I tried to commit suicide when I was in my early 20s. My attempt was thankfully not successful, but in the wake of my attempt I was extremely depressed. The sort of unmoving, uncaring, and unfeeling depression where you have no real concept of self, time, or others. I was in a management position at my job and had the luxury of going to work, closing the door, and not saying anything to anyone the entire time I was there. I have had other depressive episodes since then, some that were even worse, but this was the worst I'd ever felt at the time.
I worked with someone who'd previously I'd been very cruel too. I did not like him. I gave him bad hours. I made him do the worst kind of work. I blamed him for things that weren't his fault. He and I were pretty tried and true enemies. But he was really depressed too, and had been for a lot of his life, which I didn't know. When he saw me in the state I was in, his hate for me turned to pity, and he has recounted to me how he thought to himself that it made him sad to see someone else as miserable as he was.
I'd fallen out of gaming at that time and hadn't really played seriously for many years. But in an effort to connect, he bought me a stack of used video games that he really liked and encouraged me to play them. One of them was Red Dead Redemption, a game I'd never had any interest in or drive to play before. I looked down on games like Grand Theft Auto and perceived it to be "Grand Theft Auto with horses." I decided to play it anyway.
Playing Red Dead Redemption was an experience unlike anything else I'd ever done. At first I found it awkward and unwieldy. It was hard to control. It was hard for me to get navigate. I regularly found myself lost and unskilled in the wilderness of New Austin. I did not have fun for my first several sessions. Unsure of where to go or what to do most of the time, I simply picked flowers in the wilderness. I'd ride my horse until I saw a flower, get off my horse, pick the flower, then ride away until I found another flower. I did this for hours on end. I don't even recall what flowers do in Red Dead Redemption 1. But I collected every flower I saw. I had hundreds of flowers. When I hit the inventory limit, I'd just drop them or sell them (I don't recall) and just start over from zero.
This sounds boring, and it was weird behavior, but it was really helpful to me. The world of Red Dead Redemption was vast and empty and natural and beautiful. I really enjoyed exploring it. I really enjoyed seeing what was out there, riding my horse, and picking flowers. Every day when I got home from work, no matter how late I worked that day, I would play Red Dead Redemption until I was too tired to stay up anymore and then I would fall asleep.
I played RDR1 for an entire fall and winter. I stretched the game for months. I wasn't always having fun, but it was preferable to how I was feeling otherwise, and I was able to stop being me for a while and me John Marston instead. Over the course of those several months, one flower at a time, I crawled slowly out of my depression pit and back in to reality. I liked playing RDR. I liked talking to my enemy-turned-friend about it the next day at work. I liked thinking about it when I wasn't playing it and I liked looking forward to it all day. That helped me a lot. It kept me preoccupied, and gave me something to anticipate, and it took me out of my head in a way nothing else could.
I don't think I would have made it out of that period with RDR, John Marston, and all those flowers. I believe that Red Dead Redemption saved my life. It was what I really needed back then. No other game has ever been exactly what I needed at exactly the right time ever since. I really hope the game is remade or remastered or re-released in some way. To this day I've played it exactly once. It would be nice to play it again.
Still very good friends with the guy who gave me the game. We see each other a couple times a month and complain about work and video games. He's like a brother to me now.
