Happy cake day, Kylarnatia!
You do not give up, true friends will stay, and the rest - it's the husk. Be sure to set ourselves goals in life and conquer new horizons. My English is bad, but you know that I wish you success in everything!
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Happy SG birthday, Kyle! Thank you for the giveaways! The Agatha Christie game looks quite interesting. (:
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Muchas gracias compañero.
Arriba ese animo. Fuerza.
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As promised yesterday i read this lovely and hopeful article. It is shame that i have to go back to studying for midterms. But before i take my leave i wish you good luck with your interview, i hope everything will be the way you want it to :)
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That's a really cool study choice! I wanted to study egyptian archaeology. So an absolute Yay for ancient history! :D
I didn't do it... because things started to not turn out the way they were supposed to go. So nu digging in dirt (or sand) for me. I hope you are studying what you always wanted to study. Wish you all the best :)
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Yes, it's a dream come true. Always wanted to do it since I was six years old so :) Sorry to hear that you weren't able to pursue the same path, but I hope you've still gone on to do something you enjoy. :)
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That's great! Happy to hear it :)
And for me. Nope, sadly not. But who knows what will happy in the future :)
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Such a great thing you are on your path of making that childhood dream come true!
That's amazing, hope you can become the Director one day :D
Best wishes Kylarnatia, try to stay strong! Keep on rocking.
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Happy Cakeday!
Will read your whole story tomorrow!
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I read your whole story now and you sound like an absolutley wonderful person.
You are going through a lot and somehow you are still able to see the positiveness of life.
But......I hope it isn't just words, cause I know them, I am good at them myself but they shouldn't be used to hide your real feelings.
Mind you...not saying that that is what you do, cause there is no way for me to tell, as I don't know you.
But somehow your story feels a bit to me like you are trying so hard to stay strong and you are actively trying to give us a good impression and are (maybe) down talking the serious issues you are facing now.
The soft souls often hide their true feelings and try to send out a positive vibe to the people around them, regardless of how bad they really feel.
Please stay true to yourself.
3 Suicide attemps in such a short time is a lot! And it cleary states how serious your depression is right now.
I sincerely hope you get the help you need for this in either medication and/or counseling.
Your life is colored now with this depression and this also influences your judgement and the way you deal with things.
I could say: "Your friends won't leave you, cause if they do leave you they aren't real friends and good riddance then!"
Or something like that, but that's just lame!
Just keep in mind for now that even for true friends it is hard to see what you are going through and difficult to respond to it.
Sickness is something we all want to keep away from as far as possible and mental illness even more.
Maybe it somehow strikes a cord and makes is wary of the fact that this could happen to us too and that's scary!
Or it is because none of us have learned how to deal with sick friends and family cause society taught us to keep pushing and get back to productiviness as fast as possible.
I don't really now, but I do know a lot of people have difficulty dealing with sickness.
You also have to keep in mind that right now you need help that none of your friends can provide, you need help from proffessionals to beat this depression.
And yes, life does change and sometimes we lose friends and hopefully we can make new ones, in time.
But......sometimes we also let friendships slip, because we don't know how to keep them.
In this case it might help if you tell your friends how much they mean to you and that you know that you have issues you have to work through and that they can't really help you right now, but that you hope they will still be there for you when your depression subsides.
If they don't want to talk to you right now, you can even send them a small note with just this message.
This serves 2 ways: you tell them how much their friendship means to you and you tell them that you don't expect them to help you right now, cause you have proffesionals (hopefully!!!!) for that.
I have no idea if this was helpful to you, I just hope it was if only a little bit.
Beat your depression and go back to pursuing your dream!
And now my earlier message with "Happy Cake Day" sounds lame..........
But still......who can say no to good cake!?
Whishing you all the best and may your dreams come true!
CAKE!
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This comment encapsulates everything I would want to say and much better than I could say so hope you don't mind if I add a +1 to it.
Happy cake day Kylarnatia and best wishes to you.
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This deserves a bump so more people can read. I wish you the best with things to come :)
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Bump for the last twenty hours of the giveaways. <3
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Happy cake day :3
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It's kind of like that for me as well, when it comes to saying something (especially in the real world =P).
I'm a quiet person. I almost never have anything to say here on the forums, giveaways, or after winning a game, outside of the usual "Thanks a lot" type of thing, and it actually can frustrate the heck out of me and make me pretty anxious when I feel that I have to comment something more and I just don't have anything to say. There are times where it can even take me an hour or more just sitting here trying to type out some kind of decent reply on posts with giveaways (such as this one =P). I'll even refrain from entering some forum giveaways or doing some puzzles just to avoid all of that. It's just not a fun way to be feeling, and I feel that way often enough as it is, haha.
But anyway, as it's time for me to get some sleep (and because I don't have a whole lot more to say)...
Happy Cake Day, and "Thanks a lot". =)
Have a bump.
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One final bump for the last hour of the giveaways! <3
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Hey there folks,
So I'm pretty sure most of you won't know who I am, and that's okay. For those of you who have noticed me around SteamGifts though - probably most likely through the giveaways I do each month - I reached my first "Cake Day" today. So I thought I might take some time to reflect on what has happened over the past year for me, both in terms of my time here on SteamGifts and in the much larger scheme of things, as well as where I hope to be by this time again next year.
For those of you who intend to read on, prepare for a long read. As it is my "Cake Day", I'll break my usual habit of making a big batch of giveaways each month and instead make a few short GAs for the occasion, which will be linked as follows:
Feel free to share the links around for celebration purposes. :)
Wait, who even are you?
Good question. My name's Kyle, I'm a male second-year undergraduate student at University College London studying Ancient History and Egyptology. I'm disabled, afflicted with Cerebal Palsy, which leaves me without the ability to walk and thus I have to use a wheelchair. I love video games (obviously, that's why I'm here), but I also enjoy reading, writing, debating and bonding with others over a variety of topics.
I'm a soft soul, and I have no shame in admitting that and letting that be who I am. It's why I'm so charitable - even though one could easily argue I have much better things I could spend my money on - and I enjoy bringing something nice to other people. So that's why I'm here.
If you want to know more about me, just ask away. I'll try and answer any and all questions as best I can. :)
SteamGifts, the Past Year and I: A Reflection
The easiest thing to do to start, I think, is look at the statistics. So, since joining over a year ago, I've given out over 350+ games, winning back just shy of the same amount. I'm currently Level 8 (8.52 to be exact), and I've been added to 336 whitelists as opposed to 10 blacklists. I've been added to many groups as well as removed from a few over time.
While I haven't talked and socialised very much with a lot of the people I've met, I've come to respect a lot of people just by reading what they say and seeing what they do. There are many wonderful people on this site, and I'm glad I've been able to meet just some of them. For those who've blacklisted me and / or removed me from their groups, I can respect that. I don't hold any grudges. I do enter a lot of giveaways without saying much, and when I do win I usually just keep it to a "Thank You <3" unless I feel I have something to say. I know some people don't like that, and I respect that. I do.
But it doesn't mean my thanks and gratitude are not sincere, and most of the time I don't say things because I don't feel like I have anything to say, and I feel it would be an insult if I was to say something that was half-assed or not sincere.
Still, I'm grateful for all the opportunities and successes I've had, both here on SteamGifts and in my real life.
In the past year I've made so many friends, some of them very close. I've learnt so many new things both inside and outside of my degree studies, and I've achieved many things. I recently got elected the President of my Model United Nations Society. This coming Friday I have an interview to potentially join the British Museum Friends Advisory Council, which takes me a step closer to my dream of one day being the Director, a dream which I've held since the age of ten. From the friends I've made I'll finally be escaping Europe this summer, going to the Philippines for a week in July just to enjoy the sun, get drunk off my ass and have fun times.
Warning: This is where things might get a bit deep
Things haven't been all that great though. As a result of my disability I've got a deteriorating body condition. This year I've been diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, as well as clinical depression, after three suicide attempts across November 2015 - January 2016. Those close friends? I'm scared I'm losing them. Even now some of them are refusing to talk to me, and while our mutual friends insist to me that they will be back and won't leave, I'm still incredibly consumed by the fear. I've always struggled to make friends because of who (or perhaps what) I am, and these people are some of the closest people I've ever been to. I know that things change in life, and that we do lose some people along the way, but I don't want to lose these people. I can't bare the thought.
Why am I telling you guys all of this? Maybe it's because I don't really know any of you, so I'm not afraid of the reaction you guys will have. Most of my family - and still a good chunk of my friends - don't know that I've been through all of this. I still don't know how to tell them. I will have to tell them eventually, obviously, but I have to find a way.
So, where to go from here?
I still plan to do giveaways on SteamGifts, at least for the time being. I may have to step away from it one day, but I'll keep on giving for as much as I can. Don't worry about my finances: I always keep an eye on it, and I wouldn't be doing this if I couldn't afford the expense. So let the gifts keep on coming!
As for me, due to my illness I'll be repeating my second year again this coming year. I don't mind that, as it's the most sensible option if I want to get the grades I actually deserve. My department has been incredibly loving and supportive, and I'm grateful to them for that. I don't know what will happen between me and my friends. I'm hopeful things will even out and we'll start talking again soon, If we do, I'm trying to use my worries right now to drive me to do the right thing. I'll want us to focus on all the things that we could do and would like to do together, instead of all the things we shouldn't be doing. I want us to have hope for the potential we have, not despair over our faults, because at the end of the day we're only human.
We shouldn't hate ourselves for that.
Now, enough talking! Enjoy the giveaways, enjoy the cake, just sit back and have fun! Here's to the next year of gifting and fun times. <3
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