#table etiquette

Unpopular opinion cause Ik we joke about it a lot on here but D&D is not therapy and shouldn’t be used as such unless everyone at the table is ok with you exploring something about yourself in that context. If you’re gonna subject 4-6 other people in a room to elements of your traumas or anxieties, you need to be sure you know what they’re comfortable with BEFORE you go down that path, no exceptions. The fact that you shouldn’t be putting your friends in a position where they feel obligated to play a very specific role in you working through your own baggage aside, building a character or situation with the intent (explicit or naturally occurring) to use the other players like existentialist therapy’s “empty chair” method means you’re not looking for a game to play with your friends, you’re looking for an excuse to put people in a position where they’re doing some free, half-cocked, deeply untrained therapy they didn’t ask to be responsible for. It can happen accidentally too, so check in with yourself and the rest of your table regularly. Character arcs at the table are all fun and games until half of the party feels like they have their back to the wall because they can’t figure out what you want from them but you seem to be projecting onto your character (or even the other PCs, even your friend’s characters) in a way that goes uncomfortably above and beyond normal table interactions.