Trophies for Mental Health III

[Landertjuuh]

Disclaimer: minor spoilers

Finshed up Claire a few days ago and finally got around to writing my thoughts on the game. The main character is well.. Claire. She is a young woman who is forced to look after her hospitalized mother after her father dies by tragic means. The game's main theme is horror but mental health elements are definitely present. Additonally, the story is pretty open for interpretation and vague at times but you can figure out the meaning behind it all. Her story is mostly told by flashbacks of her sad past. She had a troubled upbringing with parents who very much neglected her most of the time. They argued a lot and didn't pay much attention to her. 

 

To be honest, i'm not quite sure if Claire has a specific illness but one of the core mechanics is the stress level. If her stress is too high the game gets very loud and the screen gets darker and less clear. This leads me to believe Claire has anxiety. Throughout the game you are also accompanied by her best friend, her dog. This dog acts as a sort of support animal.

 

While playing you can also find other lost souls who you can help by talking to them or bringing them something they want. Every person you meet has their own unique set of problems. Problems such as: depression, not fitting in, severe guilt,...  Saving enough of these souls can help you get the good ending but I won't spoil it in case anyone still wants to play it. It's a confusing game at times but it's short and sweet with a lot of story to tell. Definitely recommend it but only if you're into horror as it is the main theme of the game. 

[reaperveteran86]

 

I finished Sea of Solitude.

In the game you play as Kay, a 20 something woman, who awakes on a boat in a flooded city and is turned into a monster and lost her memories for unknown reasons. She now must traverse the city and avoid roaming monsters to get her memories back and turn herself back into a human.

The mental health aspects are a large part of the story, so I put it in a spoiler tag.

Spoiler

The complete game plays in her mind (this is a interpretation from me, because the game isn`t clear about it) and the monsters are all members of her family or aspects of her personality. The game is split up into 12 chapters (named after songs like One and Paint it Black) but actually there is only a prologue, 4 chapters and an epilogue.

Each chapter deals with one of the monsters/family members and their mental health problems and that Kay hasn`t/didn`t want to noticed them in the past.

The first is about her 12 years younger brother (giant raven that reminded me of Trico from the Last Guardian somehow) who got bullied in school and thinks of commiting suicide because of it.

The second is about her parents (father: fire breathing chameleon, mother: Kraken) who are stuck in an unhappy marriage but dosen`t want a divorce because of the children, so the father takes refuge in work (I`m not entirely sure if this is the right term to express this. In german I would say, he "flüchtet sich in Arbeit" which means he works a lot to escape his family problems) and the mother tries to bind the father more on the family through things like buying a house (which has the opposite effect).

The third chapter is about Kay`s boyfriend (first a white wolf but actually some sort of hellhound), who she is in an happy relationship with until he develops a severe case of depression.

She deals with all of this problems (symbolised through a black fog) by sucking them all into her backpack, which grows bigger and bigger until it bursts at the end of chapter 3 and let all the black fog now centers around her.

Now I come to the other kind of monsters: the parts of her personality. There are four of them:

The player character, a black, hairy human like creature.

The girl: a happy and positive being in a yellow raincoat, that transforms in the boyfriend chapter into something more horrible.

The whale: a monster that lurks in the water and is the main enemy for the most part of the game. Tries to lure the player character into the water and wants to devour her (could be a representation of lurking depression).

And the sea shell hag: a older woman, who confronts Kay with her flaws and mistakes but does this so that Kay can grow on them.

After the events at the end of chapter 3, Kay gets help from  girl and sea shell hag to overcome the threat that is the whale once and for all

The chapter ends with Kay accepting all the different sides of her personality and goes over in an epilouge/credits where Kay is human again on a sunny beach.

 

The game was good and I would definitly recommend it for anyone who hasn`t played it, but I have one point that I doesn`t like and that are the trophies.Most come natural through playing, but there are a few for collectibles that may require a guide that could spoil parts of the narrative and there are a few for doing a certain thing a certain time trophies which are contraproductive for the games message (for example: a big part of the game is to avoid the whale (depression?), which is easy for the most part, but this means, that after you saw how Kay came to terms with it, you have to reload a earlier chapter just to let yourself devour by it 20 times for the trophy).

 

 

 

[Fenrirfeather]

10 more days to go and that should be plenty for an indie or two, I’m signing up. ╰(✧∇✧)

 

[pelagia14]

Chicory: A Colorful Tale (PS5)

 

Platinum: Click Here!

Rarity: 22.10% (Uncommon)

 

GAME REFLECTIONS:

The premise of Chicory is simple: Your character Pizza was the janitor for Chicory, the land's current Wielder (aka person with the magical Brush that has the ability to bring color to everything). At the beginning of the game, all of the color has been drained out of the world and Chicory has gone missing! Pizza finds her magic brush, and travels around the region bringing color back to the area, helping people, and trying to figure out what caused the colors to disappear in the first place.

 

Mild spoilers for the early parts of the story are brought up below.

 

Depression and Anxiety are the major themes addressed by the narrative. 

 

Depression: You first meet Chicory early in Chapter 2 of the story, and discover that she is very depressed. She speaks in short phrases, as talking requires an insurmountable level of effort, and clearly wants to be left alone. She seems to have lost any passion for art and her position as a Wielder, and tells Pizza that since she already has the Brush, she can just keep it.

 

Chicory's character arc focuses on coming to grips with the mental thought patterns that brought about her depression in the first place. Without going into specifics, she does get a happy ending. Moreover, I really appreciated that the ending wasn't just "Chicory is happy again, so everything can go back to normal!" Instead, Chicory's growth over the course of the story causes her to mature as a person and is what allows her to make big gains at overcoming her depressive funk. Media often depicts depression as something that people can just choose to "get over", but it was very refreshing to see that Chicory's depressive thoughts didn't just magically disappear. She is doing a lot better by the end of the game, but is still on the journey towards better mental health. 

 

The game also touches on how society expects successful people to be happy, and their privilege or position means that they should somehow be immune to experiencing something like depression. 

 

Anxiety: Pizza's biggest obstacle is that she doesn't feel worthy of being a Wielder, and she constantly worries that she was just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to get the magic Brush, versus having any innate artistic talent. Chicory's conversation with Pizza right before the final encounter in the game was beautifully written. 

 

Pizza also feels the need to help everyone around her, possibly due to her low self-esteem. At one point [her sister? can't remember who] tells her point blank that she doesn't have to help solve everyone else's problems, and it's okay to just focus on herself sometimes. This is also lampshaded by a pair of NPCs. When you interact with them, one of them asks you to complete a (not at all important) request for them. The other one says "You can't just ask the Wielder to do that!" and Pizza replies along the lines of "Don't worry, everyone does it."

 

Obviously, as the playable character, over the course of the story Pizza is able to accomplish a lot of things. For a while, she still doesn't see the value in her actions, but eventually she does gain some confidence as she sees that she was able to do some pretty incredible things despite not having faith in herself in those moments. As with Chicory, Pizza is still navigating through her anxiety at the end of the game, but has made major strides in the right direction. 

[Starrk_01]

 

Bonus game completed...in this platformer there are a couple levels which you are on a board where you are either snowboarding or wakeboarding through the level. Percentage was 47.96% as of completion. 

[GT__Jedi]

Shady Part of Me

 

 

This game encompasses those awful, weird nightmares you had as a kid (or still do) whereas you are in a mental hospital, asylum, a prison (heavy thoughts for a kid) or could it be an orphanage?  There are two of you: which one is real and which one is your other self? Or, are they the one and the same with two personalities?  One of you is afraid of the light; the other afraid of the dark.  The only thing you can think of is to escape, but you need both of you to work together to get out of this place.  But, you and your doppelganger aren't alone in this place; there is "The Other" and whimsical other characters you will meet (and actually make it a little easier) to complete those final levels.

 

There are also origamis to collect.  Are they a grasp at hope?  Will collecting them help you escape?  I was actually hoping the origamis would reveal something at the end, either about yourself or the world around you, but they didn't.

 

This game made me think of Fear.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of what is real, and what is not.  Is that imaginary friend real, or is it another part of you, where the escape is to another self? What is reality?

 

Excellent Game!  Play it!

[Sylvanticore]

Hello everyone!

 

So it's time for the Bonus game! I had a few ideas of what I might do which included Bugsnax since it had you catching bugs and taking pictures of the Bugsnax themselves! Continuing on the photograph aspect I thought I could do Bioshock since you are required to take pictures of enemies! However the enemies are normally in combat with you and to be honest you're not really outside, you're underwater and stuck in a metal city. Another idea was maybe I'll do Jedi Survivor because you're always out and about, running and jumping, riding on animals but not really been feeling that game and the other one was Monster Hunter World: Iceborne because you were always gathering materials from rocks and plants as well as fishing and capturing bugs, but I wasn't going to get that done in the next few days so I decided on something else.

 

Tunic

 

Now if you haven't played Tunic or really looked into it you'll find a rather cute little open world zelda like game with soulslike aspects that will have you scratching your head as you're going a long because you won't know what you're really suppose to do. However as you play you start to pick up scraps of paper that turn out to actually be the instruction manual for the game, helping you piece together what you have to do, Quite a delightful little game in my opinion.

 

So why am I using this game for the bonus game? well I'll tell you if you give me a moment! So I wasn't actually going to use this game for the4 event as I was just doing it for a different event, however I looked at the wording of the bonus game "Simply play a game where you have to go outside and do physical activities in the game that's not fighting/physical violence (combat). This can be sports, cooking, fishing, camping, swimming, etc" So while the things I'm about to say are not what you would think of as PHYSICAL activities, I am thinking about them as things you would go outside to do.

 

The things that did come to mind while I was playing this game were the environments, this game is beautfiul in places and you wouldn't mind that just by sitting inside unless you were looking at pictures online. Through out the game you do a lot of climbing, this can be ladders, ropes and at one point even scaling a mountain AND A FREAKING SKY LIBRARY! in game of course that is nothing for many video game characters but in real life, that takes a lot of effort. (At least the rope and mountain anyway, you won't find me climbing those things!). There was one thing I wanted to at least put in this, during the game you will find wells, these are wishing wells that you can use to increase slots your character uses for buffs, to use them you can find coins that you use to throw into the well. I know other than climbing that much of this doesn't sound like physical activities to many people, but to someone like me, unable to really get out and have a hard time walking at points during the day, even just walking is a hard physical activity.

[MattbluePT]

This weekend I have finished Final Fantasy IX, which has some fun physical activities such as frog catching and jumping rope (fun, he says ?).

 

Also, I've played Celeste , despite already having completed a game for this event, as it has been pointed out to be a very good game that touches the mental health theme and is available on PS+ Extra. I can't recommend it enough. My girlfriend suffers from anxiety and depression, and this game gave me a different perspective about this mental illnesses. Although they aren't new to me, it was interesting the approach they took and how they explained the feelings and what people suffering this kind of mental illnes goes through.

 

If anyone is still needing a game for this event, play Celeste. If you haven't played, even if you already played a game for this event, play Celeste if you have the opportunity. It's definitekly worth it!

[Cassylvania]

Well, this has been a busy month. I didn't get to all the games I wanted, so I guess I'll have to look through the ones I finished and see which one fits the event the best. Let's see... I did Haven, The Artful Escape, Deliver Us The Moon, Doom Eternal, and Inside. None of them are particularly outdoorsy for the bonus badge. Particularly that last one. Wow, I'm bad at this.

 

OK, uh... So, The Artful Escape is a game about finding out who you're not. That's how it advertises itself. You play as the nephew of a famous country musician. After your uncle dies, everybody in your small town expects you to carry on his legacy, but you'd rather play rock 'n roll. I was instantly reminded of Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. I don't think that's what the developers were going for. But the point is that a lot of people really do feel like the black sheep in their family. I don't want to make this sound like a sob story because I was blessed with a really good family, even if we didn't always get along (and still don't), but expectations can be a lot to put on a person -- especially if they aren't committed to that path. In the game, you're whisked away by Carl Weathers to explore the cosmos. It's not really clear to me whether it was intended to be a whimsical adventure or a drug-induced dream, but I think I'm going to go with the former. I like when fantastical journeys are real, and it reminds me of something like Alice in Wonderland or Narnia or The Wizard of Oz or Harry Potter, where the main character travels to this exotic world in order to grow as a person. That's the biggest reason I hate the whole "It was all just a dream" ending. If you take away that journey, then you're essentially rejecting the growth that came with it. You might as well not even have a story then. Fortunately, The Artful Escape does a tasteful job at pretty much everything it sets out to do, and I definitely think it's worth playing. It's free right now on PS+.

 

Yes, I know the platinum is super common, but I don't see me having time to complete anything longer by next week.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Cassylvania

[Beyondthegrave07]

8 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Well, this has been a busy month. I didn't get to all the games I wanted, so I guess I'll have to look through the ones I finished and see which one fits the event the best. Let's see... I did Haven, The Artful Escape, Deliver Us The Moon, Doom Eternal, and Inside. None of them are particularly outdoorsy for the bonus badge. Particularly that last one. Wow, I'm bad at this.

 

OK, uh... So, The Artful Escape is a game about finding out who you're not. That's how it advertises itself. You play as the nephew of a famous country musician. After your uncle dies, everybody in your small town expects you to carry on his legacy, but you'd rather play rock 'n roll. I was instantly reminded of Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. I don't think that's what the developers were going for. But the point is that a lot of people really do feel like the black sheep in their family. I don't want to make this sound like a sob story because I was blessed with a really good family, even if we didn't always get along (and still don't), but expectations can be a lot to put on a person -- especially if they aren't committed to that path. In the game, you're whisked away by Carl Weathers to explore the cosmos. It's not really clear to me whether it was intended to be a whimsical adventure or a drug-induced dream, but I think I'm going to go with the former. I like when fantastical journeys are real, and it reminds me of something like Alice in Wonderland or Narnia or The Wizard of Oz or Harry Potter, where the main character travels to this exotic world in order to grow as a person. That's the biggest reason I hate the whole "It was all just a dream" ending. If you take away that journey, then you're essentially rejecting the growth that came with it. You might as well not even have a story then. Fortunately, The Artful Escape does a tasteful job at pretty much everything it sets out to do, and I definitely think it's worth playing. It's free right now on PS+.

 

Yes, I know the platinum is super common, but I don't see me having time to complete anything longer by next week.

So the mental health aspect was the mental stress put on someone by their family name and societal pressures and the growth of figuring out who you are through that struggle?

 

Just wanted to make sure I interpreted that correctly.

[Cassylvania]

1 hour ago, Beyondthegrave07 said:

So the mental health aspect was the mental stress put on someone by their family name and societal pressures and the growth of figuring out who you are through that struggle?

 

Just wanted to make sure I interpreted that correctly.

 

Yup. It's just presented in a creative way.

[Han_the_Dragon]

Bonus game complete! (Now I can rest..).

 

Lost Sphere

 

 

As you can see, I did an outside activity that didn't involved fighting/combat in the game (I think that the fish didn't really agree with our definition, but by our rules it count..).

[MissShake]

I have my bonus game completed!

 

 

In Hogwarts Legacy there is a LOT of walking around outside. There's also caring for magical creatures (including an animal that's basically a cat, and we all know how great petting a cat is for your mental health!), competing in races on your broom, growing plants, and learning about the many secrets of your surroundings. I'd say these all fit for going outside

[Im2Fast_4U]

I have completed both my main game and my bonus game. Unlike many of the past events I've participated in, I did not have a plan going in on how to successfully complete the event. Additionally, time spent writing a trophy guide in the first half of the month really strained my schedule. That's not to mention the standard stressors of life, including a hectic work schedule and trying to learn how to socialize as I am now adulting on my own. I've documented my past traumas regarding those in past event iterations, but generally can say I have made a lot of progress on both of those fronts since January!!! Now for the games:

 

Main Game: The Last of Us Part I (PS5) (Rarity: 45.32% = $3.09)

I struggle to think of what hasn't been said of this game which, to this day, still stands as my personal "best story told in gaming". I think sometimes there can be a bit of disconnect between quality and fun when discussing games. A good game doesn't necessarily need to be fun to play if the intent is to speak to something else, which I think became a prevalent underpinning in the discussions around this game's sequel upon its release in 2020. With that gained context, I feel the first iteration can be examined under the same lens.

 

This game is an emotional rollercoaster. The full highs and lows of human existence are equally displayed, sometimes mere moments apart from each other. How quickly things can change, quite appropriate. Living in a post-apocalyptic world, especially when the zombies outnumber the survivors, leads to a lot of stress, loss, and subsequent trauma. The full range of human response to such loss and trauma is covered in the multitude of characters and enemies encountered throughout the journey. There are many touching moments of finding togetherness in a world that has been torn apart, both socially and for those who have lost everything they knew as an individual. While the highs covered in this game are incredibly touching, the lows are incredibly dark, which is fitting for the world depicted here, and more generally, parallels the realities of life: there will be good days, and there will be bad days, and those will be interrupted by each other. How we respond is up to us.

 

I love this game for what it says. I don't particularly have fun playing this game. It's like a literary classic in that sense, just in a different medium. It is something enjoyed for what it says, not because it is fun to consume. Admittedly I wasn't in the best head space to go through this dark journey, but the positive moments really picked me up when I needed it most, and is great reminder to "look for the light".

 

Bonus Game: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (PS5) (Rarity: 25.09% = $3.50)

In regards to the theme for the bonus badge, Jedi: Survivor has a lot of outdoor physical activity: running (on walls), swinging across ropes, jumping across unfortunately spaced platforms, riding animals (including wannabe chocobos!), spelunking, and more. The main character is getting his exercise in, that's for sure, even before getting into combat. The game also covers many topics relating to mental health in a respectful and subtle manner, struggling to survive widespread persecution for simply existing. This could have easily flip flopped with TLoU for the event purposes as primary vs bonus. This is also the trophy guide I mentioned I was working on, so shameless plug to check out the guide I co-authored if planning on checking it out!

 

Thanks again to @Beyondthegrave07 for orchestrating this event. This is a great way to get people to come together to share their struggles, triumphs, and remind everyone of the resources available to them, here and otherwise.

[lady-reze]

For this event, I played OMORI. 

 

 

OMORI follows a group of childhood friends who drift apart from one another after a tragic event took place. You play as Sunny, a teenage boy who has locked himself away in his room for the past three years following the tragedy. When Sunny goes to sleep, he enters Headspace, an imaginative and dreamlike place where Sunny can relive his happy memories with his childhood friends. The world of Headspace is silly and lighthearted, but every once in a while, something odd happens in Headspace that awakens Sunny back into the real world. As the game goes on, the player is given the option to either stay in Headspace forever, or help Sunny face his trauma and find out the truth about what happened three years ago. 

 

Although presenting to be a rather colorful and lighthearted game, OMORI is actually very dark. There were some parts of this game that genuinely disturbed me. It covers a wide variety of mental health issues such as: depression, anxiety, PTSD, and suicide. This game really touched me and it has honestly become one of my favorite games. The gameplay is fun, the soundtrack and visuals are both gorgeous, and the story itself is heartbreaking, yet still has a touch of hopefulness. I would wholeheartedly recommend anyone to avoid spoilers and go into this blind if they are interested in playing it, so I will try to be as vague and spoiler free as possible!

 

Regarding depression, it's very clear that Sunny is struggling with a depressive state of mind following the incident. He has not left his house in three years, he barely speaks to anyone, and has closed off from all of his friends. Sunny copes with this by entering Headspace in order to repress his trauma and avoid remembering what happened. Depression presents differently in everyone, however, and I think this game did a good job of portraying that. For example, Aubrey, who was once the happy-go-lucky girl in the friend group, became extremely irritable and resentful following the incident, and she eventually became a delinquent. Hero, another friend in the group, completely isolated himself from the group and became consumed in his studies in order to avoid thinking about what happened. As such, it can be said that each member of the friend group developed some kind of PTSD following the tragedy.

 

The topic of anxiety is very prevalent in OMORI. For one, the character Basil is implied to have some sort of anxiety disorder. Whether or not this was developed after the incident is unclear, but Basil constantly appears to be anxious. Many times throughout the game he has to abruptly leave and go to the bathroom due to impending panic attacks. It's also implied that Basil has separation anxiety as his emotions get triggered whenever someone mentions Sunny moving away. Sunny also struggles with anxiety as well, and this is actually shown in the gameplay which is very interesting. Throughout the game, Sunny has to face multiple phobias he has such as drowning, heights, stairs, etc. Being presented with these phobias puts Sunny in a distressed mood. In order to combat this, the player learns skills such as "Calm Down", "Focus", and "Persist" which help Sunny overcome his phobias and anxiety. Sunny's anxiety actually manifests as a monster in the game referred to as SOMETHING, and this is a monster that players will have to battle many times throughout the game. 

 

I still have some more I want to say about this beautiful game, but it will contain major spoilers. As I said before, I highly recommend avoiding spoilers for this game since it's such an amazing experience, but if you don't care about that, or have already played the game then feel free to read! 

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

From the very beginning of the game, it's implied that something has happened to Mari (Sunny's older sister). Eventually, the player finds out that Mari has passed away but how she died is not revealed for a large part of the game. Initially, I assumed Mari had been taken by an illness or some freak accident. Later in the game, when the friend group has reunited, a visit to Sunny's backyard and cut down tree reveals that Mari had taken her own life via hanging. That is the first mention of suicide in this game. However, in a shocking twist, it is revealed that Sunny had actually been the one to kill Mari. During a fight, he had accidentally pushed her and she fell down the stairs and died (which is also why Sunny has panic attacks when walking down the stairs). Basil witnessed this and helped Sunny frame Mari's death as an apparent suicide. Both Sunny and Basil feel intense guilt and remorse over this incident, and have avoided telling their friends what really happened to Mari. In the bad ending of OMORI, both Basil and Sunny can take their own lives due to the guilt of their involvement in Mari's death. These were both extremely unsettling and disturbing parts of the game for me. 

 

The whole thing with Mari's death and Sunny's guilt over it really stuck with me because it reminded me of my own experience. Last year, one of my friends took her own life. The night she died she had invited me to hang out but I had declined because I was so exhausted with work. Finding that out had sent me into a spiral of guilt-ridden depression, and I constantly contemplated how different things would have been if I had hung out with her that night. I really related to the way Sunny and Basil felt, and the good ending of the game where Sunny comes to terms with what happened and learns to forgive himself drove me to tears. It's a big reason as to why this game really meant a lot to me. 

 

 

 

 

Anyways, those are my thoughts on OMORI! I'm sorry for typing a whole essay about this game, but it really moved me! ? I've struggled with anxiety for years and take medication for it, so I related to a lot of the characters in this game. Playing as Sunny fighting his anxiety monster felt very similar to how I try to fight off panic attacks in real life. This game is a tad bit grindy and took me a whole 50 hours to platinum it, so I'm not sure if I'll have time to play the bonus game as May is nearing its end haha. But I'm glad to have played this game and participated in this event! Thank you for hosting and bringing awareness to mental health. ?

[Beyondthegrave07]

Finished my second game with Tales of Arise (38.12 rarity). The game has a fishing mini game which perfectly fits the requirement of going outside.

 

I saved the fishing trophy for last too, and I was REALLY hoping I'd get a screenshot of Kisara catching a fish and share it here. However, I forgot I had to show the fishing expert for the trophy to pop. I had the mustachioed owl on her head, wearing the sad glasses,  and everything ready for it.... Oh well!

 

Anyways, I'll update the OP again with the new entries this weekend. 

[Platinum_Vice]

On 06/05/2023 at 9:56 AM, Platinum_Vice said:

or my secondary game I've been enjoying Elden Ring and have been riding my fat yak across the Lands Between. 

 

 

Stay strong folks! Make sure you seek professional help in emergencies, seek support from friends and family in between, and never stop building on that internal power and drive. Don't forget to #GoOutside!!

 

Just checking in to say that I have completed my #GoOutside bonus game. Congrats to everyone that also completed their bonus game too.

 

Going outside can feature breathtaking graphics and I sometimes feel like the gameplay is lacking and the difficulty is unreasonable, BUT it is very commonly attributed to mental health and it improves all of those other things (socialising, physical health) that also lead into better mental health, so take the plunge more often, folks. Be good. ?

 

[pelagia14]

Lost Ember

Platinum Trophy: Click Here!

Rarity: 36.78% (Uncommon)

 

Finished my #GoOutside Game!

 

In Lost Ember, you play as something-more-than-a-wolf, followed around by what looks like a pink Navi from Zelda but is a soul. As the "wolf" you run around varying (outdoor) environments and come across 'memory fragments' as you (and the characters) try to piece together what happened. Wolf can also temporarily possess the bodies of other wildlife which is needed to navigate certain environmental obstacles. You can swim as a fish, fly as a duck or hummingbird, and dig underground as an armadillo! 

 

I didn't find the gameplay itself to be that riveting. The story was mildly interesting towards the end but could have been executed a lot better, in my opinion. Finding all of the game's 142 mushroom collectibles was very annoying, even with the help of a guide. 

[Landertjuuh]

Current rarity: 16.48%

 

Also completed my #GoOutside bonus game. While the game is pretty violent it also includes things relevant to going outside without the use of combat. In the intro cutscene the characters can be seen swimming, diving, riding a jetski, skydiving,... You can also do all of these things in free roam. Had lots of fun completing this game, I recommend it to all of the 2 people that haven't played it yet. ?

[Beyondthegrave07]

I think I'm caught up again so if I missed you, let me know. I haven't had time to read everything and some of these games being played I know work and don't want them spoiled so if I missed you or your second game, I'm sorry.

 

I will leave this open for a while so if any of the participants come in late with their entry, that's fine. As long as the game is completed in May and you signed up before completing it.

[rjkclarke]

Last Day of June

 

 

The way Last Day of June handles mental health is a little..... strange shall we say.... It works, and it is most definitely effective, but unfortunately it feels a little ham-fisted and unsubtle with the way in which it tackles the effects of peoples Mental Health struggles....

 

It does deserve credit, of course it does, for telling its story without much subtext... but it's also incredibly brutal and hopeless at the same time. In a way it is fairly easy to directly compare it to the game I played for this event last year Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.... Last Day of June is not a game you're likely to really retain fond memories of. Not because it's bad, it very much isn't - it's just easier to say that you have an appreciation for a game like this more than liking it.

 

How exactly does it tackle Mental Health though? Well, I probably need to use spoiler tags for this one, as context really is everything.

 

Spoiler

The essential gameplay loop of Last Day of June, is the player character Carl, a wheelchair bound man, using spirit imbibed paintings to travel back in time in the hopes of saving his wife June from a fatal car crash. 

 

That seems simple enough, right? In essence yes, but it teases you with the notion that you can change the events.... and much like reality, you actually can't... Which leads Carl into an increasing cycle of frustration and anger.

 

One aspect that Last Day of June handles really well regarding mental health is the inescapable nature of things like depression, where you can only really keep them at bay, and much like Hellblade reiterates so effectively - in some form or another those struggles can always effect you.

Last Day of June plays into that really well in how it handles that helplessness and powerless feeling that comes alongside of losing a loved one... Plotwise it manifests itself really cleverly, with how Carl is willing to try increasingly more extreme measures to try and make sure that June survives only to be met with the harsh reality every time that he's still going to lose the one that he loves. Awful things happen, yet however much we want to we still can't stop them from happening, and it's unfortunately a reality we're all going to face - or have already faced -  in some form or another.

 

That's half of the problem, it's pretty clear Carl has crippling depression at this point in his life, but the way that game is structured it doesn't offer any optimism or any suggestion that things could get better, or even that life can continue in any sort of meaningful way for him.

It's very cleverly done by the way the house you see him share with June, changes from before and after the crash - which is no change at all... To use a filmic analysis term, the mise-en-scene of Carl's house from the start to the end of the game, bright and colourful, to the decor being the same, yet dilapidated dusty and grey and filled with cobwebs, is a constant reminder that Carl is clinging to a life he wishes he still had.

 

It's a sad game, and it isn't one that you're going to come away from feeling happy about, but it at least handles mental health in a sensitive way, I just think it could have used a little more subtlety and subtext to tell the story in a more impactful way.

 

Bonus Game

 

Kona

 

 

I think Kona is a pretty suitable game for a bonus game, you essentially spend the entirety of the game outdoors, and the game even includes a mechanic where you must keep an eye on your main characters mental health.

 

As the game is set in a particularly snowy part of Canada, your mental health gets negatively effected by the cold weather. So the aspect of the game where you're having to constantly keep yourself warm to stop your mental health suffering is an interesting one. Especially as the protagonist is an older gentleman where something like that might become a little more of an important thing.

 

Thanks a bunch @Beyondthegrave07 - for hosting this awesome and important event again - I've really enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts and feelings on the games they've been playing whenever I've had the chance, unfortunately I've just had my rep points stolen most of the times I've read them, so apologies for that, I'll try and throw some all your way when I have some spare

[Briste]

I'm not sure if this will be kosher or not, but I haven't 'finished' my game for the event. I have all of the trophies but one for Final Fantasy VI. The one I'm missing is for getting all of my characters to level 50. I'm one battle away from Gogo hitting 50 and the trophy will pop. Since FFVI is my favorite game of all time, I am saving it to pop as a milestone and I'm 139 trophies away from 9000. I am going to play a couple of shorter games this week that should get me there soon, but I don't think I'll hit the mark by the end of the day tomorrow. If that is ok, great, if it's not in the spirit of the rules, that's ok too.

 

I've decided to use this game for a few reasons...first, this game was instrumental for my own mental health as a young teen when it came out for the SNES back in 1994, and I've found it to be there for me again now when I've needed it again. The game also, surprisingly, does tackle several mental health issues through out. I'll tackle each of these one at at time here...

 

Final Fantasy VI has a surprising amount of mental health issues it tackles. Many of the characters deal with some sort of regret or inner demon that impacts how they function, but together they find a common goal to fight for, and in the process, help themselves along the way. Suicide is a potential theme in the game (depending on some choices you make throughout), PTSD, abandonment, anxiety, self doubt and several other types of mental health issues are broached in this game. There are twelve playable characters in the game and at least nine of them get a pretty fleshed out background story if you see all of the cutscenes. The game is thirty years old, but I'm going to avoid spoilers since it is very likely 'new' for many younger gamers today. I do not wish to rob anyone of the experience. I was able to experience this game before the advent of trophies and played it because it was an amazing game. I played this game without any of the boosts because I was looking to recreate my experience as close to my experience as a kid as possible. I will say that this game did that for 90% of the time outside of the Opera scene. That scene was special to me as a kid, mostly because of the music and I found the lyrics to be compelling...well the music is still great and they fancied up the graphics a bit....but they changed the lyrics which I did not appreciate. I was really bummed at that part, but otherwise the game was perfect. The meat and potatoes of why I am choosing this game as my game is in the spoiler below.

 

I have said some of this before, but this is my personal story and is very long so do not feel bad if you ignore it. I do think it's a good story though so if you do take the time to read it, thank you.

Spoiler

 

I want to preface what I'm about to write by saying that I am more fortunate than most. I've always had a roof over my head and never had to wonder where my next meal was coming from. I have a supportive, but flawed, family....so right off the bat I want to put what I'm going to say into perspective. With that out of the way....we've all been (or are currently) young...we have all had our own versions of feeling alone or isolated or misunderstood or whatever. For me, that came in the form alcoholism. My parents were divorced when I was five and my mother made my brother and I her primary focus. She owned a local ice cream/short order restaurant and we were pretty visible within the local community due to that. It was a small town and I knew everyone in my class and everyone knew me. Outside of the divorce, I had a pretty incident-free childhood when I was in elementary school. I don't ever remember alcohol being a party of our lives and I was a pretty sheltered and probably spoiled child with both parents trying to buy our affection. My mother did it since that was her love language and my father did it to spite my mother....in either scenario, we had it pretty ok all things considered.

 

This changed pretty significantly once I hit 8th grade. For the first time since my father had left when I was five, my mother had a boyfriend. She was a relatively young mother (had me when she was 22) so she was about 35 when she met him. He was about 27 or 28 though and was still in his 'party' phase. My mother, I'm assuming in an attempt to feel 'young' again, did her best to keep up with him. Every night they'd go out and get hammered and come home late. At first I didn't notice it much since we were home alone a lot with my mother working full days at the restaurant, it wasn't uncommon to go to bed before she was home...but it soon became pretty apparent.

 

He was also divorced and had two small children of his own who were only three and two years old. A few months into the relationship, he and my mother took the girls, my brother and I to a local carnival. We had a good time, but when we went to drop the girls back off at their mother's house, there was a note on the door that said 'We've left for Hawaii, the girls are your problem now'. Her boyfriend, let's call him 'Joe', was living with his parents at the time and didn't have the space for the girls. My mother, being the good person she is, volunteered to let him and his girls move in with us. He accepted and after only three months, our two bedroom house went from three occupants to six. My mom turned our dining room into a bedroom for 'Joe' and herself and my brother and I shared a room while the girls shared the other room. I was twelve or thirteen and was not really mentally prepared for this kind of living arrangement. At the time, I liked 'Joe' and his girls were great, but with both my mom and 'Joe' working full-time, I now became the de-facto parent as the oldest sibling.

 

Once they moved in, it became much more obvious how self-destructive that relationship was going to be. Instead of going out and getting hammered, it was happening at home. I was already an angsty teen, trying to figure out who and what kind of person I wanted to be, and this stress wasn't helping. As I mentioned, my mother owned the restaurant and I had started working there when I was twelve. In an effort to help 'Joe' earn some extra money, he was also working there now. The drinking started to become day-drinking at work. Needless to say, this was a recipe for disaster. After six or so months of this, something unbelievable happened. My mother and 'Joe' had gone out to pick up a pizza for dinner, and my brother and I were left to watch the girls. I had put on 'The Lion King' for them in the living room and I had gone upstairs to play Final Fantasy III (SNES). They were only going to be gone for twenty minutes or so, and I wanted to play my game. My plan had been to play for fifteen minutes or so and then go downstairs so it'd look like we'd been with the girls the whole time they were gone...After about ten minutes, the door opened and the girls said 'Mommy!'. They had been calling my mother 'Mommy' for a while now so I thought that I'd just lost track of time and they were back with pizza. I told my brother to run downstairs quick with a blanket and that I would flush the toilet to make it sound like I was going to the bathroom. We didn't want to be in trouble for not being in the room. My brother (who was eleven) yelled up to me that the girls were not in the living room and our door was wide open.

 

I sprinted downstairs while my brother ran out to look for them. He saw a truck backing out of our driveway with a person holding the youngest of the two in front of their face, backing away. By the time I had gotten outside, they were gone. My brother was crying and our neighbors were running over to see what was going on. We told them someone had taken the girls and they ran to call 911. While that was happening, my mother and 'Joe' came back with the pizza. We told them what had happened and they dropped the pizza and took off in their car down the street. They didn't know which way to go, but they left in a panic either way.

 

Shortly after, the police arrived and my brother and I told them what had happened and what we saw. The interview took place at my mother's restaurant (which was across the street from our house). The radio was playing in the background, and Elton John's 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight' came over the radio and I just lost it. It was my fault that this had happened...if I had been downstairs watching the girls like I should have been...I could have stopped them from being taken. I felt such overwhelming grief and guilt and was inconsolable for quite some time after. After TWO DAYS, the girls mother contacted 'Joe' to let him know that they had come back to town and taken the girls back. For TWO DAYS, this human being let us think that these girls had been kidnapped and were missing. Because she was the biological mother and she claimed that she had never abandoned them or kidnapped them, nothing ever happened to her. What did happen, was over the next six months, a huge custody battle took place where my mother spent her life savings trying to get these girls back to 'Joe' and us. 

 

During that time period, something happened that would impact my ability to have friends over for a long time. I ended up being used as a pawn in the custody battle by the girls mother. In an effort to prove that we were an unfit and unsafe household, they accused me of child abuse. The youngest had some bruises on her back in the shape of a handprint. They had taken her to the doctor for pictures and they claimed that I had abused her. I found out they accused me of that when the police showed up to my house one afternoon and took me in for questioning. This happened in front of three of my friends that had just come over to ride bikes. I had never touched the youngest daughter in a rough manner, let alone abused her. They took measurements of my hand to compare to the bruises and could clearly see that the marks on her back were way bigger than my hand was. I was allowed to go home and no charges ever came about, but the damage was done. Never mind that I was 'arrested' in front of my friends and none of their parents would let them hang out with me after that...someone had hurt the poor little girl and the whole thing turned into a shit show. My family was quickly becoming a town spectacle and I was embarrassed to be around anyone outside of two people that didn't completely abandon me as a friend. I was very lucky to have them and they knew everything was bullshit and helped keep me from going in too dark a place.

 

Anyway, after several months, we had won custody of the girls, but as I mentioned, my mother had spent all of her savings on getting it done. Once she was out of money, 'Joe' took off and abandoned his daughters with my mother....two days after that, the girls mother came and took them home again. It was all for nothing. 'Joe' turned out to be a con man and was only interested in my mom as long as she was paying for shit. Once the lifestyle he wanted was gone, so was he. We were not rich people by any means either. We were a middleclass family, being raised by a single mom, who's dad was busy with his new family to take an interest in what we were doing. I've had conversations with my mother about this time in her life and she describes it as having her 'soul removed from her body...that man broke me'.

 

What had been a nuisance when 'Joe' was around, became an addiction shortly after. My mother could not go through a day without alcohol. 'Joe' was with us for about 18 months and he caused irreparable harm to my family in that time. While my mother claims she was a 'functioning alcoholic' during that time...she was far from functioning. I was 14 years old and I had to become the parent. Thankfully, I had amazing grandparents who lived in town and made sure we were never wanting for anything...but shortly after 'Joe' left, our house was foreclosed upon and we were forced to move in with my grandparents. The worst part about that was the giant sign that they hung on our fence to announce the foreclosure sale so the whole town could see what was going on. I had become a punching bag in school for bullies who could spot weakness. I had always been taught that if you ignore a bully, they'll just go away eventually. I'm not sure that is true after my experience, but that's what I did.

 

I got made fun of for everything. My nose was too big, my hair too greasy, my acne disgusting, the tongues on my shoes were too big, the Champion sweatshirts I wore had too big of cuffs. I swear, it was wild the shit other people would notice to pick on me about. I was feeling absolutely worthless. I didn't want to go to school for fear of what would be said to me next and I didn't want to go home because I was so embarrassed by my mother. The only two escapes I had were baseball and video games. Outside of baseball practice and work, I didn't socialize with people much. I would stay in my room and listen to Metallica and play my SNES. Final Fantasy III (SNES) was the game I gravitated towards the most. Never mind that it was a great game, but I felt like I connected so deeply with some of the characters. Locke Cole was my guy. I understood how he felt. I would name his character after me in the game and I would name Celes as my crush at the time. 

 

Locke felt like a failure to the world because he felt like it was his fault that the love of his life died. He was forever trying to protect other people the way he couldn't protect her. He had confidence issues, but always wanted to do what was right. It was a character that I would live vicariously through during my teenage years. I played this game for hundreds and hundreds of hours. The Opera scene had a dedicated save file and the music of that part of them game could move me to tears if the moment was right. I am so thankful for this game at that time in my life. I spent many afternoons distracted by this game and it used to make me feel some sort of hope that things could get better. Many games did that at the time, Warsong, Shining Force, all Final Fantasy games, but Final Fantasy III (SNES) was the most important one to me.

 

I used to think about killing myself almost daily. I was clearly not someone that had any value in this world. The bullies at school helped make me feel like I was an unlikeable, ugly loser and my mother made me feel like I had no safety in this world and that not even family mattered. The problem with that was that my mother truly is a good person. In the times I'd catch her sober, she'd be this great mom, who made me feel like she did truly love me....then you'd see her drunk (she thought no one could notice) and I'd be horrified out in public, watching her slur words and stumble around. By this time my classmates were old enough to work at the restaurant, and they could see everyday how fucked up she'd get. Of course, a lot of them thought I had a cool mom since she didn't care if we drank....but I never felt that way. I was embarrassed that she was so drunk that I'd have to drive home from things at 14 years old and 15 years old. I was embarrassed that I'd have to almost carry her out of the restaurant to her car. I spent my days ashamed, guilty and embarrassed...because at the end of the day, I felt like this was my fault for not being downstairs when those girls were taken.

 

The reason I didn't end up killing myself was because of those moments where my mom was sober. I wanted that person back and I knew that if I killed myself, that would be the nail in her coffin as well. If 'Joe' took her soul...I would be taking her life and I couldn't do that to her or my brother. So I did the only thing that made sense to me...I gave up caring. Not caring about things made it a lot harder to be hurt when things happened. I figured out how to endure and just stuck to the things that mattered to me...sports and video games. I was able to make it through high school with this attitude. No one knew of course, how unhappy I was. I was convinced that I was the problem and didn't want to take it out on anyone else. It wasn't their fault I was me after all...I was a nice as I could be. I always volunteered to be the DD at parties...shit, I volunteered to show up to parties just to drive people home safely. I wouldn't drink because of what I saw it doing to my mother, but I wouldn't be a stick in the mud either by ruining other people's good time. I later learned that a lot of people genuinely did like me, but I was so convinced I was worthless that I thought they were just being nice to me since they knew how much I sucked and didn't want me to feel bad. I tried a few times to let my mother know how unhappy I was, but she never truly understood. I told her to listen to the song Wonderful by Everclear if she wanted to know how I felt about things, but because it is an ironically peppy song and she never actually listened to the words...she thought I was telling her my life was wonderful. I stopped trying after that.

 

I thought that college was going to be the end of the torture for me. With me away, I couldn't be affected by her drinking anymore. While that was mostly true since it was out of sight, out of mind...it still was there. My poor brother was now trapped alone in that house dealing with it by himself. His temperament was not the same as mine and he was having a much harder time of it but also didn't let anyone know. While I withdrew to my room and tried to be nice to everyone, he was trying to cope by creating a false sense of confidence and just creating nonsense to build himself up. He would make up stories to tell his friends to make them think he was cool. It was of course that much more devastating for him when his house of cards fell around him, but like me, he internalized his pain. The last straw for me came when my baseball team was having a fundraiser. It was a casino night and I was dealing blackjack. My grandparents were supposed to come up with my mom and take me and my roommates out to dinner afterwards. Well the night came and went and they never showed up. I called my grandparents to see if everything was ok, and they just told me that they didn't want to embarrass me in front of my team. They would not bring her to visit in the condition she was in.

 

When I got back to my dorm room that night, I wrote my mother an email. I told her that I was done and that this communication was the last time that I would ever speak to her unless she got help. I poured my heart out in that email and truly thought I would be on my own. I thought I had killed most of my emotions, but I was wrong...she could still hurt me and I didn't want it anymore. I had started to learn in college, that I was not the terrible troll that the bullies in high school made me feel like I was. When I started to hear some of the same nice things said about me to me from the college kids, I started to think that maybe that's who I was. Maybe those kids that weren't bullies in high school weren't just being nice to me since we had grown up together, but were actually telling me the truth. Maybe I was worth something to someone and I started to develop some confidence in myself. I wasn't going to let my mother take that away from me anymore and I let her know that.

 

I have to give my mother a ton of credit here...she checked herself into rehab the next day and has not had a drink since. She proved to me that I mattered to her and she continues to prove it to me today. I still have a lot of built up scar tissue from that time, but I have learned (and continue to learn) to care about things again. We have a pretty good relationship (can't say the same for her and my brother...) and things are better. It's been a 22 year repair job and it's been a lot of work, but I have forgiven her. For a long time I forgot that someone hurt her very badly. I was so consumed with my own hurt, that I was ignoring her hurt. It's hard, I think, for most kids to recognize the hurt in their parents and it is forgotten that they are people too. As an almost 42 year old man, with my own kids now, I understand better how hard that must've been for her then and how hard it must be for her now having seen what she made us go through. Mental health is a continuous thing and needs constant work. Part 2 of this manifesto will go into that....

 

Once my mother checked into rehab, I thought my darkest days might be behind me. While those days were probably my darkest...I still had some darkness lurking. My mother's sobriety started my sophomore year of college. At the beginning of my junior year, two days after 9/11 actually, my father committed suicide and I was once again tested mentally. It turns out that while I was going through all of that shit I just wrote about, my father was also suffering in silence. It turns out that my father was Manic Depressive and Bi-Polar and didn't tell anyone. He had been going to therapy, however he did it at the request of his new family for his anger issues and not because he actually wanted to get better. He knew what the therapists wanted to hear and said all the right things to make him appear ok...he was not.

 

It turns out that my aunt, my father's sister, had committed suicide when they were in high school and he was the one to find her. I did not even know she existed until after my father died. I wish someone had told me, because it would have possibly made me seek professional help when I was contemplating suicide if I knew there was a family history of it. Apparently my father also had intended to commit suicide after divorcing my mother as he had no intentions of taking care of himself. Fortunately, (or unfortunately considering the mess he left behind) he met my stepmother shortly after the divorce and he had someone new to take care of him. My father was one of the smartest people I've ever known and was apparently a master of manipulation. He appears to have been somewhat sociopathic as he never felt empathy for those he used to get what he needed/wanted. I learned more about my father after he died than I ever knew when he was alive. What I heard scared me, because I know I'm capable of those things. I have lied, way too easily sometimes, to avoid confrontation or get out of something I didn't want to do. The difference is I always felt bad about it afterwards and often ended up coming clean to clear my conscience. It wasn't easy, but I literally couldn't sleep at night if I thought I was doing something that could potentially hurt someone. I had been hurt too much to be the source of hurt for others...if I'm being honest now, I still lie fairly often, but it's always to spare someone hurt rather than to get what I want...

 

My father had told his brother, my uncle, of his intentions two weeks prior to him doing the deed. My uncle tried to talk him out of it but at the end of the day, what could he do? After 9/11 happened and the stock market crashed, my father, who used to brag about how much money he'd made in the stock market, decided it was time. He had recently separated from my step mother (with whom he had two more children), and bought a house down the street from her to live. Now, with no one to take care of him and no money to validate his intelligence and lifestyle, he ended it. He sent an email to my step mother telling her not to have the kids come over that day (they are a decade younger than I so were only 8 and 10) and to let the police know they could collect his body. When they showed up to his house, he had already completed his taxes for the year and put a post-it note on all of his belongings, that weren't included in his will, with the name of the person who was to receive the item. I wasn't allowed in, but from what I was told, there were hundreds of post-it notes scattered throughout. I can't imagine how weird that must have been for my stepmother and the police.

 

Even though I hadn't had much of a relationship with my father previously, before I had gone back to college that year, we had had a BBQ at his house that had given me hope for the future. He had gone shark fishing with my uncle earlier that day and had fresh Mako shark that he was grilling up. The town was having an 'end of summer' fireworks show and he invited my brother and I over to watch. We ate outside on his deck, chatted like we never had before, and watched the fireworks. He talked about how much he enjoyed spending time with us that night and that we'd have to do it more often the following summer. It was the best night I'd ever had with my father...I had hope for a relationship going forward that I had craved growing up. It was that night that made his death so much harder to stomach. According to my uncle, it was that fishing trip that my father had told him he was going to kill himself. If my father knew that....why would he invite us over and talk about the future? Why would he give us that false hope? It took me a long time to rationalize this, and while I'll never really know the answer, I figure it was his way to say good bye to us. He was giving us a good memory before he left. It probably did more damage than good, but that is the best I can come up with.

 

In the months following his death was when I learned about his mental health issues and about his nature as a person. I found some of his journals where he wrote some of his thoughts and I felt like I understood why he did what he did. He talked about how he was incapable of feeling love for or feeling loved by other people. He saw people as a means to an end and that life was by and large a cosmic joke. None of us will be remembered in a hundred years so what does it matter what we do now? Very few people make an impact that lasts outside of having kids to continue the species, but there is no God, and if there is, he's a rotten caretaker of his creation considering all that is allowed to happen. While I agree with a lot of his thoughts, I process it different. He felt it life didn't matter so it didn't matter what he did. While I also think none of us will really be remembered in 100 years (honestly, how many people even know their great grandparents names?), I think it is our job in our lifetime to make things better for those around us. Life is hard and we should be doing our best to make it easier for others. I don't care that no one will remember my name in a 100 years because if I can make those lives are interact with better around me (especially my kids), then I will have done my job with my time here. If my kids then do that for their kids, then we did great. I have no delusions of grandeur and just think we need to do right by people. I think that is the biggest difference between the two of us and if he wasn't able to feel loved or show love, I could understand not seeing the point.

 

That's how I rationalized it and that's how I moved on with my life. I looked at it from what I thought was his perspective as a 20 year old kid...and that was how I felt about it until the 20th anniversary of his death. Time has added perspective to my life. When I reflected on what he did as a 20 year old, it made sense....when I reflected on it as a 40 year old dad...I struggled. My father was 47 when he died and I am fast approaching that age. I have kids and family and all of a sudden, what my father did wasn't making sense to me anymore. As I have mentioned above, I feel it is my job as a dad and a husband to endure. Whatever pain comes a long, I feel it is my job to absorb it and deflect it when I can and I cannot imagine inflicting the pain on my children that my father did to me and my siblings. I was asking myself, why couldn't my father endure like I could? Was I not important enough to him for him to endure? I looked at the previous 20 years and saw all the things my father missed by making that choice. He never met my wife, he never met his grandchildren, he never knew me as a man....he gave up too early. I felt deeply saddened all over again by what he had done. He not only deprived my siblings and I of a father, but he deprived my children of a grandfather. I think he would have liked my kids. I think he would have liked my wife. Why couldn't he ask for help? Why couldn't he try?

 

For all the good things that had happened to me in the 20 years since he had died, I was suddenly back in a sad place. I think the answer to all of my questions are that he couldn't due to his mental diseases. He couldn't seek the help on his own and therefore couldn't endure and couldn't see the potential for happiness in the future so didn't see the point anymore. I struggled with this for weeks and did something for the first time, that I definitely should have done earlier...I called my brother and asked him how he had processed all of this. Well it became very apparent immediately that he hadn't. I touched an open wound and sent my brother spiraling out of control. I had known he was already out of control a bit....he's in a toxic marriage where he and his wife are not kind to each other....where they drink and physically, psychologically and emotionally abuse the shit out of each other. The horror of it all is that they have two small children and I did not realize it was as bad as it is until I asked him two years ago. My inquiry but him on a drinking binge that had me talking to him many times a week. We rehashed a lot of what I wrote above and I learned of some other horrors that had happened to him while I was out of the house that contributed to him having a harder time than I did. I called the suicide hotline twice while talking to him and I suddenly felt like my uncle talking to my father. What the hell do I do? All I could do is listen and remind him that it is our job to endure for our children. Seek help. Do not repeat the same mistakes our parents made.

 

It didn't do much good, he checked into rehab briefly, but his problems were right there when he got our and he immediately went back to drinking. Thankfully, this past fall, his in-laws had kind of an intervention with he and his wife about their alcohol abuse. They both went to rehab for a month to try and get clean. This time they did it on their own and this time I had hope. My mother flew down to help with their children while they were in rehab. My brother is still very blunt and rough towards my mother due to their history, and wasn't terribly appreciative of her help. In all fairness to him though, my mother does have a hard time with boundaries and following directions so I can understand a bit of his contempt...but anyways my mother left and they were supposed to be on the mend. That's when the next hardship came...two weeks after they got out of rehab, my 7 year old niece started to feel sick. She was throwing up and they took her to the doctor where they found a golf ball sized tumor at the base of her skull. She had emergency surgery to remove the tumor and she was diagnosed with cancer....

 

No matter how bad we thought we had it, it pales in comparison to my poor niece. She has been going through chemo for the past few months and has one more round of chemo to go before she is done. Apparently, she's responding well to the treatments, but my brother tells me if it comes back, the mortality rate is 100%. She has been a trooper, but considering the personal demons that my brother and his wife are going through, I have real concerns about all of their well-being. My brother is extremely private and does not like to share updates since he does not want to 'relive' the experience, so I try to give him his space...but it is hard. My mother sold her home so that she could live with them while my niece is undergoing the treatments and watch my nephew...but from what she's telling me...it's a mess down there. Thankfully, they appear to be sober for their daughter, but who knows? My brother is much more like my father than I am and I try not to think about this being a 'not if but when' scenario. I'm hoping that this terrible time in their lives can be a catalyst for them to get their shit together, but it's been exhausting for everyone involved.

 

So here's the big question...why the fuck did I just share all of this? Well, some of it is selfish....I find it therapeutic to share and put my thoughts out there....secondly I found it to be relevant to the event. Not everyone is as comfortable sharing as I am and maybe some of what I said resonates with someone out there. Whether it's the bullying, suicide, alcoholism, abuse or whatever...I think it's good to know that there are other people out there that have been to dark places and come out ok in the end. Life is short but it is also a long fucking time. In the moment, we can't see all that is coming our way. Would my father have found happiness with his grandchildren? Who knows, but he was too shortsighted and impatient to see. The point is, we don't know what's coming in our future and if we all take the time to take care of our needs, perhaps that good time is out there for us. As I wrote, there was a time when I felt worthless, unlovable and alone and I am now married, with two amazing children that have given my life meaning and a career. I never went to therapy, but I used my friends as therapists and did a lot of reflection to get through the darkness. There are a lot of resources out there and if my experience or message can help anyone out there, I'll share it a thousand times over. I've made mistakes. I continue to make mistakes, but I forgive myself, learn from it, and move on to do better next time. I really don't want to sound like Tony Robbins here...I just want to help.

 

 

Honestly, if you took the time to read all of that, I hope it was worth your time. Be well and thank you again to @Beyondthegrave07 for hosting. I will post my bonus game in a MUCH shorter post tomorrow.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Briste

[Beyondthegrave07]

3 minutes ago, Briste said:

I'm not sure if this will be kosher or not, but I haven't 'finished' my game for the event. I have all of the trophies but one for Final Fantasy VI. The one I'm missing is for getting all of my characters to level 50. I'm one battle away from Gogo hitting 50 and the trophy will pop. Since FFVI is my favorite game of all time, I am saving it to pop as a milestone and I'm 139 trophies away from 9000. I am going to play a couple of shorter games this week that should get me there soon, but I don't think I'll hit the mark by the end of the day tomorrow. If that is ok, great, if it's not in the spirit of the rules, that's ok too.

 

I've decided to use this game for a few reasons...first, this game was instrumental for my own mental health as a young teen when it came out for the SNES back in 1993, and I've found it to be there for me again now when I've needed it again. The game also, surprisingly, does tackle several mental health issues through out. I'll tackle each of these one at at time here...

 

Final Fantasy VI has a surprising amount of mental health issues it tackles. Many of the characters deal with some sort of regret or inner demon that impacts how they function, but together they find a common goal to fight for, and in the process, help themselves along the way. Suicide is a potential theme in the game (depending on some choices you make throughout), PTSD, abandonment, anxiety, self doubt and several other types of mental health issues are broached in this game. There are twelve playable characters in the game and at least nine of them get a pretty fleshed out background story if you see all of the cutscenes. The game is thirty years old, but I'm going to avoid spoilers since it is very likely 'new' for many younger gamers today. I do not wish to rob anyone of the experience. I was able to experience this game before the advent of trophies and played it because it was an amazing game. I played this game without any of the boosts because I was looking to recreate my experience as close to my experience as a kid as possible. I will say that this game did that for 90% of the time outside of the Opera scene. That scene was special to me as a kid, mostly because of the music and I found the lyrics to be compelling...well the music is still great and they fancied up the graphics a bit....but they changed the lyrics which I did not appreciate. I was really bummed at that part, but otherwise the game was perfect. The meat and potatoes of why I am choosing this game as my game is in the spoiler below.

 

I have said some of this before, but this is my personal story and is very long so do not feel bad if you ignore it. I do think it's a good story though so if you do take the time to read it, thank you.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I want to preface what I'm about to write by saying that I am more fortunate than most. I've always had a roof over my head and never had to wonder where my next meal was coming from. I have a supportive, but flawed, family....so right off the bat I want to put what I'm going to say into perspective. With that out of the way....we've all been (or are currently) young...we have all had our own versions of feeling alone or isolated or misunderstood or whatever. For me, that came in the form alcoholism. My parents were divorced when I was five and my mother made my brother and I her primary focus. She owned a local ice cream/short order restaurant and we were pretty visible within the local community due to that. It was a small town and I knew everyone in my class and everyone knew me. Outside of the divorce, I had a pretty incident-free childhood when I was in elementary school. I don't ever remember alcohol being a party of our lives and I was a pretty sheltered and probably spoiled child with both parents trying to buy our affection. My mother did it since that was her love language and my father did it to spite my mother....in either scenario, we had it pretty ok all things considered.

 

This changed pretty significantly once I hit 8th grade. For the first time since my father had left when I was five, my mother had a boyfriend. She was a relatively young mother (had me when she was 22) so she was about 35 when she met him. He was about 27 or 28 though and was still in his 'party' phase. My mother, I'm assuming in an attempt to feel 'young' again, did her best to keep up with him. Every night they'd go out and get hammered and come home late. At first I didn't notice it since it much since we were home alone a lot with my mother working full days at the restaurant, it wasn't uncommon to go to bed before she was home...but it soon became pretty apparent.

 

He was also divorced and had two small children of his own who were only three and two years old. A few months into the relationship, he and my mother took the girls, my brother and I to a local carnival. We had a good time, but when we went to drop the girls back off at their mother's house, there was a note on the door that said 'We've left for Hawaii, the girls are your problem now'. Her boyfriend, let's call him 'Joe', was living with his parents at the time and didn't have the space for the girls. My mother, being the good person she is, volunteered to let him and his girls move in with us. He accepted and after only three months, our two bedroom house when from three occupants to six. My mom turned our dining room into a bedroom for she and 'Joe' and my brother and I shared a room while the girls shared the other room. I was twelve or thirteen and was not really mentally prepared for this kind of living arrangement. At the time, I liked 'Joe' and his girls were great, but with both my mom and 'Joe' working full-time, I now became the de-facto parent as the oldest sibling.

 

Once they moved in, it became much more obvious how self-destructive that relationship was going to be. Instead of going out and getting hammered, it was happening at home. I was already an angsty teen, trying to figure out who and what kind of person I wanted to be, and this stress wasn't helping. As I mentioned, my mother owned the restaurant and I had started working there when I was twelve. In an effort to help 'Joe' earn some extra money, he was also working there now. The drinking started to become day-drinking at work. Needless to say, this was a recipe for disaster. After six or so months of this, something unbelievable happened. My mother and 'Joe' had gone out to pick up a pizza for dinner, and my brother and I were left to watch the girls. I had put on 'The Lion King' for them in the living room and I had gone upstairs to play Final Fantasy III (SNES). They were only going to be gone for twenty minutes or so, and I wanted to play my game. My plan had been to play for fifteen minutes or so and then go downstairs so it'd look like we'd been with the girls the whole time they were gone...After about ten minutes, the door opened and the girls said 'Mommy!'. They had been calling my mother 'Mommy' for a while now so I thought that I'd just lost track of time and they were back with pizza. I told my brother to run downstairs quick with a blanket and that I would flush the toilet to make it sound like I was going to the bathroom. We didn't want to be in trouble for not being in the room. My brother (who was eleven) yelled up to me that the girls were not in the living room and our door was wide open.

 

I sprinted downstairs while my brother ran out to look for them. He saw a truck backing out of our driveway with a person holding the youngest of the two in front of their face, backing away. By the time I had gotten outside, they were gone. My brother was crying and our neighbors were running over to see what was going on. We told them someone had taken the girls and they ran to call 911. While that was happening, my mother and 'Joe' came back with the pizza. We told them what had happened and they dropped the pizza and took off in their car down the street. They didn't know which way to go, but they left in a panic either way.

 

Shortly after, the police arrived and my brother and I told them what had happened and what we saw. The interview took place at my mother's restaurant (which was across the street from our house). The radio was playing in the background, and Elton John's 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight' came over the radio and I just lost it. It was my fault that this had happened...if I had been downstairs watching the girls like I should have been...I could have stopped them from being taken. I felt such overwhelming grief and guilt and was inconsolable for quite some time after. After TWO DAYS, the girls mother contacted 'Joe' to let him know that they had come back to town and taken the girls back. For TWO DAYS, this human being let us think that these girls had been kidnapped and were missing. Because she was the biological mother and she claimed that she had never abandoned them or kidnapped them, nothing ever happened to her. What did happen, was over the next six months, a huge custody battle took place where my mother spent her life savings trying to get these girls back to 'Joe' and us. 

 

During that time period, something happened that would impact my ability to have friends over for a long time. I ended up being used as a pawn in the custody battle by the girls mother. In an effort to prove that we were an unfit and unsafe household, they accused me of child abuse. The youngest had some bruises on her back in the shape of a handprint. They had taken her to the doctor for pictures and they claimed that I had abused her. I found out they accused me of that when the police showed up to my house one afternoon and took me in for questioning. This happened in front of three of my friends that had just come over to ride bikes. I had never touched the youngest daughter in a rough manner, let alone abused her. They took measurements of my hand to compare to the bruises and could clearly see that the marks on her back were way bigger than my hand was. I was allowed to go home and no charges ever came about, but the damage was done. Never mind that I was 'arrested' in front of my friends and none of their parents would let them hang out with me after that...someone had hurt the poor little girl and the whole thing turned into a shit show. My family was quickly becoming a town spectacle and I was embarrassed to be around anyone outside of two people that didn't completely abandon me as a friend. I was very lucky to have them and they knew everything was bullshit and helped keep me from going in too dark a place.

 

Anyway, after several months, we had won custody of the girls, but as I mentioned, my mother had spent all of her savings on getting it done. Once she was out of money, 'Joe' took off and abandoned his daughters with my mother....two days after that, the girls mother came and took them home again. It was all for nothing. 'Joe' turned out to be a con man and was only interested in my mom as long as she was paying for shit. Once the lifestyle he wanted was gone, so was he. We were not rich people by any means either. We were a middleclass family, being raised by a single mom, who's dad was busy with his new family to take an interest in what we were doing. I've had conversations with my mother about this time in her life and she describes it as having her 'soul removed from her body...that man broke me'.

 

What had been a nuisance when 'Joe' was around, became an addiction shortly after. My mother could not go through a day without alcohol. 'Joe' was with us for about 18 months and he caused irreparable harm to my family in that time. While my mother claims she was a 'functioning alcoholic' during that time...she was far from functioning. I was 14 years old and I had to become the parent. Thankfully, I had amazing grandparents who lived in town and made sure we were never wanting for anything...but shortly after 'Joe' left, our house was foreclosed upon and we were forced to move in with my grandparents. The worst part about that was the giant sign that they hung on our fence to announce the foreclosure sale so the whole town could see what was going on. I had become a punching bag in school for bullies who could spot weakness. I had always been taught that if you ignore a bully, they'll just go away eventually. I'm not sure that is true after my experience, but that's what I did.

 

I got made fun of for everything. My nose was too big, my hair too greasy, my acne disgusting, the tongues on my shoes were too big, the Champion sweatshirts I wore had too big of cuffs. I swear, it was wild the shit other people would notice to pick on me about. I was feeling absolutely worthless. I didn't want to go to school for fear of what would be said to me next and I didn't want to go home because I was so embarrassed by my mother. The only two escapes I had were baseball and video games. Outside of baseball practice and work, I didn't socialize with people much. I would stay in my room and listen to Metallica and play my SNES. Final Fantasy III (SNES) was the game I gravitated towards the most. Never mind that it was a great game, but I felt like I connected so deeply with some of the characters. Locke Cole was my guy. I understood how he felt. I would name his character after me in the game and I would name Celes as my crush at the time. 

 

Locke felt like a failure to the world because he felt like it was his fault that the love of his life died. He was forever trying to protect other people the way he couldn't protect her. He had confidence issues, but always wanted to do what was right. It was a character that I would live vicariously through during my teenage years. I played this game for hundreds and hundreds of hours. The Opera scene had a dedicated save file and the music of that part of them game could move me to tears if the moment was right. I am so thankful for this game at that time in my life. I spent many afternoons distracted by this game and it used to make me feel some sort of hope that things could get better. Many games did that at the time, Warsong, Shining Force, all Final Fantasy games, but Final Fantasy III (SNES) was the most important one to me.

 

I used to think about killing myself almost daily. I was clearly not someone that had any value in this world. The bullies at school helped make me feel like I was an unlikeable, ugly loser and my mother made me feel like I had no safety in this world and that not even family mattered. The problem with that was that my mother truly is a good person. In the times I'd catch her sober, she'd be this great mom, who made me feel like she did truly love me....then you'd see her drunk (she thought no one could notice) and I'd be horrified out in public, watching her slur words and stumble around. By this time my classmates were old enough to work at the restaurant, and they could see everyday how fucked up she'd get. Of course, a lot of them thought I had a cool mom since she didn't care if we drank....but I never felt that way. I was embarrassed that she was so drunk that I'd have to drive home from things at 14 years old and 15 years old. I was embarrassed that I'd have to almost carry her out of the restaurant to her car. I spent my days ashamed, guilty and embarrassed...because at the end of the day, I felt like this was my fault for not being downstairs when those girls were taken.

 

The reason I didn't end up killing myself was because of those moments where my mom was sober. I wanted that person back and I knew that if I killed myself, that would be the nail in her coffin as well. If 'Joe' took her soul...I would be taking her life and I couldn't do that to her or my brother. So I did the only thing that made sense to me...I gave up caring. Not caring about things made it a lot harder to be hurt when things happened. I figured out how to endure and just stuck to the things that mattered to me...sports and video games. I was able to make it through high school with this attitude. No one knew of course, how unhappy I was. I was convinced that I was the problem and didn't want to take it out on anyone else. It wasn't their fault I was me after all...I was a nice as I could be. I always volunteered to be the DD at parties...shit, I volunteered to show up to parties just to drive people home safely. I wouldn't drink because of what I saw it doing to my mother, but I wouldn't be a stick in the mud either by ruining other people's good time. I later learned that a lot of people genuinely did like me, but I was so convinced I was worthless that I thought they were just being nice to me since they knew how much I sucked and didn't want me to feel bad. I tried a few times to let my mother know how unhappy I was, but she never truly understood. I told her to listen to the song Wonderful by Everclear if she wanted to know how I felt about things, but because it is an ironically peppy song and she never actually listened to the words...she thought I was telling her my life was wonderful. I stopped trying after that.

 

I thought that college was going to be the end of the torture for me. With me away, I couldn't be affected by her drinking anymore. While that was mostly true since it was out of sight, out of mind...it still was there. My poor brother was now trapped alone in that house dealing with it by himself. His temperament was not the same as mine and he was having a much harder time of it but also didn't let anyone know. While I withdrew to my room and tried to be nice to everyone, he was trying to cope by creating a false sense of confidence and just creating nonsense to build himself up. He would make up stories to tell his friends to make them think he was cool. It was of course that much more devastating for him when his house of cards fell around him, but like me, he internalized his pain. The last straw for me came when my baseball team was having a fundraiser. It was a casino night and I was dealing blackjack. My grandparents were supposed to come up with my mom and take me and my roommates out to dinner afterwards. Well the night came and went and they never showed up. I called my grandparents to see if everything was ok, and they just told me that they didn't want to embarrass me in front of my team. They would not bring her to visit in the condition she was in.

 

When I got back to my dorm room that night, I wrote my mother an email. I told her that I was done and that this communication was the last time that I would ever speak to her unless she got help. I poured my heart out in that email and truly thought I would be on my own. I thought I had killed most of my emotions, but I was wrong...she could still hurt me and I didn't want it anymore. I had started to learn in college, that I was not the terrible troll that the bullies in high school made me feel like I was. When I started to hear some of the same nice things said about me to me from the college kids, I started to think that maybe that's who I was. Maybe those kids that weren't bullies in high school weren't just being nice to me since we had grown up together, but were actually telling me the truth. Maybe I was worth something to someone and I started to develop some confidence in myself. I wasn't going to let my mother take that away from me anymore and I let her know that.

 

I have to give my mother a ton of credit here...she checked herself into rehab the next day and has not had a drink since. She proved to me that I mattered to her and she continues to prove it to me today. I still have a lot of built up scar tissue from that time, but I have learned (and continue to learn) to care about things again. We have a pretty good relationship (can't say the same for her and my brother...) and things are better. It's been a 22 year repair job and it's been a lot of work, but I have forgiven her. For a long time I forgot that someone hurt her very badly. I was so consumed with my own hurt, that I was ignoring her hurt. It's hard, I think, for most kids to recognize the hurt in their parents and it is forgotten that they are people too. As an almost 42 year old man, with my own kids now, I understand better how hard that must've been for her then and how hard it must be for her now having seen what she made us go through. Mental health is a continuous thing and needs constant work. Part 2 of this manifesto will go into that....

 

Once my mother checked into rehab, I thought my darkest days might be behind me. While those days were probably my darkest...I still had some darkness lurking. My mother's sobriety started my sophomore year of college. At the beginning of my junior year, two days after 9/11 actually, my father committed suicide and I was once again tested mentally. It turns out that while I was going through all of that shit I just wrote about, my father was also suffering in silence. It turns out that my father was Manic Depressive and Bi-Polar and didn't tell anyone. He had been going to therapy, however he did it at the request of his new family for his anger issues and not because he actually wanted to get better. He knew what the therapists wanted to hear and said all the right things to make him appear ok...he was not.

 

It turns out that my aunt, my father's sister, had committed suicide when they were in high school and he was the one to find her. I did not even know she existed until after my father died. I wish someone had told me, because it would have possibly made me seek professional help when I was contemplating suicide if I knew there was a family history of it. Apparently my father also had intended to commit suicide after divorcing my mother as he had no intentions of taking care of himself. Fortunately, (or unfortunately considering the mess he left behind) he met my stepmother shortly after the divorce and he had someone new to take care of him. My father was one of the smartest people I've ever known and was apparently a master of manipulation. He appears to have been somewhat sociopathic as he never felt empathy for those he used to get what he needed/wanted. I learned more about my father after he died than I ever knew when he was alive. What I heard scared me, because I know I'm capable of those things. I have lied, way too easily sometimes, to avoid confrontation or get out of something I didn't want to do. The difference is I always felt bad about it afterwards and often ended up coming clean to clear my conscience. It wasn't easy, but I literally couldn't sleep at night if I thought I was doing something that could potentially hurt someone. I had been hurt too much to be the source of hurt for others...if I'm being honest now, I still lie fairly often, but it's always to spare someone hurt rather than to get what I want...

 

My father had told his brother, my uncle, of his intentions two weeks prior to him doing the deed. My uncle tried to talk him out of it but at the end of the day, what could he do? After 9/11 happened and the stock market crashed, my father, who used to brag about how much money he'd made in the stock market, decided it was time. He had recently separated from my step mother (with whom he had two more children), and bought a house down the street from her to live. Now, with no one to take care of him and no money to validate his intelligence and lifestyle, he ended it. He sent an email to my step mother telling her not to have the kids come over that day (they are a decade younger than I so were only 8 and 10) and to let the police know they could collect his body. When they showed up to his house, he had already completed his taxes for the year and put a post-it note on all of his belongings, that weren't included in his will, with the name of the person who was to receive the item. I wasn't allowed in, but from what I was told, there were hundreds of post-it notes scattered throughout. I can't imagine how weird that must have been for my stepmother and the police.

 

Even though I hadn't had much of a relationship with my father previously, before I had gone back to college that year, we had had a BBQ at his house that had given me hope for the future. He had gone shark fishing with my uncle earlier that day and had fresh Mako shark that he was grilling up. The town was having an 'end of summer' fireworks show and he invited my brother and I over to watch. We ate outside on his deck, chatted like we never had before, and watched the fireworks. He talked about how much he enjoyed spending time with us that night and that we'd have to do it more often the following summer. It was the best night I'd ever had with my father...I had hope for a relationship going forward that I had craved growing up. It was that night that made his death so much harder to stomach. According to my uncle, it was that fishing trip that my father had told him he was going to kill himself. If my father knew that....why would he invite us over and talk about the future? Why would he give us that false hope? It took me a long time to rationalize this, and while I'll never really know the answer, I figure it was his way to say good bye to us. He was giving us a good memory before he left. It probably did more damage than good, but that is the best I can come up with.

 

In the months following his death was when I learned about his mental health issues and about his nature as a person. I found some of his journals where he wrote some of his thoughts and I felt like I understood why he did what he did. He talked about how he was incapable of feeling love for or feeling loved by other people. He saw people as a means to an end and that life was by and large a cosmic joke. None of us will be remembered in a hundred years so what does it matter what we do now? Very few people make an impact that lasts outside of having kids to continue the species, but there is no God, and if there is, he's a rotten caretaker of his creation considering all that is allowed to happen. While I agree with a lot of his thoughts, I process it different. He felt it life didn't matter so it didn't matter what he did. While I also think none of us will really be remembered in 100 years (honestly, how many people even know their great grandparents names?), I think it is our job in our lifetime to make things better for those around us. Life is hard and we should be doing our best to make it easier for others. I don't care that no one will remember my name in a 100 years because if I can make those lives are interact with better around me (especially my kids), then I will have done my job with my time here. If my kids then do that for their kids, then we did great. I have no delusions of grandeur and just think we need to do right by people. I think that is the biggest difference between the two of us and if he wasn't able to feel loved or show love, I could understand not seeing the point.

 

That's how I rationalized it and that's how I moved on with my life. I looked at it from what I thought was his perspective as a 20 year old kid...and that was how I felt about it until the 20th anniversary of his death. Time has added perspective to my life. When I reflected on what he did as a 20 year old, it made sense....when I reflected on it as a 40 year old dad...I struggled. My father was 47 when he died and I am fast approaching that age. I have kids and family and all of a sudden, what my father did wasn't making sense to me anymore. As I have mentioned above, I feel it is my job as a dad and a husband to endure. Whatever pain comes a long, I feel it is my job to absorb it and deflect it when I can and I cannot imagine inflicting the pain on my children that my father did to me and my siblings. I was asking myself, why couldn't my father endure like I could? Was I not important enough to him for him to endure? I looked at the previous 20 years and saw all the things my father missed by making that choice. He never met my wife, he never met his grandchildren, he never knew me as a man....he gave up too early. I felt deeply saddened all over again by what he had done. He not only deprived my siblings and I of a father, but he deprived my children of a grandfather. I think he would have liked my kids. I think he would have liked my wife. Why couldn't he ask for help? Why couldn't he try?

 

For all the good things that had happened to me in the 20 years since he had died, I was suddenly back in a sad place. I think the answer to all of my questions are that he couldn't due to his mental diseases. He couldn't seek the help on his own and therefore couldn't endure and couldn't see the potential for happiness in the future so didn't see the point anymore. I struggled with this for weeks and did something for the first time, that I definitely should have done earlier...I called my brother and asked him how he had processed all of this. Well it became very apparent immediately that he hadn't. I touched an open wound and sent my brother spiraling out of control. I had known he was already out of control a bit....he's in a toxic marriage where he and his wife are not kind to each other....where they drink and physically, psychologically and emotionally abuse the shit out of each other. The horror of it all is that they have two small children and I did not realize it was as bad as it is until I asked him two years ago. My inquiry but him on a drinking binge that had me talking to him many times a week. We rehashed a lot of what I wrote above and I learned of some other horrors that had happened to him while I was out of the house that contributed to him having a harder time than I did. I called the suicide hotline twice while talking to him and I suddenly felt like my uncle talking to my father. What the hell do I do? All I could do is listen and remind him that it is our job to endure for our children. Seek help. Do not repeat the same mistakes our parents made.

 

It didn't do much good, he checked into rehab briefly, but his problems were right there when he got our and he immediately went back to drinking. Thankfully, this past fall, his in-laws had kind of an intervention with he and his wife about their alcohol abuse. They both went to rehab for a month to try and get clean. This time they did it on their own and this time I had hope. My mother flew down to help with their children while they were in rehab. My brother is still very blunt and rough towards my mother due to their history, and wasn't terribly appreciative of her help. In all fairness to him though, my mother does have a hard time with boundaries and following directions so I can understand a bit of his contempt...but anyways my mother left and they were supposed to be on the mend. That's when the next hardship came...two weeks after they got out of rehab, my 7 year old niece started to feel sick. She was throwing up and they took her to the doctor where they found a golf ball sized tumor at the base of her skull. She had emergency surgery to remove the tumor and she was diagnosed with cancer....

 

No matter how bad we thought we had it, it pales in comparison to my poor niece. She has been going through chemo for the past few months and has one more round of chemo to go before she is done. Apparently, she's responding well to the treatments, but my brother tells me if it comes back, the mortality rate is 100%. She has been a trooper, but considering the personal demons that my brother and his wife are going through, I have real concerns about all of their well-being. My brother is extremely private and does not like to share updates since he does not want to 'relive' the experience, so I try to give him his space...but it is hard. My mother sold her home so that she could live with them while my niece is undergoing the treatments and watch my nephew...but from what she's telling me...it's a mess down there. Thankfully, they appear to be sober for their daughter, but who knows? My brother is much more like my father than I am and I try not to think about this being a 'not if but when' scenario. I'm hoping that this terrible time in their lives can be a catalyst for them to get their shit together, but it's been exhausting for everyone involved.

 

So here's the big question...why the fuck did I just share all of this? Well, some of it is selfish....I find it therapeutic to share and put my thoughts on out there....secondly I found it to be relevant to the event. Not everyone is as comfortable sharing as I am and maybe some of what I said resonates with someone out there. Whether it's the bullying, suicide, alcoholism, abuse or whatever...I think it's good to know that there are other people out there that have been to dark places and come out ok in the end. Life is short but it is also a long fucking time. In the moment, we can't see all that is coming our way. Would my father have found happiness with his grandchildren? Who knows, but he was too shortsighted and impatient to see. The point is, we don't know what's coming in our future and if we all take the time to take care of our needs, perhaps that good time is out there for us. As I wrote, there was a time when I felt worthless, unlovable and alone and I am not married, with two amazing children that have given my life meaning and a career. I never went to therapy, but I used my friends as therapists and did a lot of reflection to get through the darkness. There are a lot of resources out there and if my experience or message can help anyone out there, I'll share it a thousand times over. I've made mistakes. I continue to make mistakes, but I forgive myself, learn from it, and move on to do better next time. I really don't want to sound like Tony Robbins here...I just want to help.

 

 

Honestly, if you took the time to read all of that, I hope it was worth your time. Be well and thank you again to @Beyondthegrave07 for hosting. I will post my bonus game in a MUCH shorter post tomorrow.

I think you understand the spirit of the event, and honestly, that's what counts the most. I can easily verify your story too so I'll go ahead and count it for the donation... however, I want an update when the game is platted and then I'll hand over the badge.

 

How does that sound?

[Briste]

3 minutes ago, Beyondthegrave07 said:

I think you understand the spirit of the event, and honestly, that's what counts the most. I can easily verify your story too so I'll go ahead and count it for the donation... however, I want an update when the game is platted and then I'll hand over the badge.

 

How does that sound?

Works for me! Thanks!

 

I'm playing two Life is Strange games which are about 90 of those trophies. I'm hoping by next weekend to have it popped.  Thanks again!

[Jeanolt]

HI AGAIN! so sorry I couldn't complete the game, but I'll donate my 2-3$ dollars to an Argentinian Mental Health organization. Sorry if I'm not able to donate 2$ in name of everyone, you know... latin economy.

 

I'll talk about Lake anyway, which I feel I won't complete in less than 24h, so instead of just rushing between tonight and tomorrow's afternoon I'll donate my amount and enjoy the game in a more relaxed way. It's what the game is about.

 

For those that don't know, Lake takes place in the life of a busy worker in a completely generic office work, in the 80s. His parents go on holiday so she takes the job of his father as the mailman(woman). What she discovers is not only her beautiful hometown surrounded by a lake, but also an incredible thing she never thought she was lacking: what life is about. The job, as boring as it seems, reconnect her with the world around, shows her the endless possibilities of life, how time went by (20 years after she left) and lives of people changed, how time waits for no one. She even discovers (really minor spoiler):

Spoiler

that an old friend of her has a son, leading to think if the decisions taken in life were right or not.

 

While driving the van, the player itself should be able to realize, what am I doing in life? Am I doing what I want? Or I'm being led by another force, wether is parents, irrealistic goals put by society, societal pressures, absolutely everything.

 

These thoughts are obviously subjective, they come from my perspective, but in a time of thousands of games as a service, and people complaining about the meaning of the games, wether there's "something to do", battle passes, missions, endgame, anything to be engaged. Can't we just enjoy the ride? Can't we just sit back and enjoy what's going on in front of your eyes? What's leading us to an accelerated lifestyle if there's no pressure?. The peaceful aspect of the game, music, characters, optional "side-quests", everything seems to tell you to take it easy.

 

I'd go as far as to say that the game was inspired by Life is Strange. Yes, maaybe it's one of my favourites games, but I'm not comparing Lake to PES 2012. Lake is the only game I've seen in my life released after LiS that tries to recreate that feeling. And for moments, it does really well. It doesn't help to hide it that every song sounds like Obstacles and Something Good by Alt-J.

 

I know there isn't any character in Lake with mental health related problems, but that isn't important. Mental Health is not always a chronical problem. Sometimes it's in our lifestyle, the people, our decisions, being tired of our lifes, feeling we can do better. Discovering the bases of life itself. Don't you ever are stuck behind a screen and think, is that it? 

 

Lake it's life itself, the sad, the good, the joy in it.

 

 

 

......

Grave: that's not a mental health related problem.

Jean: You sure? I ALREADY DONATED THE MONEY YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOU- (Banned)

Edited May 31, 2023 by Jeanoltt