Growing up things could be quite hard at home. My parents loved me dearly and were doing their best, but mum very much struggled with her mental health and without going into too much detail about that, I found this really difficult as a child. It pushed responsibilities onto me that were just too adult and didn’t really give space for my own feelings. I found things too intense, but as a dependent child (as well as a young-carer), I didn’t really have an escape and found my mind would often wonder to worrying about my care-giver’s welfare.

I needed that escape, a brief holiday from the strain of home-life; and then came my first games console: a Sega Genesis, and it was then that Gaming started to help me meet my needs and helped me to cope.

Gaming gave me an escape from the intensity of what was going on a home, I could switch on a game and switch off from the intense thoughts or feelings that my childhood self didn’t know how to process – and immerse myself into the game that captivated my mind and gave me that pause from life.

Then as the gaming consoles evolved, so did life.
My sister and I would structure so much of our time to Pokémon battles – connecting with each other, researching what moves or evolutions could happen, and competing as we did another play through of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.

I met friends in school, who would come over and we’d have an all-nighter playing Super Smash Bros or Golden Eye 64.

At GCSEs, we’d sit round playing FIFA together on the PS2, which was such a simple and beautiful way to connect with friends that took off any pressures of social interaction & facilitated connection as my mates yet again thrashed me.

It didn’t matter that I lost at FIFA though – video games taught me to lose, they taught me to grind and work towards advancement, that I could try again if I failed – to Git Gud at Dark Souls;

They taught co-operation and forged friendships as me & my mates swapped controller after each life lost in Sonic.

They watered my creativity as we designed levels in Tenchu or songs in Music 2000,

They allowed me to be competent at uni, where reinventing yourself is hard, but I could have that competence by being the best at Super Smash Bros Melee on the Gamecube.

And they still provide this when
– I’m dysregulated or tired, need to passively process, or just have a break from the usual structure in life.

I don’t seem to game quite as much these days, and maybe that’s part of the peace that I’m discovering in life, but I still love video games – even today I look forwards to continuing The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC in Elden Ring, or seeing if my wife fancies local co-oping though Balder’s Gate 3.

I’ve also experienced my fair share of compulsive gaming. Periods where I cannot pull away from RPGs like Runescape, where I’ve had to yet again uninstall Binding of Isaac where I’m spending too much time on it, where I’m thinking about Warlight and virtual friends there rather than being present in my relationships.