Animal Crossing + Mental Illness

[RRJay]

I have anxiety. It sometimes gets so bad that I can barely breathe, and I bite into the skin so bad on my lip that it bleeds, I jiggle my legs, I bite my nails, thats all anxious energy and on top of that I have all the ~typical~ anxiety symptoms. When I play acnl it helps so much. The moments I have played ACNL have been one of the happiest times in my life. The months that I dont play? I hardly can walk through a store, I get so nervous with everyone around me, school was a blur, working was beyond difficult. But now that im playing again it has settled down. its really nice to have an out from the rest of the world for a while.

 

[ArkieRN]

Unipolar depression, seasonal affective disorder and social anxiety here.

If I've had to interact with actual people in person, I find it very calming to chill out with AC. I can text or communicate via internet with people but in person or phone contact bothers me.

Weirdly, I don't like Club Tortimer if the other mayors want to "talk". If they just want to do tours together, that's cool though.

 

[FaebelleDoll]

It's kinda releiving to see a thread like this...

I have really bad anxiety, as well as autism and mild ocd. ... I didn't... really have many friends as a kid, so playing Animal Crossing: Wild World was kind of how I coped.

I got bad enough that I couldn't even leave my house for two years, and this was around the time New Leaf came out, so I got really into it... it was nice having a whole town full of friendly faces waiting for me when I was unable to even go into my own backyard. I could go months without seeing another person during those years, so I really needed Animal Crossing to keep me company, y'know?

In general, Animal Crossing is good for my anxiety because of the slow paced idyllic nature of it. It's very calming to play, hehe.
(And the landscaping and decorating options, combined with the challenge to obtain every single unique item in the game... it's a good way to channel my obsessive compulsive tendencies into something non-harmful!)

 

[Cheburashka]

I don?t want to go into too much detail here but I have also been diagnosed with GAD and depression. I usually work from home and my social life is pretty much dead apart from my boyfriend whom I live with and who has got a mental illness himself. I am not sure, AC is good for anything but it?s definitely the perfect hobby for me.

 

[Celestis]

i have mild anxiety, depression, and adhd and animal crossing is really easy to focus on for me. if i feel bad because i haven't done anything productive, i try to play some acnl to cheer myself up and my villagers being so happy usually motivates me enough to do some work. c:

 

[newleaves]

yes! it really helps especially when the characters are nice to u. ⁽⁽ପ( ?ु﹃ ?ु)​.⑅*♡​

 

[Bam]

Really bad anxiety and phobia/panic disorder here, with some ADHD and OCD tendencies on the side. I need my brain to be focused on a game and it helps distract me from freaking out. Animal Crossing is a great world to immerse yourself into when you just need to escape reality for a bit!