First and foremost I’m thankful for my family— they really are the most important people to me, and I’m so lucky to have the family I do. They’ve always been incredibly supportive of my aspirations and hobbies, and they’re a great bunch to hang out with.
Not to sound corny, but I really am incredibly thankful for this forum, not only for the helpfulness and knowledge of the community or the fun contests and memes, but for what the sense of community here has done to keep me from sinking during the pandemic.
I’ve struggled with mental health issues for many years, and when I graduated high school I saw a sharp decline in my well-being after a series of crappy circumstances— nothing necessarily that out of the ordinary in the course of a lifetime I suppose, but the kind of thing that can really fuck a person up when they’re already in a bad place.
As time went on I lost pretty much all of my friends— either through drifting apart, betrayals, or my own mistakes. Before the pandemic hit I was struggling with balancing my college courses and my increasing depression, and I was forced to indefinitely drop out for the sake of my own well-being (if all had gone according to plan, I should have completed my bachelors this past may, but instead I don’t yet have enough credits for an associates degree even).
Through all of this, the only thing really holding me together much was going to concerts with my dad (and also my mom around 40% of the time). The pandemic hitting and ending my one real outlet was a huge blow to me, and between that, the severity of the pandemic in New York in 2020 especially, and losing two of my closest longtime (and two of my few then-remaining) friends in 2020 (thankfully I just mean that I personally lost them; with the current state of things, I know ‘losing’ has much more serious implications), I felt like my life would be stuck in this scary, isolated hellscape where I had no friends, nowhere to go, and no prospects for the future except staying in bed late and listening to sad Beach Boys and Joni Mitchell songs every day.
When I joined the forum here in the beginning of 2021, it really was a lifesaver for me. I was welcomed in and treated like an old friend pretty much instantly, and it was the first time in a long time where I felt like I belonged somewhere outside of my own home. Not only that, but seeing everyone else’s great builds gave me to motivation to get back to making things— a massive passion of mine, that I lost the will to do for a period of time between 2017 and much of 2020. The members of this forum became like close friends of mine when I was at a point where I had only two remaining friends in real life who I only texted with for a few minutes once every 6 or 7 months. I started visiting the forum every single day, and it really boosted me more than anything else I had tried up to that point. I had left Facebook and Instagram behind for the most part because all they did was bring me down. The PPCB forum has only ever been the opposite.
Sorry for over sharing, as well as for meandering more than a bit. I’m a bit of a sap, and a chronically long-winded writer. My point is just that this forum has done so much more for me than I ever thought some random group of likeminded strangers on the internet could ever do. Even though I’ve not talked much to most of you individually, I do consider all of you fine folks to be friends. Thank you all. You’re all brilliant and wonderful people.
