User:ChrisGriswold/way I lik my dogs

By Chris Griswold, Age 8

When I found Wikipedia, I was hitting bottom with a depression I was born with. The brain chemical cocktail of dysthymia and ADHD sucked drew me to instant-gratifcation nature of Wikipedia, and my hands latched onto the Work; I didn't let go for several months. The Work drew me from the unhealthy distractions I was using to escape my life, television and comic books in particular, and forced me to do something creative, something I hadn't made myself forget I was good at.

I can write efficiently; I can reduce paragraphs-long plot summaries, autistic in detail, to a few sentences that contain all of the pertinent information. I can quickly copy edit an article to fix grammar, punctuation, spelling, and even the slightly esoteric faulty parallel structure. I spent hours creating and organizing templates and articles. I spent a night or two mending and maintaining categories of articles about people who died from specific types of cancer.

I committed myself, knowing for once in my life that what I was working on truly did not have to be perfect and that I alone was not responsible for the Work. I found other editors who shared the same interests and the same editing ideals, and I came to trust them and, to some extent, consider them friends and comrades. We shaped WikiProject Comics into something to be proud of. We showed other editors the way, and they joined us. I was recognized for my contributions and for my commitment, something that hadn't really happened for a while, or at least that I allowed myself to notice. Wikipedia became my drug of choice, and one that actually healed me.

Life, as it does, interfered for a number of us, and one by one, we burned out like tungsten filaments. Despite the many strides as we made, energy waned in the face of diminshed free time to devote to the Work and the return of bored students to high school. Removing comments like "Chuck is a fag", no matter how knee-splittingly hilarious, began to take its toll.

Aside from Wikipedia, my mental health improved, and that further lessened my need for the Work. I still felt the commitment, but I lacked the drive. It was at this time that I was instated as one of only 1,000 Wikipedia adminstrators, and the position brought with it both new tools and new responsibilities, which I hoped might re-ignite my interest. Unfortunately, I pushed myself too hard to accept the new role, and as I began to work more to revert the work of vandals, I lost my focus on the sort of Wikipedia activities I enjoyed, and I just kind of lost my way. Because I felt less need to be here, I