Gaming saved my life...kind of

Back in late 2021 to early 2022 (around three months in total), I had something of a breakdown.

I became a nervous wreck, having panic attacks left, right and centre about death and the inevitability of it all - perhaps rather embarrassingly, this came about because I binge-watched a space documentary series by Prof Brian Cox, and it scared the shit out of me.

My sister and I now have a running joke about the whole thing, and recently, I bought a book about Black Holes by him, which she found baffling and highly amusing, given the nature of my Brian Cox-induced mental breakdown!

But enough about Prof Cox and space, where does gaming fit into all this, and how did it kinda save my life? Well, in February 2022, I decided I needed to find something to distract myself from the very negative and frightful thoughts flowing non-stop through my brain. And in my teenage years, I had loved playing games, from Sims to GTA to Halo. I was a bit of a console addict, and I’d get told off for spending too much time playing games.

So, as I got older, I decided that gaming was for kids and that I had to grow up - wrong on both accounts. And it was only when I was struggling to get through a day without crying or panicking that I decided to play a game again, and the game was World of Warcraft. As a fan of fantasy and the nature of it being an MMORPG, I thought that I wouldn’t feel so intimidated by the gameplay. So I decided to give it a go.

It’s safe to say that I was hooked after downloading the game and playing the free trial up to level 20. The game took my mind away from the real world to a fantasy landscape of elves, orcs, and so many possibilities. As I got more and more immersed in the game I felt my existential dread start to dissolve over the next few months that followed.

2 years have now passed, and I’m still playing WOW (I’ve also been sucked into the Baldur’s Gate 3 hype train recently - and loving it!). I am so glad that I came back to gaming, as it has honestly been one of the best things for my mental health.

Is it true that games have saved my life, possibly as I don’t know what would have happened if I’d continued to have so many panic attacks and obsessive thoughts about death?

Thanatophobia + The Seventh Seal

The other night I had a panic attack. Again. I laid down in bed, switched the light off and hoped my brain would follow suit. It didn’t. Instead of the usual barrage of ideas for stories or random philosophical musings that often keep me up at night, a much more sinister thought settled in my mind. Death. You see death and the process of dying (and therefore ceasing to exist) always sets me off, I just can’t get my head around it and it freaks me out so much to the point that I have full-blown panic attacks about it.

One time at the doctors when I was younger and having an injection, I fainted for the first time. It was a slow blurring of the senses and an encroaching vignette of darkness. Naturally, I thought I was dying. I was completely terrified and I can remember struggling to breathe and shouting ‘I don’t want to die’ a few times before losing consciousness. Not my finest moment. After that episode, the fear of death went away for a few years, came back and retreated again like the tide. It had been quite a while since the last panic attack about death, but I guess with the whole pandemic situation and hearing and seeing death counts every single day the anxiety around it has understandably returned.

Sometimes I ask myself how does everyone function, why is the world not in a blind panic? People running around screaming and crying because of their guaranteed oblivion. Evolution. That’s why. Religion helps too. When I was a teenager I would read the New Testament desperate to believe in God so that I wouldn’t be so scared of death, but I never could quite convince myself. I’ve also tried Zen Buddhism too, that worked much better and for quite a long time I was at peace with the transience of life. In fact, I started looking at death as the final act in a play. Your prologue takes place while you're in the womb, the first act is…well who am I kidding Shakespeare has already covered this ground and he did it far better than I ever could.

I recently watched Bergman’s The Seventh Seal to try and see another point of view on death, and perhaps because of the rather morbid connection it, a film about The Black Death has with the present pandemic. And I found it to be one of the best films I have ever seen. I mean, duh, it’s Bergman, but it really touched me in unexpected ways, and dare I say I actually felt soothed at the end when they danced over the hill with Death.

Moreover, in an earlier scene, Max von Sydow’s Knight shares strawberries and milk with two travelling actors, their young child and his squire. He tells them that he will cherish the purity of the moment as if it were a bowl of freshly milked milk. I found it to be a beautiful moment in a rather heavy film. It also made me think about how most of us spend our lives overlooking the small stuff and stressing over what has been and what will be rather than being present. Quite the Zen sentiment, and one I had forgotten to practise recently.

I dare to say this will be me when the time comes…

It is clear to me (and anyone who reads this) that my fear of death is getting in the way of me living my life. I touched on the idea of Fear, in general, having such an impact on me in the 27 Things I Have Learned in 27 Years post that I wrote recently, and I am trying to find ways to mitigate its effects on me. No easy feat really, it’s hard to unlearn habits that have driven your life for as long as you can remember.

If you're struggling with everyday things, anxiety and/or suicidal thoughts and need to talk to someone then get in contact with Samaritans (UK). They are there to help.