I'm starting to feel it with Hollow Knight as I approach the end. I will definitely buy and beat it again if it ever comes to PS4. I haven't enjoyed a game in this style this much since the king of the genre SOTN.
So do I. So when you finish a game, depression ?
Are you serious?
Don't you think it defeats the purpose and may make some other people think depression is not that serious?
A lot of the people that dismiss depression do so saying stuff like feel better or get over it which is not cool. I feel just throwing the term out there every time you feel some emptiness is not helpful.
Another example I can think of is The Witcher 3. That game consumed so many hours of my life. After I finished the game I could only think "...now what?". Wasn't ready to play another game for a week or two.
I just want to say thank you for your involvement in this thread. It's very insightful seeing someone with MDD talk about this in detail. I learned a lot. Also awesome that you started a more positive thread.Are you aware that depression and medically diagnosed depression are two separate things? The former word has existed and used for this very purpose long before it was used to describe the almost perpetual state of depression caused by the disorder.
Also for me, yes, it can some times put me into an actual major episode. Some people get very invested in games. Taking them away is like removing a close friend.
Depression is something many people can experience. You are not special because you have the disorder that makes it chronic and causeless.
The misconception happens because normally depression needs a cause (such as removal from am intimate emotional investment), and will normally clear up given time.
The disorder, which I have, arrives without a legitimate cause and will hang around indefinitely and will continue to do so chronically. It is also sometimes far more intense than every day depression.
But actually feeling depressed is something the every day person can and does experience.
If you want to educate people about MDD then it's probably best to learn about it and why it happens and what the actual disorder is.
It is clear to me that many people in this thread do truly feel depressed after a long emotional investment in a game. Some people just "feel bad." But you do not need to have MDD to be emotionally affected by a video game. Nor to feel a profound sense of depression when one is over.
Spreading misinformation is not how to educate people.
Especially because many people experience depression for a number of reasons. Yes, just the same as someone with the actual disorder. So when you tell someone that the feeling they have isn't significant or legitimate. That they don't experience that emotion. That they can't understand you. Then you shut off necessary components of empathy.
We don't need to delegitimize other people's experiences. Depression happens to everyone. Some people will think they have the disorder and use that as an excuse to wallow in a self pittied negative existence and think that hey since I'm clearly depressed, that means I must have depression. When sometimes all they need is to just get off their ass and straighten their life out.
Some people then have been in that situation. This is literally where the misunderstanding comes from. When you make depression the name of the disorder, then you make every person who was able to get out of their non MDD depression think that it's not a disorder. You make them think "well I was depressed and I got out of it. You should be able to too."
Refusing to make the distinction is exactly the cause of the problem here. It is where the misinformation and misunderstanding comes from.
Quit delegitimizing other people's experiences.
Instead, explain to them that you have a disease that makes depression causeless and chronic. Use that common understanding to go, "Hey, remember that one terrible experience you had? Remember how it wrecked you for a whole month but then you were able to get over it? Well, MDD is a disorder where that depression happens for no reason. You'll just be going along and suddenly you start getting depressed. Maybe want to kill yourself. And this could last for a very long time. For some people it is constant and pretty much unchanging. Some people have manic depression. But regardless, it id a disease that takes that normal emotional state and makes it 10x worse. Imagine the guilt that happens because you know it's not legitimate. You try to motivate yourself and nothing works. You feel more than everyone else like you should be able to just "get over it" but you can't, because it's not the kind of depression you may have experienced. It's a disease that willpower can't overcome. It's a causeless, perpetual agony and helplessness that traps you for no discernable reason. Take what you experienced and imagine it being chronic with very little to relieve it and that being inconsistent at best."
I tend to get this with longer games.
I remember importing and playing the Translated version of the other Fire Emblem Remake on the DS through a flash card, and I got about 80% through the game and realized it would be over soon. I didn't want to finish it because I enjoyed it that much. In the end I never did go back to it. And the file and game is still in tact on my flash card, waiting to be finished. At this point I barely remember anything about it and would have to replay it again to even get familiar with everything. But yeah, that's one example.
I also did this with Xenoblade Chronicles. I got half way through the game and got the last party member, (Which was kind of a downer if I'm gonna be honest) and took about a week break since I got that far in about 3 days. After the week I put it off for a few months, then about a year. Completely forgot everything and went back and finished it. I'm glad I finished the game, even if I do think the 2nd half of it is a little sloppy. And I love it now.
It also SOMEWHAT happened again in XBC2, but after about a month I went back and finished it, though I'm still chiseling away at 100%.
But yeah, I definitely get "post" or nearly "post" game depression quite easily. Investing a lot of time into a game I love is a great feeling, but it feels very sad to part ways with said game. Until next time anyway. :P
Finished two of those games (TLoU and TWD) and completely agree with you.Yes, many times. Happened when I finished TLOU, Beyond Two Souls, Hellblade and TWD Season 1.
I'm starting to feel it with Hollow Knight as I approach the end. I will definitely buy and beat it again if it ever comes to PS4. I haven't enjoyed a game in this style this much since the king of the genre SOTN.