Quote from TealKoala >>

Quote from LeviRocks >>

I don't have anxiety, but I do have depression. D&D was my best way of coping. Too bad that the pandemic basically shut that down for me. 

It's hard. Really hard. I can't do D&D how I used to, and how I prefer, and it was my main way of coping. The world is in so much chaos. I've been depressed for awhile, but ignoring it. It's my senior year of high school, and I'm graduating. I don't really care at all about the ceremonies and all that crap, but my future was essentially put on pause by this pandemic. It just ruined everything. I hate having to do this, but I understand that we have to do this to save lives. I would gladly sacrifice my happiness to have other lives be saved. It's crappy, though. 

My parents got divorced 6 months ago. I'm 18, but it still turned my world upside down. Then, the world not only shut down, but everything started turning to crap. 2020 is a terrible year. It was supposed to be good, but very quickly turned out to be the worst year in my life so far. I was about to start going to therapy, but the same week that I decided to do so, and take action to get help, the whole world went on pause. 

It's not helpful that I have autism, which makes my emotions detached and tangled. I don't understand anything about who I am and will be anymore. It's just awful. I'm not suicidal, I could never commit suicide, but it just sucks. There's not much good going on in the world anymore, it seems. George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Murder Hornets, Twitter Wars, Politicizing a Disease, it just seems like everything wants to suck this year. 

(Sorry about the rant. I posted something similar to this before, but no one seemed to post afterwards.) 

 Hey Levi, sometimes we need to rant and I'm sorry you are having a rough year.  My parents also got divorced (although I was much much younger than you) and graduating around a major crisis sounds really difficult. If you still want to see a therapist I highly encourage you to make some calls and find out if they are accepting new patients (many will say yes).  I've been seeing my Therapist digitally using a web based streaming service since March and while it feels different than in person it can still be really helpful.  

We are all coping with 2020 in different ways and I'm sorry to hear your D&D group isn't running.  Have you thought about trying to get them to transition online?  It is different than in person but can still be pretty fun, my Roll20 group is about 19 months in to only online play and I'm very much enjoying DMing it.  

Everyone is suffering right now, and while the world kind of sucks this is temporary and we will all come out of this stronger I think.  Thanks for posting and I hope you stay well, if you are ever not sure about that reach out, people do care, I care, and want you to be happy and safe.  

Thanks for your reply and support. I would see a therapist, I'm sure I could do it online somehow, but I just can't do that. I'm weird, but I have to have it be in person. 

D&D online was attempted, and didn't work out. I tried 3 different ways, and the group just couldn't do it. 

Yeah, it sucks for everyone. I know. I want people to be safe, but there's so many people in my city who ignore the lockdown, don't wear masks, and listen to conspiracy theories about the virus. We have more cases in my county than any other in my state. We have 1/7 of all the Coronavirus cases in Washington, and 3% of the population of the whole state. 

Quote from GregCa >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

 There are so many role playing games out there, not sure you need to create another one.  If you want simplicity just go back in time to earlier editions.  Personally at the time I felt 2nd edition was perfect, back then when we played it.  

 Oh god no! 5e is way easier to play than 2e was.

 i guess its THACO vs multi actions per round.  

Of course you can go further back to Basic Dungeons & Dragons.  If I could play it at 11 years old, anyone can.

 Hey, I learned 2e at age 11. IMHO, 5e is still easier to learn.

Like most tabletop games D&D is intended to be enjoyed communally, but dungeon and dragons is in an amazing position because of the story telling aspect of the game. When you play or watch D&D being played you discover that it isn't like a video game where you enjoy riding along with the story someone else created. You actually become an active participant in how that story goes. Besides the joy of slaying your first dragon and seducing the local bard, I think there is a healing aspect to the game that hasn't been very well explored. And by healing I'm not referring to "healing word" or "goodberry" spells. We as players and DM create our own narrative and in doing so we create space for healing and self improvement. We are the sum of our collected life stories in life. Hopefully most are good stories, but some can be bad. These bad stories (trauma, abuse, illness, depression, rejection, bad relationships, etc) can tend to occupy a lot of space in our minds. The can become all consuming and get "stuck" in our thoughts; much to the detriment of all the good stories that we have in our lives. For example, when you are happy you tend to have happy thoughts, when you are hungry you tend to think about food, but the inverses can also be true that if you only think depressing thoughts you can make yourself depressed (or keep yourself depressed). If you are anxious you tend to think worrying thoughts. As a personal example, PTSD can be a defence mechanism. It can help protect you from a lot of the bad emotions that are associated with the trauma, but it also causes a lot of its own problems and symptoms like social anxiety and depression. D&D as a narrative therapy may be able to help that.

Im no expert on narrative therapy, but I'll try to explain:

-Life sucks sometimes and it creates problems

-Narrative Therapy separates people from their problems through the telling of their story

-Objectifying the persons problems can help lower their resistance and defence against dealing with the problem. 

-Telling your story is a form of action towards change and fixing the problems. 

Building, exploring and focusing on "preferred" or "alternate" storylines that exist outside of your "problem storyline" can help provide a contrast to the problem, putting it more into a realistic perspective rather than the distorted reality our problem can have us live in.  This is where I think D&D can help as a method of narrative therapy. Narrative therapy won't change your problem, but it may be able to change the effects your problem has on you.  If you have PTSD like me (@themightytink) , or have an anxiety disorder like Felicia Day (@feliciaday), or Ehlers Danlos Syndrome like Jennifer Kretchmer (@dreamwisp), or are navigating the difficulties of life for a Transgender person like streamer Violet Miller (@distractedelf) , or even having allergies that necessitate you walking off camera to politely clear your nose like Travis Willingham (@willingblam), then being able to separate these problems from yourself and explore then through the narrative of you player character can be very freeing and helpful. Having someone you are deeply connected with (like your character) face and even overcome these issues in a safe and loving environment (like your D&D table) can be beneficial to your outlook on life. As an example, my wife in in a wheelchair, so she enjoys playing characters with prosthetic limbs. It honestly doesn't change our gameplay but narratively addressing the issues it creates can change her mind frame about those issues. It allows us to explore her issues outside of herself in a safe place with the added bonus of slaying a rampaging red dragon immediately after. Its amazing to see the transformation of thought go from: "a hero with a prosthetic arm beat that dragon" - to - "my character with a prosthetic arm beat that dragon" - to - "I Am MY CHARACTER".

I love people like Lauren "Oboe" Urban (@OboeLauren) for exploring new ways to bring D&D to people through new mediums like the Discord Server (she has DM'ed for me a couple times now and been amazing at it - much appreciation and thanks Lauren). Some of my own anxiety revolves around going out and being in crowded places. Online D&D helped remove that problem so that I could play. Also people like Joe Manganiello (@JoeManganiello) for bringing  D&D to Children's Hospitals and giving people the opportunity to experience this form of narrative love. Children can't always talk about their problems but they do love to play. Many adults are similar to this. 

Please take care of yourselves. D&D isn't a replacement for proper psychiatric or medical help if you need it. And should you need, please get that help. I would much rather you try to get healthy than play a game of Dungeons and Dragons with me. But I believe there is a space where D&D can be a part of getting healthy. It has honestly helped me and for that I want to personally thank all the people at Critical Role (@CriticalRole), Geek and Sundry (@GeekandSundry) and DND Beyond (@dndbeyond) for that. Cheers and love to you all.