YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hello,

I'm Punched,
I go by other names online typically but I wanted to keep my anonymity while I get more comfortable here in the forums.

I'm a late 20's male who has struggled with anxiety and depression for most of my life, and am also trying to figure out if I'm Bisexual or not as well but that is more recent. I've been struggling with discoveries of emotional neglect/abuse, some physical abuse, and my family's intergenerational traumas. I'm sure many here experienced similar happenstance with their families, and I would like to share but maybe another time.

I ran a business coaching parkour for 10 years which I had to close last year due to covid and the anxiety the business had been causing for me, despite enjoying the coaching most of the time.

for the past 10 months, I've been streaming on Twitch, with the express goal of entertaining and opening up more, and honestly, that has been helping me quite a bit, I feel a bit better after each stream. I do my best to make sure that everyone feels okay about talking about mental health in chat.

Anyways, I'm going to do my best to be participatory in the forums, pauls podcast has really helped me give mental health a bit more levity which has been lovely.

Welcome!

1. Such a good username!

2. I’d love to hear more, sometime, about your experience with parkour.

Btw, before we heard about actual parkour, back in the 90s MTV Sports had a segment called “Freestyle Walking”. It is a sort of proto-parkour.

It is a charming time capsule of a simpler, dumber time. You may find the clip, easily found via Google, a chuckle.

Hey, welcome!

Your twitch channel sounds like a great idea! I’d love to see for myself, if you want to allow me - I think you can dm me on here, (?)

I also have extreme anxiety, feel free to search my username if you want a glimpse into the nature of my issues.

I’ve found this place to be safe and kind. I hope you find it helpful.

oak wrote: ↑November 15th, 2021, 6:00 pm Welcome!

1. Such a good username!

2. I’d love to hear more, sometime, about your experience with parkour.

Btw, before we heard about actual parkour, back in the 90s MTV Sports had a segment called “Freestyle Walking”. It is a sort of proto-parkour.

It is a charming time capsule of a simpler, dumber time. You may find the clip, easily found via Google, a chuckle.

The username makes me smile a bit each time so thank you for that! Also, I'd be happy to talk about my experiences with parkour, not sure where I would post that in the forum though.
Also just took a look at freestyle walking and it gave me a good giggle and some nice smiles.

RightInTwo wrote: ↑November 16th, 2021, 10:26 am Hey, welcome!

Your twitch channel sounds like a great idea! I’d love to see for myself if you want to allow me - I think you can dm me on here, (?)

I also have extreme anxiety, feel free to search my username if you want a glimpse into the nature of my issues.

I’ve found this place to be safe and kind. I hope you find it helpful.

Thanks for the kind enthusiasm, I may send that eventually but for now the anonymity is nice for me here. I will say it has been nice to use twitch as a platform to encourage kindness and humour around mental health. Haven't gotten to the point of admitting on there that I've been suicidal multiple times, or much about my family relationships.
I look forward to having a safe space here.

Ok punched, no worries! I totally get it.

Anonymity is a rare and valuable thing these days. That’s why I prefer reddit (registered without email) over facebook. And I don’t reuse usernames either.