[quote]Hi All, Big D2 fan here, with over 2797 hours on steam alone. I am recently beginning a new journey as a life coach to help people with their mental health, particularly those that are suffering with anxiety, depression and loneliness. I’ve always been a big gamer myself, and an advocate for the fact that gaming can in many ways benefit us, despite the judgemental nature of non-gamers. On the other hand, I couldn’t deny that my personal relationship with gaming wasn’t balanced, became addictive and was used as a source of escapism. Which lead to not dealing and managing my high levels of daily anxiety. So I realised that I needed to find other tools, beyond gaming, to combat this. After a lot of research, trial and error over the past 8 years, I can confidently say I am no longer plagued by daily anxiety, and live a very fulfilled life, while still enjoying a raid here and there! So now I’m passionate about helping other gamers like me, who perhaps struggle with anxiety, to learn how to implement this into their lives, in a really easy ‘every day’ approach. I always wish I had someone to guide me sooner, that has the answers but was also non-judgemental towards gaming. So now it’s my mission to be that person for other gamers! If you think this applies to you, or maybe someone you know, and you're suffering with mental health and feeling stuck, and would like to be taught the tools, or just to have a chat 1:1, please comment or DM me and i'd love to help! Thank you for taking the time to read this, Carlo[/quote] I have actually been thinking about seeing a therapist for a while now. I am a senior in high school, and have been genuinely depressed for a very long time, like late grade school. I have debilitating social anxiety and Social Pragmatic Communication Disorder. It makes it incredibly difficult to be anywhere in public, and makes just being around people incredibly tiring. Most of the time I have no energy, and I am burnt out a lot. I started playing video games when I was like 9, and fell in love with them. I would play all the time, and I wouldn’t spend any time with friends or family because of it. I didn’t feel like I needed to change anything, because to me it seemed fine. Now that I am in high school, and I have a job, I have realized that I can’t just stay inside and play video games. I will be going off to college soon, and I recently I have been barely motivated to get out bed in the morning, just because of how much stress I am dealing with. I want to at least figure out how I can help myself, so I can be actually productive and not depressed in college. My anxiety has gotten to a pretty bad state recently. I am taking a really cool art class at school, and I love doing it. It is one of the highlights of my day, if it doesn’t make me insanely stressed. This class is super cool, but it is a school class, and it has a grade attached to it. I will graduate if I don’t pass this class, but my parents would be pissed if I failed another class. On top of the pressure to pass this class, I am just stressed out by being there. I don’t know if you know anything about the art field, but it is very difficult to create things on command that are visually interesting, and make it within incredibly unrealistic timelines. I love this class, but I feel like it is slowly killing me every day. My job is a similar situation. Most high schoolers I know work at like a fast food place or a tire shop. I have an actual job at a fancy company with my own office, where all the other employees are full time, with a salary. I love my job, but my boss is always telling me to work more. I want to work more, because that means I can make some more money, but that means working really late into the night. It is just another thing on the ever growing pile of pain. Money has been an issue for a while. Ever since I started driving, I have been paying for my own gas. On top of that, I pay for my physical phone and my phone service. The main issue is the gas though. I drive 80 miles everyday, from school, then to this art class, and then work, and back home. With gas being pretty expensive right now, I have barely been able to pay for anything right now, and with college coming up, I have to start saving money. I know most of this is just me rambling, and I know no one is probably gonna see this, but it feels nice to just let everything out every once in a while.

I'm honestly half surprised this doesn't run up against the coc in a straightforward way.

Switch tag, this is offtopic