Playing to Acceptance: Video Games and Grief
How can video games help us deal with something as heavy as grieving the death of a loved one? In this piece, a gameHER shares the power of gaming to help us cope with loss from the perspective of the gaming community, the psychological community, and her own personal experiences.
By Jackie Sieks
“You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”
– Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever
The loss of a loved one can produce an array of emotions, spanning from shock to denial, and even anger. Grief, and how to properly grieve, has been a hotly debated topic among death experts and psychologists, with all arriving at a singular truth: Death is an aspect of life that all living beings will, eventually, have to face, and finding ways to cope with loss is unique to each person.
The most famous steps for processing loss are known as the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. However, experts have argued that true grief cannot be categorized in five simple steps. “In fact, the actual grief process looks a lot less like a neat set of stages and a lot more like a roller coaster of emotions.” It is important to remember that the point of mourning a loss is to, eventually, find closure, and how a person chooses to mourn can differ.
Illustration of a grieving woman and a helping hand
One of the more surprising coping mechanisms has been video games, with countless gamers reporting using video games as a coping mechanism. Whether it is the environment that the game is set, the story line itself, or the ability to become lost in an open world, video games have provided unprecedented comfort. In a tearful vlog, one gamer says “I took a lot of solace in Red Dead, I still do. Through all that stress and all that pent up emotion, I would take a few hours to just switch myself off the best I could and just traverse this virtual world with these virtual characters that I’d grown attached to, like really attached to, because they just felt so human.”
For my personal journey with video games, grief was what turned me from a casual gamer into a full-time gamer. Video games, in my household, were considered a waste of time, my family often harping on the masculinity of the industry. Girls were not supposed to like video games, that’s what boys liked. Hearing this fallacy repeated led to a severe gender identity crisis with which I am still struggling. Enjoying a video game was difficult for me because of the negative stigma surrounding it, from mental health experts as well as close family. My love for video games was a dirty secret, with many sleepless nights hiding under my blankets grinding on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater on a Gameboy.
But when my grandfather passed away, I found coping with reality extremely difficult. To me, the world had ended, and I would become angry when the world around me somehow managed to keep moving. On the PlayStation 3, I purchased Dead Island, a post-apocalyptic survival horror game produced by Deep Silver and developed by Techland. It provided the perfect atmosphere for how I was feeling. In Dead Island, a highly populated vacation spot has been destroyed by a random virus that turned beach goers into zombies. The world on this island has come to a halt, while the world outside the island continues to function normally. You play as one of four main protagonists, navigating a sometimes terrifying world with the goal of escaping to safety. I liken this plot to dealing with loss: The world around you seems to come to a halt, you must navigate an unknown world with terrifying emotional and physical obstacles, with the clear goal of escaping to closure.
While experts will often focus on the negative aspects of the gaming industry – from game addiction to toxic communities — experts have argued the focus needs to shift to the more positive aspects of gaming culture. In 2019 at PAX West, a panel consisting of mental health experts, game developers, and video game enthusiasts expressed how gaming has helped those suffering from mental illnesses. “The panelists said they suffered from a laundry list of conditions throughout the group, including bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and chronic insomnia.”
Not only is playing video games helpful to gamers, it has become a useful tool to express emotions in a visual medium. That Dragon, Cancer was a video game developed by Numinous Games to help a family deal with the loss of their son after a terminal battle with childhood cancer. The game allows the players to feel the emotional struggles, but instead of focusing solely on death, it also encapsulates life and how precious it is. On the topic of the early days of mourning, Amy Green, a contributing writer on the game whose young son died of cancer, states “It turns out a memorial service is not the best time and place to remember a person. It’s too fresh. Sometimes you don’t even know yet what you will really miss the most about the person you are memorializing.” Cancer has taken countless lives, so the game resonated closely with those who have battled with cancer, or lost a loved one. A large, and incredibly supportive, community was built.
Having a supportive community and creating a support system are very important steps when facing loss. The Grief Recovery Kit’s blog on support systems advises: “Surround yourself with a circle of encouraging, caring, and compassionate people. There are times during grief when you can become overwhelmed, confused or exhausted. In these times, it can help to have someone to talk to and share your thoughts with. Sometimes you may need to ask for help; other times, you may just want to feed off the positive energy of another.” With most mainstream games featuring a multiplayer or online option, the chance to build a support system within a gaming community is more realistic than starting from scratch.
When I lost my stepfather in February of 2020, I went onto Minecraft with my friends, and they helped me build a memorial. They allowed me the opportunity to talk about him, remember him, and cry about his loss. Each time I log into the world, I see the memorial we built together as a group. Despite the pain I felt, and all the complications that accompanied his loss, I was able to mourn him in my own way, on my own terms, surrounded by friends.
Whether a storyline connects on a personal level, an atmosphere fits your current mood, a community can come together, or a community becomes your support system, video games can provide a healthy way to cope with the tragic loss of a loved one. As Psych Central writer Julie Axelrod tells us, “Remember, grieving is a personal process that has no time limit, nor one “right” way to do it.”
About the Author:
Jackie Sieks is a proud single mother from Louisiana. She is a mental health advocate, and loves making people laugh.
As per gameHER Catherine Negron (@BigBarda)’s description:
Jackie can be found roaming the swamp of Lemoyne with her posse. “There are no pigeons in Saint Denis,” she says as she pulls herself into the saddle of her horse, “That makes me sad.” She can also be found on Twitter, @WriterJackieS, if you wanna stop by for a chat.
Jackie Sieks, photo courtesy of the author
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