Gaming while grieving

This is kind of an odd and at least somewhat uncomfortable topic, but I can't help but feel compelled to make it. How do you game while grieving? That is to say, what are your experiences with gaming in the face of a loss, if you even can?

I should probably contextualize this. Yesterday, my dog Maggie, a twelve-year-old labradoodle, passed away. She'd been sick for about three weeks, and we were hoping she'd be able to pull through, but she didn't make it. Naturally, my entire family is fucking devastated. She was our only pet, and she meant the world to us. There's nothing I want more than to try and take my mind off it, and gaming seems like a natural escape, but I'm afraid I'll end up tainting whatever I play with my grief and associate it with Maggie's death forever. Given that what I'm currently playing is Lost Odyssey, which I love and I've put 70 hours into and was a good 60% of the reason I bought an Xbox 360 in the first place, that doesn't seem like a good idea. I'm fortunate in that I've not had many brushes with death so far -- three of my grandparents are dead, but one I didn't even know that well and the other two I wasn't very close to -- but the only other comparable experience I have was when my childhood dog Balto died in 2006. I found out via my sister's blood-curdling scream, forever burned into my ears, which I heard while I was playing Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. I never picked it up again. I don't even remember what I did in the aftermath; the three months that followed were dark and tumultuous, ironically ending when Maggie came into our lives.

Sorry, I'm digressing and/or depressing a bit too much. What are your experiences with something like this? I'm looking for ideas and to commiserate.

Thanks you for sharing this. It's obviously something important to you. It's also similar to a thread a created 3-4 weeks ago about general anxiety and occupational burnouts.

I can't have a pet due to asthma and severe allergies. But both my current and previous girlfriends (who are cat lovers) happened to have a cat that died within the first year of our relationship and were very sad not to be able to get another pet because of my health issues.

That being said, concerning grieving in general, I think the most important thing you should to is to live it fully. Don't be afraid to let the emotions overwhelm you. Cry as much as you need and for as long as you feel sad. Talk about it to your friends and family if that can make you feel better. I think we live in a modern society aimed towards productivity in which showing emotion is bad. I feel like this forbids us from being human.

I'm sure you loved your dog very much. I think it's perfectly normal for you to be sad. As for gaming, well, you do as you feel. Personally, I think it can help you think about other stuff from time to time, like reading a book or listening to music. But ultimately, I think that only time and embracing your emotions will help you heal.

Sorry for your loss. I hope you get well soon !

So sorry to hear that, never really sure what to say in situations like this because I know no combination of words can ever really help ease the pain.

To answer your question, the closest person to me that I've lost is my grandfather about 15 or so years ago, and until he died I'd lived with him all my life. I suppose the one good thing about that so far is that I've never had to deal with any major sudden losses, anyone I've known who's died it's been a "long" foreseen process, with generally enough time to prepare mentally for the eventuality of it all. I'm not sure my teenage brain could really process it all at the time though, at least not for someone so close to me. Some of my favourite gaming sessions I have are etched into my brain because of it, during his wake, knowing his body was literally a wall away and knowing I couldn't for the life of me see him in that state, I was instead playing a Resident Evil remake map for the Half Life mod Sven Coop with a friend, and we had such good fun on it too. I'm aware there's a macabre sense of humour about that as well, and I'd like to think he'd have seen the humour in it too, largely because without him I probably wouldn't be where I am today since he bought me my first computer and urged me nearly 20 years ago, with some importance to "learn how to type". I often hope people didn't think I was being disrespectful at the time, but I had two options then, either sit around alone in misery, or spend the time playing a game with a friend and otherwise making lemonade out of lemons.

More recently though, and likely more relevant, a few months ago our cat, Maisy, disappeared for 3 days. Might not seem like much but for our cat that's fairly unusual. She eventually came back, nary a thing wrong with her, but those 3 days were torture. I must have transcended the stages of grief 3 times over, each time increasing in severity. I couldn't focus on gaming then, maybe just because I'm older and can process it a bit better, maybe because of the nature of it and the constant need to be vigilant due to the inconclusive nature of the disappearance, either way I just couldn't settle and it scared me to a degree just how unprepared I am for that eventuality too. Like your Maggie, Maisy came along and filled an emotional void that had existed since my grandfather's death, she was the solution to a problem we didn't realise we had and it still surprises me, especially as someone who grew up without pets, just how much she means to us.

As for you, I won't recommend anything. Only you know how to get yourself through this, when and if gaming can help. I do think Tiamat's right though, just face it head on and time will do the rest

I lost my father last year, one day after his birthday. I always played a lot, but this year and the last months of last year I focused only in playing. I found comfort in it, even if the game was sad or the focus was dealing with loss. I think focusing in things that make you recomfortable a natural thing to do to focus, so I understand you perfectly. A lot of games help to deal with the pain and sadness, even though they don't focus in these things. It can be with the humor, the seriousness, or a relaxing game. Discussing games became something that made me feel better, because I have a lot of memories when my father come back from work and watched me playing, in the times that I didn't have someone to talk about ir. I remeber a lot of times that I saw him playing, and I seek theses games to think how good/bad he was at playing them. It makes me deal with the pain.
After sometime, I discussed some games that have this subtle focus, such Candleman and Dark Souls. Games have meaning, subtle or not.
There are days that are difficult even to play, but I preservere and it makes me less sad.
I am sorry for your loss.

Sorry for the english.

I think you have to think what would be best for you. I am sad, but it is helping me dealing with it, even the games that I played when my father died. And I have my family to support me and they support me playing.

I'm sorry for your loss.

In early 2015 my childhood friend's mother passed away, and I went through a lot of pain back then, since I've always spent a lot of time at my friend's house, to the point that she would joke about adopting me. I remember that, at the time, I was playing TLoZ: Majora's Mask 3D, and regardless of how depressing it sometimes got, it help me to cope with all my feelings at the time. At least for me, Video Games and Books help me a lot, specially when I'm at a loss in life, since I always find that one character who is going through more or less the same, or that one guy who tells me just the words I want or need to hear.

Just do whatever you feel like. If you feel like crying, do so. If you feel like gaming, go ahead. There's no only way to face this kind of stuff.

When my grandma died, I went through something very similar. I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to get past it, and that everything I was doing at the time would be forever etched in mind. But I found that avoiding everything made it worse.

About two days afterwards, I realized my life wasn't going to just go back to normal and just simply "getting my mind off it" wasn't working. So, I decided to put all the games I was playing before it happened on hold. They can wait, and I started a game thinking about my grandma and the memories I had. I actually found it really cathartic to play a game specifically for their sake. To think about who they were as a person and play something that makes you think of them before they went. And I found that, for me, at least, it worked. It got me thinking about before they left me and what I had with them.

I don't actually think back on the games I was playing during that time period badly. It hasn't ruined them for me. I think it actually helped, and I was able to do one last thing celebrating them. For me, it was Banjo Kazooie and Yooka Laylee. My grandma had always meant to play Banjo and Kazooie, but she never did, so I did for her.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

With things like that I don't feel compelled to play games at all. Though for people that can do it, it is probably a good thing, because it gets you thinking about other things.

My go-to comfort in these kind of situations is reading books, but distractions are okay in any form. Our subconscious does a lot of work to heal us after trauma, but it takes time so it can be good to distract ourselves a little if it seems like we're going to wallow or get too lost in the darkness. Time really does heal all things, at least to the point of functioning day to day, so anything that helps pass the time faster and in a more enjoyable way is great. However, there's no need to force anything either... if it doesn't feel right, don't do it! There are more important things in life than hobbies =)

Sorry for not replying sooner. I realize that's kind of like conspicuously farting and then leaving under the circumstances, but I haven't really been on the internet much the past several days. Anyway, thank you all for your kind thoughts and stories and advice. I guess the main takeaway is that there's no right answer, everyone handles things differently. Not surprising, and also very Sesame Street, but whatever. Again, thanks for taking the time to share with this lost soul.

Sorry for not replying sooner. I realize that's kind of like conspicuously farting and then leaving under the circumstances, but I haven't really been on the internet much the past several days. Anyway, thank you all for your kind thoughts and stories and advice. I guess the main takeaway is that there's no right answer, everyone handles things differently. Not surprising, and also very Sesame Street, but whatever. Again, thanks for taking the time to share with this lost soul.

Don't worry, I'm sure no one here faults you for that, specially since we all can understand what you are going through. If you ever need someone to talk to, you can just live me a PM and I'll hear you out to the best of my abilities. I won't always have a clear answer, but getting things out of your chest and sharing the burden can make things easier.

Sorry for not replying sooner. I realize that's kind of like conspicuously farting and then leaving under the circumstances, but I haven't really been on the internet much the past several days. Anyway, thank you all for your kind thoughts and stories and advice. I guess the main takeaway is that there's no right answer, everyone handles things differently. Not surprising, and also very Sesame Street, but whatever. Again, thanks for taking the time to share with this lost soul.

Yes, there is not a corret answer, but I think you shoul deal with it directly. Loss is something that is really difficult to overcome, but you have to face it.