André Brännvall · @Yammyn_
5th Nov 2018 from TwitLonger
i won't be attending worlds
So a few days ago I made the toughest decision of my life, i will not be attending Dreamhack Atlanta. I will start from the start and try to explain everything without trying to drag it out so heres my story.
So i think it was a month and a half ago back in the Spain house we had some amazing scrims and everything felt good, i went to grab a beer from the fridge to relax with after the scrim session, drank it and my head just clicked after 10-15 min and i got insanely stressed and got a panic attack. I never had something like that before in my entire life and i never get stressed normally. I thought it would go over, maybe it was a bad beer or something like that, it didnt... Could not sleep at all the first night and had really bad sleep the entire week. Just felt super stressed the entire time and was on the ridge of panic attacks all the time. Was more than a handful of late night phone calls with friends and family trying to put words of what i was feeling, i felt like that was the hard part trying to explain whats going on.
Had trouble sitting still, had tunnel vision, super stressed, bad sleep and felt like i was going to have a panic attack every second, this list goes on for a while.
I just felt worse and worse everytime i played Smite and had to scrim, super wierd cause i really do love the game and i love the team and the atmosphere and i especially love to compete.This happened during SPL so i could just not stop playing the game unfortunately, i pushed through the SPL feeling super shit and playing even worse and it was only getting worse.
We stopped scrimming completely, it was that bad that i could not even play the game. Only thing that made me feel better was exercising so i trained 3 times a day since the devils beer or whatever u want to call it just to feel better. Flew home and still felt super bad the first few days, went to see doctors and everyone i could to try to get this diagnosed. Figured out it was performance anxiety and then i get anxiety that i dont want to feel as bad as i did in Spain. So everytime i play smite or even spectate games i get in that competitive mindset i have and i just feel terrible again. Started feeling better slowly with time and all the symptoms i had were mostly gone except tunnel vision.
Didnt play smite or do anything related and i also stopped with alcohol and coffee since i got this, it just made my head spin even more than it is already. Felt pretty happy and excited that it was getting better and was getting really pumped to play Dreamhack Atlanta and bootcamp and have sooooo much fun with the boys and meet all the amazing fans and friends that im lucky to have due to this game. Flight to bootcamp was booked the 1st november and i was on the way to the airport, started tearing up and getting the same feeling i had in Spain the closer i got to the airport. It ended up with me going back home, i could just not step on that plane no matter how much i wanted to. All i want to do was to get on the plane and play on stage but it really doesent matter what i want cause it was just not happening, my body was saying no. It really just sucks cause the team gets super fucked with me leaving like this and i feel shit if i stay home,but i feel even worse if i fly over to America. I just needed to put my health infront of everything with this, needed to be selfish to not make this alot worse.
I personally think it was alot of stuff building up to this, i think my last year has been super up and down. I think my childhood house burning down was a big part of this and then leaving the family shortly after to go to Spain was also a part of it. All the pressure over the years to play with such high octance gameplay didnt really help either but thats just part of what made me play good and motivate me to get better everyday.
Only way to treat this stress and performance anxiety is time and thats unfortunetly something i didnt have enough off to heal this before Dreamhack so hopefully i can heal enough to play another season, thats what my goal is atleast but we will see what the body says about that when we get closer.
I think i could tell my story about 50 times longer but i will spare you that. Im not sure what the future will hold for me, maybe i wont be able to touch smite again who knows. Im just super lucky that i have the best team and family on earth to understand what im going through and are willing to help me no matter what. Also NRG and Hirez are super supportive and i could honestly not ask for anyone better to represent or play for, they would do anything for me aswell and its just amazing that so many people care. This is not only a job for me, its something im really passionate about and love to do. Im just blessed that the hard work and passion that my teammates has put in made us win 2 worlds and so many unforgettable memories that i will tell my grandkids in the future. Im lucky i have all the titles and trophies that i have but i really want more, to be continued....
Also good luck to all the friends over in America, cherish the moment for me and tweet me all the pictures, ill be sitting at home crying. Much love