======Struggles======

Being a young person always comes with challenges -- defining who you are and finding your place in the world, the pressures and responsibilities that come with transitioning from child to adult, gaining independence and redefining your relationship with your parents. Having a Spark doesn't make any of this easier.

The Struggle captures the biggest challenge your character is facing. When they came to [[SparkInYou.org]] this was probably on their mind as something they wanted support with. Struggles will often be related to your characters' Spark, but this is not required. Example struggles could be:

  * I don't feel like I know who I am -- I don't know what my passions are and what I want to do with my life
  * When I came out as Sparked to my parents I was kicked out. I am living in University halls for now but that won't be possible forever
  * I am continually bullied by Jason at school, and no one cares

Further examples of struggles can be found on the [[sample_characters|sample characters]] page. In general, a struggle can have multiple contributing factors but should be summarised by one overarching conflict.

The Struggle should be something that it isn't immediately obvious how to address -- otherwise your character would have done it already. In fact, **you won't  be able to completely address your struggle without support from other members of the forum**. This does not have to be central to addressing your struggle, although it certainly can be. The support could be verbal support, material support, or a character coming with you to do something you couldn't do on your own. Either way this problem is too big to handle alone ... you know that better than anyone.

At the end of the game, as part of Eternity, you will have an action dedicated to your struggle -- some struggles won't be feasible to "wrap up" entirely -- but this action will provide a place to make more progress, suggest hope for the future, or reflect on how far you've come as appropriate. During this action we will ask how your character's time on the forum has helped them. Of course, we hope many characters will make progress before then as well.