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It seemed worth a try, because my anxiety had been only getting worse for years. According to the American Psychological Association, CBT is all about “ plac an emphasis on helping individuals learn to be their own therapists” through exposure to triggers, role-playing, pattern-learning, and using problem-solving skills for uncomfortable situations. I started cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) at university in 2017.

HYPER BULLET GAMES SERIES

Perhaps it was inevitable that the series would follow me into therapy when I finally decided to address my overwhelming anxiety issues, just as it had helped me cope with them before. I would revisit this old habit of playing Touhou into the dead hours of the night in my mid-twenties, just as I had done when I was a teenager. Even from my Western context, I understood Touhou was very special - how it thought about its characters, its world-building, and the crazy mechanics of its universe as a kid. So naturally, like most awkward, sad, depressed, confused, anxious, and horny teenagers, I buried myself deep in the world of games. Games ~ Illusive Coping MechanismĪfter middle school I was in a transitory period, not quite sure what my place was in the world, how I’d make friends, who I wanted to be. This is how you feel after 5 hours of bullet hell.

These are games about repetition, exposure, and resolution. What these titles all have in common with Touhou is an emphasis on the basic mechanics of shooting and dodging. Games such as Undertale also borrow from classic shoot em ups. However, the appeal of Touhou ‘s gameplay mechanics is universal - titles such as Gradius introduced many to the genre, and contemporary shoot em ups like Jamestown are now cult classics. The series is a niche anomaly in the West, but a fully fledged, beloved franchise in Japan. These games have always been a bit eccentric when it comes to their appeal. There’s a very specific market for this type of aesthetic - folks who can appreciate cuteness as well as nail-biting difficulty. Touhou is filled to the brill with cute girls shooting Dragon Ball -esque lasers, energy beams, and of course, bullets - all while wearing frilly hats and dresses. The series’ success is partly due to the popularity of “cute-em-up” games featuring big-eyed anime girls in traditional shoot ‘em up titles. Fans of the Touhou series are, for lack of a better word, notorious in their dedication to the fictional world of Gensokyo, where the protagonist Reimu resides protecting the mystical gate separating our world from a myriad of ghouls. Later Touhou entries transitioned into the overhead shooting and dodging games fans love today. The Touhou Project series has been around since 1995, with the release of Highly Responsive to Prayers, which was essentially a copy of Breakout. How Dungeons & Dragons Brought Me and My Mom Closer Together.Russian Doll, Majora’s Mask, and the Endless Horror of the Time Loop.What Acting Taught Me About Life and Video Games.As it turns out, the genre’s emphasis on dodging threats, recognizing patterns and acting on them isn’t unlike how certain forms of anxiety are treated in therapy. What I didn’t know was that this painful episode would begin my trip down the rabbit hole of a notoriously difficult genre of games - or that the the love-it-or-hate-it world of “bullet hell” would come to help me work through my anxiety issues. I was shocked that something I did for fun ended up physically injuring me in the end. A semester, later, and I couldn’t even move my wrist - too much arrow key smashing. My first experience with carpal tunnel happened after a five-hour marathon of indie Japanese shoot ‘em ups called Touhou Project.

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