I feel like I have finally hit my limit and I am honestly exhausted on a level I cannot even explain. I love video games. They help me decompress when life feels overwhelming and they give me a place to focus on something fun instead of stress or anxiety.

A lot of the games I play are online and they use voice chat so teammates can actually communicate and work together. In theory this is supposed to make the experience smoother. It is supposed to help with strategy and teamwork. It should be simple and normal and not a big deal at all.

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Except the second they hear my voice everything changes. The energy shifts so fast that my stomach drops before I even finish my first sentence. I hear the same lines over and over again. Are you a girl. Get off the mic. We lost because we have a girl on our team. This is the mild stuff. Some of the things people have said to me hit way deeper. Some of it is sexual. Some of it is violent. Some of it is so degrading that I log off and just sit there feeling small and angry at the same time.

It sounds dramatic but the harassment gets in your head after a while. It chips away at your confidence and you start questioning whether you should just stay silent forever. I have tried to push through it. I have tried to pretend it does not bother me. I have tried muting, blocking and ignoring but it still shifts the way you feel about yourself and the world. The misogyny is so aggressive and immediate that it makes me feel unsafe and embarrassed for simply existing.

I hate that I am scared to speak. I hate that my voice alone triggers this much anger. I hate that something as harmless as gaming becomes a battlefield for sexism, bullying and harassment. It kills the joy. It kills the fun. It makes me feel disconnected from something I used to love.

At this point I have just stopped using voice chat entirely. It is sad because communication is supposed to be part of the game. Instead I am left dealing with this frustration and this quiet grief that something I enjoy is also something that wears me down emotionally. I know I am not the only woman who goes through this. I know a lot of us have faced this kind of hate online. It is draining. It is lonely. It is unfair. And it makes me wonder when things will ever get better.

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