I am probably clinically depressed. Yeah, that doesn't sound so good but I know that the situation is escalating and it needed to be addressed. The spouse wholeheartedly recommends that I see the shrink but I just have a feeling that if I actually go, I would probably be prescribed with some anti-depressants. Because what else can the shrink do? Hang out with me while I am gaming and pretend to understand the reason behind me crying during the evolutionary bits in the last stage of Rez? Well, maybe the latter and it would not even be pretend but at this point, I just don't think that seeking psychological help is going to alleviate the situation. My solution? Well, let's combat a gaming related problem with gaming? Sounds so bloody meta right? So much so that it just had to work!
Audiosurfing the depression away...
Believe it or not, the number of activity that I would normally go to when I am feeling sad is not video gaming. As a matter of fact, when I am feeling blue, it takes away my desire to play video games because I know that I won't be able to commit to playing them - thus the situation at hand. When I am sad, I would actually listen to music. Not cheery music of course, listening to those when I am sad can lead to vomiting. Not that I have a lot of uplifting music within my reach to begin with. To just marinate myself in that whole damp and sticky atmosphere of darkness from these sorrowful and depressing songs, I usually found myself walking away confident that everything will be okay. There is just something about embodying a bit of self-pity - which of course, not something that I would recommend anyone to participate in casually - that would eventually make me realize how repulsive that place can be and I would always reach that inevitable conclusion during the aforementioned musical binge session. I have decided to use the ultimate music game, Audiosurf, to facilitate my current music therapy sessions and surprisingly, it's a rather potent concoction. I have done this before in the past but never this extensively. As you may know, Audiosurf lets you experience your music in a deeper sense where you can actually see and feel the music. So the effectiveness of just listening to the music to calm my nerves is actually doubled and maybe even tripled when Audiosurf is added into the equation. So I have been playing a lot of Audiosurf lately to let myself be drown by the wonderment of it all. So is this remedy working? Somewhat. I do feel a bit better after every session though that brooding, lingering loneliness is still somewhat there, following my every step. It may take a while for a complete recovery so I just have to keep at it for now.
2 comments:
Hey Lonergamer.
An interesting post. I've never really considered the audiosurf approach. I'm not sure it would even run on my laptop, but its quite genius; joining the emotion of music and the involvement of gaming in an epic synergy.
it makes me want to get the game and play through my favourite tracks.
Why do you get emotional on the last stage of Rez? An amazing and beautiful game by the way. Have you ever tried Amplitude and Frequency?
Do you know what would make you feel better? I don't think a shrink can help, persoanlly- any external issues from the body cant be resolved just through medication. If it is any consolation, you may game alone in a physical sense, but you are very much not alone by blogging.
I have played Amplitude and Frequency before. They were fun. Funny to think that the songs found in those games would be a lot of engaging when played via Audiosurf...
Glad you mentioned Amplitude by the way. For some reason, I missed listing that game in my PlayStation 2 library. The list is (hopefully) complete now.
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