- Hi, everyone.
In today's video, I'm going to be talking
about video games and schizophrenia.
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Hi, and welcome back
to the Living Well With Schizophrenia channel.
My name is Lauren,
and I make videos about what it's like
to live with schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia,
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All right, so video games and schizophrenia.
What is the connection there?
So, I did a quick search of the literature
in terms of finding out if playing video games
has any impact on managing schizophrenia symptoms,
or if it had a negative impact, or whatnot.
And so I did a quick search, and there wasn't a lot.
There was a lot of speculation
as to how video games can maybe help
in terms of managing some of the symptoms of schizophrenia,
and even managing things like cognitive impairments.
There's a lot of stuff in the works
about studies being done about this,
but there's nothing concrete as of yet.
And so most of the stuff
I'm going to be sharing in this video
is more anecdotally based on my own experiences
with playing video games, and managing my schizophrenia.
So, it's come up a lot in the comments and whatnot,
and just from other people I know of
in the schizophrenia community
that they often play a lot of video games.
And I definitely do not identify myself as a gamer,
and I'm a little embarrassed
to share my experiences of gaming,
because I played video games like Mario Kart,
and Wii Sports, and Crash Bandicoot,
and I think those are like the three ones
that I have any sort of experience in.
But even silly games like this,
I think that they really helped me
through some difficult periods of my illness.
When I was first grappling with a lot of depression,
and psychosis symptoms kind of cropping up,
I can't even tell you how many times
I resorted to playing these video games
as a bit of an escape.
And I had one of those IKEA couches
that folds out into a bed,
and I would just make this comfy little lair,
and I would just sit down,
and play video games for hours on end.
And I just wanted to kind of reflect in this video
as to why maybe that was, and why it felt good to do that,
or maybe not it felt good,
but it felt like it made things more manageable.
And so I think exploring that a little bit further,
going into this fabricated world
that a video game represents,
I think is very appealing to people
who don't always have the most solid footing
in this reality.
And it provides a way to kind of explore,
a safe way to explore another reality,
and to be very deliberate
about how you're engaging in that reality,
because you have the controller,
and you have all the controls
as to how you are in this world.
And I think that that's maybe something that is lacking
from a lot of people's real-world experiences
when you're living with schizophrenia.
I think another thing that kind of drew me
towards video games was just,
that it's kind of a soothing thing, like it's a distraction.
And so you are distracted from your symptoms,
and from whatever you're struggling with in the real world.
And it provides this escape that you can kind of just go,
and be safe in.
Now, there is some preliminary studies being done
on the video games where
if there's some sort of physical activity involved.
So whether that's like I'm going to date myself,
but like Dance Dance Revolution,
or like Wii Sports, where you're actually doing stuff,
or there's like Ring Fit now,
or I don't know the vast breadth of games like this,
but there's preliminary studies being done
on the connection with these games
where you're moving your body, and engaging in that way,
and managing or addressing treatment
for cognitive impairments
that have to do with schizophrenia.
Now, again, this is not,
this is not done being studied,
but there are some preliminary inklings
that there is an impact on this.
And so I played a lot of Wii Sports.
I loved playing tennis, and boxing, and golf,
and all this kind of stuff.
And it just felt really good
to have that connection in my brain
be very deliberate between what I was seeing,
and how I was moving my body, and what I was thinking.
And it just, I dunno, that just felt really good.
And maybe it did have an impact
on my cognitive abilities during that time.
I was in school when I was relying heavily
on these video games,
and maybe it helped me be more
cognitively functioning in school.
Another kind of positive aspect
about these more movement games
is that it's engaging you in terms of
doing some sort of physical activity,
which is also a good way to manage schizophrenia symptoms.
Now I've kind of gone over the benefits
of these video games,
but I think it's also important
to weigh the opposite as well,
where I have lost myself in
just immersing myself in these video game worlds
where I kind of lose touch even further
with the real reality.
And so I think that that's kind of a fine line to tread
in terms of if you are providing a brief bit of escapism
to these alternate realities,
and using it as a form to,
like I was saying earlier,
be deliberate about how you're engaging in a world.
That's kind of,
I feel that that's a little bit more therapeutic,
but when it comes to the line of
you are just using that as your only coping mechanism,
and you are falling too deep into it,
and kind of losing touch with the external reality.
I think that that may be more of a problem,
and can maybe even compound schizophrenia symptoms.
And so this kind of leads me into speculation
about where video games are going.
There's a lot of VR stuff,
virtual reality stuff coming into play.
And I think that that's really wonderful
in terms of providing that escapism,
or that direct impact on the world
that you can really decide on,
like I was mentioning earlier.
But again, this also creates,
I think more of an opportunity for this disenfranchisement,
or broken connection from the real world.
Especially with how realistic graphics are becoming
in these video games.
And so I just want to provide a word of caution
that if you struggle with schizophrenia,
and with losing touch with reality sometimes,
just to be a little bit careful
about how deep you're diving into these things,
and how much you're letting it
inform your concept of the world.
I think there's also an interesting opportunity
for video games to kind of provide a bit of education
on the experience of psychosis,
and to maybe provide a bit more understanding
for people who don't experience it,
or for people who do experience it to better understand it.
People are constantly asking me to review,
I believe it's called Samuel's Sacrifice,
which is a video game
where the the main character in the video game
has schizophrenia, or experiences psychosis.
And I haven't played it yet.
I don't know what it's like,
but I've been told by a lot of people that it does a really,
really great job of depicting what psychosis may entail.
And we were also sent a,
I think it was like a VR documentary on a video game,
virtual reality simulation
of someone sharing their experience
of living with schizophrenia.
And it was, I found it kind of mind blowing,
and mind expanding in terms of actually being able
to immerse yourself in what someone else
may be experiencing.
So I think that there is so much connection,
and opportunity within video games
to connect to the experience of schizophrenia,
both in the terms of education,
and in terms of potential therapeutic treatment
for schizophrenia.
And so if you guys have any other thoughts on
how video games play into living with schizophrenia,
or educating people about schizophrenia,
I would love to hear about them in the comments below.
Also just a quick reminder,
that if you want to see more videos from us,
make sure to subscribe.
And if you would like to help support us
in creating these videos,
please check out the link to our Patreon page.
Thank you so much again for watching,
and as always, wishing you and your loved ones good health.
We'll see you in the next video, bye.