Interactivity Helps me Cope With Chronic Apathy

Whodin discusses how, after suffering from depression and apathy in his childhood, video games were one of the few things that could make him excited again.

While I wouldn’t outright say that video games “saved my life” (even though they pretty much were the only thing helping me stay sane through most of my childhood thanks to a spectacularly volatile home situation), as much as I would that they /gave/ me one. I have in retrospect discovered that virtually all of the things that I am interested in today stem from video games.

Due to childhood PTSD, I suffer from severe bouts of depression and, more importantly, apathy, to the point of rendering me almost mute at times, and when this happens, I find it difficult if not impossible to motivate myself to do anything - even play video games. But my love for the medium has kept me going, kept my spirits high, and really allowed me to function even with this problem through most of my life. Video games have given birth to so many sparks of interest, so many buds of hope that otherwise would not have flourished.

I have been teaching myself music, both composing and performing, thanks to the works of composers like Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda and Akira Yamaoka, as well as more recent music games such as Beatmania and DJ MAX. I became interested in foreign languages and linguistics, which is now my major field of study, thanks to a strong desire in my teenage years to learn Japanese so I could play all of those amazing games that Japan was “keeping all to themselves.”

I got into writing, as embarrassing as it may be, from an interest in fan fiction, and later, scriptwriting. I became interested in software development when I learned more about AI in video games, and wanted to come up with innovative ways of improving them (though this obviously never panned out). Even sociology and psychology became interesting subjects for me after playing MMOs and experiencing the ways in which people communicate and behave differently in such settings.

Of course, there were other things that supplementarily got me interested in the above. Books (particularly high-fantasy like Tolkien, which really helped kickstart my language fetish) and anime among others have further expanded my horizons, but none have affected me so thoroughly and deeply as have video games. They have taught me about love, prejudice (and being an LGBT person such lessons are invaluable), the human condition, and emotions that I probably would have otherwise not known that I had the capacity to feel.

When I say “I don’t know where I would be without them,” I truly mean it, and I can say so proudly and without shame, because I know how powerful they can be, I know how important interactive media is to the world. I always get infuriated when people dismiss video games as a whole medium as being a “waste of time”, because they simply refuse to accept the fact that video games have affected the lives of many, many people throughout the world, and in some cases, saved them. In my case, I would not have a life without them.

I cannot put a quantity or a value on how video games have enriched my life, far beyond the world behind the controller. It seems that almost every day I discover yet another little thing that video games have done for me, and it always makes me smile. I just wish I could give back to the industry even a fraction of what it has given me over my almost 22 years of existence.  

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    lovely story — resonates...multiple ways now,...playing...
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    “ severe bouts of depression and, more importantly, apathy, to the point of rendering me almost mute at times, and when...
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