Ep 6 : Mental Health and Gaming

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• Joker (https://www.twitch.tv/nlmp)
• Owls (https://www.twitch.tv/owlsareahoot92)

 

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Alright. Well, I guess we'll just get into it today and I guess I need to un-deafen so everybody can hear Owls. I forgot to undefined when I went live. So you couldn't hear a thing that I said? No. I could have said all sorts of things. Yep.

Hello, people. Hello everyone. Welcome to the Madhouse Presents Group Therapy where we talk about games, argue about our different viewpoints, dive into the strange or whatever we decide in the moment. I am Alex and I'm Joker. Hello. And today we are talking about mental health and gaming, how the benefits and hardships of gaming can have on your mental health as well, whether it benefits or hinders your mental health overall.

Now, as far as mental health and the common understanding of it, a lot of people think about sadness, about ADHD, about social anxiety. But what a lot of people I feel don't think about is the bigger issues as well, outside of what is mental health and what are some complications to that? Well, learning disabilities, for one. Between that depression,

social anxiety is one of the bigger ones that I've noticed that a lot of people don't consider a mental health issue or complication. But social acuity is one of the biggest ones that affects more than 90%, I believe was one of the early two thousands. And especially now with the current social economic society we're living in that is so restrictive of that time to gather and be a part of a group again is just not there. I mean, covet alone caused a lot of issues, especially with all of the lockdowns and social distancing. As humans, easily as human beings, we are social animals. We have to have that interaction with one another. And for a while there actually like in the beginning, mostly it wasn't there and people didn't know how to cope and they turned to gaming streaming to get that fixed, I guess you could call it. But also like tonight, we're going to be talking about the effects both positively and negatively because it goes both ways, whether you want to believe it or not, even though in the yesterday years when I was younger and growing up, they said video games will rot your brain. Well, I mean, yeah, they can, but a lot of people don't realize that there's more to that. And they actually can help a lot too. Yes. But the notes that I kind of made tonight focus more in on the social anxiety, ADHD, the COVID situation, PTSD and depression, if you notice. Again, down here for everybody with us on Twitch, we have a wonderful banner of a society that is suicide prevention lifeline. And there are, of course, plenty of hotlines. But this group here, obviously, as you can see, cover both English, Spanish, and many other languages that a lot of people don't associate with the United States. So that is available. And please, if you know anybody within your communities within your social groups or just friends or family that are having issues, please share that information with them. We'll make sure that we also link it in the show notes. For those listening in the audio world, please understand that you are not alone. There are people that actually care about you. So I wanted to start with that. Yes. And they definitely have all the languages as well as they have the what is it called? Sorry, it is the TTY users. They have the deaf or hard of hearing as well. Oh, yes. Also, for all you young Ins out there that don't like to talk on the phone, they have availability for texting as well. You can text. I will make sure. For those in the audio world, I will link that as well in the show notes. And all you got to do is say hello. And that's it. So tonight we'll get started with the COVID situation, since that's something that's kind of affected everybody in the very recent past, I should say. So we were talking slightly about the loneliness that kind of developed from Covet. It was a very big unknown in the world and it was affecting the world. There was no travel allowed. There was no social gatherings for months. And I like to talk about the positive that came out of it. And I've said this, of course, in my own streams, but it helped a lot of small time streamers like myself, for one. Definitely. It caused a big influx of people going to internet and gaming and streaming as a way to kind of reach out and get their socialization. More people were online watching streamers. Oh, absolutely. Just to fill that void because they've run out of all their favorite TV shows and the entertainment value was there for those that probably never would have touched Twitch. I'll say I'm one of them, honestly. I dabbled in a couple of different streams. I looked at them, never was really consistent. And then as the pandemic was a thing, I was home a lot more. I saw more people streaming. I started looking at streaming and that's how I kind of got into it. I had nothing else to do. I mean, I was home with a baby, but also there was no going out at all. Yeah. So loneliness set into a lot of Americans or people in general, because like I said, humans are social animals, just like apes, just like Lions, canines. We're very sociable. And without that, our mental state is affected. It's like being in a quiet room where all you hear is your own heartbeat and blood flow. It's insane. And people go crazy on that. So when they were stuck in the houses with nothing but a phone or a computer or a tablet and they ran out of the internet, because the internet isn't as endless as people think it is. So they turn to the streaming platforms or the content platforms of YouTube, Tik, Tok Facebook and Twitch, which was TikTok blew up. So did Twitch. Yeah, the influx of not just consumers, but streamers spiked during the first few months or actually the first year of COVID back in 2020. And same thing happened to YouTube. Their influx of content creators of consumers just skyrocketed. Even Mixer tried to play off of that for a little while. Mixer with Mixer. Oh, you don't remember Mixer? I feel like I should. Yeah. Sounds semi familiar. So Ninja, you know who Ninja is, right? Never really watched him, but I know who he is. So he actually got a contract to leave Twitch and go to Mixer as their sponsored streamer. Oh, no. Yeah. Is that why he kind of, like, disappeared for a little bit? And he's like, oh, no, I made a boo boo. Yeah, he made a big Booboo. Well, he didn't make a boo boo. He got paid. Like, paid. You got a good payout. He just ended up not getting as much of you that don't know who Ninja is. Ninja was a big Fortnite streamer. He wasn't, like, the best at the game. He was good. He was top tier as far as players, but he was more of a personality. Very entertaining. He dyed his hair blue. All the colors. Yeah, all the colors. I can't relate to that at all. No, not at all. Those you can't see me, I have green bangs. Well, they're kind of bluish green right now. It's just the way that the light is hitting them, probably. Yeah, I got like, a bluish white light. Yeah. So he blew up on the game, Fortnite on Twitch and was one of Twitch's first big partners, and then he canceled his deal with Twitch to go over to Mixer. Well, surprisingly enough, after a while, Mixer didn't get what they were wanting during the pandemic, so they went bankrupt. Facebook bottom out, and that's where Facebook gaming became a thing. Okay, so that's what happened. I was not aware of that situation. Yeah. So just as Mixer was going, it had a very short stint in the gaming world as far as a platform, but that's when Facebook gaming became a thing and started up was during the pandemic as well. I've been seeing a lot more people on Facebook gaming. It's interesting. Yeah, it definitely is. So back to the covet again, outside of causing the loneliness that people had from the solitude of confinement, basically. So they needed to reach out for that social interaction. And that's where Twitch and YouTube came in. And YouTube streaming became a thing again, outside of just your base content creation to fill that void of social contact. And to me, that's where these gaming or these platforms help, because you don't have to be in the same room with someone necessarily to interact, to have conversations. There's very few people in this community, in the Madhouse community that I've actually met in person, and yet we're still a family. And I love this for that. And it was because of gaming that this community has grown and we have people all over the world that we talk to. Crazy. Definitely. I would have never, ever in a million years met if it wasn't for gaming and streaming. Yeah. Like you and me, even though I was less than 4 hours away from you. Just about when I went to Florida. When you passed about my house and said, Fuck you, Owls, I continued on. To be fair, I knew in Florida you were there, but I didn't know where in Florida you were. Well, that's when you go. I want to meet my favorite person in person. Maybe I should reach out. Barely knew you then I knew you barely know me now? Yeah. You stayed in my house. Yeah, that's true. I mean, your skin particles are somewhere in my couch. Yeah, I probably have a piece of hair. You could probably frame me from murder. Don't get any ideas, baby Mama, I see those TikToks you send me. Trust me. They're probably nothing compared to what she watches. Yeah, I know. She's like, let me mellow one. Sending that one. Yeah. All right. Oh, go ahead. I don't remember what I was going to say. Okay, it's gone. So the direction I kind of want to take with this particular podcast is we want to start out with the negative effects of gaming that have been known for the years as far as what getting addicted to gaming actually can look like. If you are mentally stable in these what's considered normal aspects, though, no one is normal. No one is normal. There's no actual normal. I don't know what is normal because there are too many different personality types. Yeah, true. But as far as the understood effects or adverse effects of video gaming in general, not streaming or content creation of that sort. But we can. But video games in general, what is understood. And I feel that you've done some research and give you some time to get on this voice line because you pulled up so many good articles and one of them actually was highlighting that as well. Gaming addiction. Are you talking about that one? Yeah, I think it's like the Harvard. Yeah. Now, granted, understand, these are articles from an individual that did very and I hate to use this word in this context, but biased outlooks on certain things, regardless of what you do. Yeah. So we definitely want you to understand that some of these have good points to them, and it has been proven that what they talk about can affect some people in the way that they're talking about. But it's not necessarily affecting everybody that way. So I just want to put that Disclaimer out there. Yes, definitely. And I tried to find things that were like .org, edu, what I could find that was like maybe a little bit more of a not necessarily a legitimate source, but something that was a little bit more I can't think of the right word, you know what I'm saying? So with this one, it's gaming addiction, or it's called Internet gaming disorder, which is you experience at least five of the following nine criteria over a twelve month period. So it's gaming preoccupation, withdrawal tolerance, loss of interest in other activities, downplaying use, loss of relationship, educational or career opportunities, gaming to escape or relieve anxiety, guilt or other negative mood States, failure to control, continued gaming despite psychosocial problems. If you have five out of the nine, then you're likely an addiction, which is I mean, I will say that in the beginning of me gaming, I very may well have fallen under some of these things because it was new to me. So it was a temporary addiction turned into a more healthy environment. But initially, yes, I did. I will say personally, gaming preoccupation. I wanted to play games when I was home and I wasn't working. I was like, I'm ready to play some Overwatch. Let's do this. I didn't want to do anything else. The loss of interest, down playing. You familiar. I play at night, I put my kids to bed and I'd be on till almost two or three in the morning. Stupid amount of time, and I got like zero sleep. I would have used it to escape not all of them, but it was teetering on the line. I definitely played a whole lot in the first year of me experiencing gaming. So definitely teetered on that. And that can be bad because then you're not involving yourself in other activities and this is a time before covet. That was just what I wanted to do. Yeah. And I like to bring that up because a lot of people think, especially precovid, they think of gamers as you're socially inferior. You don't know how to communicate. You don't do this or that's all you want to do. You don't want to do anything else with your life, blah, blah, blah. And there are some very negative types of gamers out there that are considered what's toxic. And those are the two you're talking about, like tunneling. Yeah. I see how you I just got you so good. Your face. You did your face. Oh, I love it. Okay. And you said, yeah, I did. But what my brain heard was tunneling, but not in the reference you meant. Yeah, but I got you. I got it. Yes, you did. You got it in there. Good job. Let the record show. Okay. But tunneling in the aspect of your tunneling, your video games. Yeah. Your face campaign the shit out of your games. Absolutely. Actually, yes. That was the concept in which my mind went,

okay. So for instance, growing up as a teenager, even teenagers nowadays with parents, they're probably like, you have responsibilities, you need to pay attention to those and I mean, I got told that quite a bit. Like I'd come home if I had homework. I may barely do it just to satisfy the need. And I'd get on my game. Like at the time it was Call of Duty, Crash, Bandacoot, freaking Mario Brothers. And that's all I wanted to do. I wanted to be inside playing games. Now, of course, I grew up in a time when you didn't stay inside as a kid. You went out and played. Yes. When the lights on the street went on, that's when you came inside. Yeah. And then you had to be to bed at a certain time. And that was it. Unless it was the summertime. Now, the other negative social aspect of gaming and being a toxic gamer well being.org is what I'm looking at right now. And I can actually show that one is an article of impact of gaming on mental health. And one thing that they note right here is imposter syndrome. And what a lot of people don't necessarily understand about the imposter syndrome is that those are people that are what are now known as hate Raiders. They go into games and lobbies and they try to degrade and downplay other gamers, or in this case, in our case, other streamers as far as hate raids. And when they do that to me now as an adult and have gone through multiple stages of mental health issues is they don't have something or lack something in their own life that to them brings them pleasure versus trying to lift someone up and help people. They're there to cause issues because they feel that being an asshole on a game or in a stream is entertaining to them. And those are honestly the worst type. Oh, yeah, that's the worst because it's the almost anonymity of the Internet. Those keyboard warriors is what it used to be called. But another aspect of what they have here as far as the imposter syndrome came up in a lot of games back during my time, roleplaying games, RPGs. And nowadays with VR, you have VR chat where people personify their characters on other people and actually believe that's who they are to feel better about themselves and make other people feel better because they're afraid to be seen as incompetent or a failure in life and they personify themselves as something better than they actually are. And that's another problem because it can lead to a lot of distrust and disheartening situations as well. Also, I think that imposter syndrome is just something that not necessarily that you're portraying yourself as something else. So that's one aspect of it. But I believe it's also, the imposter syndrome is like, even if you're doing good, you're doubting yourself. So I mean, I can personally relate to that because one day I feel like everything is going good and I've got it. And then like the next day if I'm streaming and nobody comes by, no one says, hey, then I'm like, am I doing okay? Should I even be doing this? It's like a constant battle, and it's just like a self conscious thing as well. It's just on a bigger scale, I guess, in some ways. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the other aspect of gaming as far as the negative side, because it can affect what may or pre existing notion of depression or social anxiety where you feel like if you can't get this right, how do you get everything right or anything right at that aspect? And that's what's keeping a lot of people from succeeding or advancing in the streaming gaming world, because they downplay their own failures. Instead of recognizing them as learning points or how to change those points, they get stuck in what is considered a mine loop and a negative bias on their own actions. Instead of actually learning from a negative situation and trying to figure out how to change that, they just feed their body, feeds off of that and allow it to build their depression or build their sadness and social anxiety to the point where they just quit. I mean, I have definitely felt that way numerous times.

I feel like if you don't feel it, then you're not trying your best, to be honest. If you don't every once in a while go like, is this the right thing or am I good enough? Then you're not keeping yourself human. Absolutely. So there's got to be a healthy balance. But if it gets to a point where you're, like consistently doing it and then your mental health starts taking a dive, that's a whole another situation. Yeah. As far as streaming or consistent gaming, that's when you probably need to reevaluate the situation you've put yourself in. And hey, do I need to take a step back? Do I need to take a break from this? And I absolutely will recommend a break for most or anybody who's having that problem or a situation like that.

Definitely. You got to keep yourself healthy first. Yeah. So just to give you people insight that may not have ever had this. And I want people to know that a lot of people deal with issues that you may not be aware of, myself included. And I know I'm happy go lucky or raging because of a game or the community just annoying the ever living piss out of me. But we would never do that to you. Never. But I want to tell you all a quick story, or I say quick, but it may take a minute or two. And this is something I do with my students when I have every cycle, ten times a year, I tell this exact same story to soldiers, military personnel who are trying to learn to be leaders. And I tell them because people don't always look outward when they feel they have a problem. And people don't understand that what may be traumatic to you is not necessarily traumatic to someone else and vice versa. What you may not see as traumatic as far as a situation that causes depression, anxiety, PTSD, you may not see those issues that other people are going through as issues. You're just like, It's just another day and suck it up, Buttercup and drive on. But people everywhere are dealing with something. It's weird because this is something I've never thought that I would open up to on a streaming platform. I want people to know that you're not alone when you feel down in the dumps about something. Understand that there are more people out there that understand your pain, and then it's not forever. You'll find your way out eventually. Yeah. Even though the pain will always hurt. I can attest to that. And I've got many people who have other issues that have the same type of pain and it'll never go away. But you will understand. And if you don't, I can absolutely try to help understand that there are ways to redirect your mind so that you can get back to the good stuff positives. And even some games that have come out that I'm aware of that actually help with mental health and understanding of different issues. So we got our little snack time. Well, Owl got her snack time out of the way. And we listened to an intriguing story. So audio audience for a limited time. I think it's like five or six days because we're not affiliate yet. You could go to Twitch and watch the VOD and listen to that lovely story. It's a lovely one. Crying over ice cream. Very specific ice cream. Okay. Yes, very specific ice cream. It has to have lots of sprinkles in it. Just like side note, no mixins other than rainbow sprinkles, but also hang out to the end because we will be talking about a giveaway that we'll be doing next week during the live recording of the episode on Twitch. Tv, the Madhouse podcast. So make sure you stick around for the end of the episode that we'll be making that announcement and how everything needs to be done. And the one rule that you have to follow to be entered to win. Just one rule. And it costs you one rule to rule them all. Yes. And it cost absolutely $0. So we talked about mental health, how it affects people. What are some of the negatives that come from gaming? But now let's talk about the positive effects on mental health that gaming can actually help you with. But I kind of mentioned it earlier on as far as when during COVID, not feeling so isolated, so secluded with online gaming and streaming, it allows you to draw in to a community and feel like you're around people. I noticed that particularly with something like VR chat, even though you can be in VR, you don't have to be. You can play it on a desktop and still hang out with people. You don't have the immersion that you would with a VR headset, but you get to play games with people and see things humanoid type or non humanoids humanoid moving around a virtual world. So there is that. Have you ever played VR chat? I've gone into it, like, once and just like, walked around. I didn't really do much. I would like to. I tried a couple of different things. I tried to play among us. Among us. Vr and VR chat is, in my mind, way better than the 2D or two and a half D original game. Yeah, they've revamped it so it looks a little different now. Yeah. I haven't jumped into it forever. You can have 15 people. Did you know that? 15. Jesus. Fuck. I could barely get a lobby of ten. We were having trouble getting a lobby of five, let alone ten. Yeah. Okay, so there's that. So, yeah, VR chat to me was especially during the pandemic allowed people to socialize because there are plenty of rooms where you can just go and sit and talk to people or listen to nonsense from it like hundreds of people in one particular room in VR world. So I thought that was cool. Some other games that I think can help out with different mental issues or mental stability in dealing with modern mental health. A lot of the transphobia that has in the last few years come about actually is talked about in a video game that I played on my stream called Tell Me Why. So it was a the story from Tell Me Why starts out where a man who ends up being a trans man, so biological female to male transition, meets back up with his sister to investigate the death of their mother in their home that they grew up in. And you go through and you investigate how it led up to the death of their mother. And a lot of things. It's just a great story. I am absolutely surprised at how it was. And I think you said earlier before we started recording was that the first chapter is still available for free. Yes, I think that I got it for free, but I'm not sure if it still is free. I'm sure that, yeah, the first chapter is free. That's kind of how they try to get you to do it because it gets you kind of interested in it. And they're like, all right, now you got to buy the two, three, four. Looks like they have four children. I haven't played it, but I do have it in my library. I definitely should play it because that sounds really interesting. I have so many games. I completed the game and oh, my God. And it says the first chapter or all of it. I believe all of it. I thought you said that you only played one chapter, but maybe I misheard you. I may have misunderstood myself because I've got a few more things as far as the Steam achievements that are showing to finish as far as the game. And I would absolutely love to revisit it because that is a phenomenal game.

Definitely. It is very story based, driven. So if you're into action and whatnot you're not going to get much of that because it's very linear and it's attached mainly to the storyline. But it is a fantastic story if you do enjoy story based games. So yeah, there's that. As far as the trans community is involved, because it brings it to the mainstream because the author of this game also did Life is Strange, Life is Strange and it's the same aesthetic as Life is Strange as well. That's what I was going to say. I didn't realize that they were connected until I looked at some of the information. But I mean, that sounds very similar. You have a story and yes, you have some kind of like things that you do that can affect it. But it is very I mean, but Life is Strange, at least the first game, because I've only played the first game. It's not necessarily linear, but it does a bit of jumping as well. So that one is a little bit more jumpy. Would you say that? Tell me why it's more linear or does it do jumpy things like that? No, it's very linear. It does have some jump scares to it. Oh, it has jump scares and then it has some puzzles in it as well. As far as you got to figure out certain aspects with clues and then to unlock other ideas or memories, you have to do certain things. So it's linear. But you also have like little flashbacks. Absolutely. Okay. And then another thing, talking about flashbacks and the loss of someone and trying to deal with the loss of a loved one is a game I picked back up recently called Days Gone. So Days Gone is you play a biker in the post apocalyptic zombie world in Oregon. Yeah, Oregon. And he's dealing with the loss of his fiance or girlfriend from the previous world who was a botanist. And of course, being a big bad biker guy, it's considered a true love story. But now this is a very actiony game. It's a third person view game, but you're going through and you learn about people in general. But also you're shooting zombies, hordes of zombies, like hundreds of them at points. And the story follows along with this character, Deacon or Deacon trying to find out what's happened to his girlfriend after she was carted off after being stabbed during the first day of the outbreak. And she may be alive. So he's trying to find her and it's a good story and it's a lot of action as well because again, you're trying to fight off hundreds of thousands of zombies throughout the game and you learn about what it's like to deal with the loss of someone and still have hope and that they may be alive halfway through the game. You have to try and make sure his mental health is sound as losing his arm has taken his ability to keep riding his bike. Yeah, that's actually one of his buddies. Okay. Yeah, never mind. Booster storyline. Yeah, so the booster storyline, Boozer got injured by what is a group of humans who basically worship the zombie heads. Zombie's. Like the zombies? Yeah, the zombies. I just call them Zomb-heads because they're zombies. Who gives a fuck what you call them? But they're cannibalistic group of individuals that use a cult like following and they call them Reapers and they burned his arm with a propane torch and it got infected and of course blood poisoning. So they ended up having to amputate it. And that definitely affects his mental health, I would think. Oh absolutely, it would affect anybody's mental health. And another game dealing with the struggles of life, dealing with adversities and mental health of a couple. You have played it? I have played it. And some of the other community has definitely watched and or played it with me and you. It Takes Two. Yeah, that sounds very interesting. I haven't finished that one yet. So this baseline story is a couple mother and father have a young daughter who I think she's about seven or eight. Very young. Yeah. And they're getting a divorce because the mother is very work driven and the father is artistic, which is not typical of a love story kind of thing. It's usually the opposite, but this takes a different aspect on it. Don't say the end though. No, I'm not. But they are deciding to get a divorce and it's negatively affecting the child. Like she's seeing the pain that both parents are having and she wishes them to go through to fix it and they become basically her toys or two of her toys, a rag doll and a clay doll. And they meet this love book and they go through a wonderful adventure of trials and tribulations as these dolls with specific powers during certain levels to rekindle their love. So since Owls has not finished it yet, I will not spoil it, even though I think she watched some of it with me and Atari. Yeah. But I've seen the beginning aspects. I think at some point I said I think I'm going to play this, so I'm going to just turn that sucker down and not pay attention too much. Okay. But yeah, It Takes Two is a wonderful co op game that is honestly meant for couples that are having issues or friends even that are having issues and it allows you to work together to complete the levels. Is that why you and Atari played it? No, we played it while we were still friends and there were times that we did, we did not necessarily like it. But I have to honestly say that me and Atari became closer because of that game as well.

One other game I definitely kind of highlighted in notes that I took prior to the episode was another game. It was a single player called The Medium. Oh, yeah, that one looked good. So you play a character who is a psychic in a sense, but she's a medium between the living and the dead world. And she's got not only her own story to uncover, but she also finds out her connection to a strange call that she receives, leading her to an area kind of like Chernobyl, except it was a haunted hotel and resort. And she finds out the story not only of herself but her lost sibling who had passed away. The big thing on this one is, sorry, I don't mean. Yeah, go ahead. Is because she's a medium. She sees not only her world, but like the ghostly world. So during the entire game, you're actually playing it side by side where you're seeing half her world and half what she's seeing and some things you can't do in the real world. So you transition to the after world or the underworld version of it to be able to unlock paths as well. That's just a small list of games that I say directly represent mental health issues in different aspects because the medium, she is different from everybody else around her and she had to come to terms with that and it actually helped her in the end have a better understanding of her past days gone, dealing with separation, loss, what is considered the end of times, and trying to push through to find that happy place. There's also you're missing just one really big one. Yeah, go ahead. Hellblade Sanuise sacrifice. So this is about a girl who loses her partner and it looks like she's fighting to save the soul of her disease partner. And it's actually something that highlights a lot of mental health issues such as, like schizophrenia. And so watching the trailer. And then also they had a secondary part where people sent in messages along with their gameplay of saying how this affected them. I showed this game to my brother because this is what I'm dealing with. And he said, I'm sorry. Now I understand. So it was definitely a game that was very important for a lot of people. Yeah. And The Medium. And also tell me why had very similar reviews on it. As far as coming out to people dealing with homosexuality, like understanding and trying to come out to your family of who you are as an individual. Tell me why it was another one like Hellblade, where it allowed people to express themselves better and not feel. Yeah. Just being able to just strictly explain and not feel ashamed. So that was awesome. On the other side of that, you have your first person shooters. So for me personally, games like Battlefield, Call of Duty, the original Call of Duty not that new trash that they are trying to keep going for the umpteen-th million time. Call of Duty 2067. Yeah. But like, Battlefield bad company too. Especially coming back from war. I had a hard time sleeping in silence. I was used to loud noises. I was used to gunfire going off in the distance. And to help me relax and calm down, I had to play games like Battlefield, like GTA just to hear that gunfire again. And that's actually games that help calm me down versus amp me up, like most people would consider those games. So that is another thing. It's like PTSD. The lack of certain noises can trigger PTSD as well as those noises themselves by surprise. So having a game to where you can immerse yourself into a world like, what is it? Open world RPGs, which are. I know people get so into it. And Skyrim World of Warcraft games like that can help give people what they're missing and even allow StarCraft to. Yeah, StarCraft Two for some you Atari, but those games allow for people to express themselves where they would typically be afraid to do in a regular environment. So it allows people to express themselves and do things that they may not be able to do too. Oh, yeah, definitely. For me, gaming gave me a lot of that, starting to, other than the initial playing of Overwatch and getting pretty addicted at some point, it kind of just was an outlet. I met a lot of my friends. Kira was on there, Cookie was on there, Ollie that shows up every now and again. He was on there. Those are like some of the core people that I've connected with and continue to connect with through that social aspect of gaming, which gave me an outlet outside of just my regular people out here when I don't have anything to do and I can't go outside and I can't go anywhere because I got kids in the house, I can log on to a game and I can message one of my friends and play a game. Yeah, absolutely. And then even some weird, like, simulator games, driving games have started to get a lot more popularity. I met a lot of good people just driving a simulated commercial rig on American Truck Simulator, which Al still has yet to understand why. That was the first stream I watched of it and I was like, God, so boring. Yeah. That's the first time I ever watched your stream. And I was like, this is boring. I don't understand this, but what's funny is those were still some of the highest viewed streams outside of playing VR poker, which is just as boring because of the conversation. Yeah. The weird conversation that you have. Yeah. You have the ability to converse more with people through your chat when you're just driving, just driving, hanging out. Got a steering wheel, got my drink over here, got my Vape and I'm just you're drinking and driving juice in game? Yeah, I did. But fun fact, the community for one of the variations of the online before American Truck SIM or Euro Truck SIM integrated into the base game, a multiplayer system. There was a third party that worked alongside those two games to have a third party multiplayer. And if you were caught by the admin of those servers drinking or texting and driving, they would ban you. Are you for real? Yes. In real life. Did you ever drink while you're playing that? No. I mean, I know you drank, but did you ever drink so much that you actually, like were too much that you couldn't drive in the game? Yeah, no, that I actually never did. Now, I did get distracted by chat and hit a few AI cars and crashed.

I don't want you to do that. Just crash. Yeah. There's a guy running around with a horse head on ticktock, and that's all he does is he highlights his wrecks during those games. Oh, my goodness. Of course. Oh, yeah. And then there's a Snow Runner where I let Baby Joker drive and he ran into a street side that's a kid playing my oldest daughter played Mario Kart and she couldn't get Princess Peach to not hit everything. And I mean, granted, it was also on Nintendo 64, so that was a little bit different for her, too. She's like, what is happening? And then, of course, Baby Joker looking up at the ceiling and walking into the house since he was playing that.

And then you end up with stuff like Ready Player One and closely are soon to be a very real thing with the integrations of VR in almost everything now. Yeah, that's going to be interesting. Ready Player One is a wonderful VR gaming movie that highlights the ideas of gamers and the social aspect of life being very much the same. Yeah, we tried to watch that. We got about halfway through. Halfway through. What do you mean we got halfway through the movie and then I think it was your HBO. Oh, yeah. It took a dump. Yeah, that was upsetting, but it's only on the TV. Like, if I watch HBO Max on the computer, it's completely fine. Completely fine. Yeah. That's weird. That may be a movie night that we do for the Madhouse is watch Ready Player One in Discord in a private channel. Off stream has to be on the computer, though. Yeah. So I can still stream it to Discord because it's a copyrighted movie and they stopped doing that kind of thing. But yeah, so there's that.

Oh, other benefits, other good things that gaming can do. It has definitely been proven to help focus or the attention span of especially ADHD individuals or other mental distractor type syndromes, but also even normal people. I'm using very big air quotes on one hand, but being able to focus the mind puzzles there's so many games that do puzzles. Like it takes two, unraveled two, unraveled two, and even unraveled the first one, which is a solo game, but also Tomb Raider, one of the first games that was very popular. That was a puzzle based game where you had to figure out things on your own. I got stuck in one spot. I couldn't get it. Yeah, I gave up. That was not good for my mental health, so I gave that one up. But like Dr. Leighton, I think is what it's called. That was a fun one. Nice. That was on my thing. The thing. Yes. Okay. Plenty of Escape Room stuff. Games have been popping up recently, so there's those. Oh, man. Me and Otto got stuck on one map for 3 hours. It was like three or four in the morning when we finally just said fuck it and gave up. Yeah. Nothing sounds fun to me. Yeah. So there's games like that. What other games have we played that are puzzles?

Trying to think, give me a second. And then there's Jackbox. Communication Skills. What's that one game called that we do the Talking Points. Yeah, talking points. It allows for public or public speaking and it is phenomenal. I love the concept of it. Yeah, that was a good one. Well, we also played, I mean, even Phasmo. Yeah. The investigation aspect of it, talking about the different aspects of that and deductions of evidence to what kind of ghost it is, but hand eye coordination as well. Now, of course, depending on how much you play, it can have Pico Park. Oh, Pico Park. Yeah, that was a good one. Gang Beasts or whatever. Was it gang Beasts? I believe that one fall guy like you have to do like reaction time, first person shooters.

I don't remember the one. There's one on my wish list is Animal Party because apparently that's going to be a big hit. Me and Cookie probably have talked about it like Incessantly and Kira probably as well. I don't know if it's necessarily puzzle, but it's a good one. Yeah. When it comes out, I'm going to play the crap out of that game. The game I'm talking Human Fall Flat. That's a puzzle game. That's not what I said. You said fall guys. Okay. Similar, but not quite. And things like overcooked where you have to run a kitchen together, communication and making sure you do the right thing and stuff like that. And then there's a Warner Brothers alternative to Super Smash Brothers that has all the Warner Brothers cartoons. Animation. You have Nickelodeon. No, it's not Nickelodeon. It's Warner Brothers because it's Batman's and all those. It's a free game if you apply it to early access. I got a message from someone about it. I can't remember who it was. I think it was Super Mario Canadian Streamer, who mentioned that to me. Got you another puzzle game I'm playing right now with Atari and Zach Trian. Yeah. I played that with her and knew we got through most of it. We were here here or we were here together, and we were here before. That was frustrating. That's a huge puzzle game. And. Oh, my God, was it obnoxious? That will test your relationship. Absolutely. Let's see what other good games between communication, cooperation. Now I got to pull up games here. I know. That's what I'm doing right now. See if Thieves. That's a good co op. That's big on co op. I mean, even day by daylight. Co op when you're the survivor. Yeah, survivor side. You got to communicate like, are we doing this, Gen? Who's going to go on hook? Do I go save you? Do I drop this, pallet? Those kinds of things. Let's see what else then. Of course, you got games like Uno, for goodness sakes. It's like, okay. And then you've got your scenic games like Assassins Creed. They're very story based, but they're open world. Another one is Far Cry. The new Far Cry looks amazing. Destiny two. So games like that are very beautiful and are considered relaxing games, even though some of them are very action oriented. Yeah. I don't know what I would play for relaxing. What would be a relaxing game for me? I'm not sure. Visage. Visage. No, I've heard about that one. I've seen streams of that one. I don't think that's relaxing for me. I bought the game Emily wants to play because I was supposed to play with somebody and she didn't realize it wasn't a coop game. It's a single player game. So I bought it, and I still haven't played it because that's another one for me. Oh, quick circle back. There's actually a game that I played almost a year ago, speaking on mental health. It's actually called Eliza. It's more of a story, like a visual narrative, but it's actually her. She goes to work for this AI mental health company, meaning she's a therapist, but she's just saying the words that the AI is telling her to say to the patients. Probably about an hour and a half of it. I never finished it. Okay. It's a good one. It's interesting that they kind of put that concept of a computer basically being your therapist. Yeah. Other games that I think are pretty cool. Red Dead online. I mean, it's the old west version of GTA, but you got to work together in some cases for that one. Deceit, find out who your friends are there for sure. Not me. The forest. The forest. Definitely golf with your friends, you can find out who you end up hating that you never thought that's not necessarily cooperative. That's just the social aspect of that game. And if you want to continue being friends after, don't play much of it or don't turn on collision. If you want to remain friends, at least if you want Joker to remain your friend, you have to turn off collision. I remember the last time I was about to plan it, and you're like, really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of games there's. Let me see. A lot of games are co op. That aspect is what makes the game so good for mental health is because you're making friends through the games, you're talking things out, you're learning communication skills, even if it's something as simple as are you going to go do that? What do you want me to do? I'm going to do this. It's teaching you the give and take of regular life. Oh, and another game that me and Atari played, that was a co op game. So Two Player online was a way out. Yeah, I thought she played that again. I want to play that one, too. That one looks like a lot of fun, too. And it was a very story driven game as well. But it gave you kind of like Paul. It gives you two viewpoints on one screen, so you see not only your view but also your partner's view in the game on how to do different tasks. So that was cool. Oh, and Green Hill. Yeah, that was fun. Surviving together for sure. Especially when you get someone like Atari jumping through the roof of a building that you needed to sleep in. I would do something like that, too. Why not? Yeah, why not? Why not? It's not real life. So I think this is good a place to end as any for this episode of Mental health and Gaming. If there are any questions, please feel free to reach out to us on our Twitter or here in the stream and we will be glad to answer. If you want something like this again, let us know. We can talk about really anything on this podcast and in this Twitch channel, but we like to I mean, I personally right now I want to keep it more game related in some aspect to have that connection, especially being on Twitch and both of us being streamers and having that connection with a certain community. But we will talk about other things as well outside of gaming. And we like to tie real I personally like to tie real life into gaming because they are, especially in this day and age, very close. Hands into hand. Yes.

Giveaway. All right, last thing before Owls does her wonderful thing and closes us out for this episode. Episode six. So the giveaway is going to be a pound or 16oz of ground dark roast coffee from our sponsor Warrior Axe Coffee Company. You can find them@warrioraxcoffee.com. They are also on Twitter at Axecoffee, but it is a locally roasted and prepared and a self package. So if you're not watching us on Twitch, it is literally their own packaging and they do it themselves. But it is local recipe that they have come up with. It is a couple, Bobby Alman and his wonderful wife, but she is air force. He is retired law enforcement and he also runs a fitness group that is also there. But we don't ask for discounts Due to the fact that 10% of their proceeds go to some very good charitable organizations like the Gary Senise Foundation for veterans and also St Baldwicks for cancer research, Primarily for children's cancers Where they try to focus their funds. So 10% of their proceeds go of every order go to those two foundations and some other good charities as well. But we will be giving away next week. So the next live recording that happens, which is every Wednesday, 09:00 p.m.. Eastern standard time on Twitch.tv/madhousepodcast. But we will be giving away a pound of coffee for free. The only stipulation is that you have to follow Owlsareahoot92, the madhouse podcast and myself NLMP on Twitch. As long as you are a follower of all three channels, you have a free entry and a chance to win a pound of coffee for free or 16oz or 16 because of the same thing. Yeah,

we'll just go with that. Yeah, that's the thing. Oh, and they also provide you a coffee scoop as well. Oh, yeah. When I saw that, I was like, oh, that's cool. That's interesting. That's warriorxcoffee.com. All right, well, I'm done talking cause I've done the majority of it this episode. That's fine. We'll take turns. All right. So thank you for listening and are watching. Please be sure to follow our chaos live on camera at Twitch. Tv themathousepodcast every Wednesday, 09:00 p.m.. Eastern standard time and through the red circle podcast distributions to Google podcasts Spotify, radio public and itunes, I believe is now a thing that we're on itunes and the Stitcher and the Stitcher. Yes. And you will search for that by looking for madhouse presents group therapy. Please share like subscribe and leave reviews to help us grow and find out what you like to see from us. We will be updating Twitter through our handle now MHP group therapy and any resources that we use during the podcast or Twitch live show is going to be in our show notes. We thank you for watching and for our sponsor, warriorcoffee, that we've already spoken about@warriorxcoffee.com. Yeah. Next week we don't have a subject yet, so if there's anything you would like for us to talk about, Please be sure to go into our discord through what is it? Talk to the podcast, I believe. Is it what it is? Or you can add us at Twitter or send us whatever social. All right. So on Twitter, outside of just adding us directly at mhpgroup therapy, you can also use that as the hashtag to mention anything as well on your own tweets because I am trying to make that a thing. So please use hashtag MHP on Twitter. We do not have MHP MHP group therapy group therapy. So the same as the Twitter handle.

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