No need to say this buddy, participating in merit support is no guarantee of earning additional merit without having anything of value in your possession. Merit Resources or the kind people on the forum will help anyone who has contributed to the forum, quality posts are still the top choice for them to donate some of the sMerit they still have.

No one is blocking anyone from ranking up, you are entitled to get a Hero rank when the merit is enough. To get there, it is not assessed how long you have been in this forum, the rank will not increase automatically without adding sufficient merit. You are almost close to Hero Member rank, -75 merits is not a large amount for those of you who already understand how to get merit.
Make your countdown to reaching Hero rank a motivation to give more useful things to the forum, you have to rely on yourself to go there. Others will help when the amount you need is close to the Hero.