Asmongold opens up on his battle with Twitch anxiety: “I just feel like a loser”

Asmongold may be taking another break from Twitch very soon, with the popular streamer opening up on his ongoing struggles with “performance stress” and major anxiety from broadcasting over the past eight years.

The Twitch star has been streaming since 2014.

In that time he’s grown his modest World of Warcraft audience into one of the biggest on the Amazon-owned platform. Right now, Asmongold boasts a massive two million Twitch followers, and has raked in 12.3k subscribers in June.

Across his eight years, the streamer has inked his name into the Twitch history books plenty of times too. When WoW Classic first launched in 2019 the 30-year-old helped the category crack one million viewers, and cracked personal records when he first hit level 60 on the same remastered title.

It’s clear the popular star has enjoyed plenty of success on Twitch. Beneath the surface, however, Asmongold admits he’s “struggling with really bad anxiety.”

The problem, Asmongold explained during a June 14 stream on his ‘zackrawrr’ account, has been something that has plagued him since he was young. It’s “not exactly depression,” he said, but he gets “overwhelmed” with performance anxiety.

“It gets in my head, and I can’t really deal with it. I’ve tried to do other things [instead of playing World of Warcraft] on my stream, and when things happen I don’t expect I just shut down completely,” the streamer revealed.

“I have horrible performance anxiety.

“I can’t even pretend [to be okay] either, when it happens, and it does really make me feel like complete shit, right? I’m not really… it makes me feel like a loser.

(Trigger warning: suicide).

“That’s really what it is. I sit there, and I’m thinking ‘everyone else can do this properly,’ and then I just can’t. It makes me feel like I’m a failure, in a way. I just can’t deal with it. I just can’t f**king deal with it. Honestly, looking back at footage [and seeing his reactions] makes me want to kill myself. It’s really bad.”

He added: “Streaming puts a huge amount of stress on me.”

Twice recently Asmongold has taken extended breaks from streaming in a bid to “manage” his issues, and the streamer admits there’s every likelihood he’ll have to take more time off in the future too, as his anxiety problems continue.

“It’s why I have to take breaks,” he said.

He repeated, “It’s why I have to take breaks. I don’t want to be in that mindset. It’s really bad, because I’m just so… the word isn’t depressed. I’m just disappointed in myself. I try so hard to get over it, and I can’t. There’s lots of different methods I try, and nothing works. I think it’s disgusting, and I’ve always been like this.

Asmongold confirmed he’s planning another hiatus: “I spend a lot of time trying to be another person. It’s all so exhausting. That’s why I have to take a break.”

If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, or know anyone that is, and you would like to talk to someone, please reach out and call the Suicide Prevention Helpline 1-800-273-8255 (USA), the Samaritans 116-123 (UK), or Lifeline 13-11-14 (AUS).