Shadow makes up with GUN’s head honcho who turns out was Maria’s idk “she was like a sister to me” it’s odd and main game you can sort of make peace with him. Not until expert mode where you finally bury the hatchet and he asks you to attend his granddaughters wedding. It’s actually quite touching but something I doubt most people would know since you gotta get all 71 A ranks to unlock in that game. Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) also really was about shadow burying the past when at the end he discards his photo of Maria and Gerlad.

Dummied out line from 06 was shadow heading there as a favor to the pres but idk seems to me it was more looking into Rouge and if she was ok.

I felt very similar to you a few years ago. Was very depressed and did not feel like I could ever get better. Felt like I was broken in many ways and just overal a dysfunctional person.

Learned through therapy that those feelings came through trauma, and that they’re not normal. I used to cope by distracting myself always (still do to some degree), either through work, college or rotting in bed watching slop. Had to be in bed a lot of the time because the energy it took to ignore my trauma and negativity thoughts was a lot.

Through therapy I’m still untangling the mess of multiple sources of trauma and I think I’m nearing the end stage of that, because a lot of my bad habits and negative feelings have a very clear source now. Knowing the source of a negative feeling makes it much easier to not take serious.

For example, I have a big problem with guilt, the smallest source of guilt would make me spiral. Now that I know why guilt makes me feel so incredibly bad, I know that it’s not because of the small thing I did wrong, but because of a trauma response that makes me feel all the bad feelings I felt as a kid. It’s easier to accept that the feeling is there when the source is so clear, and I know now that I don’t really have to address it and can just wait till it’s over.

Now that I don’t constantly get bombarded with very strong negative feelings without a clear source, I feel a lot more at rest which gives me confidence that I can now work on changing some of my bad habits that I used for coping.

Like I truly never believed I could be happy with myself and feel some kind of inner peace but now I am and I do a lot of the time. And when I don’t then I know it’s because I didn’t sleep well for a while or because I’m stressed about something and know that I’ll get the feeling back after a while.

There are people who have very different experiences with therapy than me so I won’t say it’s a definite ‘cure’ but there are a lot of people who have at least felt some relief through therapy and the issues you mention make you a good candidate for it.

I can’t relate to avpd in particular, but I suffer from sever general anxiety, and it’s in the same family, at least. (Well, I say I HAD it. It only flares up in extreme situations these days–which I’m in at the moment!!)

I know you’ve been going to therapy, and talk therapy is the most effective treatment. You think you’ve seen no progress?

I think you’re quite social. You post here all the time, and I see you chatting on matrix. You’re not always sad. You joke around, people like having you around. It’s all online, but that doesn’t mean it’s fake. Those are real relationships, even if they are distant and somewhat shallow.

Even when you are posting dark things, that shows that you can be vulnerable around others. There’s a level of trust. It seems to me that you’ve already broken a lot of barriers if you’re not scared to be vulnerable around us.

You know that your negative views toward yourself are cognitive distortions. They can be changed.

You’re always welcome to post your pain here, but I think it would be good for you to also be nicer to yourself publicly, too. Sometimes, when we write these things out and publish them, they feel more real.

Solidarity