Purple Vanilla World

“Video games are for losers,” my then-fiancé snarled when I said I wanted a PlayStation for my birthday.

Every gamer has been judged at some point. As a child, my brother and I would stay inside during the unbearably hot desert summers. We watched movies, launched war campaigns with Beanie Babies, and played Nintendo. We were a lower-middle-class family in the ’90s living in an affluent town, but thanks to hand-me-downs from rich friends, we scored a NES and a SNES. We only had about eight games, but we made the most of them. Mario Kart races were treated like Olympic events. We took turns battling through Super Mario Bros. (I was always Luigi). And on particularly brave days, we’d try to beat The Lion King, which felt impossible. These are some of my fondest childhood memories.

Video games taught us patience, resilience, and problem-solving. We learned how to work together and how to apologize after particularly brutal Mario Kart battles. We didn’t have much, but we had that. My brother and I still buy each other Nintendo-themed gifts for Christmas.

At ten, we got a PC, and I was allowed to pick one game. I chose The Sims. That’s where my love of interior design and architecture was born, endlessly building houses and bulldozing them the second they were done. It also let out my darker curiosities: removing pool ladders, trapping babies in rooms with no doors. Don’t worry, the CPS lady always found a way in.

Most of my friends had PlayStations, GameCubes, Xboxes. Where I grew up—in a literal and emotional desert—video games saved us. My best friend Lizzie and I spent hours with Spyro and Rugrats: Search for Reptar. Theatre friends and I had DDR competitions and Rock Band marathons. It was innocent and deeply bonding.

Still, the stigma seeped in. “Why don’t you kids go play outside?” “Video games will rot your brain.” “They’ll make you violent.” I internalized that. We all did.

My brother and his friends were gamers too, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft. One of his friends stayed up 72 hours straight playing WoW on a Japanese server, being the first American to achieve max level in his server. My parents mocked them, called them losers. That same friend is now an executive-level engineer. The rest? A corporate lawyer, a pediatric physician, a software engineer who was one of Uber’s first hires. My brother? A doctor. They still play together when they can.

I once took a week off work to play the Spyro Trilogy. It had been a Christmas gift, and the moment I heard that little dragonfly collecting gems, I was hooked. I was working from home at the time, technically, but really I was a one-woman call center for a sketchy detox startup. I hated it. My phone had to be on 24/7, calls at 3 a.m., 5 a.m., didn’t matter. I still panic when I hear that ringtone. Playing Spyro during that time felt like the only thing that was truly mine. I spent the week fully immersed in that world. It felt like joy, nostalgia, and freedom, all things I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Despite the clear benefits it laid out for someone like me, people still quip, “It’s just a game.”

When I was 19, I was obsessed with Super Mario Bros. Wii. I lived in the desert with my mom, went to community college, and waitressed five days a week. I had just gone through my first real heartbreak. It was one of the simplest, sweetest times of my life.

One 115-degree summer day, I had the condo to myself. The AC was blasting, my yellow lab snoring at my feet. I had Hot Cheetos and soda on standby. I was ready. Hours passed—then my brother Augusto called. He was coming over to use the pool with his friends. I warned him: don’t block the TV, use the other patio door.

He agreed, then ignored me. His friends came and went, beers in hand, walking across the screen. One of them, Aurora, made a point to linger. I tried to play through it. I tried to stay polite. But during a particularly difficult level, one of those hellish platforming runs, I snapped.

I yelled. Shrieked, really: “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU! YOU JUST MADE ME DIE!”

Aurora: “Wow. It’s just a game. Aren’t you an adult?”

Augusto: “You don’t have to be such a bitch.”

I asked them to leave. I felt ashamed. Betrayed. And very, very alone.

That moment stayed with me. It wasn’t just Aurora. It was my parents, my peers, my own internalized shame echoing back at me. The message: You’re weird. You care too much. You’re not normal.

If I were a neurotypical, untraumatized gal, maybe I would’ve shrugged it off. But I wasn’t. I’m not. And I now understand why.

My fawn response means rejection feels like death. It lights up my nervous system like I’m being hunted.

Eventually, I was diagnosed with autism. The diagnosis brought clarity, compassion. It explained why certain things—criticism, masking, social rejection—hurt so deeply.

As an undiagnosed neurodivergent woman, I went through several cycles of burnout. When I wasn’t gaming on consoles, I turned to mobile games: Candy Crush, Sudoku, Sims Mobile, Design Home. And not casually. Obsessively. I spent way too much money on fake currency to skip timers. These games were slot machines for the dopamine-starved.

Neurodivergent brains don’t process dopamine the way neurotypicals do. We don’t feel proud when we finish chores, we just feel relieved they’re done. The things that give others satisfaction feel like self-betrayal to us. Dishes, laundry, admin tasks? Seems small, but 8/10 times will give me a panic attack just thinking about it.

True to my spicy brain, I’m a black and white thinker. Gray area? Don’t get it. I can’t do anything half-assed. I go all in or not at all. It’s true with work, with hobbies, with games. I burn hot and fast. When something stops challenging or exciting me, I walk away. That’s how I’ve always been. And for a while, I thought that meant I was broken.

But video games let me channel that energy into something safe. Something productive. They keep me from spiraling into self-destruction. They give me a place to pour my obsessive focus so I can function in the rest of my life.

And then came 2020.

From February 2020 to May 2021, I endured fifteen consecutive months of trauma. Breakups. Deaths. A pandemic. My house was set on fire. My dogs got sick. My supervisor died. My ex coerced me. My dog Rosie passed away. Every month, something new.

I survived on Netflix and suicidal ideation. No hobbies. No outlet. Nothing to hold onto.

By 2023, I got a fresh start. I ended an abusive engagement and met the love of my life. But being in love didn’t make the trauma disappear. In fact, it made my fear of losing someone worse. And when life kept happening… you know, job loss, PTSD, grief, the usual… so I started to spiral again.

But this time, I had video games.

My partner Ethan convinced me to buy a PS5. I brought it home that same day. The first game I played was Gris.

If you haven’t played Gris, what are you even doing? It’s the most beautiful, emotionally charged game I’ve ever played. It didn’t just entertain me; it rewired something. It gave me hope.

Games became a tool in my mental health toolkit. Better than CBT. Better than affirmations. When all else failed, games helped me come back to myself.

And then, in September 2023, Ethan bought me a Nintendo Switch.

The first game I got into was Cozy Grove.

It’s like if Animal Crossing had a melancholy soul and a better understanding of grief. You play as a Spirit Scout, sent to a haunted island to help ghostly bear-spirits make peace with their past. You forage, decorate, fish, and slowly uncover each character’s story through daily tasks. But the game isn’t designed to binge; it’s meant to be played a little at a time. It gently nudges you to log off and come back tomorrow. Which, for someone like me, is a miracle.

Cozy Grove did something therapy couldn’t: it soothed my nervous system without asking for anything in return. It gave me purpose without pressure. It was a soft place to land when the world felt unbearable. It didn’t care that I was dissociating, burnt out, and afraid of my own mind. It just said, “Here. Plant a tree. Feed your bird. Help a bear remember her name.” And I did. And it helped.

The Switch didn’t just give me a game… it gave me a reason to keep showing up.

And that’s the thing. When you live with complex trauma, neurodivergence, and chronic burnout, you don’t need grand epiphanies. You need micro-anchors. Something to tether you to the present moment. Something to say, “I know it hurts, but you’re still here.” For me, that something was a little haunted island full of talking bears and broken hearts.

I won’t pretend video games fixed me. I’m still autistic. I’m still exhausted. I still cry in grocery store parking lots and forget to drink water. But I’m here. I’m alive. And I have an outlet now, a healthy, immersive, low-stakes playground for all the excess energy that used to devour me.

So yeah, maybe video games are for losers. But maybe, just maybe, they saved my life.

by Thalia Graves

Purple Vanilla World, 2025