one you are on seems a little toxic.
(hug)
*hugs*
What I do, when times are bad, and I cry over people, is to give myself a deadline. I will do X, and I will stick it out for a couple of days/weeks/months. At the end of that time either the crisis or emotional storms are over… or they aren’t. In one guild, I walked away. In my current guild, I stayed. Both of those choices were good ones.
Don’t stay for Brade. Really don’t stay for emotional blackmail. Stay for you or not at all.
I’ve had to leave a couple guilds in past expansions when the emotional drain of it all was causing me too much pain. If it’s an ongoing & chronic stress, then there is no reason to keep holding that guild together. If you are the only thing holding a guild together, and that strain is tearing YOU apart, then it’s time to just let the guild go. Good luck with your guild hunting! Remember, this is a game and it’s supposed to be fun! If it’s not fun, then you need to change something about it, even if leaving a guild is really really hard.
Ah Beru 😦 I’m sorry you’re going through this. I went through it at the end of Wrath and just before 4.1. This game is supposed to be fun and not be something you dread coming to. Do what you need to, and take care of yourself first. Nothing in this game is worth crying over. (I tell myself that every day!)
*loves*
I’m sorry to hear that things are still weighing so heavily on you. It’s very hard when a Guild you love and built up is not able to progress and even get the numbers you need for the regular raid weekend. (Sorry a little bit of my ranting happening …) Our raids are due to start back today and we don’t seem to have the numbers from the sign-ups. I know it’s just that time in the x-pac when this kind of stuff happens. (End personal rant)
I just hope you can get the resolution you desire so desperately sooner rather than later and I’m so glad you have a partner who will support you when you need it most. That’s something I think everyone needs at some time or another but I don’t think everyone is lucky enough to have that.
Best of luck whatever you decide to do.
If Brade is telling you that he thinks you should leave… you should listen. I’ve not listened. I’ve pushed myself past my own endurance, and in the end, it hurt not just myself (I can abuse myself all I want tyvm) it put a terrible strain on my SO as well.
You might *not* need to leave the guild. But it’s fairly clear from the last series of brain dumps that you are pushing yourself far past your own endurance, and it’s pretty darn clear that something needs to change! I think you’ve done your best to communicate to your guild that things aren’t working as intended as they stand now.
Perhaps disconnecting from raid leading will do the trick. But for it to work, you *really* have to d/c… not just say you will 🙂 That means no chatting with Brade about strategies, or checking the guild forums religiously to keep people on the right path, or any of the other one hundred and one things you *might* do in your normal day to be a “leader” for your guild.
If, in a couple of weeks, you aren’t noticing a change in your burnout, try something *else.* Go play another character on a different server, something that takes you outside the flow of the guild: like *really* outside. Do you miss people? Who? Why? After a couple of weeks, if you can see yourself in a different situation, then a /gquit might be 100% in order. But there’s no reason you have to pull that switch today, or tomorrow, or even the next day.
It’s obvious to me that you don’t want to leave your guild. But you need to know *why* you don’t want to leave your guild. What keeps you there? What *exactly* makes you have the screaming ninnies or a crying jag? You might already know and have tried to minimize these things. Staying or leaving is YOUR decision, and the fate of THE guild is NOT your responsibility. You are not responsible to be the rock in the midst of the storm that is your guild situation forever and anon without any relief.
Allow yourself to care for yourself. Allow Brade to help you with whatever decision you need to make. You’re in it together and I’m sure you can find the right solution 🙂
I must admit before Christmas I was feeling exactly the same as you regarding leading my own guild. Heroic Ragnaros very nearly broke me especially as we didn’t even manage to kill it (15% p4 wipe as our best try 😦 ). I am lucky in having a supportive officer core, and taking 2 weeks completely away from the game over Christmas (I didn’t log on once) seems to of helped me get my drive for the game and leadership back.
Obviously I don’t know the specifics of your situation beyond what you choose to share here but I hope that stepping down from raid leading will help you regain your love for the game. I know you said in a response to a comment on another post that you don’t want to take any time away from WoW but I really would recommend it. The fact that my guild managed to keep going without me over Christmas even killing Hagara Heroic for the first time helped me to realise that I didn’t shoulder all of the responsibility for the success or failure of the guild and I like to think that a little time away helped everyone realise how lucky they are to have me 😉
Whatever happens with your guild I hope you find a way of playing the game that makes you happier. After a year in which the blogging community lost Tam of Righteous Orb and Larissa of Pink Pigtail Inn yours is one of the few Warcraft blogs that still exists that I am genuinely thrilled when a new post appears and it has been clear for a while now that all has not been well. I only wish I could offer you a haven in my own guild if you needed it but sadly the Atlantic Ocean gets in the way.
Best of Luck
Sorry to hear you’re having such a stressful time right now. Only thing I can say is look to your friends… talk to your friends, they are the ones that will see you through the tough times. Don’t worry about the other people.
Beru,
I wish I had some sage advice to make it all better. Guilds can be a huge emotional investment, you feel like you built something and then its taken away from you and you want to try and work on it and fight back, but sometimes it just isn’t a battle you can win.
Do what makes you happy. If the game isnt making you happy change how you play it or find a new game.
*hug* Your a great person. You deserve to be treated that way.
I had a similar experience in my last guild back in Wrath. I was the only person doing recruitment and, while no one would assist, I was the one getting the snide comments if we didn’t have the numbers or if the new recruits didn’t immediately perform our strategies. Being the person responsible for the happiness of 24+ other people is utter bullshit when you’re just one person. When the guild finally died, I ended up finding my guild, Fever, when I was perfectly willing to walk away from the game if I didn’t find a good fit and I honestly wish that I would have let go of holding myself responsible for the happiness of the rest of my old team much, MUCH earlier.
There’s only a finite amount of time that we have to enjoy playing WoW. At some point work or family or other interests or even *gasp* other MMOs will take precedence and our interest or available time to play WoW will decrease or end. You DESERVE to have fun playing. Don’t hold yourself hostage to making everyone but yourself happy.
/hugs
I’m sorry to see that its come to this Beru, I think quite a few of us have been there at some point during this game. Mine came shortly after WotLK and lasted a long, long time. (In truth looking back on it, that was because I was settling for what I was looking for in a guild..) But I hope that whatever happens you find your happy place in Azeroth or wherever the fates may take you.
First I’ll add my condolences and well wishes to the pile. We play this game for the people we play it with. We make friends within it, some of us meet partners for life in it, we all make memories in it.
Please don’t beat yourself up because you’ve been so strongly affected by it. Many of us have been where you are, or in similar places. I sure have. My raid leader and GM from my BC and early-Wrath guild ended up gquitting, and a lot of what you’ve been saying reminds me of what he said.
I’m not sure what the right answer will be for you. It may be a gquit, it may be stepping down from raid leading, or it may be a round of gkicks.
I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned or discussed that possibility, because it feels so fraught with peril. Hell, I’m in a casual guild and although I’ve really wanted to gkick sometimes, it hasn’t happened because it feels so difficult to do. But I do think it’s something you could consider. If someone’s personality doesn’t mesh with the rest of the guild, rather than kick yourself I think it makes sense to at least consider pruning those people and re-building from a base of people that you know you like and know you get along with. You might have to step down to a 10 for a little bit as a result? I dunno. You may have to kick some long-time members, but I think the benefits for EVERYONE in having a guild culture that’s in accord are not to be dismissed.
People that are behaving so badly that they’re making you miserable are probably miserable themselves. They may not be able to see it, but maybe Monolith isn’t a good fit for them. Maybe they’d be better off somewhere else.
Again, in the end, I think you should do whatever works for you, whatever feels best for you. But I do think you should consider gkicking instead of gquitting.
I wish you luck and renewed happiness.
Hugs for you.
I’m probably repeating what others have said but first *hugs* and second you have to do what will take care of you at this point. You obviously have a huge sense of responsibility for your group and that’s admirable but being this emotionally worn out you’re not going to benefit anyone and you know that. If you ARE the single lynchpin that is holding the entire group together then perhaps it’s healthiest for the group to disband because no one is built to shoulder that sort of weight for long and they certainly shouldn’t be expecting it from you. Making the decision to step away is heart wrenching, it can feel like admitting defeat and there’s that panicky feeling that you’re losing an entire social group that you’ve come to rely on for years. But the truth is that the real relationships you’ve created will still be around and when you’re no longer the person everyone turns to with their problems you’ll get to log in just to enjoy the game again instead of steeling yourself for whatever new problem you have to solve or person you have to soothe. Once you’ve had some downtime you might decide to rejoin your group or resume your officer responsibilities and that’s ok too. The main thing to keep in mind is that making these decisions don’t have to be all or nothing, but you should never feel like a bad person for taking care of yourself. Best of luck.
Oh Beru 😦 All hugs to you *hugs*
A wise man once told me you
have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. Good advice both in game and irl. Good luck on. whatever path you choose.
Take care of yourself Beru. Be inside or outside the guild. Of course, I would be sad to not have you around (upon my return to the game!), but I would prefer a happy real life/gaming (or not)’s Beruthiel more than anything.
Do what is best for you.
With much love,
Rholm
Crying for *any* game = NOT WORTH IT
Sitting there for your guilds’ sake while its tearing you up = NOT WORTH IT
Having to be stroked to sleep by your beloved while you cry because of a pixelized world = REALITYCHECK
Writing about it on a website for the world to see = WAKEUP CALL FOR THE BASTARDS IN YOUR GUILD (gg)
Take a step back and tell them to go F*** themselves – seriously
forgive the caps and the bluntness
Heed my words
My $0.02 (and probably not even worth that) is: /gkick EVERYONE IN YOUR GUILD excpet those who you most closely trust. Make everyone who wants to stay re-apply. Monolith is YOUR HOME so clean it up and make it what you want again. Yes it is extreme, only slightly less extreme than performing a /gquit, but if you are the one who have built it up and you are the one who is so “invaluable” than it has to be you to do the work (and put up with the griefing) to mke things the way you want them to be.
I think the main reason you have not already /gquit is that you don’t like backing down….and a /gquit would be that in your eyes. Some people are going to thik you area bitch either way, (quitting or cleaning house) so you get to choose what griefing you get. Lucky you.
Hugs
Wow I fail not seeing this post until 3 days later.
Anyways, you know I support you 100% percent and will be here to listen to you talk about it or not, if you don’t want to.
I think a lunch with yummy food and a ridiculous desert is in order for this week?
You know already what the right answer is. The thing that you’re holding on to…it’s the past. The past is to be honored, but the now is the only thing that exists in reality. If you are not happy, you must ask yourself why. If it’s because of your situation, you do something about the situation and accept that that is what you needed to do. Do not dwell on the past, it will only hold you back. Let go. Find peace. Find a perfectly good and new guild if you like. Enjoy just being Beruthial.
Be well and good luck to you. We play the game as Cyn said to find some modicum of happiness because some of us can truly narrow down our focus and truly exist in the now by playing this game. But there are other ways to do this, and other people to do this with 🙂
You’ll know inside what the right choice is for you. (The hard part is that sometimes the right choice isn’t always easy, either.)
/hug
Tough post. Tough position to be in. If your guildmates read your blog with any regularity, then your feelings have been made apparent and they either 1) don’t care or 2) agree with your leadership. It seems to me that you’ve been scapegoated pretty harshly and frankly, your sad-sack leadership team doesn’t deserve your presence! I recommend a graceful bow out, a cordial goodbye, and a quiet, dignified /gquit. I know it’ll be painful to leave what you built, but it’s time to recharge the batteries at a different port of call, if only temporarily. And, your exit may be the catalyst needed for change! You could start a movement, a groundswell in the guild to effect true change in priorities.
If you need a home (even a temporary one!) in SWTOR filled with decent folks and a friendly atmosphere, look us up.
Shien – RP US East (Imperial)
Targeter – GM
I’m dead serious, we’ll take a wayward wordsmith who just needs a smidge of time to collect herself!
*hugs Beru*
I really, really hope that you ca sort things out for the best; may it be leaving the guild or staying.
I know that I, personally, would try everything beforeleaving my guild, and it sound like you are the same type of wow player that I am. people Iknow ingame are a so big part of my game experience, that the idea of playing wow without them feels… unnatural…
This is like a RL divorce, you know! people like you and I connect with our guildies in a way that make a guildleave just as painful as a divorce! TYou are at a break-point now – what ever decission you make, I wish you the best of luck!
Inwee
I’m glad you’re leaving/have left – it seems like a miserable and toxic environment and you’ve been writing about it for some time. I’ve done it in the past where my leaving caused a guild to collapse but at the end of the day, I was much happier playing with people who I respected and who respected me in return.
We were no longer a big, 25-man 4-night guild, but damn, do I have a lot of fun with a small core of friends.
We love you Beru – In the end it’s a game and you should be doing what makes you happy, whatever that may be. Our guild is experiencing a crap ton of burnout and we’ve switched back down to 10M from 25M due to attendance and lack of preparation/care. I wish you the best, and hope you find what you are searching for. Cheers,
~Ave
Having gone through something similar recently, you have to do what you feel is right for you. It is a game you play for fun, ultimately you have to put yourself above everyone else, especially if it is getting to you so much, and do what will make you feel better and will allow you to carry on enjoying your funtime. Good luck with whatever you choose to do 🙂 /hugs
Kat
Leave. Seriously. Get out before they suck you dry.
I realize upon finishing the reading of your post that my advice to tell you to leave might have been premature. I’m glad you’re out doll.
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