I haven’t done any kind of gaming or streaming to Twitch over the last 10 days. It’s the longest hiatus I’ve taken since I started gaming again at the beginning of January. Up until recently, I played something — usually either Destiny 2 or ARC Raiders — almost every day, streaming to Twitch for anywhere from 2 to 14 hours a day, depending on how much downtime I had available. But the last week and a half, I haven’t had the spell slots to even fire up my Xbox, let alone launch a game to play.
It’s not a coincidence that my anxiety has also been higher than usual during this same time span. Most weeks, I’ve been able to get by with taking my emergency klonopin only once or twice a week. This past week and a half, I’ve taken one almost every single day. This past Monday, my anxiety go so bad that I ended up having a moderate panic attack at work. Fortunately, I was able to step away for a few minutes and call my girlfriend, who spent a few minutes just talking me through it, calming me, and helping me find my grounding again.
But overall, the last several days have just been… difficult. My anxiety has been riding between a 4 and 5 most days, and it’s been made worse the last couple of days due to unexpected vehicle repair bills I don’t have the savings for. So it’s going to be a few days before I can even get my car back.
All this has compounded on itself to destroy my desire to even find escape in video games. I find myself, instead, doing more doomscrolling on my phone because it’s easy and nearly mindless, but which does next to nothing to help my overall mental state. Watching our country fall further and further into a fascist dystopia really isn’t good for the mental well-being. I’d turn off the news and social media for the sake of my sanity, but I also don’t want to be blind-sided by events that might directly affect me or people I love.
I will get back to gaming eventually and even hopefully soon. But right now, I’m just trying to get control over my anxiety again, to find my mental footing among the national and global chaos. Baby steps.
