T w e n t y S i d e d

Around 6 years ago my wife and I were living in Baltimore. She was finishing up her college degree and I was excited to move back to my hometown. The plan was to move in with my parents for up to a year or so while we went house shopping. I went back about a week prior to her so she could wrap some things up in the area and I could get some things prepared for her back home. Our plans were far from perfect, but they were good enough and we were glad to close that chapter of our lives and move on. Then my parents’ house burnt down.

My dad grabbed my leg at 4:45 in the morning and yelled “FIRE!” I was used to him waking me up in a panic when the basement flooded because it happened a lot when I was a kid, so my body kind of reacted before my brain was able to. I stood up, woke up my wife, followed my dad to wake up my mom, and rushed out of the house. I didn’t grab anything or even think. I just bolted out of the house. We all did. Once we were outside of the house we all realized around the same time. We had 2 dogs and 2 cats left in the house. I made eye contact with my dad and he immediately knew what I was going to do and tried to stop me, but I muscled past him. I went back into the house to save our animals.

Movies and games do a terrible job at showing what the inside of a house fire looks like. There’s no clear view of fire. There’s no haze. There’s just black. I couldn’t see the tip of my nose let alone my hand in front of my face. It was all consuming. I held my breath as I ran through but eventually I had to try to breathe and it stung my lungs. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe. I could only act. Luckily I had plenty of practice wandering around in the dark scrounging for snacks in my youth, so I could sort of feel my way around effectively.

Chico, our older chihuahua, was in my room. The closest room to the fire. I bolted back that way because I was scared that it might already be too late. Luckily the fire actually took quite some time to work its way through the walls and up through the floor, so Chico was okay. He jumped into my arms when I got through and yelled for him. I was able to get back out of the house without a ton of difficulty and my mom was crying her eyes out with relief and excitement that her favorite child got out of the house alive. I got out too.

My second trip in the house was a bit more complicated. You see, when I got out of the house after the first trip inside, my dad was too distracted by relief to stop me from going back in. I knew he wouldn’t let me go back in a third time. He’d knock me out if he had to to save me from my own stupidity. So I had to go to the other side of the house through the living room and open the front door to have easier access to said living room and a way inside without needing to fight past my dad. In theory this would be relatively easy, except we had a gate across the entrance to the living room to keep our animals out when we didn’t want them inside. I forgot about that. When I ran in the second time I tripped and fell on that gate. I lost all orientation and knocked the wind out of myself. Thank god my mom, dad, sister, and wife were yelling at the back door. That allowed me to orient again and make my way to the front door and catch my breath for a moment.

After I got to the front door I ran in to where Tia, our other chihuahua was last known to be and I yelled for her. I can’t say for sure what was going on with her but she took a long time to find me and run into my arms. So long that my lungs were in quite a lot of stinging pain as I had no choice but to try to breathe while I yelled for her. I got her out of the house and tried to will myself to run back in to try to get the cats. I could hear one of them meowing at me the whole time I was inside looking for Tia. I wanted so very badly to save all of our animals. But this time I couldn’t do it. I knew if I went in one more time there was a good chance I’d never make it out. I blame myself every day for not saving Minnie and Bailey. They were both hiding, so realistically there was no way I could have gotten them out, but I hate myself for not trying harder.

Ever since, it’s a crap shoot as to whether smoke or thick steam will trigger a panic attack or flashbacks. Whether it’s a campfire or burnt food, it just really doesn’t matter. Luckily, as time goes on the attacks and flashbacks have become more infrequent but they have been triggered by video games multiple times. Sometimes at weird moments.

The worst one was in Lethal Company. My friend and I were playing on the default first map. We each had a habit of wandering around mostly on our own and reporting back to each other if we found a more interesting area to explore. Well, I was moving my way down a hall when a pipe burst and completely obscured my vision. I didn’t even realize what was happening until after, but my chest was tight and extremely pained, my head was hurting, and my thoughts were flying. I had had panic attacks a million times before, but this was new. I could actually see in my minds eye smoke so vividly that it hurt my chest. I could hear the screaming of the fire alarm. I was back in the house. I had to shut the game off, log off for the night, and take a sleeping med to sleep it off.

Now, I believe in challenging yourself to experience things that make you uncomfortable so I’ve gone back and played Lethal Company several times since. I’m careful to avoid the steam when I can, but I’ve dealt with it without incident. However it’s far from the only game to cause the issue. Rainbow Six Siege’s smoke grenades mixed with various alarms and sound effects. Silent Hill’s fog. Phasmophobia’s smoke/fog ball effect. All have caused problems for me. I’ve fought past all of them successfully and I’m very appreciative that I’m able to do so. I’m one of the lucky ones. There’s plenty of other people that have games, movies, and shows ruined for them.

The most obvious sufferers are combat veterans having issues with gunfire, smoke, alarms, shouting, or various other sounds and sights that trigger flashbacks. People are aware of everyday occurrences that might cause triggers such as fireworks, police/firetruck/ambulance sirens, and other loud bangs. Less are aware of the effects of the visuals and sounds in games and movies. There are plenty of documented cases of vets being set off by Call of Duty or Battlefield. However that PTSD isn’t just limited to those who have served in the armed forces. Survivors of plane crashes can be set off by flight simulators and flight sections of games. Survivors of car-jackings and robberies might be set off by Grand Theft Auto. Any form of trauma that might sink into your brain can cause PTSD and could have a correlating trigger in a game.

Now all of this may be obvious to some of you, but many don’t even consider these things. We all know about the epilepsy warnings you see everywhere, but it’s much less common to see PTSD trigger warnings. I am not suggesting trigger warnings need to be everywhere. While it can be nice to have a content warning easily accessible for those with trauma related issues like those shown for epileptics, there’s a personal responsibility to protect your mental health that comes with in-taking media while dealing with your mental illness. After all, who the hell thinks about smoke being a trigger for a panic inducing flashback? People can be traumatized by anything. I’m just bringing attention to the fact that there is just significantly less awareness and consideration out there.

Interestingly enough, there’s actually some studies that have been done using video games to help treat PTSD. Games are basically used to simulate situations that trigger PTSD in the players in a controlled environment so that they can become desensitized to the stimulus and learn to work through it better. There’s even been suggestions that playing Tetris can help prevent the formation of strong emotional ties to your trauma, acting like a sort of PTSD vaccine.

Nowadays the topic of trauma and its deep, awful effects are more well-known, but not truly appreciated. While it’s a topic often explored by horror movies and video games, people rarely think of the real, miserable day-to-day effects. They don’t think about the flashbacks and mental hamster wheels that sufferers can get stuck on, often without even having the courtesy of a trigger to blame it on.

I don’t begrudge media exploring PTSD. I think some of them are masterpieces. Spec Ops: The Line is all about it and it’s one of my favorite games of all time, despite it’s middling gameplay. The Deer Hunter is one of the best movies of all time. I just worry that they portray only the most severe cases in an almost romantic way.

Keep an eye out for your friends that have been through some shit. Whether their trauma is from war, a house fire, or abuse by a partner, a heads-up that something might bother them could prevent a miserable time revisiting unfun experiences. They’ll appreciate it.

Ethan Rodgers