Getting more serious about streaming, combating anxiety.

I really want to get more serious about streaming, I'm not worried about having slow growing viewership as I think most of my community will form around being able to stream live hardcore shows, I'm just having a hard time overcoming anxiety and actually hitting the "go live" button sometimes lately. I have my clonazepam prescription but I try my best not to take it unless I'm in a full blown panic. Been working on meditation and stuff, I'm going to figure it out.

In the beginning of all this COVID stuff, I was more than willing to do everything right and everything I needed to do to keep others safe, but after a year and as it becomes more and more evident that at least half of the country doesn't care to do the necessary things to slow the spread of this and try to shut it down. Hardcore shows have been such a huge integral part of my life for 16 years, and I don't know what to do with myself without them. I feel my ability to deal with frustration and annoyances being worn down on. On a daily basis I feel like my fuse is getting shorter and shorter and I find less and less joy in things I actually enjoy. If anyone has any general advice on managing your mood with Bi-polar disorder and CPTSD I'm all ears, but like I said - I'm assuming no one's reading these.

I've been putting in a ton of hours and work into Aimlab trying to improve my gamesense and get better at Counter-Strike and Valorant. I feel like I can accel at anything I truly put my mind to, and I don't expect to go pro, but I think I could make really cool content with World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike and Valorant to fill the time between shows on stream. Feeling like I'm bad at World of Warcraft is a whole other thing. I really really really want a dedicated core group of people to run Mythic+ and raid with, but I'm really having a hard time finding the place I fit in in Azeroth. It's similar to real life, I'm having a hard time with feeling like I don't have a friend group. All the people I saw regularly were because of work besides Joey whom I stopped being friends with in the beginning of quarantine. I'm happy in my relationship but I'm really feeling isolated and like I don't know where I belong at all. Especially without hardcore. If anyone out there plays World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike or Valorant and has mutual interests hit me up! If anyone between Seattle and Bellingham wants to jam on some heavy music let me know! Let's write some fucking tunes and get some fucking frags.

I really regret all the years I spent thinking video games were kind of a waste of time because I dreaded the stereotypical "gamer" archetype. I probably could of saved myself a lot of actually wasted time and heart ache. The fact that I'm coming up on a year off of heroin for sure has a ton of contributing factors besides that I've dived into gaming, like the fact that I've been with Renflow for a year now, and on suboxone and stably housed, but gaming has for sure helped. I'm going to go ahead and hop off of this now. I'll be making these more often. It feels nice to just be able to sit down and type out my thoughts. I'm going to go live on twitch soon, come hang if you want. Trying to hammer out a normal schedule. 

-Darby Carroll