In the Discord #angry-discussion channel, folks are discussing whether they missed an article or other content. This started out as a message to answer this question, then a much needed update, then got way too personal. It also deserves to be shared with everyone. So read to the point where you have your answers and feel free to check out when it gets personal.

I have not actually published a new article yet this month. Once again, the articles have gotten pushed into an end-of-month blitz, though with two weeks left, it shouldn’t be as heavy as previous month blitzes. This obviously wasn’t my plan. Also, I’ve once again failed to communicate about it. I want to explain myself, but I also don’t want to seem like I’m just giving excuses. Because I’m starting to feel like that’s all I do. Fall behind and give excuses. I also want to pretend, on a personal level, that things are okay-er than they are. Because, things continue to be really not okay and I’m losing hope they ever will be.

I had an article go bad twice. It just wasn’t working. Every so often I hit an article I can’t get right and isn’t following the vision and end up doing multiple rewrites. I have a high standard for quality; I won’t publish something I think is crap.

After that, I became very concerned about catching up on the extras I do for supporters. Readalouds, Live and Slap Chats, and focused on that.

Launching the Slapdash Alpha Skirmish has proved to be very daunting and it has been taking a lot of time.

Meanwhile, a handful of technical issues arose. One was with orders for my book mysteriously crapping out in my store for no good reason and the connection between a number of services falling apart. Another was an issue that left my website not backing itself up which meant a catastrophic failure could have wiped out years of work.

There is a big change coming on the Patreon back-end in seven weeks that won’t actually affect of you in any way, but it’s still something I have to manage, and my Patreon page is kind of a mess.

These are all things I could have managed my way through in the past with good time management. I’ve been a one-man operation for a long time. But my capacity is very diminished. The list of things I need and want to do, including all the great games, tools, and content isn’t too much for me, but it’s a lot for a me that’s still pretty much at his absolute worst.

I have recently lost access to important physical and mental health care resources and haven’t managed to replace them yet. I will. But resources are stretched thin in my area. It’s coming at a time when I’m trying to find a treatment issue for a very difficult and destructive problem that I’d prefer not to detail.

The trip to GenCon and the upcoming visit to my family for a cousins wedding are tremendously disruptive. I probably shouldn’t have agreed to both and not so close together. But they were necessary for my mental health, having been completely isolated from friends and family for two years. I also will not be doing any more traveling for at least nine months. I couldn’t afford to if I wanted to. So it’ll just be nose-to-the-grindstone for a while.

There are some issues with home, friends, and family. But really all of everything amounts to same thing: in the throes of a very deep depression I ignored my health, my life, and even a lot of necessary  work for two years, and now I’m trying desperately to get it all working again and it is proving to be the most challenging thing I’ve ever faced in my life. I can’t seem to get it right, I hate myself for it, the dark thoughts use that to attack me, and I just want to give up. The darkness I thought was lifting four months ago just keeps finding new ways to fall around me again.

And when I start to feel the overwhelm and despair, the first thing I do is hide. I don’t want to admit it’s hard and I’m struggling. As of the struggle is somehow shameful. Which is stupid, because the struggle isn’t shameful. The struggle is life. The struggle is refusing to give up. Struggling is an act of heroism. We shouldn’t be afraid of admitting we’re struggling. We should be proud that we’re not giving up. I have close friends I remind of that all the time, and yet, I forget it myself.

The thing is, I don’t want to tell you all that maybe you backed the wrong horse. Maybe I’ll never recover. Maybe I’ll never deliver the next great thing. Because if there is one thing I absolutely hate, it’s letting people down. It’s breaking promises. It’s failing.

All I can say is that I’m sorry and that I’m still fighting. As long as I’m pushing air through my lungs, I’ll still be fighting. Because that’s just what you do. And everyone is fighting. You, me, everyone.

As always, thank you for your trust, support, compassion, and undeserved patience. Keep fighting your fight; I’ll keep fighting me.

“In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade. And he carries the reminders of every blow that laid him low or cut him ‘till he cried out, in his anger and his shame, ‘I am leaving; I am leaving!’ But the fighter still remains.”

• Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, “The Boxer”

“If you believe in me, then I’ll believe in you.”

• The Unicorn, “Alice in Wonderland,” by Lewis Carrol