Yeah ngl, fucked me up a bit playing this.
The emotional rollercoaster hit close to home, struggling with doubts, watching what feels like a cascade of failures you just now acknowledge as you look at it like an unsound bridge just waiting for the right truck to pass and cause it to fail. Watching how people change, the soul crushing reality of change, never able to go back, acceptance, and so much more... The real horror to this is, reality...
I know some people who have similar struggles in person, some I have love for, and it's so damn hard to know they are struggling and you cannot do anything about it, watching them belittle themselves, suffer psychotic episodes, self-aware of it...
I can't speak on what makes writing good or bad, what makes a story good or bad, but I can say this made me feel things I wanted to bury. In a sick sense, face reality for what it is, you can hide from it, that doesn't change it. It reminds me about people in my life, but it also touched me with the characters. Mild-ish spoiler but, the multiple endings I did not see coming, I cried a few times, happy tears for the very last ones.
I cannot really comment on the accuracy of the mental health or drug related things within this story, but from what little third person experience I have had with people who have lived it, it's heartbreakingly real. Psychological conditions are one nightmare, drugs are another, and I really walk away impressed with the tactful handling of the topics. There is no right answer as to medications, they often hurt and help, and so many people live with this reality every day. Cameron talking about relapse, watching it destroy his life, his family, this might be fiction, but this is way too real.
The acknowledgment of, getting better, doesn't mean the problems go away, is brutal honesty that a lot of us do not like to think about. When we talk to people struggling, we know things can get better, but we also don't want to sugar coat the reality of addiction, change, fantasy that it will be right as rain later. You can get better, but you will have to fight every single day to make it happen, it's going to be the hardest damn thing you do, and it in some ways gets easier, but you are always one slip away from falling...
I fortunately only struggle with nicotine and caffeine addictions, but to anyone reading this that has dealt with harder stuff, even prescriptions, I can't ever truly understand your struggles, but I have the utmost respect for those of you that have been able to fight it. It's quite literally incomprehensible to people like me who have not dealt with it, it is borderline a force of nature, the power it can have to absolutely obliterate lives, I can't blame people for failing to stay clean, but also, if you are clean, keep that fight alive, every day you do not give it a win, you are holding back hell itself, my hat is off to you.
If you want to ruin your brain's emotional responses, play this lmao. It's not real, but it's also real enough in a sense. We were meant to feel these things about people in our lives, not media, but I have to say, this media does a damn god job at making you feel. What I am trying to say is, talk to real people in the world around you, as much as I found this experience touching, it needs to be balanced with reality, real experiences, with real people. Not a critique of the game but more, close your laptop after and make meaningful memories, connections...
Home is a time, a place, and people, it isn't forever the same, and those moments tend to matter most after they are gone... The world is ever-changing, make the most of the time you have, the silly little sweet moments, they matter a lot more than we realize, cherish them.