A Journey Worth Struggling For
Welcome to "A Gamers Search for Meaning", a blog about the struggles and successes of a Twitch Partnered live streamer named Blackboa. I welcome you to this blog and I thank you for giving me a platform to speak to you with authenticity. As a 42-year-old man, I have had some incredible life experiences in my early years of life and some devastating experiences over the last 10 years. As a once vibrant and energetic contributing member of society, I have seen the highs and lows that come with the changing of seasons. The last 10 years of my life have been a huge struggle that have led me to this place I am at now. I am on the brink of discovering my purpose in life, and all the triumphs and heart breaks that led me here are finally going to start to make some sense.
I describe myself as a gamer because over the last 10 years, this is what I have dedicated my time to. Starting back in November 2016 when I first started streaming until now, I have spent the vast majority of my life in fantasy online worlds trying to create a life where I am happy and fulfilled. For a while, I was able to get what I needed from online gaming. I felt enjoyment and peace spending my time away in a world outside of the normal course of life. I enjoyed these fantasy worlds so much that I pursued a career in live streaming and achieved some success culminating in becoming a Partner on Twitch, the most watched live streaming platform in existence. Over time however, especially over the last few years, the enjoyment and dopamine I would get from exploring and living in these online worlds began to wade.
At present, I find myself stuck between worlds. Part of me doesn't want to throw away the life I created online. The other part of me views the entire 10 years spent online as a complete waste of time. I now find myself needing more than online worlds to fulfill me, and I seek a greater purpose than just gaming for the rest of my days. Whether this be a factor of the times and how poor the MMORPG genre is doing by releasing half-baked and incomplete games, or if I am just feeling burnt out and outgrowing this season of my life, a real push and pull effect is causing me a lot of discomfort and making me feel like I have lost my identify once again.
To get to a place where I can find peace, there is a lot of work to be done. So much of this work was put off due to my addiction to online fantasy worlds and gaming. I do owe a lot to the current gaming lull that my gaming genre of choice is experiencing right now because without it, perhaps I would not have come to this conclusion that I need more to life than just video games. I feel as though I am not alone either. There are thousands of people, perhaps millions, who are choosing to game instead of experiencing the real world because of some pain or trauma they had or are having. This blog is dedicated to everyone who feels like they are trapped without a real purpose to grasp on to, and I hope to motivate them into action. I hope my words and actions resonate with many of these people who feel this way, because it has taken nearly 10 years to get to the point where I feel enough is enough.
Words alone of course will not get me, or anyone for that matter, from point A to point B in their search for greater meaning in life. For me, there are some key areas of my life that I am tackling now that are preparing me for what comes next. In order to experience life, you need to have a greater capacity to withstand the stresses of life, but you can only do that if you are coming from a place of physical and mental well-being. Both of these components to increasing one's capacity are connected to one another and influence each other, so making progress on one usually results in making progress on the other.
My first step has been tackling the physical pain component I have been suffering from for too long. It was just last month that I had been suffering from 16 severe headache episodes per month, with at least 8 of them being migraines. Last month, I finally got myself to see a Neurologist who prescribed me with a preventative medication called Qulipta. I kid you not, for the last 30 days I have had 0 headache days with no noticeable side effects. This step alone has increased my capacity by nearly double as I now am able to live a full month without the physical pain of migraines. This also has boosted my mental capacity by increasing my confidence in myself and my ability to do more things in life.
Subsequent steps are already underway to continue to ensure my migraines are in check. I am getting an MRI tomorrow for my 5 years checkup to see if the tumors in my brain have grown. I have something known as a meningioma, which are non-cancerous tumors in the back of my skull near my meninges. Before the medications, I thought that these tumors were partly to blame for my migraines, and so once I go for the MRI tomorrow and see my Neurologist and Neurosurgeon to explain the results, I hope that I can get them removed to ensure they won't be a problem in the future. The final thing I would do after this is done is hopefully be approved for Botox injections to the skull for further removal of tension in that region to combat headaches and migraines as Botox is not only used in beauty products but is a muscle relaxer that helps fight migraines and headaches.
Other areas in my health journey have scheduled appointments as well. For instance, I recently went to an ear nose and throat specialist to take a look at my nasal passages, and a nasal camera scan has been ordered to determine the extent in which my nasal passages are blocked by a deviated septum. I barely ever breath threw my nose because of the feeling of constantly being stuffed up, so I hope whatever they find they can decide to do surgery and clear up my breathing. In addition, I am also getting a sleep study done to determine if I have sleep apnea, which is another condition of not getting enough oxygen when you sleep, causing you to wake up frantically gasping for air. I know I have this because I never truly feel like I get a good night's rest even after 8 hours of sleep and I frequently wake up gasping for air. As an obese person, this is quite common, so I hope that the result of this test provides me with some sort of solution for a better night's rest.
Cosmetically, I have a skin condition that has been a problem for nearly 30 years, and I have scheduled a meeting with a dermatologist to get it checked out. Certain creams have helped with the rash that primarily shows itself on my face, but sometimes those seem to not work as well. I am hoping that since it has been quite some time since I went to see a dermatologist that there have been breakthroughs in treatments, and I could find another solution to this annoying problem. There is nothing more damaging to one's confidence than having facial issues, so this alone would help me tremendously on the mental capacity front. Additionally, after not going to the dentist for over a decade, I was put on a waiting list to go to a dental clinic. The wait list is a yearlong, but if I can get accepted into that program, I would have myself a wonderful dental practice that would take care of a lot of issues that I have been having and may have in the future.
With all of these various appointments underway and having had some success already on the migraine front, the next big hurdle will come with diet and exercise. Today I made a pretty big breakthrough in figuring out how to do cardio work outs while having fun doing them. One of my favorite activities during my youth was playing basketball and I managed to shoot some hoops today at the local park. The funny thing is that the park has always been there, but I never thought to go out and utilize it. I had a deflated basketball in my trunk for the longest time with a pump, so I went to a hardware store and got a needle for the pump and was able to inflate my basketball and go. I never felt so out of shape in my life. Just running on the court after my ball when I missed a shot gassed me. It has been greater than 10 years since I shot a basketball, but the fact that I now have a place to go that will keep me in shape while I get reacquainted with the sport I use to love again is a positive sign for things to come.
Mentally, all of these efforts are having a positive impact. Confidence is something that had hit an all-time low over the last 10 years. When you consistently disappoint and let yourself down, you enter a negative spiral that makes you not even bother getting better because you feel as though you will just fail anyways. It is time to break that cycle of negativity and believe in myself again. Will there be more disappointments on the horizon? I am sure there will. This time however, I will not let them stop me from picking myself up and trying again until I reach a point where it becomes second nature to do the basics in life that have been holding me back.
A part of me would like to start seeing a therapist again. While I am not the biggest believer in talk therapy, there is something nice in just having someone willing to listen to you even if you have to pay them to do it. There are certain things I think I should focus on if I do speak with someone privately, mainly to do with changing some habits that I find off-putting. I will be the first to admit to my gaming addiction and will even admit to having a porn addiction as well. These things at times get out of hand and warp my view of the real world with fantasy and unrealistic expectations of people. I have heard that there is a psychological technique known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapty (CBT) that may be an option for me to improve parts of my life that I struggle with. In any case, I need to take the first step and contact a professional and get the process rolling.
Thank you for being part of my introductory blog post on the topic of finding meaning in life. I have come close to giving up many times, but something just keeps me going. All of the struggles in life that we are experiencing cannot be for nothing, and I am on a journey to figure out what the answer is for me personally. Through the good times and the bad, I hope that we can all find peace in whatever precious time we have left in this world and enjoy the things we choose to bring our attention to.
Until next time,
Blackboa