By: Abbey Perley, Assistant Production Editor
Content warning: mentions of illness and death.
Illness anxiety, previously called hypochondria, is a type of anxiety where the affected person constantly believes they have a serious medical problem. For me, every new freckle signals cancer, and the common cold will kill me. This thinking defines large chunks of my life by rendering me physically and mentally weak for days or weeks in a row, despite how unfounded my worries are. It can even create new physical symptoms that I never had to begin with to convince me that I’m seriously ill.
When these periods began, I turned to video games as distractions, and accidentally stumbled on my greatest coping mechanism: games that made me think about myself. Here are two single-player games that helped me reflect on my relationship with health anxiety, and how they’ve contributed to my healing.
Celeste
Celeste is a 2D-platformer released in 2018. The story follows Madeline, a girl who wants to scale the fabled Celeste Mountain to combat her own depression and anxiety. Soon into her climb, Madeline discovers Badeline, a ghost-being that embodies what she considers to be her worst qualities. Badeline haunts Madeline through her entire climb, aggravating the environment and discouraging her from continuing. Slowly, the subject matter transforms from a game about climbing to the journey of a girl struggling to accept all parts of herself. Through dialogues with NPCs, we learn about Madeline’s relationship with mental health and see her grapple with what will ultimately allow her (and the player) to reach the top of the mountain.
I found myself wrecked over Madeline’s tumultuous relationship with Badeline. Bundled in elegantly saturated pixel art and melodic original soundtracks was the relationship between the part of me that had health anxiety, and the part of me that wanted it gone. I’d never understand that these two beings were supposed to be united as clearly as I did while playing Celeste. Although not directly related to health anxiety, the journey up the mountain showed me that I should stop trying to destroy what I didn’t like about myself. Instead, I should speak to the fears that created my anxiety, and work with them to fulfill their needs of keeping me safe.
Spiritfarer
As stated by the developers, “Spiritfarer is a cozy management game about dying” (released in 2020). They’re right; you play as Stella, the grim reaper in a world made up of stray islands on a vast colourful sea. Her job is to house spirits on her boat and help them fulfill their last wishes before sending them to the afterlife. To do this, you as the player complete quests, cook food to feed the spirits, and build them cabins to sleep in while they travel with you.
Something that hit me quickly was that each character I met and cared for was already dead. Does that mean I didn’t care about them, or thought they didn’t matter? No; it was the opposite. Whether I learned they died old or young, or to dementia, or cancer, the process of housing them on my ship until they were ready to pass on comforted some of the fears that probably created my health anxiety in the first place. The game’s soft-hearted quests, gentle piano soundtracks, and meticulous 2D animation nurtured the first positive feelings I’d had about death in years. Admittedly, this game was difficult to play due to the subject matter, but when I was forced to send my spirits to the afterlife, I was reminded that their beauty and richness in death mimicked how they led their lives, and that I should live life proudly, too.
