Why and how did Daloon change his name?

He did?

From experience, I know that if you email the Fluther gods and ask nicely, you can change your username. He said on another thread that he no longer wanted to be associated with craziness. What threw me off is his avatar is no longer a butt. :P

I believe the mods are able to change account name, email, properties, whatever. They did with mine after I deleted it. You just need to contact them.

I have been wondering where he went! I guess he got permission from the Big Guys Upstairs.

Good! I did not like looking at his butt!

@answerjill I did ;)

I need to know how this question got moved! Did it happen automatically because I put “Fluther” in the tags? Was it moved manually by a mod? Did @wundayatta move it to avoid having his original identity leaked? Did the CIA take it off?

I have seen multiple other users request a name change…Yarnlady, elijah…both for simple reasons (yarnlady was or is now all caps, and elijah got rid of the suicide part.) So, this isn’t something unheard of. I think you could have PMed him to find out.

I’m pretty sure the CIA did it. shhhh.

@SuperMouse I moved it over.

@casheroo did you just take me to school?~

I know that users can request changes to their names, as a matter of fact once upon a time I was supernutjob, it has since been changed to SuperMouse. One requirement of the name change though, was that part of my original name stay in the new name (as was the case with yarnlady and elijah); that did not happen here. I asked this question, which was subsequently moved to the Meta tab per my request rather than in a PM for two reasons. First, because it was suggested to me that this question would be appropriate for the Meta tab and second because I thought many in the Collective might be interested to hear what happened to cause such an esteemed jelly to change things up so drastically.

@Andrew, thank you!

@wundayatta My dear fellow. What in the world is a wundayatta. Is it a like a regular yatta, but not really? Do they come in plush?

Sigh.

A week or more ago, I had a rather sudden flip-out. I’ve been engaged in some rather obsessive behavior—addictive really. Anyway, I felt I had to stop it. Cold turkey. In order to stop it, I could no longer come to fluther (at least as who I was), and I had to delete my gmail account and my facebook account. Otherwise I would have been tempted again, and I just can’t afford that.

I had planned on staying away forever, but, obviously, that didn’t happen. I don’t know. If this gets out of hand again, .... but I don’t want it to. I’m not going to let it happen again.

And that’s the thing. I can’t afford to think of myself as “the loon” any more. I don’t want to identify as a lunatic. It was a part of my life and I learned a lot, but it wasn’t healthy for me to think of myself that way.

So, when I came back, I tried to find a name that symbolized where I want to go now. I want to be positive and constructive, and be able to admit that I am talented and wise. Wow. If you only knew the feelings rushing through me as I leave those words up there. I think my whole body is scared and there’s a part of me that is sad, and a very tiny brave part who seems to be standing up to all that shit.

But I do have talents, and I can write well, and I have things to say that people are interested in—and sometimes the things I say are very meaningful to those I write them to.

Like I say, it’s so much easier to deny those things and to pretend I’m really nobody and nothing, and just spitting out silly words that don’t mean shit. I don’t want to be that person. I want to be the person who can tell the truth, even when it is in his favor. You can’t imagine how hard this is for me.

Anyway, in staying away from fluther, my method was one day at a time. I’ll stay away today. And today. And today. And today. And today.

That was as far as I got. Still, I think it was instructive. I’m not going to beat myself up for falling off the wagon. People do that. And maybe it’s not that important if I can manage other parts of my life better. And it is to those parts that I state my intention, wundayatta time, to keep on being this person I’d rather be.

Maybe there are days when I fail, but that’s just a day. The next day starts anew. And if I get through that day, there will be another. And if I don’t get through it, there will still be another.

I’m sorry about doing it this way. I never planned it. I just did it in a moment of pain and confusion. I didn’t want to make anyone angry with me for suddenly disappearing, but I disappeared, and I’m sure some people were pissed. I’m sorry.

But now, I want to be non-depressed. I want to stop fearing that I’m falling into a hole again. I want to be well. I promised my wife that I would be well. I knew I could do that, and I know I can do that. But I can’t freak out about making sure my promise is kept. I can only go forward, as I said, wundayatta time.

@wundayatta: Could you maybe just fluther less?
Why does it have to be all or nothing?

@wundayatta you know how I feel about you regardless of your username. I am impressed that you were not only compelled to break out of old patterns, but to take some of the solid, strong, difficult steps required to make that happen. You are not a lunatic in my book – never were – though that might not mean much coming from one whose gray matter you slog through with familiarity on a regular basis! Anyway, I love having you on Fluther, whatever I need to call you, and I hope we can be a support system rather than an uncomfortable obsession. I also hope we can be a soft place for you to fall, or at least a place to go to forget some of the challenges of real life.

In short I say Welcome @wundayatta!!! I know you will be a wonderful addition to The Collective.

Now. If only the fluther gods could change the title of the question in order to remove daloon and instate wundayatta there.

Oh, I forgot part of the story.

That’s where my new name came from. But after I was here a few hours, maybe four people figured out who I was. I had had some idea of trying to be different, but I couldn’t do that. It’s too hard. What’s the point, anyway?

So I was running my dilemma past a few people I really respect. Should I go back to being daloon (when I really didn’t want to be daloon), so that people would know who I was and could stop worrying, or should I start over again as wundayatta and be who I want to be? I got conflicting advice, and then Augustlan volunteered that I could change daloon‘s name to my name, and go back to that account. I decided I wanted to do that, and here I am.

@wundayatta Thats your surname? Interesting name. The depth of the maelstrom is infinite free fall, and the ascent is not possible alone. Good to have you still.

@wundayatta *** YAY ***

There ya go @wundayatta.

@wundayatta . . . I always knew you had a little James Bond in there. . .

@wundayatta Welcome to fluther.

This avatar will take some getting used to. Last night you still were a big, beautiful butt. But, sadly, no more. Oh, well. I’m just glad to see you back, dude.

Bring back the assatar!

Ok, I need to step in here and admit that I suggested the name change, but I wasn’t clear on the policy at the time. It’s not something we do very often for established members. In fact, I think we’ve only done it once before (to something totally different). You need to have a very compelling reason to get your name changed once you’re past 5K lurve. Since I had initiated the idea, Andrew said it was okay this one time.

In general, if you’re a long-term member and want to change your name, you would need to start over again with a brand new account.

Ah @andrew Thank you very much!

@wundayatta Welcome back! You add a lot to this community. If you are worried about over-Fluthering, perhaps you can try to limit to a certain period of time per day?

It’s not so much over-fluthering, as the way I was thinking about things. It was also some things I was doing in other parts of my life. Stopping and learning about my behavior patterns enabled me to gain some understanding about my behavior. That, in turn, enabled me to stop feeling so obsessed (it’s not about fluther—it’s just that fluther enabled it).

I was expecting to stay away forever, and saw coming back as a sign of weakness, but something else happened—almost magical—that brought me calmness and a relief from my obsession. I don’t know where it came from—maybe just an accumulation of the work I’ve been doing for a long time now. But I’m glad not to be living in constant anxiety any more. Not that it doesn’t come back, but so far, it’s not nearly as strong as it was, and I still have a better sense of the overall scheme of things.

I am sorry about worrying people. My apologies for that.

I can’t tell you how disappointing this is.
I had planned to try and get everyone on Fluther to change their icon’s to Daloon’s Butt for April Fools Day.

@filmfann Is there something stopping that now? Oh. I get it. I’ll be the only one who doesn’t have it. LOL. Sorry man. What can I say?

@wundayatta – I wasn’t able to read your new name properly until I read your description. For what it is worth, old or new I am glad you’re here. You have great contributions to make.

@augustlan – Oh, oops! I had no idea. I so appreciate my change even more now. Thanks, Fluther gods for the extra privacy I gained. :)

@wundayatta I’m glad to see you’re here.

@wundayatta: Perhaps try to engage in some discussions or ask some questions that are not always about your emotional predicaments. I began to worry about what you rightly describe as your obsessions.

Thank you guys for welcoming me back!

I have it on good authority that was a stand-in fundament. Daloon etal will deny it butt he only got a bum look at it. Just assk the photographer, he ran in an Italian gluteus maximus. I have a haunch it is Danny Devito.

@galileogirl Wow, lol. That was unexpected.

Great to know you’re still here. Gives me good answers to look forward to.

And now Marina is marinelife. What the hell is going on here?

@AstroChuck I too was wondering but she got it changed for personal reasons. Not cause she had a whim to just change it.

@wundayatta Welome back!!! You’re an inspiration to me. :^)

I go away for a week or so and all sorts of stuff happens. I see this question is 2 weeks old, are you still here @wundayatta ?

@rooeytoo You could say I’m still here—in a manner of speaking. The question is: where is “here?”

@wundayatta Off I go a-changin’ my fluther!

Daloon ≅ saloon
Wundayatta ≅n “One Day at a . . .”

A change in philosophy [maybe after an argument with a moderator?]?

Or a more cheerful take on his life?

Daloon = the loon

@anartist Yes. A change in outlook on life, not brought on by a moderator. Brought on by an accumulation of small changes.

@wundayatta is a challenging name to live up to. I keep falling back. But I guess that’s the point. Each day is a new day to try to move in a more salutary direction. Or at least to come to greater acceptance of what is.

@wundayatta did you once briefly have an avatar that was a mooning butt?

@anartist It was a map of the world, and I had it for a long time. ;-)

@wundayatta Thank you. Fluther is a very curious place.

Curiouser and curiouser…

Shame on him changing his name like that.

Everybody does now and zen.

Is not @zensky a model of consistency? And so well loved, too. You add together all his lurve and he is, by far, the most lurved jelly on the planet.

Consistant change is an oxymoron.

I put the moron in oxymoron.

But thanks for the sentiment. Fluther wouldn’t be the same without you – Day.

Whoa! Whoa! You could knock me over with a spoon! First time you’ve ever used a part of my real name! I think I better take to my bed. Smelling salts, anyone? Anyone? [Swoon]

Actually, I’ve always called you Day – the first- syllable of Daloon (I didn’t always know it meant da loon as in the loon – I always thought it sounded like Dayloon) – and then it was the Day in wundayatta so it stuck. You just never noticed.

perhaps you two would be more comfortable if you got a room?

Threesome?

Well, we’re only using an old thread and not bothering anybody.

@zensky @Blondesjon Is just a twee bit jealous. He usually wants me all to himself. But I’m a little fluther whore, so threesome it is! I’m an exhibitionist, too, so no need for a room.

He can always watch then.

Awwe! This post brought a little tear to my eye.