I am going to start this with the simple fact that I have not actually been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. by a professional. Nor have I been diagnosed with social anxiety. I have many of the symptoms, however, down to the panic attacks, and if I could get over my extreme discomfort around psychologists, maybe I’d get that actual diagnosis.
Also, I am going to add that I do not know if the following analysis I am presenting comes from this undiagnosed anxiety or comes from the overall imposter syndrome that female bodied people face when trying to navigate online gaming. Because if you’re not the best, you’re obviously a girl and suck (yeah it’s dumb).
But it may not be any surprise that I avoid online gaming like the plague. And I did get to experience the days where online gaming got started. I tried the Runescape and Xbox Live original (Atlas vs Minis was my favorite gametype in MechAssult). I remember those days where I was so stoked to get ahold of the headset for my brother’s XBOX, getting to talk to people during Halo 2.
And time and time again, I got kicked. Every time my higher pitched, feminine sounding voice piped up, I watched as the “you got kicked” note came up. The first few times, I thought it was the internet. But over and over it happened again. If I stopped talking, I’d last a little bit longer. But I’d be assaulted with the barrage of “You suck. Stop playing like a girl.”
Sometimes I wish I could have retaliated and been the best player on the server and show those guys that yes, I was female bodied, but I was allowed to be there. But no, I obviously couldn’t contend so get out of the space.
And I let them kick me out. I didn’t try to continue playing in a hostile environment. I shunted down to games that didn’t have online multiplayer or were solo games. The closest I got to returning to online multiplayer was the League of Legends Beta. But I’d only play with people I knew in real life. People, ultimately, I could hold accountable when I saw them at school the next day.
—
I would think that online gaming would be easier for me, because I, in all probability, would never run into those people in real life. Who I was behind the screen would never matter. But if anything, my experiences previously with online gaming, specifically communication during gameplay, made it so my anxiety was amplified. Now I couldn’t just play the game, I had to be the best. And if I wasn’t the best, I was going to get harassed. It was just how things were.
So what happens when I start encountering games like Dark Souls, and Journey? When communication in game becomes a very limited set of words, gestures, or chirping?
What next?
—Story Time—
I’m sitting on a futon in two of my friends’ shared apartment. They’ve booted up Journey for me and put the controller in my hands. I wanted to protest and say that I was totally fine watching the game but no, they insisted.
So there I was, skating through the sands, enjoying the scenery and aesthetic and music, and I get a notification: someone’s joined in. I felt the twinges of anxiety start and looked over at my friends.
“Oh yay! I was worried you’d have to play by yourself,” said one, smiling. “This game is so much more fun when you play with another person.” Something in my face must have shown my utmost panic because she continued with “It’ll be fine. They’ll probably help you out.”
Sure enough, a few moments later I hear a happy little chirp. A melodious bell/chime sound that serves as the only way for you to communicate in game. No gestures, no chat screen, just chirps. Being polite, I chirped back. We went to running around the first level, the other Red Cloak letting me explore but giving me gentle nudges in the right direction when I got turned around.
We began progressing through levels, and I stayed linked up with the same Red Cloak. They never dropped me (they could have, at any point, by quitting or returning to an earlier point in the game). Instead, they stayed on.
We got to the Dark Level. The one that simulates being under water. The level that you first see the monsters that eat your scarves. Where you have to navigate in the darkness and avoid light.
“Chirp, chirp!” Goes my guide, and they start along a path that will have us avoid the automata. I try to follow closely, feeling something welling inside me. Something not good. My hands started to shake and my breathing spiked. I accidentally veered a little to the right, into the searchlight of a monster.
In the middle of the game, two hours in, I had a panic attack.
I dropped the controller and tried to ride it out, losing vision for a moment and sound cutting out. My friends had come to my side, brought the controller back to me, and made sure I was okay. I came back to a statis, got everything up again and I hear it.
“Chirp.” There was the other Red Cloak. They had guided me back to the wall, circling around me and keeping me away from the monsters. My scarf was shorter, because it’d gotten eaten. Another “Chirp,” they were checking in on me. For some reason, instead of sounding like “Come on! Let’s go!” the chirps sounded like “Are you okay?”
I didn’t respond as I tried to get myself to stop shaking. I waited for them to leave–they could just go to the door without me. They didn’t. They stayed. We stood there for almost fifteen minutes before I finally chirped back. They let off –to me–a reassuring series of little chirps, and then we set off again. This time, instead of charging ahead, the other Red Cloak stayed close to my side, and guided me out.
We took the next levels slow, until I could get back into a rhythm, then we took off again. The same Red Cloak stayed with me until the end of the game, despite all of my flaws and my attack.
—Story Time—
“Well, okay, since I keep getting my ass handed to me by the Silver Knights right outside this door, I am summoning you in. I give up,” I mutter, embarrassed, to my partner. “Actually, no, you summon me in. I need souls and…well, that last Knight took my humanity when he stabbed me in the face.”
We’re basically attempting to couch co-op Dark Souls by summoning each other into our respective worlds and playing each level twice. Because I am very bad at Dark Souls and my partner’s done this song and dance at least three times by this point. I laid down my summon sign and we began the long, arduous wait of hoping our servers would connect.
After about five minutes, the words You are being summoned appeared on my screen. I smiled and got ready to explore Anor Londo with my partner when I realized he wasn’t the one who had summoned me. It was someone else.
“Jynx, you’re fine,” my partner said, immediately before I could say “what do I do oh god how do I get out of this.” “Just help them out like you do me.”
“But….I suck,” I whispered, terrified. “I’m going to get them killed!”
“Just do your best.”
So there I was, tagging along with a random stranger in a game that seeks to kill you in as many ways as it could. And I’m fighting off a panic attack because I’m so sure I’m going to fuck up and kill my summoner.
Lo and behold, I roll the wrong way, and find myself impaled on a Silver Knight’s sword again. Embarrassed, anxiety ebbing away, I shrug. “Told you, I suck,” I said, mostly to myself. My sign went down again and my partner went back to looking for it.
You are being summoned.
It was the same user. The same person I’d just royally fucked up (in my head) in front of. They waved. Offered a “hug” (basically, the Come At Me pose but walking forward). Using no words, again, they basically walked me through the thought process of it’s fine, everyone dies in this game, lets try again.
And we did. The other player summoned in another phantom and the three of us made a hunting party. My partner sat and watched as the three of us on screen, every so often offering reassurances to stop the anxiety he knew I was facing.
The anxiety came to a fore during the Ornstein and Smough fight. I expected our summoner to pick a target–you only get one set of boss armor from those two, so it all depends on who you kill first. I sat there, rolling back and forth, waiting for the summoner to pick which one for us to attack. They never did. I felt my anxiety mix dangerously with the adrenaline that always comes when doing boss fights. Sound started to vanish.
“Fine,” I said to the summoner who could not hear me. “I’m picking one.” And then I went and stabbed Ornstein in the kneecaps…a lot.
We ended up succeeding our first try against S&O. Praise the Sun all around.
I sent the summoner a thank you via Xbox Live chat, feeling dumb because of it, but feeling necessary.
“Good luck!” They sent back.
—
Why do these two stories stick out so much? Is it because the people I matched up with weren’t total dicks in the face of anomonity? Is it because strangers online helped me through two different anxiety reactions, possibly without realizing I was having the attack at all? Is it because, of all the shitty experiences I’ve had, facing anxiety in real life and online, these positive ones serve as shining beacons in the dark?
I don’t actually know the answer.
I will say that the experiences I had in Journey and Dark Souls were different in the fact that communication was limited. The people on the other side could not reach me in any conventional way. They could not call me names, or insinuate that the fact that I wasn’t very good because of my varying skill level or experience. They did not know who I was, or really, without going to my profile, they couldn’t find out.
The only experience they had of me was the character they met in the game. For once I was almost completely anonymous. And there’s this trend. The trend of multiplayer games to remove traditional chat options that typical First Person Shooters have.
—
NYMG has looked at Journey before and spoken about its soothing affects for those who suffer from panic and anxiety disorder. It’s something I experienced first hand as well.
I think there might be an unexplored importance to removing the ability to communicate “traditionally”–with voice and words–and forcing other modes of communication.
I’m looking outside Dark Souls and Journey. At games like Splatoon, Tri-Force Heroes, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, and others. Games that either remove chat options completely or limit you to a very small group of gestures or vocabulary.
These are games that I can play the random roulette and not worry about getting kicked as easily. Is it because I’m better at these games? I doubt it. I’m really a slow, sub-par gamer. I really think that it has something to do with the overall fact that I don’t have to put on a front. I don’t have to pretend to be the best, or pretend to be a dude.
I can just play.
