Hello again. Today’s topic will be about what I’ve done to fight my depression and how it seems to backfire. A depressing topic, but I am depressed today.
Growing up I dealt with depression often. I would always feel alone and that I had no friends. It wasn’t until I met my friend Kris and my other friend Justin did I start to feel like I had friends. I had made some online, but they always left. We’d have some stupid argument and they’d leave. I mean stupid. They’d get upset, or I would, that one person didn’t like another anime, game, manga, or band. We’d argue why we didn’t and did like said product. Then they would leave, angry. Usually, it was me who didn’t like the stuff. I’d give them a day to cool down but when I would message them again they’d ignore me. Give them a week and they’d just tell me to, “fuck off”. Give it a month and I’d be blocked. I never understood how someone you would chat with daily for hours on end about everything you’d remove from your life because they didn’t like something you’d like. Hell, most things I like people don’t. I like the game Devil’s Third. People make fun of me for liking it. So? I let them have their jokes and I just enjoy my product. In the end I can still talk to them. I felt happy to finally have real friends. Fast forward a few years and Kris and I go to different high schools while Justin and I go to the same. Justin and I grow as friends and become best friends. He’d buy me food because I was poor and I would do my best to make him laugh or feel better. I also did my best to try to get him to fit in with people, but a lot of people didn’t like him. In this time frame I meet a D&D group, mostly people who used to be my brother’s friends. Despite a lot of stuff going wrong these were my least depressing times because I would spend it with friends.
Here comes college. On my way to college a lot of people I would hang out with and talk with regularly stopped talking to me. I never got an answer why. A lot of people would refuse to meet up if I was invited. This led to people no longer inviting me out; even though we’d talk like normal online. I had to make new friends in college. People in my classes didn’t like me. My depression starts to spiral out of control. I wind up at my school’s bowling alley just waiting for class. I meet a few people who are playing fighting games. After a while they invite me to join, and this is how I got into fighting games. After some started to graduate the group fell apart. People were upset with me for breaking up with Kim. Some were upset at my brother and decided to stop talking to me due to that. Some were upset we didn’t “grow up” and stop playing video games and stopped talking to us. Basically shit just hit the fan. This severely worsened my depression all over again.
Luckily through it all I had my D&D group. They were always there. For those who don’t know I run a YouTube channel called Backlog Buddies. This plays a big role later on. In it Tony and I play games and have fun. Tony is from my D&D group and one of my oldest friends now. Just like everyone from the D&D group is now one of my oldest friends. Even though I had them, the fallout of losing an entire social circle again drove me to a bad place. I tried to kill myself 6 times in the span of 2 months and even sliced up my left hand, something a lot of people don’t know.
So, what does this have to do with depression? Well, because I was always alone I was depressed. I would try to find new social circles to fit in so I wouldn’t feel alone. To this day I have my D&D group. They help immensely but we don’t get to see each other often. Once a week, if that. Before the week is over I am drowning in bad thoughts. What saves me each week is if we get to meet up. Lately we haven’t been able to meet up. Things haven’t been going well. With the constant rejection of job after job and not seeing my friends I’m just in a 24/7 depressive state. Lately, I’ve taken to going to GameStop and just sitting there for hours on end if one of the workers I know works there that day. I’m at that bad of a state. To fight my depression I need to talk to people face to face. Talking online actually makes it worse; which is why I tend to ignore people these days online. I’m already feeling bad.
Let’s now talk about the idea that killed numerous friendships: Backlog Buddies. When Backlog Buddies was created I thought of it as a way for Justin and I to hang out more. Justin and I hadn’t seen each other in about 2 years by this time. We were both busy and worked different shifts. I worked morning and school at night he worked night to mornings. When we could meet we didn’t know what to do so he’d end it. I came up with the idea of Backlog Buddies. he liked it but didn’t want to do any of the editing or actual work. I told him I would handle it. So, we set up a date and time to be off of work and school to meet up and play games. We had a lot of issues at start. From getting the recording device to work, to get it to stop overheating, to the PS3 not working and just tons of issues. Then there were the audio issues. Something I didn’t get fixed until way later. As time went on Justin started to ignore my texts if they weren’t about the show. Then he started to make plans because he “forgot” we met up the same date and time for over a year for recordings. It wasn’t until I started to work at Domino’s again did major issues start to arrive. He would leave the entire store to me while he would go sit in the back and talk with drivers, all of them. He could do this because he was an Assistant Manager and was “doing inventory” but wasn’t. I would complain about this and nothing would get fixed. He would have me do work that the drivers were supposed to do because he would spend all night talking to them. He then started to put up things on the make line that hurt my back and I couldn’t work over. Promising he’d do those for me, but never did. There were other issues too, but I injured myself numerous times working under him and was doing the entire stores work while he would fuck about. If we had other insiders they wouldn’t listen to me and only to him. He would refuse to tell them to do anything so they would be in the back folding boxes while we had a screen full of orders and orders coming out of the oven. Eventually I had a mental breakdown at the store. I had a huge fight with one of my very important friends who told me to never talk to her again. I was stressed from work and Justin was being a dick. This is what was the final nail in our friendship. I remember him coming up to me angry huffing and puffing and telling me “Fix your shit or leave”. So, I just left. Later I find out from mutual friends that he was tired of being forced to spend time with me. That he couldn’t escape me because we had Backlog Buddies and work together. I put in a request to change shifts, everyone called me a child for doing this, and I told him we weren’t friends anymore. Everyone took his side until they asked me about it and then went neutral. I don’t know what he told everyone when I stopped being friends with him but a lot of people were upset with me.
Now out of a best friend and no one to talk to but Kim our friendship started to grow, or so I thought. While I repeatedly expressed wanting to just stay friends she said she agreed. In the end she kept hoping we’d get back together. As we continue Backlog Buddies with our friend Mare things got worse. Mare was very perverse. Neither of us had an issue with this. What Kim had an issue was with me talking about dirty things with Mare. Often times she would leave recordings crying or just storm out and not talk to either of us. As the show went on things got worse. We were limited on what we could talk about for one. Even after having a counseling session with Mare who agreed we shouldn’t be together and having Kim and I agree to it, Kim still went on hoping I’d be with her again. It gets annoying here so I am going to skip a lot. Kim starts to date a new guy, finally, and just abandons me. she leaves our lease 1 month early and shuts off our electric bill. She stole some stuff too. Again, Backlog Buddies caused another close friendship to end. Granted it wasn’t a healthy one, but it still did.
Good thing Tony and I have such a stable relationship that we can stand sitting in a room for 3-6 hours playing games together and talking. Even on topics we disagree about. Unfortunately, life has made it hard for us to record. Seeing Tony for those 2 years every Monday really helped. I went from seeing two close friends often a week to seeing 1 once a week and sometimes our D&D group.
I find it funny. the thing I created to help with my depression and help mend a dying friendship killed 3 and spiraled my depression even worse. Same with Elvenmonk Studios. That was way more than I intended. I’m not even sure if is coherent.