Let's talk about ambivalent feelings! Towards games, people, and even streaming software... Thank you OBS, for giving me the ability to live stream, but please work sometimes alright?

Hello everyone! Let's jump right into this one! I love my fiance! You see me talking about Sarah all the time. Love her to death yeah? But sometimes she's really annoying. By annoying, I mean she has anxiety... proceeds to write an apology letter to anyone with anxiety. It is a serious problem and I do understand you can't control it.

Anyways! For those of you who don't know what anxiety is, let me give you a vague definition. I say vague because it comes in many different forms and it's a little hard to explain quickly. Anxiety is a constant feeling of worry or stress. When placed in a slightly stressful situation, people with anxiety tend to become more scared than they should.

As sweet and beautiful as Sarah is, I am constantly annoyed by this. Just about every day she comes home to tell me a list of problems she's had that day, only to realize they aren't actually that bad.

Again, I do understand why this is, and I do comfort her. But having her constantly coming to me about things can be a real pain. I've stopped many live streams to talk to her. I've even canceled many events. Sometimes I have to stay up late or wake up early to give her a good day.

Regardless of all of that, I love her. I am happy by her side. She brings me a lot of joy. Always knows what to say when I'm sad. She is bright. Shining brighter than every star in the night sky.

I can relate to the anxiety thing, I used to be on meds for it, it can be a giant pain in the rear for everyone involved. Happy wife, happy life tho!

As for my love/hate relationships, I have some viewers that are regulars in my chat. Love having them around, as I respect and appreciate anybody taking time out of their day to watch me play games. There are a few however, that always plug their channels/projects multiple time a week. It gets to the extent sometimes that their friends (or them on alt. accounts) come into the chat to talk with each other about said projects! I would call them out on it, except they aren't new viewers looking for attention, but rather long time follows/contributors that maybe are talking out of harmless excitement and intrigue but coming off as self-promoters. Admittedly, a first world problem and I should probably just bring it up next time it happens.

Who's next?

Oh! Pick me! I volunteer as tribute!

An excuse to talk about my swamp monster? Heck yeah! This one's for you @chryoyo - we have a lot in common. I've learned a good bit from you over my year and a half here, and hopefully I can help you out as well. My swamp monster isn't a fiance- she'd much rather be a princess than a queen. Her title comes from a comment she made early in the relationship. She complained that her hair is such a complete mess when she wakes up that she looks like a swamp monster. I didn't disagree; I just said yeh, but I bet you're a beautiful swamp monster, and she is.

Anxiety is a state of mind.

The swamp monster has a job that she hates because she earns a lot of money there. She's convinced that getting more money is worth the sacrifice. In her mind, it probably is. Having more money to deal with problems is a sort of peace of mind. I have a job that I love. I get to go to the airport every day and hang in and around airplanes. I actually look forward to going in to work because I love it, and when she brings up things she'd like to do some day, I make sure she knows that she most definitely can do that. All she has to do is allow herself to believe that she can.

The delicate balance is to make sure she's not taking advantage of you.

My swamp monster didn't know how much streaming meant to me at first. It's not just gaming- it's me hanging out with my friends- it's not just something I can get up from and come back to on a moment's notice. (It's also not something she can walk behind me wearing just a towel, which she has done on precisely one occasion that I promptly deleted)

You have to remember that you're there to make her stronger, not weaker.

For my swamp monster, anxiety isn't permanent. It's learned, and it can also be unlearned, but it's a long, long process. It's not that the fear is unnecessary; it's that she has an unnecessary amount of fear. As I learn more about her past and what she's been through, it makes more sense why she fears some of the things she does; but it also helps me show her that things are not always that way. For every bad thing she mentions happening to her, I manage to sandwich in two or three good things. For me, gratitude is about looking at what we have now that we used to want rather than what we want now and don't have. I flood her with gratitude, and I think it's ever-so-slowly starting to become her mindset as well.

Even swamp monsters can shine brighter than every star in the night sky.

Anxiety isn't an easy thing to deal with, for anyone involved, but it sounds like you've found something beautiful.