Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ulrick" data-source="post: 5586319" data-attributes="member: 775">About five years ago I used to game three times a week. I ran two games and played in a third, and then had the occasional tabletop miniature wargaming on top of that. This was during a time of my life when I worked at a terrible job for little money, had few friends away from the gaming table, and basically had few prospects in life because I struggled with depression. There wasn't any kind of specific catalyst for this, but I knew I was in trouble. The gaming was an important distraction. It gave me a reason to get out of bed in the morning, particularly since I GMed twice a week, I had an obligation to my players. But as Tuft said, "the gaming highs are higher and the good spots are more important, but the lows are also much lower." So when the games were good, they were really good. But if they were bad... oh man, the depression got worse. Because I would think: "Why do I bother playing if its this bad? I should have been doing something more constructive."The gaming also gave me some distance from my problems. But after about six months of playing constantly, I knew I had to make some changes and deal with the real causes of the depression (the bad job, living conditions, few friends outside of gaming, etc, etc.). As I dealt with these, I gamed less in part because a better job took more of my time.Now I game maybe once a week, and run every other week. I've just got too many other commitments besides gaming. So, in my experience gaming was a welcome distraction. But... I eventually had to deal with my problems to get out of the rut I was in.</blockquote>

Verification