Ava Jarvis
MyPTSD Pro
I just realized something.
One of the ways I cope with PTSD is that I play pretend.
You know. Like when you're a kid. Pretend you're a knight, pretend you're a princess, pretend you're a princess-knight. That sort of thing?
For years I played designer/advanced/independent solitaire board games. The more thematic the better. I had fun playing a group of adventurers delving into a dungeon. I had fun being warrior monks defending a village from an endless sea of supernatural monsters. I had fun being Nemo, controlling my submarine in a war against surface Imperialism while exploring the depths of the sea and having adventures. And then there's that superhero card game I like above all the others—Sentinels of the Multiverse, where every superhero has their own specialized deck and feels like their own character. Even playing Star Wars offshoot characters in a Star Wars adventure game.
Heck, I've even had fun developing a winery. (All y'all: Viticulture is an awesome game, even if you're new to board games, even if you've had tons of experience with board games.)
I didn't really think about all this as pretend? I just did it.
Lately I've been feeling too poorly for board games though.
Then today out of sheer desperation of not wanting to feel quite so horrible after being triggered by Mother's Day, I started to lightly pretend that I was in The Martian, only it was slightly different than the movie, of course. I wrote down a diary entry as if I was on Mars, and the sandstorm was my PTSD flashback, and stuff... It's a bit weird but that seems to be the theme I want to stick to for the next several days as the PTSD gradually calms the hell back down.
I realize I have done this before, too, even outside of board games. Back when I was learning how the area around Bainbridge Island was laid out, I pretended the area followed the geography of lands of the utmost West.
It's weird. It helps. It doesn't fix everything, of course; nothing does that. But it weirdly, weirdly, weirdly is helping. Granted, it's nudging my mood recordings from "worst" to "horrible" but that's an improvement.
Dunno if this is something people want to try, or if people have done this, too. I figure every method has its place.
One of the ways I cope with PTSD is that I play pretend.
You know. Like when you're a kid. Pretend you're a knight, pretend you're a princess, pretend you're a princess-knight. That sort of thing?
For years I played designer/advanced/independent solitaire board games. The more thematic the better. I had fun playing a group of adventurers delving into a dungeon. I had fun being warrior monks defending a village from an endless sea of supernatural monsters. I had fun being Nemo, controlling my submarine in a war against surface Imperialism while exploring the depths of the sea and having adventures. And then there's that superhero card game I like above all the others—Sentinels of the Multiverse, where every superhero has their own specialized deck and feels like their own character. Even playing Star Wars offshoot characters in a Star Wars adventure game.
Heck, I've even had fun developing a winery. (All y'all: Viticulture is an awesome game, even if you're new to board games, even if you've had tons of experience with board games.)
I didn't really think about all this as pretend? I just did it.
Lately I've been feeling too poorly for board games though.
Then today out of sheer desperation of not wanting to feel quite so horrible after being triggered by Mother's Day, I started to lightly pretend that I was in The Martian, only it was slightly different than the movie, of course. I wrote down a diary entry as if I was on Mars, and the sandstorm was my PTSD flashback, and stuff... It's a bit weird but that seems to be the theme I want to stick to for the next several days as the PTSD gradually calms the hell back down.
I realize I have done this before, too, even outside of board games. Back when I was learning how the area around Bainbridge Island was laid out, I pretended the area followed the geography of lands of the utmost West.
It's weird. It helps. It doesn't fix everything, of course; nothing does that. But it weirdly, weirdly, weirdly is helping. Granted, it's nudging my mood recordings from "worst" to "horrible" but that's an improvement.
Dunno if this is something people want to try, or if people have done this, too. I figure every method has its place.