Hey everybody! For this week’s article I’ll be glazing you all. Christmas is my favorite holiday so I won’t be posting next week. I’ll be spending the majority of the week spending time with friends and family. So if you can stomach some earnest love and appreciation for you guys, as well as a bit of me opening up about my personal life and what may color my posts on here, read on. Regardless, have a great holiday season whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, Festivus, or any other winter celebration. You deserve to enjoy this otherwise miserable season however you see fit and I hope you have a great time.<\/p>\n
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I already introduced myself with my typical sort of opening with people when I meet up to play Magic or board games in a game store or local meetup spot, but I feel like I’m in a place now where I feel comfortable revealing more. Once I’m closer to people, I think it’s important to show my hand more and to me it’s worth the chance that I scare people away. I’d rather people know where I’m coming from when I act like an asshole out of nowhere. I feel like I’ve hit that point with you folks on the site.<\/p>\n
To start, I’m going to do the annoying millennial and gen z thing. I’m going to list my mental health diagnoses. I’m bipolar. I have extreme social and general anxiety. I have PTSD. All of these things are diagnosed and verified by multiple sources including my psychiatrist and I’m undergoing active treatment for all of it. I have other fun stuff going on in my very smooth brain but those are the ones that will be relevant to posts I make here. That all means that some weeks I’m going to be so anxious or depressed that I can only bring myself to post something that amounts to a discussion prompt instead of a typical full length article. In the most recent case I’ve just been legitimately ill on top of things which is made it extra fun. Loved your responses on your own spoiler practices, by the way.<\/p>\n
I bring this stuff up because at some point I will likely write an article about video games that trigger phobias and PTSD. I will almost certainly write an article about bipolar celebrities and bipolar representation in media. I am a lot more than a sum my diagnoses but I spend a lot of time researching abnormal psychology and mental health because I find the topic fascinating and I hope you all do too. But more importantly I think it might be helpful to know these things when I inevitably say some contradicting information and opinions. My opinions are pretty consistent on things but I will occasionally just say stuff I straight-up don’t mean and not notice until my wife or one of my friends points it out to me. Most likely it will get caught before I post or quickly thereafter and edited to fix the mistake, but you never know for sure. We’re all human. In my case being manic has led to very hyperbolic thinking and talking. So you can expect lots of “the worst” and “the best” when I don’t really mean that. It’s also something I try to catch but will miss inevitably. I know my opinions are not the end all be all, but some weeks my brain is really pushing that thought on me pretty damn hard.<\/p>\n
Thank you for reading my little sob story and being willing to allow me to indulge in some oversharing. I was very worried about feeling like an invader into someone else’s world here but you were very welcoming to me and my articles here. I have very much enjoyed engaging with you all. I wish I wasn’t sick for over a month now so I could have interacted with you all more and made some better posts. Regardless, I read your comments and try to respond when I can. I expected intelligent responses because of the audience that Shamus as well as the other writers here have cultivated and I wasn’t disappointed. You guys are great. I love having a place to discuss my opinions on nerd media and culture. If I ever have a week like last week where I don’t respond to you, know that I read and appreciate your responses and feedback. It means a lot to me that you take the time to read my posts in an era where most video game and nerd culture media is taken in via YouTube video essays and podcasts.<\/p>\n
Please have a wonderful holiday season.<\/p>\n
And if this is a tough time of year for you just know that you’re not alone. I’ve been where you’re at. Some days are better than others but no matter the quality of the day, it passes. Maybe you feel alone this year but who knows about next year? Who knows about next week, even? Hang in there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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