I do not want people to only know me as someone who has survived heavy things.

That is part of me, of course it is. My blog has always been a place where I can be honest about the harder parts of life. But I am not only pain. I am not only trauma. I am not only addiction, survival, or grief.

I am a whole person.

I laugh. I parent. I write. I notice the moon. I get far too competitive. I enjoy things. And over the next three days, I want to write about some of those things too.

Not because life is suddenly easy. Not because everything feels fixed. Not because I have somehow become a permanently positive person overnight.

But because even in the middle of hard things, there are still small things that make me feel like me.

Today, I want to write about gaming.

To some people, gaming probably looks like sitting in front of a screen, pressing buttons, wasting time. But for me, it has become something else entirely. It is an escape, yes, but not in a running away from life kind of way. More like a place where my brain can breathe for a while.

When I game, I am not just mam. I am not just the person carrying bills, appointments, worries, trauma, memories, and all the things that seem to live loudly in my head. For a little while, I get to be focused. Competitive. Determined. Completely in the moment.

There is something strangely powerful about being the last one standing in a game. About hearing people cheer you on. About a stranger saying, “you’ve got this,” and somehow, even through a headset, it lands somewhere deep.

Maybe that sounds silly to some people. But I think joy often does sound silly when you try to explain it. The things that save us for a moment do not always look important from the outside.

Gaming gives me that small rush of confidence I do not always find easily in real life. It gives me laughter. It gives me connection. It gives me a space where I can be good at something without having to explain myself first.

I started a YouTube channel a year ago and never really did much with it. It has a couple videos where I practised what I love.

It is an area where I’m trying to push myself into. And I am still finding my feet with it, but I wanted a place to share that side of me too. Not the polished, perfect version. Just the real one. The mam who writes. The woman who has survived things. The person who still gets nervous, still laughs, still panics under pressure, still tries, still plays.

I also love video editing.

It is something I have taught myself, slowly, probably messily at times, but with genuine enjoyment. I am not amazing at it, and I am not going to pretend I am some professional editor. But I love the process of taking little clips, cutting them together, matching them with music, and watching something become more than the pieces it started with.

There is something really satisfying about creating something from nothing. A few clips, a song, a moment, a feeling, and suddenly it becomes a tiny little story.

I have a TikTok too, where I put smaller videos and little edits. Again, it is not about being perfect. It is not about trying to look like I have everything together. It is just another space where I get to make things, share things, and enjoy something that belongs to me.

And this week, I am going to push myself to make another one.

Not because I feel fully confident. Not because I suddenly know exactly what I am doing. But because sometimes getting back into something starts with one small step. One clip. One song. One edit. One tiny act of trying again.

I want to get back into it, not with pressure, but with curiosity. To remind myself that I am allowed to create simply because I enjoy it.

My blog will always hold the deeper parts of me, because that is part of my truth. But this is part of my truth too.

I enjoy gaming.

I enjoy editing.

I enjoy music.

I enjoy the challenge of it.
I enjoy the chaos of it.
I enjoy the tiny victories.
I enjoy the moments where, for once, my mind is not dragging me backwards.

And maybe that matters more than people realise.

Because healing is not only found in therapy rooms, hard conversations, or painful reflection. Sometimes it is found in the small things we still choose. The things that remind us we are more than what hurt us.

Sometimes it is found in a game, a headset, a laugh, a win, a loss, a clip, a song, an edit, and pressing play again.

So this is me introducing another little corner of myself.

Beneath the bottle, there is survival.
But there is joy there too.

https://youtube.com/@gamingmam8?si=Hyw2MGi-bZjNIEwh

@gamingmam