mousyj

I was once in your position and can totally empathise. There is a real emotional wrench between (seemingly) losing your avatars forever and staying in a virtual world that seems to have lost its sparkle. What I would say, without wanting to sound like I'm having a go at you, is that the following feelings Faye Feldragonne wrote: these virtual selves cared for far better than the real version. To end her, to poof her and her virtual kids, animals and beautiful home to never never land... I shudder. The last time I left, I cried for days, I had a total melt down, addiction, death. AREN'T healthy. I had them too at one stage, and was terrified about leaving. But I'm glad I did because I nearly lost my marbles by neglecting RL. It's about 1.5 years since I quit - if it's any consolation, these feelings are completely different now. I can accept it was fun and occasionally miss my AVs and their personalities, but I know if I could still log them in, it'd be a couple of days before I felt bored and frustrated again, and into a cycle of logging on for the sake of it. Sometimes, a thing just runs its course and you've got to let it go. So to your end question - yes, you can leave SL behind. As time goes by, the massive sway it has over you now will diminish, until one day you'll look back and wonder how you even felt so strongly about it.