The Corner of Mental Health Avenue & Gaming Street
We live in an ever shrinking world. People are connecting with one another across screens everywhere. As a result, pieces of our lives are intersecting in new ways all the time. I am an assault survivor with PTSD. I’m also a Gamer. Since my assault, there are certain times of the year I struggle with my mental health more than others. In years past, I’ve gotten very dissociated during those times. This year, I leaned heavily into gaming and things went differently; better actually. This, of course, really got me thinking.
I spent some time talking about gaming and mental health with my Twitter friends, thinking I probably wasn’t alone in observing the intersection of these two topics. Over and over again, people commented that gaming is a go-to for distraction from mental health challenges. They didn’t seem to give it much thought beyond that. I am noticing that, like many things in life, you get out of gaming what you put into it. Gaming has much that is positive to offer our mental health, if we treat the intersection between the two topics proactively. There is also some negative, should we miss or ignore their coexistence. My Gaming Community friends are likely experiencing more mental health effects than they realize.
That being said, I definitely appreciate the distraction factor. Sometimes, we just need a break from our struggles. If that’s my goal, story mode of a beautiful game like Red Dead Redemption 2 takes me there. There’s nothing like riding a horse through the Grizzlies to get my mind off things. I can use that time as a very positive mental health break and come back to my real world refreshed with new clarity. This kind of gaming experience can be positive for us gamers whether we are proactive about it or not. Maybe that’s why it was the biggest intersection of Mental Health and Gaming that people mentioned.
The author’s character in Red Dead Redemption 2
The need for proactivity changes entirely if I go online and add other humans to my gaming experience. The real opportunities for growth also emerge. People are such an unknown variable during game play. We can be sure of two things, though. Some people will give us a chance to practice responding to positivity and others to negativity. While I’d like to rid the online world of trolls entirely, that is definitely not in my power. They make up a large percentage of the negative mental health challenges found in gaming. I choose to view them as a Mental Health Workout of sorts. Gaming is a safe environment to practice dealing with triggers and negativity. Not everyone in our day-to-day life will treat us with kindness and respect our mental health. Often, we live or work with people who do not, and we are quite stuck until we figure out how to make a change or get along with them. Online gaming is a safe place to practice effective strategies for dealing with all kinds of behavior.
I don’t try to change trolls. The more I learn, the more I realize that acceptance is a primary key to mental health. When confronted with trollish behavior, it is myself I am proactively working on during the interaction. I observe what I’m feeling, internally acknowledge it, and let it pass. That’s an important skill facilitated by the common sense realization that “it’s a game”. I can walk away from this moment with no actual consequences to my real life. That fact reminds me that I don’t need to take things so seriously as my triggered brain fights overreaction. It allows me to stick around long enough to practice things like conflict resolution and standing up for myself. This helps me in my daily life where the stakes are much higher. I’ve grown as I’ve applied this tactic. I’m learning a healthier way of engaging others through safe, repetitive, perspective-filled gaming interactions.
The boundary I set for myself in order to keep this a mentally healthy exercise is that if I begin to observe myself feeling more than observationally upset, I pull the plug on the exercise. Sometimes there is no redeeming the negative. At that point, I stop playing or play somewhere else. The ability to walk away is crucial to our mental health. Just stop. Again, it’s a game, so the roadblocks to walking away healthily are minuscule at worst. This isn’t a job where you could lose your livelihood if you accidentally walk away with more than your intended intensity in the name of your mental health. However, it is a great opportunity to practice walking away calmly and respectfully to both parties, in a way that doesn’t burn bridges. If you fail, you observe that and try again another time. Human interactions we have in games, if had with intention, are all practice levels for the boss fight of real life. Practice may not make perfect, but it definitely makes habit.
Gaming also affords us the opportunity to find new friends. That is difficult, but precious, for all of us. It is especially difficult for those with mental health challenges. It is hard to trust people. There are a lot of amazing people out there, though, and this is where the shrinking world syndrome I mentioned shines brightly positive. You can definitely find your tribe online. The whole world is at your fingertips. There are people sharing similar struggles also navigating the Gaming Community looking for new friends. If making friends online seems scary, this is another area where the common sense “It’s a game” logic helps us.
I’ve made a lot of gaming friends since acknowledging this. What have I got to lose? Most of them are compartmentalized in the game worlds we share. However, they’ve become friends outside of our shared games at times too. In either case, those friends are good for my mental health, safe, and help me feel loved and supported in my life. They do that most often by simply sharing a positive gaming experience. Sometimes, though, they do it by providing me with a safe place to proactively learn to be a better version of myself.
The truth is we are all, as we travel through our game experiences, intersecting with other players’ mental health. I hope we give them a safe place to practice being a better version of themselves. The intersection of Gaming and Mental Health has helped me make a better me. I intend to pay it forward to someone else by being part of a positive gaming experience that grows them too. You never know. It might even inadvertently spread to the trolls! Who’s with me?
About the Author: Shannon Hunt
Shannon Hunt is a Freelance Writer, the author of the upcoming memoir She Slays Dragons, and a Gamer. She has been gaming since the early days of World of Warcraft. When asked what she is, the first phrase that always pops into Shannon’s head is, “I am a Night Elf Hunter.” She doesn’t tell people that little detail, though, and would appreciate your discretion. When taking a much needed break from writing her memoir, Shannon can most recently be found roleplaying a pirate on Darkside RP in the game Atlas. She considers the back of a horse in Red Dead Redemption 2 to be as close to nirvana as possible without actually riding a real horse. Her nerdy dreams include cosplaying as Wonder Woman, Poison Ivy, and Kynmara, her Night Elf Hunter from WOW. You can find her online at sheslaysdragons.com and on Twitter as @magnolia3169.
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How have you observed the intersection of Gaming and Mental Health in your life? Are there other proactive strategies you’ve found helpful to your mental health during your gaming experiences? We want to hear from you! Let’s grow together!
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