EPTWith the release of Legion, a franchise that I have spent more time on than I'd like to admit, I thought that playing would give me a bit of a refresher and perhaps more ideas. It did, partially, but I found myself taking the void of my lack of progress in SC2 and going full-out in Legion. I quickly reached 850 iLevel before Emerald Nightmare opened, finished 9/11 storylines in Suramar, got my Obliterum, leveled my main spec to about 19-20, and my offs to 13. I felt like I had done everything I could. Mythic+ and EN pushed me a bit further with some more content, but now finishing EN and getting even better gear until 7.1 has put me at a stunt, I burnt myself out, again.
So, I'm pressued with this feeling of melancholy. Depression, which has plagued me over varying topics - most notably an extreme existential crisis my senior year of high school, to which still plagues me as I write this - has ripped me of my enthusiasm and excitement when finding a new idea for a map. Collaborations seem to help, because I feel returned to my prime where I can execute rather well in a short amount of time, see Blood Boil;, which only took about 5 hours.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/d7jQnacl.png)
Now, to more personal matters. Ontop of the lack of enthusiasm and everything else I just mentioned, I've been having romantic troubles, in that there are issues with commitment between one or more parties over quite a few years, constant on/off heart pulling, which obviously wears one down. And the one potential partner is no longer in close proximity, which is taxing. I grew up with LDR as a teen and know by now that it's not generally worth in investment.
My family also has a very long history of unfortunate health circumstances. My father and I are relatively healthy, my mother has multiple conditions that rendered her unable to work almost ten years ago, and my brother is paralyzed from the waist down. Neither of them work, leaving just my father and I on income. Fortunately my father is in a good position, but in our location, one income will last so long before luxuries suffer (such as Christmas). I was fortunate to have a job with friends just after graduating High School, but had to terminate it due to scheduling issues with school about a year and a half later. This has left only one income with my family for years.
I've been trying my best to get an income started, hoping that perhaps my mapping would take me somewhere. I was fortunate to win 5th place in TLMC7, rewarding me $100 USD, but when you (and other mappers) spend over 8 hours a day mapping every day for months, years, it's not sustainable. I'll write more on this later.
So now I'm depressed, have no income, half my family can't work, I can't find work, and now to the final part;
My existential crisis generally resolves around the obvious, death. I've been fortunate to not have any losses in my family, at least to my conscious memory. My grandparents have remained 'healthy', my aunt and uncle are healthy, no risks. The problem is, because of this fortunate circumstances, I am not prepared to experience a sudden heavy loss, so I constantly go to bed, wake up, and experience the fear of a sudden loss. Over a year ago I received information that my grandfather had developed cancer. Long story short, he eventually was cleared and in good health. Today I was notified that his cancer has returned and has become terminal. My brain is coping by trying to pass the news by without doing severe damage to my mental health, and it seems to be working.
But all of this is making it extremely hard to have any motivation for me to play games, and with the loss of my GPU, I can't play any games that I know will favor my health. Overwatch to me is very fun, relaxing, and because of the skill cap it has that I carry over from CS and PC Halo experience, I know i can improve quickly and have a good time. I burned myself out on Legion (my fault, yea), I have no ideas or motivation to make maps, and my depression is becoming crippling.
I apologize for the extreme lack of organization, this is me trying to splatter my ten thousand feelings all at once so I never have to explain this again, because it was pretty dreadful.
TL;DR, I'm anxious as fuck, have chronic existential depression, have no motivation to make new maps, burned myself out on Legion, have no job, my grandfather has terminal cancer, and I have no graphics card so I can't play games with my friends to help me feel better. It's getting difficult to get out of bed because I know I'm not really going to do anything.
Thanks for reading.
- AVEX
