Getting out of my own way.
Ahoy hoy. My name is Jefferson Walter Turnbull and contrary to what my name suggests, I am not a chauffeur. (Read: “Home Jefferson!”) I am currently enrolled in Game Dev HQ’s Intense training program and am to be calling myself a game developer. So here I am, a game developer!
Not only are we challenged to create our flavor of a Tower Defense game, but they had also challenged us to blog about it. Here I thought the hardest part was going to be the code.
You see, amongst other exciting features; my software came preloaded with depression and anxiety. That’s right, the giant black dog that is deathly afraid of its own shadow. In fact, not only is it afraid of its own shadow, but it is also greatly afraid people will find out. Knowing about it and understanding that it is not necessarily rational, feels like it should make things easier; but ultimately makes things more frustrating.
The best advice I have read came from the creator of Rick and Morty. After being posed a question about depression and anxiety, he stated; and I may be paraphrasing: “Thoughts are real, it’s just that they are not necessarily reality.” To me, it means that whatever chemicals my brain has decided to release in response to some perceived situation, may not realistically reflect the actual situation. Sounds exciting no? Herein lies the rub. Our individual perception is based on the chemical reactions in our brain.
The fast and dirty explanation of anxiety essentially talks about the brain taking normal everyday situations and applying primitive fight or flight reactions in response to situations that no longer require such a primitive survival response. If you have ever wondered why one child is ok with leaving that toy behind and another has a nuclear-Esq meltdown; perhaps this will provide some insight.
Combined with depression you have what Will Wheaton calls “the tag team champions of the World Wrestling With Mental Illness Federation.” These guys work exceptionally hard at undermining your self-confidence and your perception of self-worth. It’s like having someone constantly at your shoulder telling you how much you suck. Keeping in mind that person is you and has a crap ton of anecdotal evidence it is more than willing to host a Q&A about.
My particular brand takes great joy in telling me that I have it quite good actually, no one wants to hear about it, and I should really suck it up and come to terms with the fact that I am a failure. What am I failure at you ask? That is the best part! It’s everything I have ever done, thought, or felt. It is the reason for all the bad and an all-encompassing deterrent to the good. It keeps me from asking questions because, obviously, my questions are stupid. Asking them would be a huge burden to whomever I was engaging and they are just too polite to tell me to STFU. A jack of all trades and a master of dumb, if you will.
It tells me that I deserved all the bad things that have happened to me and that it is just a matter of time before the world realizes I don’t deserve the good either. “And Boy are they gonna be pissed Jeff, here have a shot of adrenaline, I see your heart rate is almost normal and the cortisol in your joints is running out. You'll never get arthritis that way!! (see what I mean? lol)”
So when I say attempting to start writing this blog has been hell, you can kinda see what I mean. Here we are at week 7, Dan and Austin; my instructors are fantastic. They are more than willing to help with any nonsense I can come up with. That being said I consistently feel like I am so far behind I will never finish, what I need to ask about is stupid and I should figure it out myself, and “at the end of the day Jeff, why bother?”. Utter nonsense.
To that end, how silly is it to believe BOTH those scenarios? Especially when we have spent the majority of this blog pointing out how one is essentially ethereal and a product of misfiring neurons and incorrect chemical production. Really silly I think.
So that is it. The greatest obstacle I need/ed to overcome in my game dev journey. Was I going to continue to be a victim of my own illness, or is it time to maybe push back? I decided to push back. I figured I should tackle the first of my biggest fears. That people will find out. If I tell them, then where is the power in that? Gone I hope. Thanks for reading.