Video Games - Depression

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This is probably going to sound strange, but for years and years I've escaped to video games. Not just because they are fun, but certain video games like *skyrim* and *adventure games* feel like home. I can't stop playing because I wish I was a part of the world they take place in. After a while, Depression takes over because I'm trapped in this world of mundane tasks and normalcy. I crave to travel the world, helping people and earning gold by my bow, even if death takes me. I have helped people in real life, but all people in this world ever ask for is money, money money money money money. It's just inevitable and predictable. I also convinced myself to donate some time for public work, but they didn't ever really ask much of me and it felt like a waste of time They probably didn't ask anything of me because of my bad eyesight, but it's just not fair. Why can't life be something more fun and unpredictable? I guess It's also easy in skyrim because I don't have to think of my own answers. I'm given a few predetermined choices and those are my only answers. The conversation part would still be hard for me, but at least I'd get to fight dragons! The strange thing is, I'm not the least bit hostile. I'm very calm and I tend to cry rather than to shout. My desire for that lifestyle isn't fueled by rage, it's fueled by my desire to see my problems in front of me, instead of having to search for them like in the real world. People don't always say when there is a problem, and it's annoying. At least a dragon would be pretty obvious. There is a lot more to it, but I'm afraid I've already occupied much of your time. If you wish to know more, just ask.

When I play Skyrim, I am the opposite of how I am in real life. In Skyrim I make friends with almost everyone I can and go out of my way to find people to help out. It's so much easier than in real life, and no chance of harm to myself, and It's fun. And no one there is getting bothered by my being a weird dork like how it is in real life.

I don't get depressed from playing Skyrim. Yeah sometimes I want to actually be there in real life, but not being able be there to doesn't make me depressed. For me playing Skyrim helped me feel less depressed because it helped my not notice the pain I was in, and I had a blast playing Skyrim and learning the skills and tearing up the bad guys. Migraines and muscle spasms can make me feel depressed when they are strong and relentless. Now, I am more depressed because my XBOX broke and I can't play Skyrim anymore, and I have to find other methods of distraction from my pain.

Sashiku, you & I are the same! I get you!

RL is such a drudge most of the time I find things I do in-game more rewarding than 'on the outside'. I manage to get away from the gaming and depression from not being able to do things like in game (you mentioned traveling, doing worthwhile things, etc) by traveling abroad whenever I save up enough to do it.

For the past few years there hasn't been a game that 'draws me in' ever since FFXI crapped out. Skyrim is nice but... its not MMO and that to me makes it too predictable. Love the scenery and hunting (and fishing mods!) for that game though. This coming year a new MMO comes out called Star Citizen that will probably draw me in.. till then its drudgery drudgery...

I am a life-long video game player and I've also dealt with depression and most of my life, as I lost my mother to cancer at the age of 8 and I was severely depressed in my mid-teens as I never quite figured out how to fit in past the 7th grade when my family moved from Arkansas to Washington, and video games have been a part of my coping mechanisms. But something that I see in so many other people, something just like what is expressed in the original post that I can't seem to quite fully understand, is people's propensity to lose themselves to fantasy. I used to always enjoy the idea of living in a different world or as someone else as kid, but somehow I forbid myself to indulge in any form of fantasy-like escapism when I became a teenager, and yet that's when my video gaming became more of a coping mechanism than anything else. So here I am now perplexed as to why I am so incapable of letting myself get lost in such things, maybe this once imaginative and playful young boy has simply has scars in his psyche that cannot heal. Perhaps it can be simply explained that I developed severe alexithymia upon reaching adolescence. I really don't know, but maybe it's not something worth brooding about.

Sorry for that block of text, btw, for anyone that doesn't want to read my life story. Recently I've been feeling really alienated from my friends--it happens quite a bit, as I rarely go outside so the only meaningful human interaction I have is with friends on Skype, but I'm always *that guy* that doesn't give two f***s about the latest anime or TV show they are all obsessed with--and so most of what I've been doing today is listening to electronic music, hanging about WrongPlanet and thinking about my life.

Video games in general are an enormous stress reliever IMO. God of War games prevent depression in me the easiest, at least to me.