Celeste

I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism at a very young age. As I grew up, I would stim in public, have trouble speaking to others and not really understand social cues. For most of the time I was growing up within the catholic school system, I was told that this part of me "wasn't normal". I would be bullied by fellow students, talked down to by teachers, and told to "act more normal" by my parents. As I grew up within this space, I grew to hate that I was autistic. I hated myself for not being able to be like the other kids, and tried to push myself into things I didn't feel comfortable or happy doing because, well, it was normal. When I entered high school and started burgeoning into puberty, I found more clearly that I had issues with my sexual and gender identity. The idea of me being a "straight man" felt almost repulsive to me, and I desperately wanted to escape from that. The problem is, I was going through these troubles within a still very catholic school, during the height of teen bigotry and "anti-SJW" sentimentality, and felt as though I had zero outlet to explore these feelings about myself. So, I just wallowed in this disgusting feeling. I rejected who I was for the sake of trying to be what other people wanted from me, and I hated myself so deeply. A few times through high school I had harmed myself, and contemplated suicide, because it felt like my only out when I was so choked from all sides into being what I didn't want.

I've been playing Chicory lately. It's a fun game, with unique ideas and a cute presentation, but I ended up feeling kind of disappointed with how it's story and message was told. When I described how I felt to friends, I called it "too heavy-handed". Like, yeah, I've dealt with imposter syndrome like any other artist would, obviously! I speak to people about these things all the time, and maybe it could just use some more nuance, I felt. Last night, while sharing how I felt on this game, I was playing Celeste.

Celeste is an unspeakably important game to me, for a myriad of reasons. I was in senior year of high school when I picked it up and started playing it. I was still deeply entrenched in these horrible feelings about myself, surrounded by awful friends who treated me and who I was as a joke, and I was miserable. I had never once, in my life, been told that who I truly was is something that's okay, and something that was simply a part of me as much as everything else about me. Something I could come to accept. When I played Celeste, this is what it told me.

If I had played Celeste now, I'd probably also think it's "heavy-handed", in a way. It would've been saying things pretty bluntly to me that I've heard many times before, now that I had accepted myself and was surrounded by caring friends who accepted me too. Y'know, I dealt with these issues before, but maybe it could use some nuance. But I didn't play Celeste now. I played it when I needed that blunt, matter-of-fact and honest message given to me by something. When I desperately needed anything to tell me I wasn't alone in how I felt about these things. It changed my life. Maybe if I had Chicory in more troubling times of my life, it would've held the same place.