content warning for mental health struggles. I don't really get into specfics but yeah
Some background on my mental health: I started dealing with anxiety in 2010 and started feeling depression in 2012.
Some background on me getting into fighting games: I started following the FGC in 2011 and started going to events in 2013.
I'm gonna fast forward a bit and work backwards, because it took me a long time before I really connected the dots myself. Around 2022, I felt like I might be done playing fighting games. For the first time in nine years, I didn't feel particularly motivated to continue the grind, and I also felt like I wasn't getting anything out of it anymore. I know oh I don't feel like playing this video game doesn't sound like an impactful thing, but at that point I'd been competing in fighting games for nine years, over a third of my life. Fighting games had a direct influence on me in so many ways, big and small: what social circles I was in, what my music tastes were, how I felt about politics and social issues, how I approached problem solving, etc.
So this new disassociation with fighting games really did feel like a possible end of an era. It was sad, but it also felt fitting, in a way. 2022 was a big year for me in terms of "real life" milestones. I had finally graduated school after years of rocky progress due to mental health issues, and I got hired for a job on graduation. Maybe this was a natural off ramp.
But I love this shit too much, you know? I really thought hard to dissect this feeling. Why was I so obsessed with fighting games before? What was I getting out of them before that I wasn't now? If I was going to go into an FGC retirement home[1], I wanted to be sure I actually wanted to.
I think the core things I got out of fighting games, once I really boiled it down as much as possible, is that it's something rewards you for the effort you put in, but ultimately it doesn't matter.
I love the feeling of improving. Sometimes playing fighting games isn't fun. A miserable loss will stick on my mind for hours or days. Moments where I feel stuck and unable to make progress feel miserable. But when it clicks? When I see the effort of my hard work pay off? I don't know if I have moments in my life that feel more rewarding than that.
And I love that we choose to place importance on things like sports or competitive video games or solving Rubik's cubes really fast. There's a quote I like (that might not be real) from Pope John Paul II: "Out of all the unimportant things, football is the most important." I love caring about unimportant things like who won Capcom Cup this year or whether or not my friend gets out of pools or if I could hit a hard combo in training mode.
Contrast that to how I felt during most of my 20s, outside of video games. I was focused on school and career aspirations (so something that definitely mattered) and no matter how hard I tried I would always fail and fall short (so it felt like my effort was not rewarded). Fighting games were an outlet that let me feel like my actions could move me forwards towards my goals. And if there were periods where it wasn't working out? Well, it's just something I'm doing for fun. It was the perfect thing to carry me through dark times, something that gave me hope. I think you could reasonably call it an escape, but I think in those moments it felt more like a life jacket that I needed to stay afloat.
After a decade of trying to figure my brain out, it started to finally click in 2020. I found the right combination of medication to make the day-to-day not agonizing. I got through a tough semester at my community college and then transferred to a four year school. Things continued to go well until I graduated and landed the job I'm still working now. Externally I was hitting the "milestones" that I was aiming for, and internally my brain was no longer yelling at me that I didn't deserve happiness because I couldn't do anything right. I was being rewarded for my efforts.
So maybe it's just I didn't need fighting games anymore?
Obviously, if you know me, you know that I'm still as obsessed as I ever was. Once I crystalized these thoughts, fighting games moved away from being a crutch to get through life and into a more healthy outlet for my effort and competitiveness. I'm playing fighting games not because I need to but because I want to. These days I'm also a bit more diversified, too; I'm having a lot of fun learning piano and music theory, and blogging has been great too. I'm sure there will come a time where I will once again feel like it's time to move on, but for now I think after twelve years I still haven't had my fill. Hit me up for games whenever and we can run the set.
[1] I want to make it very clear that you'll catch me dead before I retreat into the standard FGC retirement homes of FF14 or gacha games. Catch me grinding chess or speedrunning.