This is something that is difficult for me to talk about...
All my life, I've had to deal with an anxiety disorder, and it is something that can possibly impact me each and every single day. It's a debilitating fear, that I personally cannot control. The moment I see my trigger, everything changes and I cannot control it. It's a horrible feeling, a horrible fear, and there isn't anything I can actually do to stop it. Medication exists to help lessen my body's response, but it's not something that can fully go away.
While I will not go into great detail about what it is, or what triggered it, I can say that it relates back to an experience I had when I was roughly three years old. Something I saw, which then has remained with me for my entire life. What I saw went on to prevent me from playing specific games or watching TV shows for the longest time, but eventually I was able to overcome this fear thanks to one thing.... Half-Life 2.
It is weird to say, but if it weren't for Half-Life 2, I wouldn't even be able to enjoy my favorite shows or games. As a fan of crime dramas, shows like BONES are a part of what I'd consider my all time favorites; however, BONES especially is a series that would trigger me non stop. The graphic depictions of the dead bodies were enough to shut me down, and kept me from enjoying a show I was otherwise interested in. Games like Resident Evil? Couldn't do it. Anything with bloody or graphic content in general? Nope. Heck, I've even been triggered by kid shows! As long as the criteria lined up, it would get to me. But again, thanks to my experience with Half-Life 2, I was able to overcome a large chunk of this phobia, and narrow it down to a single main trigger.
What it is like to have an Anxiety Disorder:
Before I get into my story, I feel it is important to help those understand what an anxiety disorder, also known as a phobia, is like. It isn't a simple fear, nor does it have to be rational at all. For example, I went to school with someone who was triggered by the color yellow. Can the color yellow hurt you? No. does being afraid of it make sense? Not at all. Is it a real phobia? Of course it is. It is a fear response that the person cannot fully control, and it doesn't matter if it makes sense or not.
In a more common example, the fear of spiders is something many people struggle with to the point where even seeing a picture of one is enough to get to them. Those who suffer from Trypophobia are bothered by clusters of holes or organic patterns, which also isn't something that can necessarily hurt you. Getting too close to a beehive can be a problem, sure, but the pattern of the hive itself isn't an issue.
The thing is, different people are impacted by their phobias in different ways, and in my case it is very difficult to explain. I know my specific trigger cannot hurt me, but if I encounter it in my daily life, it really is a mixed bag on how I will respond.
In general, if I were to be triggered, the same thing happens every time. My head goes into a fog, I get tunnel vision (sometimes focusing too much on the specific thing), I become dizzy, my heart rate skyrockets (thank you Apple Watch for confirming this for me), and sometimes I even feel physical pain. It's like someone has punched me in the face over and over again, and my body is going into full on defensive mode yet it cannot defend itself. Breathing sometimes becomes hard, and I have to make sure I do not vomit. Unfortunately, the feeling of having to throw up is something that will stay with me for possibly hours after, and it's especially bad if I'm triggered near lunch time. I can force myself to eat, but it isn't easy. Rationally I know this doesn't make sense, but it's how my mind reacts and I cannot control that.
On the other hand I am not always set off, and this seems to be the hardest thing for people to understand.
The best example I can give for how this works is a light switch. Imagine you have a dark room with a single switch, and a light bulb that is on the verge of going out. When you flip the switch one of two things can happen. Either A, the light bulb actually turns on and lights up the room, or B, the room stays dark.
Now imagine that option A is the most likely scenario, but there's something additional going on with the switch itself. Let's say you are not the one who will be flipping the switch, but instead you are the person trying to hold it down to ensure that it is dark. The moment I see my trigger, it feels as if I'm holding that light switch down as the second person is trying to flip it up. Sometimes they are stronger than me, the switch goes up, the light comes on, and my eyes are filled with light. I can see the light, and I can't convince my brain otherwise. (Can you look at a light and convince yourself you aren't seeing it? Or can you convince your brain you aren't reading these words right now? Just think about that...)
When it comes to option B, things are a bit weird. Sometimes I have to try to hold that switch down to avoid the possibility of the light coming on, but I still lose and the switch is flipped; however, to my surprise the light itself doesn't come on! In these cases I feel a bit sick from the strain of trying to hold that light down, but I'm not fully triggered. Other times the "thing" trying to flip the switch doesn't even show up though, so there's no trying to hold it back, nor is there any light to come on. It is weird and I have no control over when this "thing" will come back to try to flip the switch. In fact I can see the exact same trigger multiple times, and say 30% of the time it'll do nothing to me. The other 70% however is when I'm holding back that switch, and often lose. So it is never a matter of getting used to seeing the trigger, it's just a matter of how my brain is going to respond at that point in time.
How Half-Life 2 Helped Me:
So with all of that being said, you may be wondering exactly how Half-Life 2 helped with this. Well, I can say one word and many will understand. Ravenholm.
When I first got an Xbox 360, my main priorities were games like Halo 3, Portal. PGR, Skate, and a few others. Up until then I was mainly a Nintendo and PlayStation (1) gamer, so the 360 itself was opening me up to a whole new world of games. I mainly played E, E10, and some T rated games at that time, so I didn't have a lot of experience when it came to M rated titles. Sure, I played Halo at my cousin's house, but that was really about it. So when I saw The Orange Box contained Half-Life 2 along with Portal, I wasn't fully sure what I was getting myself into. I knew the game had aliens in it, but I never expected the reality of what that meant.
I remember sitting in the school computer lab looking up information about the game, and day dreaming in class (sorry teachers) about what it would be like playing the game. I pictured myself exploring forests and making my way through cities to fight off the aliens, and I thought maybe more Portal elements would appear as things went on. (Yeah I didn't know anything). The idea of the Gravity Gun was really cool too, and solving puzzles with it sounded like it would be a lot of fun. I was excited to try it out, and that night I was planning to do just that. There was just a little roadblock I had to deal with first.
Around this time was when my aunt and cousins were moving into a new home, and I remember spending quite a few days helping them out. I started up Half-Life 2 the moment I got home from school, but I didn't get to play it very long before I'd go over to help them. This pattern repeated for a few days, as I slowly chipped away at the story, and eventually I encountered my first zombie.
Now, I'll admit this did bother me from the get go. It wasn't too bad, but seeing them put me on the verge of flipping that switch. So I simply killed them as fast as possible, and went on with the game. Not too big of a deal by any means, but enough to put me a bit on edge. As long as the game would be more aliens than zombies I'd be fine, and I clung onto that hope to help get me through it. Then Ravenholm happened.
The moment I was separated from Alyx, one of the main characters in the game, I felt defenseless. I was hoping she'd be with me more, but that wasn't the case. Instead I found myself having to make my way through Ravenholm, which would force me to come face to face with my fears.
I'm not going to lie, I actually raced over and shut my Xbox off almost instantly...
As soon as I stepped into the area, looked at the tree and saw a hanging pair of legs; I knew I was done with the game. I couldn't handle it anymore, because I knew it was going to get worse. I stopped right then and there, and planned to never look back.
But I did.
A few days later I came back from helping my aunt pack, and I was home alone with nothing to do. We had taken in my aunt's cat for the time being (we ultimately had to pass it on to someone else), but she didn't need much attention. So with me being bored, I looked over at my copy of The Orange Box, and decided to give it another go. I was going to force myself through Ravenholm, and get to the light on the other side. What happened next was a few hours of pure terror for me, but by the end of it I came out as a better person.
Ravenholm forced me to face down my phobia over and over and over and over again. The graphic content, the zombies, the jump scares, the extremely disturbing imagery, and just... Everything. I got me to turn off my brain, and just deal with it. Keep moving forward, and don't overthink what is happening, or what I was seeing. I'd be lying if I said it was easy, but by the end I was nearly desensitized to it all.
I'm not fully sure how I did it honestly, but after that experience things became easier for me. What used to trigger my phobia became much more narrower, and realizing this I began trying new things. That show I wanted to watch? BONES? It truly did become one of my favorites. Those Resident Evil games I had wanted to try? Now I could play them with little issues! It was like someone took that light switch that used to turn on, and gave it a different button. Before all you had to do is push it in for there to be light, but now it was a flip switch that only one specific trigger could flip. And it is all thanks to Half-Life 2, and my will to get through the most terrifying part.
The Me of Today:
As I've said before, although Half-Life 2 helped me out a lot, this phobia is still something I deal with. I feel like I've gotten better at holding that switch down to prevent it from flipping, but it still does flip, and I still have reactions. The trigger itself is much more narrow and specific, but those specifics are what I can come face to face with every day on my way to work (or even at work). It's not something I can hide from, and continued exposure doesn't lessen it at all. It is something I will continue to face, and thinking about it now has already accelerated my heartrate. The unfortunate fact of the matter is, each time I've been triggered is also burned into my memory, almost as if that light switch also takes a picture, and I can recall those memories at any time. It can throw me into an instant panic attack, and I can't help it.
So with that being said, I think here is where I need to wrap this up and stop thinking about it.
I'm really grateful for what Half-Life 2 did for me, as it allowed me to actually function as a person! It didn't cure me, but it left me in much better standing. Heck, even the nightmares that used to trigger me stopped! So I really am happy that I went through the game, and forced myself to face my fears. I'm sure the game was designed to have the opposite effect, but I guess that just shows how weird I truly am!
Anyway, thank you guys for taking the time to read my post today! And I hope you look forward to the rest of our Halloween event!
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