Depression and Streaming

When Depression Hits

I’ve never shied away from talking about how I suffer from depression and anxiety. I may not always get into full-blown details, but it has never been something that I hide. It has, however, been very intense the past month or so. Which in turn has been making it difficult to do even basic things. You may have seen me talk about “spoons” on Twitter (relating back to Spoon Theory). I honestly prefer “Spell Theory”, though, if I’m explaining it to my nerdier friends.

Well, on a typical weekday basis, I have a lot to do—get up for work, prep food for work, take care of the pets, get ready for work, go to work (possibly have multiple meetings), go home, take care of the pets… and then depending on the day, my evenings differ. I could have a LARP ST meeting, or pole class, or date night, or WoW raid (currently on hiatus, which helps). Then add in any chores that need to be taken care of, or a shower… you get the idea.

On a day when my depression is good (manageable), and I’ve filled my spell slots because I was able to sleep the night before, I can manage pretty much everything (maybe taking out some chores, or a shower), and then add in some streaming because I feel good, and enjoy streaming and interacting with folks.

But life has been stressful (car accident, multiple chronic health concerns, apartment flooding), and thus my already limited spell slots (I haven’t been sleeping well due to the other chronic health stuff) have been used up lickity-split on things from managing contact between car insurance and car loan, to just getting out of bed in the morning and getting to work. It’s to the point where I come home, take care of the pets, and take a nap so that I can try to function and tackle minor things.

I do think this week is starting to be a turn-around week, however, due to laying out some short-term future plans (planning moving to a new apartment, car accident management is almost done, doctor appointments have been made), and being able to manage my spoons a little bit better (sleep is starting to get better, slightly, slowly increasing my spoon count).

Schedule Going Forward

So what does that mean for streaming? Well, that means my schedule for the next few weeks will be up in the air. I will not be streaming this week (July 22-28). I do want to slowly get back on the wagon with streaming, however. So I’m going to be working at this by looking to stream one day a week to begin. The downside is that this day will be up in the air, and the game I’ll be playing will also be up in the air depending on where I’m at, and what I can manage.

Once I’ve conquered more real-world shenanigans (the car being settled, getting set to move and break my lease, going to doctor appointments), I’ll be able to do more of the follower giveaways, etc. that I’ve set up and haven’t gotten to due to the depression. I am going to wait, however, on setting up my web cam for streams, because I’ve already started packing some things up, and it was one of those things. That’ll finally get used in late-September, early-October (after moving).

I originally wanted to try a birthday stream (my birthday is next week) sometime in early-August, but there is no guarantees on anything, anymore. I will probably nix a birthday stream, and just do a long Halloween-themed stream instead, because it seems much more manageable after moving.

So, TL;DR? Keep an eye on Twitter, or join the Caticorn Palace Discord to keep up to date on streams, and just chat in general.