Why I Vanished And Returned

I guess this is when I talk about where I have been for the last few weeks and I feel like I need to explain my situation.  TO be honest, I disappeared for almost a month, but with how I had been feeling, it felt that much longer.

Without going into way too much into details, I vanished because of mental health problems, mainly depression, and me not feeling like I should have been around.  I had a really bad mental breakdown, which was followed with me feeling overwhelmed by everything around me.  I thought that by going completely silent on all social media for a while, I could do some soul searching and figure out things about myself.  Then I would be able to return here.  That was how I thought things would turn out.

However, that was not the case.  Isolating myself from everything and everyone I thought was working out for me.  I was able to get through a number of games, several episodes of a visual novel, and watching a bunch of anime.  Things I typically do anyway.  That was probably the best thing to come out of that time.  As time went on, I started to feel very lonely.  I only realized how much I lost contact with a lot of people.  At the same time, by retreating within my shell, I stayed within my comfort zone and didn't want to leave it.

I thought that I would feel overwhelmed the moment I would come back to the whole larger world, which made me want to put off returning to Twitter and just about every other social media place.  Soon before I knew it, I was away for weeks.

Being isolated took its toll on me.  I was losing my motivation to do just about anything, especially speedrunning related stuff, and eventually just about everything that I enjoyed.

I like to think that watching RPG Limit Break made me aware of my mental health problems and realize that I need to go out and seek the help I needed.  That is what I eventually ended up doing.  And I have been doing better because of the steps I took to get there.  That's why the marathon is so important to me and I hope to make it there in person next year more than ever.

I had to force myself to come back here.  I knew what was going to happen when I came back, that I was going to be overwhelmed by a lot of emotions and feelings.  Once I got over both of them, things started to feel like normal again.  And I've been feeling better since then.

I still have some catching up to do with things I missed over the last month.  But at the same time, I'm looking forward.  SGDQ is just around the corner and I am going to be there the entire time, so I am really hype.  I'll be doing commentary for Half-Minute Hero, so that should be fun.

Speedrunning plans for the rest of the year?  Finally get a decent time in Xillia, specifically Milla, New Game Normal.  I also want to pick up the original Valkyria Chronicles and practice it on the PS3 enough that by the time I get a better PC, I can do runs on the PC version.  Eventually I want to return to Valkyria Chronicles II and start doing runs on a Vita TV instead of the PSP console for faster times.

As far as casual gaming, I'm playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV at the moment and enjoying it a lot.

It feels nice to be back.