runnin' since monday, the 28th of march, 2022.
this site brought to you by: a nerd
Published on 2023-10-29
Recently, I have been very sick. And as a result, I have been attempting to clear several backlogs of mine that I keep; music, games, books, writing, so on and so forth. I've been having a lovely experience, despite my sickness, just slowly ploughing through things, expanding my knowledge, my experience and just enjoying the things that I've sought out for so long. Well, either that, or... put it this way; Destiny 2 is a game I wish upon nobody in any circumstance, and no matter what I continually tell myself, I am never going to find it good.
Eventually, trying to get through my games list, I ended up at ULTRAKILL. Now, ULTRAKILL is a game that has evaded me for a long time, as I beat the first Act when it released, and... never touched the game again afterwards. Seemingly, so long had passed, in fact, that my save file from me passing the first Act had disappeared from my game. Which, was fine, I thought. I'll be able to do it again.
So, I played the game, with minor difficulty. Maybe I was having a bit more issue with aiming than I remembered having in any game, but, I pressed on, assuming it was just because I hadn't warmed up yet, or something like that. But then, these issues persisted. All of my finer skills that the game was demanding of me.. weren't as up to snuff as I remembered them being when I had last played the game.
All of this eventually came to a head with the first V2 boss fight. I was stuck there for a solid 33 minutes, just trying time and again, going at it again and again, getting a fingernail close so many times, and eventually - I did it. And ultimately, what did I feel? Nothing. Not relief. Not anger. Not frustration. Not release. Nothing. And it was because of the thought process that drove me to be able to focus enough to complete it.
I have an illness - well, more than that. The disease I have is actually debilitating enough to be referred to as a disability, but I feel almost dirty for actually calling it that. CFS, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. An illness that has effectively regressed any physical abilities I may have once had into the dirt. I can do minor things still, certainly - as you can tell by this article, I haven't lost my ability to type, nor articulate myself. But those are because they come to me as easily as breathing, naturally; they're minor. The movements for typing are slight, yet don't require enough of a precision to be damning against a mistake, nor do I really have any discouragement from mistyping, and simply hitting Backspace once in order to clear any and all fluff. Similarly with articulation, it's a minor thing, albeit one that is significantly more abstract, and one that had already been impeded for a majority of my life with my pre-existing mental conditions.
CFS effectively axes anything bigger than that, though - for example, I find brushing my teeth to be an exercise, a true physical demand on myself, because of the way that it strains my arms to move them back and forth repeatedly, as well as pulling on my chest so heavily. Thankfully, I'm British, so dental hygiene is about on the same level of importance to me as making sure that my martian defense shield is active. (That is to say - not very important.) Mentally, it slows my thought processes down significantly. Whilst there may have been a time when I was younger where my thoughts could jump around from thing-to-thing, I now find myself getting very easily overwhelmed and distressed if I am asked to think too quickly, and especially to focus on details during that period. Hell, I've had a situation before wherein such an interaction did actually leave me bed-bound for several days. Equally, I've had to lift a carton of milk, and been bedbound for several days, so that should really show you just what a bastard CFS can be.
As you can imagine, playing a fast, twitchy shooter such as ULTRAKILL is going to be very difficult with such stipulations. Now, me being the world-class intellect I am, I didn't consider this before playing the game. I didn't consider it while I was playing the game, but as soon as I hit this boss fight that filtered me so hard, I knew why:
Whilst at one time, I may have had the capability of physical precision deemed necessary to playing a game such as ULTRAKILL... I simply no longer exhibit such capabilities. My body is deteriorating, at a rate far more rapid than what is the case in humans already. My muscles waste easier, ache easier, my bones are far easier to break, my body bruises like a peach, then combine those issues with my vitamin deficiencies and my nigh-underweight body failing to support even my own standing some days, and you have a rather horrible concoction for a terribly feeble person.
So - it was at this point, during the numbness, during this moment that I should have been somewhat celebratory for, I realised something: My own pastime is closing up before me. I am becoming too weak to enjoy that which I would have loved in my earlier youth.
And whilst that, alone, sounds like a depressing realisation to have come to - and don't get me wrong, I did grapple with it for a while - overall? I'm pretty positive about it, actually.
Not being able to play these twitchier games simply means I'll have to indulge in other games more frequently. I have so many RPGs I've wanted to play for years, many a platformer, several more story-based games. That works out perfectly for me two-fold, actually; I've began to mould this preference where, sure, I do enjoy a fast, fun game, but I gain a more enriching, lasting experience that stays with me from a game that has a heavy reliance on story, when it's done well, and even when it's not.
And outside of games, that opens up more time for my other passions! I can write more about my OCs, for example, or I could watch more shows, read more books, manga, comics, I could listen to music... really, as much as it will be difficult to realise fully that I will not be able to embrace quicker games as much as I once could, I've got a lot of things to distract me from that, arguably enough to entirely invalidate such a fear!
Sometimes, it just so happens that something that you fell into when you were young, can just as easily be taken away from you, and whilst it will feel terrible and depressing, it's crucial to see the better side of things even in the face of such a thing.
Or, hey, that's what my takeaway from this is, anyway. Your main lesson could also just be that CFS fucking sucks and is an illness that needs to be taken far more seriously than it actually is for what it does to people.
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