Depression Blogs and Games

I linked to this yesterday on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook, but I wanted to also add it to this post. The Psych Central website has listed their Top 10 Depression Blog of 2014. I have to admit that there are a few on there I’ve never read, but I will definitely be checking them out!

Do you have a favorite depression blog not listed there?

Also, I wanted to share a Mashable article I saw as well. Titled 3 Free Games That Can Help You Cope And Understand Depression it goes on to talk about three video games with depression as the central theme. I’ll let the author, Matthew Hughes explain:

The UK’s Office of National Statistics says that one in five British adults suffer from depression. It’s an epidemic of massive proportions, comes with a massive societal impact, with depression costing the European economy almost 118 million Euros in lost worker productivity and expenditure on treatment.

It’s not just a feeling of sadness. It’s not laziness. It’s a complex, confusing mental illness that impacts people in different ways. It can pull you into a spiral of numbness, anxiety, hopelessness and apathy, and make the simplest things like getting out of bed feel like an excruciating effort.

So, where do games come into this? Games – like any other genre of popular culture – can help us understand complex issues. Complex issues like depression and mental health. Don’t believe me? Here are 3 that walk you through what it’s like to suffer from depression, or give you helpful strategies for coping with it.

Now, I’ve never been a big gamer so I’m going to reserve judgement on whether video games can help. I’m willing to admit that anything that helps is a good thing, and if there are folks out there who are helped by playing these games, I’m glad they exist! I don’t think they’d be for me, but that’s just the point, they aren’t for me. Maybe they are for someone else.

Have you played any these games? What do you think?