Second Life is an increasingly popular virtual reality website that allows you to take on a completely different person and have new experiences. Our class discussed “addiction and abilty” and how those factors can affect a persons daily life.
Second Life allowed me to experience schizophrenia in a more hands on way than just reading about it. As I started using the program my thoughs consisted of “Am I doing this right?” I wasn’t sure what to be looking for or what to expect because I’ve never experienced hallucinations or schizophrenia. The warning at the beginning was a little jarring. It said something along the lines of “don’t play this if you have history of mental illness.” I was ready for things to get intense after I saw that.
I started to play without any volume. The minute I turned my sound up, I understood why our professor had encouraged the use of headphones. The most memorable quote from this gaming experience? “Kill Yourself!”
After about 10 minutes of playing the game, I felt disturbed. I felt weird, for lack of a better term. As someone who’s never known anyone with schizophrenia, I didn’t know what to expect from the “hallucinations.” The overwhelming sense of feeling out of place was enough to make me want to log out.
Experiences like these are important. In order to learn and grow, we have to experience discomfort. Schizophrenia is not some glamourous mental illness like Hollywood would have you believe. It’s something that people have to cope with everyday, and I could hardly last a few minutes. Mental illness can seem to be invisible to people who have never experienced it. It’s downplayed and considered not as serious as physical illnesses, but it’s terrifying to realize what these people are going through.
For lack of a better word, the experience itself was disturbing. It was necessary, but unsettling. We are all living in the world together and it’s important to realize and try to understand the different situations people may be in.
Jordan Jewell 