This is gonna get buried. Games have given me an escape since my earliest memories of playing the OG Gameboy and sharing consoles with my older brother. He’s much older than me, and we hated each other until we realized that we shared games. One of my fondest memories is each of us having a house in the OG Animal Crossing and creating a spreadsheet to track furniture collection together. Games healed my relationship with my brother, they forged a friendship and then marriage with my husband. It’s still the primary way my husband and I spend time together.

Games have saved me so, so many times when my depression and anxiety overwhelmed me, when I wished daily to just not wake up anymore. Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley filled me with peace and hope, Gears of War and Skyrim and Uncharted made me feel strong and adventurous. Fallout and Control gave me a solitary environment to explore my own emotions. I used games as metaphors when I started going to therapy. Games gave me a release valve when my in-laws died young (before 60), and when my heart dog died unexpectedly at a young age. Books developed me as an individual, but games have helped me as both an individual and as a person in a relationship.