Anonymity? On the internet? No fucken way! Who would have thought it possible?
As I love to do, I'm gonna slam down a massive disclaimer first to explain an important shortcut I use.
I have nobody to impress. I have nobody to show off to. I don't have any reason to pose or sanitize or shape myself to look "better" in any way. That said, I'm about to claim I've done a lot of things that make me look good. I'm just some stranger on the internet, if anyone ever ends up reading this. There is every chance that I can just... lie. I might be lying. I might be enhancing the truth. I might be omitting some stuff. I have no collateral and no evidence to prove anything. If someone's gonna start doubting my honesty, they better start at the beginning of my 200+ posts. This account is nothing more than a crash log of my eventual death and an outlet to talk to similarly plagued individuals who I hope call me a friend. Any clout I gain is irrelevant. I hope you can trust me, dear reader. I understand if you don't.
Recently, I've been submitting anonymous asks to people. An innocuous task. I try to help them. A noble goal. I succeed.
Something veeery relevant to this concept is the realization of (what I'm calling) my savior complex, which I unraveled not long ago. I see someone in a dire situation and I sometimes get an idea of how to get them out of it. I only construct such a solution in such a short time because I've probably been in their position or something resembling it. I detail it, add my disclaimers, and submit it anonymously. Whoosh. Off it goes.
The bewildering thing I've discovered is my success rate. One hundred percent. I'm not kidding. I've shot off like six or seven of these at least. That sort of rate will give a guy confidence, which I need to dismantle quickly. I'm amazed that my help is appreciated, after my base self-confidence prohibits me from understanding that people like being talked to for the thirty minutes it takes to write. I'm simultaneously not surprised, since I spent so long on like just twenty lines of text. I put everything I have into that shit. I refuse to half-ass my attempts at assistance. I know what that feels like.
As for the anonymity part, the fact that "no one will know it was me" is always as exploitable as ever. In other circumstances, anonymous asks are easy routes to harass someone without facing consequences. It would prevent an attacker from being identified. It protects them from the victim. In my case, it protects me from myself by establishing a contract: no one will praise me to my face. Ever.
This restriction is mandatory. I will never forget my fucking failure of a reassurance I had when I did reveal myself. Once. It happened once. (I'm not counting these in my successes, don't worry) I submitted something. The user said they wanted to give me a hug. I submit again. They thank me. I message them directly, we keep talking about the issue, and I fuck up. I got praised. That went to my ego. I assumed too much, gave a bad comparison, and made them feel worse. I haven't messaged them since. I don't think they want me to.
The purpose of the restriction is to prevent any clout from ever being gained. I can't risk texting while I'm drunk on approval. That's the only reason I use anonymity as my fragile bravado. If they don't know who I am, then they can't try to praise me. I desperately want to be praised for my help, or anything really. I know how desperate I am. That's exactly why I can't subject someone to the aftermath.
As a small disclaimer once more, I understand how easy it is to shed failure when I'm anonymous. If my advice doesn't help someone, it's all too simple to just... not take responsibility. When that happens, when that day comes where my help is not appreciated, I accept it. I won't come out and say "hey, it's me, I'm sorry," since I don't want to do that to a success, but I will add it to my tally. Again, there is no reason to trust me on this.
I've been praised as "cutthroat," (yes, he clarified it was a positive remark) and that made me realize my style of "help" differs from normal reassurances. I am not gentle. I am still fearful that I will tip someone over the edge, I'm still paranoid about making someone's day worse, I'm still frightened that I might trigger someone. However, I understand that I, some rando, will probably not outweigh the positive influences in their life. I can afford to be pessimistic. I can and will fight you.
I know as well as everyone else does that if someone offers you pure happiness, promises nothing but bonuses, or ignores downsides, they are naive as fuck and will not be helpful. They've likely never hurt themselves on purpose or booked their own funeral. I will gladly tell you that things are shit, they will be shit, and they will keep being shit for a while. The key difference is that I know how to make that shit smell less awful. I know how to plug my nose. I know how to find the hideaways where the concentration of shit is lesser. I want to convince people that it is not their fault for being in a shit-stained world.
TL;DR there is no summary. I said a lot of stuff that kinda doesn't connect. This is word-vomit. I just needed to get all these ideas out of my head so they stopped fucking annoying me.