Mental Health Awareness, Donor Rewards, and Fall Streaming Surprises

Yes, the title of this newsletter might seem odd; however, I’ve teased the donor rewards and fall stream plans before and I really need to actually talk about them before I either forget or you, the dear readers and heroes forget the tease.

Before I dive too deep into the fun things, I want to talk briefly about mental health as this month is mental health awareness month. Typically, I try to mention something about this topic as I live with depression and anxiety myself and I want to do my part in removing the stigma surrounding the sicknesses of the brain.

I take a pill every day for my brain. I had a time in life in which I thought of that pill as a temporary thing. For whatever reason, I felt like my path to mental wellness looked more like a race with a set finish line rather than an understanding that I had another chronic disease that I’d always deal with like my asthma, allergies, and sleep apnea.

As I grew older, I realized not only was that mindset a massive mistake, but that I had similar thoughts about my physical health as well:

“I don’t need that Zyrtec every day.”

“I need to do everything I can to avoid a CPAP.”

“It’s like my asthma, I can grow out of it—even though I’ve absolutely not ever grown out of my asthma, but I’ll happily convince myself otherwise!”

While I addressed my mindset on my physical health, my mental lagged. I had strings of mental breakdowns as stress grew from my career and parenting. The camel’s back broke during a breakdown that resulted in me throwing my phone, and completely breaking it. I couldn’t access anything on the phone and, I later found out that while the majority of photos were backed up, quite a few videos of my kids weren’t.

I’ve never shared that story publicly. I am still ashamed of that moment—not just because of the physical action, but because I allowed my mental health to lag like that.

From that moment forward, I knew the Lexapro would likely be a part of my life forever and that’s fine! I’m not consistently in therapy, but I don’t avoid it and have gone in when needed, much like how I’d go to the doctor if something was physically wrong that my daily routine couldn’t address.

I knew I didn’t have “severe” depression & anxiety, but that doesn’t mean it’s no less serious. When unaddressed, it can absolutely spiral into something not just severe, but crippling. In short, I truly believe there is no “minor” mental illness; in fact, I think of it more like cancer. It can go into remission, but there are times when it rears its ugly head to such a level that you have no choice but to attack it in a more aggressive fashion with your treatments.

While I’m happy to report that I’m largely in “remission”, I still have days in which I massively struggle. On the Extra Life side, sometimes getting on stream is a struggle, but usually I get enough of a positive boost, it’s worth it. Even if it’s hard to get going. There are other times in which I’ve flat cancelled the streams because I knew, deep inside, that just getting rest was a far better option.

Hopefully, sharing my story can help you or someone you know. I’m incredibly happy that talking about mental health is as open as it is today, but there’s still work to be done!

Take care of yourself, mentally & physically!

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Bonus Stream This Week

I promise this isn’t (completely) the most awkward transition possible. I’m lucky that my job gave the entire company a mental health day on Friday. The exact words from our CEO: “please do something you enjoy.”

I’m doing two things:

1. I told my oldest that when baseball season is over, I’d take him on his first golfing outing. With his summer break starting on Friday, I’m cashing this promise in that morning.
2. Of course I want to Extra Life stream!

#1 obvious has the highest priority, so I have no clue when I will start. It’ll likely be some time in the afternoon, maybe around 2 PM CDT or so.

I’ll be playing the newest Final Fantasy XIV patch, which is also something my oldest enjoys watching. So I may just have a special guest* on the stream!

*There could be two, but my youngest’s attention span goes in an out on these things!

The Notre Dame Sims are Back This Fall

…for a price.

While I’m still working out exact pricing, this summer, you’ll be able to buy “tickets” to my Notre Dame sims, which I will stream privately on YouTube to donors.

Season tickets will be available as well!

Already donated this year? Well don’t you fear because…

Donor Reward Tiers

…I’m doing donor reward tiers this year!

I plan on having more details in next week’s newsletter (aka, figuring out exact tier levels), but thanks to the magic of pivot tables, this will be rather easy. I’m hoping I can expand this slightly to give y’all a web resource to check how much you’ve donated this year.

The tiers will start small. For example, the lowest tier will involve a thank you card with stickers. Higher tiers will unlock additional swag items both physical and virtual like an Extra Life coozie and a “ticket” to a sim stream.

I will also have a top donor, non-Milfy division (because he’ll run away with it, let’s be honest), award.

Don’t have the ability to donate, but want to be rewarded for helping Gamin’ 4 Aven? Well stay tuned next week because details on that will happen then!

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