Celeste - Tackling Demons

I’ve been struggling for a while. Several years, really. I have never really admitted that out loud. The final two months of 2019 were worse than most.

I began November on the jury of a rape trial. It was rough. He was found not guilty.

Back at work, something I had been working on for nearly two years was basically thrown in the trash by a higher-up boss. A man who I thought was on my side. I felt fury, frustration, sadness - I broke.

It took everything in me to hold back several panic attacks the Sunday after - something that’s only occurred a handful of times in my life.

My dad was diagnosed with cancer. I count my lucky stars that it was caught early, and it’s being acted on fast, so within the next couple of months it will all be behind him, mostly.

My mother-in-law ended up in ICU with a heartbeat of 30. I did everything I could to help my partner and her mum, but I couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t enough.

My partner had her birthday, and while I know in my heart I didn’t, I feel like I let her down, that the day was not as great as it should’ve been, because of my inability to properly be “happy".

My body is in constant pain from being tense all the time. I wake up, exhausted, in a ball with my fists clenched and my knuckles white, every morning. My teeth throb with my heartbeat when I lay down at night and force my jaw to relax.

There is something in my gut that feels like it’s pushing against everything, making it hard to breath, causing my digestive system to not do what it’s supposed to, and making my back feel worse than it should. A chiro I went to says I have a hernia.

My workmates, who I’ve spent nearly seven years relatively happy with, have pushed me out of their collective group - separate facebook group chats, talking behind my back, being left out, etc.

On the last day of work for the year, I walked out into the main room 15 minutes before lunch to find it empty. Two hours later everyone returned, having gone out for Christmas lunch without saying a word.

None of them will read this, because games are for children, and I’m mocked constantly for being a “nerd". Despite being the go to for tech help, building PC’s for their kids, and teaching them how to use their own.

Of course, there’s the existential threats - the climate crisis, the continued rise of Nazi’s, the constant threat of more war, the fact the earth will be destroyed in 24 hours should a nuclear power launch a single missile, children in cages, Muslims in Chinese “re-education” (internment) camps, my country literally on fire, those fires creating their own weather fronts and fire tornadoes.

I’m meant to, and want to, be excitedly planning our engagement party and wedding with my new fiancé, and yet I spent the better part of my two week break barely being able to think and function.

I’ve never been one for 2D platformers. Nor difficult games. I realized a while ago twitch controls make me feel frustrated rather than skilled; any difficulty overcome brings more a sense of relief than accomplishment. Celeste was then always a game admired from afar - a game for others. And that’s ok - not everything is for everyone.

In the tail end of my obsession over Limited Run Games last January, I figured the Switch release of Celeste would be a good title to pick up - no doubt a popular game that would be worth having. When it finally arrived on Dec 30th (long story) I decided eh, why not - plug that cartridge in and boot it up. I bought it, I may as well check it out.

The most I’d ever heard of the game was that it was a difficult 2D platformer with a story, that also won the Games For Change category at the 2018 Game Awards. Said story had a focus on mental health, and while the game had a brilliant accessibility system built in, the game encourages you to at least try and get through it without leaning on them.

As the starting screen faded in, the first thing I did was go to the options menu. I very nearly turned on invincibility, along with other helpful features, but I paused. Let’s just see how this does play - I can always come back and turn them on if (when) I can’t do it.

I feel like I’m pretty good at knowing my own mind. I can recognize when issues I’m struggling with are affecting me externally; I know when to remove myself from the room, when I’m better off alone than around others. I keep to myself a lot in general, am often quiet in groups, always try and avoid any attention.

The worst of it is not feeling in control of your own mind. Feeling mentally paralyzed in situations that should - and have been in the past - straightforward. Feeling so deeply lost in your own head that you don’t know when, if at all, you can make it back out. To just be normal again.

Chapter 6 - Reflections.

Madeline: “I’m good at keeping up appearances, but the truth is I’m barely holding it together."

Theo: “Would you mind talking about what depression is like?"

Madeline: “It’s like… I’m at the bottom of the ocean. I can’t see anything in any direction. It’s claustrophobic, yet I feel exposed. … I remember feeling normal. But now it just feels out of reach, no matter what I try. Then again, I was probably always messed up. It just took something hurtful to bring it out. There must be something wrong with me. I guess I could just… I don’t know. I’m floating in this abyss, swimming in a random direction. Hoping that I find something."

Am I always going to feel this way? Am I doomed to fall forever further, piling more problems on top of others, until the light at the top of the hole just disappears completely?

It wasn’t always like this, was it?

I didn’t know if I could beat it. 

“Beat”. When that thought popped into my head, all I could do was laugh at the irony. 

When listening to non-American people talk about video games, you rarely hear that phrase. “finished”, “clocked”, “completed” - but almost never “beat”.

The term never really sat well in my mind. I come to games as an experience shared between the player and the systems; a push and pull between input and reaction, a symbiotic give and take between a person and a whole other world… a meeting half way between two. “Beat" implies an imbalanced relationship; with a game simply being something a player needs to dominate, to force into submission, to defeat.

That’s not quite right with Celeste, though. The symbolic climb up a mountain, the arduous journey up and to the right; you are trying to conquer it. Because moving forward requires overcoming obstacles - internal ones, just as much as external.

I have two game-related goals this year. The first is to build and release a full video game of my own. I’ve spent ten years not really knowing what I want to “be” when I grow up, but I know this - I want the freedom to work from home; I really enjoy coding, writing and designing worlds; I love video games. I’ve spent several hours every day working on this so far. It’s the most content I’ve felt in a long time.

The second is to keep a game diary. Games are joyous, thoughtful, challenging, affecting. Collecting my thoughts on what I play on this website over the years is a treasured constant in my life. I guess this is my first entry.

The final two months of 2019 were not great. Yet, there was so much in there to be thankful for. Catching up with beloved family members from far away. Finally having mostly out-of-touch friends around for a BBQ, and feeling that for the first time in years, I’d felt completely happy in the moment, not worrying about any of my problems. Best of all, just spending time with my wonderful fiancé and our beloved cats, doing not much of anything other than being together. It’s important to remember those moments, regardless of how heavy the darkness shrouds.

This morning, I made it to the peak of Celeste mountain. It took over eight hours and nearly 1600 deaths, I collected barely any strawberries; but I didn’t use any assist features. I did it.

As I head back to a workplace I despise tomorrow, I will try to keep Celeste at the forefront of my mind. We all have mountains to climb, and I’m a ways off from my summit. But every day is a step further along the path, and any movement forward is better than standing still.