EDM, VR, Mental Health

Damn so things got a little weird in my life for a while. I'd say it's been like a roller coaster with the all the ups and downs, but roller coasters are actually fun. Anyway, yeah it's been almost 3 months since I last posted on here, but yeah, I'm thinking I'm back. So I meant to be using this area as sort of a place to document where I'm at in life so that I can actually remember when great things happen or just monitor my progress. Uh, but yeah I sort of fell off the Earth for a while when my mental health took a plummet due to outside circumstances. However, what I was going to write about just before all that went down, was an insane couple of impulse purchases that I had made around the time. I basically dropped over $1,000 on a gaming computer and a VR headset. Long story short, I've been attending raves in Virtual Reality for a bit now. It's pretty cool because it's of these things I've always been super passionate about since like 2006ish.....but at that age not only was I too young to be going to these things on my own, but I was also in the process of developing the depression, self-worth issues, and anxiety that I'm still dealing with today. On top of that, my friends at the time were very much not into electronic music, and I didn't really have too many people to share this passion with. Point is, raves and music festivals were sort of out of the question for me, and the biggest factor from that point forward as to WHY that was, was my crippling social phobia. And while that shows no signs of disappearing anytime soon, within the past few years, I have made some MASSIVE improvements in my life which have allowed me to manage this phobia and experience a life a little closer to one which is "normal." My social phobia in highschool developed into an agoraphobia in college, and my first big step towards normalizing my life again was going to the grocery store each week as a form of exposure therapy. I've done more and more since then, and while it seems like not a big deal, for me these small changes had been so difficult, and have made such a big impact on the life I'm able to live that I've sort of been reinvigorated. It's like, once you see a little progress pay off, you want to go bigger or something. Anyway I've always been into MMOs and met the love of my life on one when we were 12 and 13. So I've been around lol, I dabbled in Second Life and IMVU when those were the big ones. But the past few years I have really watched VRChat take off, and while I had played it here and there, it was always on my shitty non-gaming PC. But I've always been interested in technology since around 2003ish when I was about 8 or 9, and I've always been fascinated by Virtual Reality. So I sort of thought, "Hey VRC is up my alley, its an MMO, so I can enjoy myself, and with a VR headset, and the non-text based nature of VRC, I would be pushing myself a little further out of my comfort zone without the awkward nature of face-to-face real-world interactions." I knew it would be tough to start socializing more but this is something I so want for myself in life. And then....I heard about the VRC rave scene...and at that point I just bought myself a gaming PC and VR headset with pretty much NO research into the subject, which yeah, was a bad move. But it was MY bad move. I was LOVING it....until just like on SpaceHey, my mental health suddenly took another turn for the worst and I fell off for a bit. I have sort of felt disconnected for a while, like I have friends but no one really shares all of my interests. I've always wanted to travel, and if it weren't for certain circumstances and having others in my life who depend on me, I would definitely have left home months ago (recklessly) to travel the country on NO budget, and it would maybe be a horrible idea, but it could also have been a life changer that i feel like would have opened my mind and although I would certainly be struggling, I know I would come out of it stronger. But that can't happen. I've just felt so much like I'm trapped in this place in life and I just can't escape, there's nothing for me to do. I can't just drop responsibilities to go "find my identity and travel," lol. So I've been kind of down and feeling directionless. It just sucks, especially when I just don't have the budget to even do the things I'd love when the opportunity presents itself. But I'll say some good, too. Me and my love traveled to Maine a month or 2 ago for a camping/hiking trip, which left me feeling at least slightly rejuvenated from the monotony of my life. I love her so much. And then the other thing, was a few months back i made some comment to her about the lineup that was released for this year's EDC Las Vegas, something I've never attended but always have kept tabs on just because of my interest. When I did,she said "We should go!" but then within seconds changed her tune to "no NVM we would hate that and it would be too expensive." Well, okay then. But then just last week, the festival conversation comes up again, and I mention to her that she said she wouldn't be interested. Well, I guess maybe it was just the wrong time initially when i brought it up, because this time she was totally down, and upon looking up some info, she decided Electric Zoo would totally be doable for us this year, and....we just went for it! It almost feels like I manifested this to happen, LOL. So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to attending my first EDM Music festival in-person, and couldn't be more thrilled that not only will I not have to go solo, but with the love of my life. I'm so pumped for this!