Gelball Stories

For a very long time i have suffered from extreme social anxiety and depression, which meant i have to take many types of medication daily. These medications have lead to weight gain which makes things even worse. Gel Ball has helped me meet new people and has helped with my mental health so much that i am slowly reducing the medication that I take, with zero ill effects and at the same time I am in the sun getting much needed exercise. It’s like the Mens Shed but you get to run around shooting each other 🙂 I also enjoy working on and customizing gel blasters as well as seeing what other players have done to their blasters and equipment. It’s such a great environment no matter what your age, race or sex. Everybody is very friendly, supportive and willing to lend a hand if you’re having mechanical problems or other issues.

I am an ex cosplayer who due to financial restrictions and COVID couldn’t afford to feed my hobby anymore. I have two young kids and a loving wife so when Gelball came along I saw it as an opportunity to do one last cosplay only this one had to be practical. I fell in love with tinkering with the gear used in the sport and probably spent more money on that than my blasters. When I finally game out to skirmish I found a heap of like minded people who shared the experience and knowledge with me. My favourite moments playing was when I was teamed up with people and actually used some real world tactics to defeat enemy players. I had a blast playing this sport and I’m sad that not only has it been ripped from us but torn away from all of the people really benefiting from taking up this hobby.

Gel ball and the community and staff from cqb have been vital part of my personal recovery.
I would play every Friday night with my best friend jade, one night when I was playing at cqb when I got A phone call from jades mum telling me that jade had died in a car crash, instantly the staff working that night opened up there arms and took care of me sat me down gave me something to drink and a place to just try and relax and then they gave a me a lift home and brought my car aswell. Not only was the staff amazing that night but the gel ball community was aswell, I was sitting out front balling my eyes out crying when a bloke came over and sat with me calming me and helping me and that person is now my best friend and we have played every Tuesday night together since then.

After jade died I went into a mental health clinic to try get back on track. Whilst in the clinic the staff from cqb And the community from cqb did everything they could to help and support me, I wouldn’t be back in a stable and secure position in life if it wasn’t for my family at cqb.

Gel ball isn’t about guns(proper name is blasters) or violence gel ball is what brings people together to enjoy a sport which we love

Paintball guns and games are very expensive and cause alot of injuries but with these gel blaster’s and the games that follow means you don’t have to spend big amounts of money. You don’t get the bigger injury’s with the gel balls and if you compare that the gel balls are 100% environmentally friendly were the paint ball ammo is the complete opposite of eco-friendly go figure.
Getting into the world of gel balling means that you can connect alot closer to your kids without having to spend big in the dollar figure and it helps detach our kids from there phone’s, social media, PS4, X-box and so on and gets them out into the real world and into the sun light.
Now for people like me who want to get into the gel ball games 100% then you will indeed put some serious funds into you blaster’s and accessories and since the government made these legal alot of us have spent huge dollars so if the ban stays the government will have to reimburse us back for every dollar that we will lose having to had over our blaster’s to the police so get ready to be sued Western Australian Government by thousands of people.
I myself from the dates of 13th April 2020 to 31st May 2021 have invested $4,515.68 and there is no way the government can say to bad hand it all over.

My son suffers social anxiety and depression. He has been trying hard attending specialists and making effort to go out and start to build a life for himself. He went to perth gel blasters bought a toy blaster and planned to join on his next payday with family to socialise in an activity that was both social, energetic with friendly helpful people. We are greatly disappointed especially for him. He also loves paintballing but it becomes so expensive to participate on any regular basis. Can only afford to paintball once yearly. Perth gel blasters was an affordable place for him to build confidence in a safe place. Hoping gel blasters can afford the same luxury at least of paintball. Such a lovely community a great loss for our many young men (and ladies).

I’ve suffered severe Clinical Depression and Anxiety Disorder for more years than I care to, or even can, think about. This has led to long term social isolation.

A friend, knowing I’m ex-Army, thought that Gel Blasters would help me out of my shell. He showed me his blaster and invited me to a meet. I was intrigued but very apprehensive to be surrounded by so many people. Just going for my weekly shop is an excercise in fear.

Nevertheless, I dug deep and found a tiny part of the courage that served me so well as a Soldier. So I went and I haven’t looked back! Now I can relate to the community (and not just the Gel community!). I look at leaving my home as potential fun, not certain fear. My mental health has progressed in leaps and bounds!

My psychiatrist is amazed at my progress after years of suicidal misery! To take away our Gel Blasters, with less than three weeks notice and no community consultation or offer of compensation? On the whim of one man who said “i don’t care. Find a new hobby.”

Absolutely unconscionable! And what harm will such a decision do to me? My health, both mental and physical will be set back years.

You tube videos tends to focus on the macho cosplay side of the sport. Until a friend took me to a gruelling 6 hour outdoor game. I’m fat, 60 year old man with a bum leg, I can’t jump nor run, but oh boy, I enjoyed every minute of it. This is what a community sport is. Young or old, fat or thin, small or big, single or family, everybody can enjoy it. This is a brain experience. You form a story in your mind where you are a the hero, even the villain, a tactician or a rambo, be a general or a grunt. You don’t even need a blaster. Be a medic, nurse, ref, film maker, hostage, rescuer, the bravest or the coward, whatever. Camaraderie is amazing, no bad vibes, sharing is great. So many stories. So sad it has to end. Only been on 3 games.

Starting off it was just a cool thing to do with my friends. First game was a blast I managed to break the hire blaster rip in peace’s there went $25 oh well was amazing fun. For a while I didn’t have my own but hired or borrowed from friends, until my special friend gave me one of theirs. It was great.
It was the first time exercise has ever been fun for me to do only sport I find interest in. It also helped me in unexpected ways. Ive got PTSD and anxiety( anxiety makes the PTSD worse and having PTSD gives me anxiety so its a deadly mix). Ive had Anxiety all my life and most of the time its constant, PTSD I’ve had for a few years now got it from events I went through 2018 and since then I’ve been rather useless to everyone and everything. I haven’t gotten away from either all together but for the first time in my life I’ve felt what its like not to have anxiety for an entire day even a week or so it was great. My PTSD has been much better too. I usually have to deal with flashbacks and nightmares every other week and ‘waves’ as they are called of time when it gets really bad for me and I’m stuck with flashbacks and nightmares daily and I became rather useless for as much as a month. But for the entire time I’ve been gellballing I’ve had very few problems a nightmare once in a while or a flashback but not anything that I couldn’t deal with reassembly easily. I’ve been So good that I managed to go to tafe and get my first certificate since school and I planned on going back and doing more study.
Gellballing has transformed my life from a fight every day to want to get up and do anything, into a Life where I can see myself getting a job and not being dragged down by my past. Unfortunately as for the ban of gellballing I see myself going down hill really fast, Its been really stressful sending emails to everyone I can and doing everything possible to save my sport.

Its been so much fun going out and playing. Good exercise which is enjoyable (for the first time in my life I’ve been interested in doing it), Great fun with friends and the best and most unexpected, It helps me with my mental health problems.
I’ve got PTSD and a Generalised anxiety disorder(anxiety both is made worse by my PTSD and makes it worse) and gelball has helped me so much with both. Before the ban was announced I had almost no anxiety, which for me having to deal with my anxiety all the time is normal. This has meant that instead of having nightmares and flashbacks a couple times a month and times/waves of PTSD that sometimes last up to a month, It for the most part hasn’t been happening and when it does its really easy to deal with. This has meant that I have been able to go to tafe and get my first 2 certifications outside of school and all within 1 month of each other. But with gellballing being banned I fear a really bad wave coming to get me and I’m not going to be able to ride this wave this time.

It has allowed me to interact with new interesting people and learn lots about their lives. It is a great social environment and the people have a great sense of community. It has also allowed me to think technically about the sport, through repairing the blasters. This has allowed me to develop technical skills and build on my engineering degree in a sport.

(The image is of me and my brother taking a photo before a game)