Distinguishing Reality

   Recently I am becoming very concerned about a problem I've had all my life. I have difficulties distinguishing between video games and reality. This becomes quite an annoyance when it comes to the scarier parts in video games, such as being devoured by a zombie horde, fighting off a yeti, or being chased by a murderer. 

   

     I considered this normal when I was younger, I always thought, "I'm a six year-old girl playing one of those games that's for ages 10 and up, it's normal to a little spooked by this." (Or something along those lines, except in 6 year-old words); however, I was really way more than a "slightly spooked." I was more like...really super-duper freaking terrified, to the point that once I even became ill from the pure puddle-on-the-floor, oh my freaking gosh, there is a zombie trying to devour my flesh. frightfulness of it all. Not to mention that all of them gave me horrible nightmares.

    

     The first instance was when I younger and still living on our family farm, my parents bought my brother, John, and I a PlayStation 1, that was some legitimately awesome stuff back then, and the game of the "Spyro the Dragon" series, "Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage." (which, by the way, now sells on Amazon for $36.98, screw that.) on about the second level, in Collosus, you were informed that you would have to defeat a yeti.

     

     I started shaking at the idea of my little purple dragon avatar, no...me being torn to pieces by the yeti. (Although when I finally reached the room containing the yeti, I found out that it kills itself when it makes the ceiling cave in.) 

The yeti looks like this during it's brief virtual existence:

As you can see, it is not all that scary. Maybe like a yak with a case of indigestion and a toothache.

In my mind it looked like this:

  This absolutely terrified me. That thing is like Were the Wild Things Are gone wrong on crack-cocain and with an overdose of Pepto Bismol. I actually feared for my life, not Spyro's. Spyro can breathe fire, he can take care of himself. It's me that needs to flee.

     As I grew older I was introduced to the Nancy Drew games on PC. Playing one of these, I actually became so scared I threw up, and became ill. They aren't even made to be scary, just a little spooky, like those sound effect tracks some people play outside of their houses on Halloween, or maybe like the book cover of Frankenstein. But to me, it was equivalent to actually being swallowed hole by a yeti, or perhaps being sucked into a bad Disney cartoon. I just simply couldn't convince my mind that it wasn't real.

     The first first-shooter game I ever completed or even really got in to was Bioshock. I was fifteen at the time, and I was still petrified. I expected to have grown out of it by now, but, no, the whole time I was playing my face looked like this:

But I still completed the game that day.
     

     But, again, I considered this somewhat normal. Then today my brother got me to play a game called Amnesia. It went something like this:

I'm starting to wonder if I should see a psychologist. At least I could get my OCD diagnosed while I'm there. *Sigh*

Well, that was a complete overuse of MS Paint. Now it is misbehaving. You're welcome.

*Lick* <3

 Bye.