Image: NintendoMay is Mental Health Awareness Month in the US. With Switch 2 drawing near, today Tim shares a personal journey he's been on throughout the Switch generation... If the Switch’s eight-year-long lifecycle has led you to existential 'then and now' thoughts, I’m right there with you. It was my life-changing companion as I navigated mental health in adulthood, presenting me with the right games at the right time to come out the other end flourishing. Last year, I spoke with therapists who understood the immense therapeutic possibilities of the Switch. There was a theme throughout those conversations of using the console as a means of self-expression and forging bonds. So, it’s no coincidence that my own Switch 'therapy' story also begins with them.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube812kWatch on YouTube When I had a chance to go hands-on with the Switch in January 2017, I was just starting to come out of my shell via blogging—a huge step in my therapy—but I still was uncomfortable exploring New York City where I’d moved a few years prior. I often used video games as an escape from my mental health struggles when I couldn’t get myself out, making the promise of endless possibilities in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule a thing of dreams. What troubles I had claiming agency over my life and city I could do the most vastly realised version of in a virtual space I loved. My desire to play was strong enough that I took the difficult leap of braving a packed crowd to try it before release. This may not sound like much, but for someone whose mental health issues were making it difficult to get outside, it was no small feat. My demo unit failed midway through my allotted time, though I couldn’t consider the outing a failure. Just as I’d yearned to explore a digital open world as a timeless hero, the chance to get an early taste of that experience pushed me out of my comfort zone and into the openness of the real world. Images: Nintendo I couldn’t shake this correlation upon properly playing the game. Link was just like me, waking from a slumber and carving a path for himself in a world he didn’t immediately comprehend. Only while I didn’t have the power to tackle my quest yet, I could role-play it through Link’s endless drive forward. Exploring every village, labyrinth, and strange cranny of Hyrule sowed the seeds of adventurous curiosity in me, and months later they’d bloom with Super Mario Odyssey. You probably saw this coming, but New Donk City was revelatory for me. It wasn’t because of the climactic sing-song celebration of the plumber’s origins, but rather a strange moment when bouncing between rooftops where I realised I could just as well be exploring the actual city if I stepped outside. I wasn’t about to tiptoe across scaffolding looking for collectibles, but walks along the Hudson River, strolls through Central Park, and feeling like a cartoon in a world of photorealistic people? I could do all that. And I did, finding a peripheral sense of community through a handful of meetups, going with a friend to see movies, and taking those aforementioned walks through what counts as nature here in the concrete jungle. It was a true breakthrough. Image: Nintendo Unfortunately, this high wouldn’t last. Depression and anxiety took hold once again for more reasons than I could list here, and many more intangible ones I couldn’t. I didn’t realise just how easy it would be to spiral back down until it happened. That’s the thing about mental illness: it’s always there, and—medication aside—having the right cognitive tools to cope with it is paramount. I didn’t have those tools when I needed them, and thus, I crashed. I soon entered five months of intensive outpatient group therapy. This life-changing experience put me within a few blocks of Nintendo New York most days of the week. As a means of exposure therapy, I would regularly go into the store and make conversation with employees. It definitely led me to buy a few knick-knacks more than I ever needed as an excuse to do so, but each time I became less and less anxious about the interactions. Fire Emblem: Three Houses launched soon after I left group therapy. Role-playing my newfound skills through scripted interactions was a great way to test them out in a stakes-free environment; teatimes that could’ve been lukewarm became piping hot. Super Mario Maker 2 was another pivotal release in this window. Fiddling with the level editor inspired me to take a Unity course that would shape my future by exposing me to the city’s game development scene (even though I walked away from the class having learned that coding wasn’t my bag). Images: Nintendo In short time it would be 2020, and 2020 was what 2020 was. COVID lockdowns could’ve easily caused a regression given that I was stuck alone in a small studio apartment, so I was lucky to have a saving grace in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. For many, the game was a way to socialise when we couldn’t in-person, but for me it provided necessary structure to my life. Daily tasks that might’ve quickly become mundane in normal times offered a sense of regularity to an irregular time. Plus, my island was a welcoming place where the worst that could happen was a villager getting a bit huffy for an hour before forgetting their strife like clockwork. I too forgot my strife as the pure positivity of this space helped hold intrusive thoughts away. And so I visited my island every day for over a year, creating a fleeting but comfortable life for me and my villagers. Link was just like me, waking from a slumber and carving a path for himself in a world he didn’t immediately comprehend. All this put me in a place where I was capable of returning to college for the Fall 2020 semester. Online classrooms provided a safe space for me to finish the degree I halted six years prior due to mental illness struggles. It’s pretty ironic that Nintendo games played a major role in getting me to this point when they played the role of distraction from my mental health struggles during my first go at college. 2021 and 2022 were filled with Nintendo releases I adored, though I wouldn’t significantly track my mental health progression through them. There was only one more game that would have this impact, and it did so in poetic fashion. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom released shortly after I graduated, providing me ample time and a fresh perspective to return to the same Hyrule that kicked off my Switch journey. Because of the parallels inherently drawn through the repurposed map, every step I took in re-healing the re-broken land felt like an acknowledgement of how far I’d come. I overcome a lot in the real world thanks to Zelda, and now through Zelda I was taking a victory lap. Image: Nintendo Conquering each Zonai temple to restore regional peace felt like giving their denizens a new beginning, just as they once gave one to me. Dropping down into society from a perch on lifeless sky islands and lighting the depths to push back rot… well, those metaphors write themselves. While my struggle with mental illness will never end, Tears of the Kingdom was a museum of my Switch-playing years spent learning to live with it. So much of what I do now is a result of actions predicated on Switch experiences. Research I conducted on how we can teach about mental health through games happened because Animal Crossing helped set me up to return to school. My docuseries currently in production exists because Mario Maker influenced me to engage with the community at the centre of the project. The fact that I’m writing this at all is because the Switch’s existence in the first place helped me get back to a mental state where I could return to my writing career. So, when I think back on my eight years with the Switch, I can’t help but feel indebted to its guiding light. While I’m excited for the new adventures the Switch 2 will offer, saying goodbye to the original is bittersweet. Image: Damien McFerran / Nintendo Life Cooperative healing in handheld hybrid form Related Games See Also Share:38 12 Tim's gaming origins began at age three, toying with his dad's Game Boy as he stomped through Sarasaland and cleared lines of four-tiled bricks. He soon found Pokémon and Chrono Trigger which locked in his love for games, especially Nintendo and JRPGs. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Feature: From BOTW To TOTK - How The Switch Helped Me Overcome Mental Illness And Thrive Dr. Nintendo offered more than pills