Engaging with depression is strange and difficult. I've decided to engage with it this way -- in the form of a YouTube series where I attempt to defeat Final Fantasy VI.

- Derek

most recent episode: 22 (?)

FIRST ATTEMPT - Episode 1- 21

Gameclock: 14:40

Annihilated: Floating Continent

SECOND ATTEMPT HAS BEGUN

location: figaro castle

DISCLAIMER:

Mental Health is complicated. Anxiety and depression are dangerous and real. This video does not mock or replace any form of therapy. Seeking help, in whatever form that takes, is crucial.

You are not alone.

It’s 1994. I am fourteen. I’m lying on the floor of my friend Bobby’s TV room with the volume almost all the way down as I play his Super Nintendo. It’s about two hours before dawn.

I’m playing Final Fantasy III. It’s years before I’ll learn that it’s actually Final Fantasy VI.

My brain...is wide open. I don’t own this game - I have been finding excuses to spend the night here, waiting for Bobby to go to bed, and then staying up all night to play it. I want every bit of this game inside of my brain: every character, every mechanic, every pixel. It’s years before I’ll realize it, but I am re-wiring my own mind, forming structures and passageways and tunnels and ---stories.

It’s 2018. I’m thirty-eight. My brain is not wide open. I’m lying on the floor, but it’s not always because I want to be. It feels like its always two hours before dawn.

What if I could find a way back inside?  All those passageways and tunnels and secrets are still there - what if I could use them? What if - instead of Kefka - I could defeat Depression Itself?

What if I could play -- FINAL THERAPY?

The Rules

1. No grinding.

2. No Fenix Down. no ether.

3. the dead are naked.

4. no game guides.

5. Espers link once.

6. Terra must survive.

the core of my psyche

you

GEAR:

RELICS:

ESPER:

current status

Uncertain.

My coping mechanisms

lies

GEAR:

RELIC:

ESPER:

sugar

GEAR:

RELIC:

ESPER:

drinks

GEAR:

RELIC:

ESPER:

shower

GEAR:

RELIC:

ESPER: SHOAT (?)

WHOOPS

GEAR:

RELIC:

ESPER:

my implacable foe