Freewrite the Watch

Oooh it's been a couple months since I've been this excited about an Overwatch game or two. Why? Well, I think it has to do with my mindset.

Often times I'm playing Overwatch due to one, maybe two main reasons: because I'm bored, because I want to improve my (videogame?) reflexes and rank up, or because I need an escape.

Since I lost my main source of income (i.e. my "day" job) a few months ago, life has been rather tough. Not difficult; difficult would be 3rd world problems like (lack of) good food & water access, war & disease, absolutely corrupt governance: the works, what.

No, life has been tough mentally. Am I too hard on myself? It's mostly due to the passage of time: I can't help but have this nagging voice (this one the silent kind) in my head, I guess some people could call it the "biological time clock", but I think it's just the feeling of aging. Anyway, the voice can pretty much be summed up as: "you're in your 10s/20s/30s; you should be doing this"; in other words, shoulding on me. Don't should on me. It's not a good idea to do that wantonly.

So I have this inner voice putting pressure on me to feel pressure about not contributing to society or whatever. I just feel lonely.

Man, that takes me back to my support group days. You know, before most of these things moved online (and I aged out of many of them which really blows). It's crazy you have to sign up to chat with people about real things and without substance use, but when the world is this divided, I'll take that over mindless, infinite content.

While I'm freewriting some thoughts down, I have a sneaking suspicion that what happened in the 80s/90s in the Canadian mental health realm i.e. the rapid deinstitutionalization of inpatient healthcare will accelerate and go in tandem with the collapse of the Ontario health care system.

Where people in extreme states used to have a place to stay/sleep, now they get given prescription drugs and told to figure things out, and of course the state will help you, with promises of social work and housing help... as long as you keep taking their drugs.

I experienced the above phenomenon quite literally. I've written about it on this blog before, and sometime when I'm braver and less lazy I'll link this up to such a post that was written from the depths of the mental health wards in Toronto for your reading displeasure.

Anyway, my feeling is that to save taxpayer money, the government will encourage people to get mental health at home. Mental health at home = sitting in front of a Zoom screen with other hurt, bleeding human beings and praying that the current therapy leader has more energy than the last.

Okay, that's the pessimistic view of how therapy support groups work on the internet.

In practice, if I can feel feelings of wellness while playing a very social videogame (not an oxymoron anymore!), then therapy with qualified professionals can work just as well. The only difference is that one thing is enjoyable, and the other might not be. Okay, well, that applies to both. Therapy can be painful, but ultimately isn't life supposed to be enjoyed? If therapy leads to joy, as long as I can afford it, then it is good.

Okay, that's a simplistic view of how to get better.

In practice, how do I get better at Overwatch? I do the things that lazy people don't do: I look at old games, I write down the aspects of my game that I want to improve on, and I ask questions.

What do I do, usually?

Mindlessly queue for the battle pass points because I refuse to spend more real money on Blizzard games and that Mythic skin looks pretty sweet and I'll buy it with my fake points eventually, dammit.

Ugh.

Somewhere in time, this'll all make sense again.

Oh, here's a random screenshot before I ragequit from competitive a few months ago, lol. Yeah, I've never been a ragequitter, which is why taking a break from this game is always a good idea...