Thumpers/1st LT/William: I'm working on some local initiatives that include trauma alleviation with veterans and have been doing some research on trauma (more from domestic abuse/community violence rather than through any military experience--I was and am civilian ) and can hazard a few informed guesses so consider with grains of salt and check in with trained/certified professionals too.
For occupying yourself with something to do if you're dealing with anxiety, I think a game like this definitely can give some momentary relief--lots of busy work and some clarity of focus.
In most endeavors:
1) clarity of purpose
2) sense of belonging/community
and
3) sense of progress/feedback
are crucial characteristics for fulfillment (these come from research by a company offshoot of Zappos called Delivering Happiness)
So a game like this might help in cutting down anxiety if you can find those three elements in it. That's partly what got me playing, though it's also easy to get sucked into idling rather than working on things I need to do elsewhere in life. That said, make conscientious choices to discern between momentary coping and steps to recovery. It's a bit like the difference between tactics and strategy--if you've got the big-picture end-goal in mind, you can always take a moment to check in to see how your tools are serving you and revise your course of action.
When it comes to dealing with trauma as I know it:
having places/people with whom you can safely let the threshold of your behaviors *fail* among people who care is tremendous. You're literally training your brain and body to learn that its boundaries for reality can be updated to the new environments you're in now, and sometimes need time to distinguish and reinterpret nuanced details from very basic things in life. Those kinds of challenges often require a community to help co-create and reinforce the context of a new reality that you're working to reconcile with your past.
In my experience, most mental health systems in the U.S. tend to operate in ways that can be isolating experiences that need more context.
Being able to find places that also informally and intentionally explore challenging experiences, and uphold a common interest in healing or re-contextualizing yourself (re-integration from military to civilian life for example, or in my case, reinterpreting how people ask questions as mostly out of genuine curiosity rather than out of hostility) is important.
Sometimes a game like this one--which has both a social and maybe(?) simulation component--can help with some of those options if you're able to see/observe some behaviors in the game/as you play the game and distinguish whether they're relevant to the actual environment/reality you're currently in.
That said, a game where its play, forums, and community probably weren't focused on mental health might not be the best place since that's not its primary priority. But it might be a good enough/best available choice and that's okay too. It might also boil down to what you're personally willing to make of the experience or where you're willing to look for fulfilling some of those needs.
I guess one question to ask yourself is how would you define or characterize healing/recovery?
My personal characteristics revolve around taking care of personal needs. i.e. does doing ____ contribute to me taking care of my near, mid, and/or long-term needs?
Next, what do you see in this game and the people you can interact with in the forums that might align with that definition?
I'll need to figure out how to log into this account again but I'd be happy to chat further as feasible, share more in-depth thoughts or resources that I found useful for myself and friends if you'd like.
Thanks for sharing your story and question 1st LT, be well and wishing you the best!
