A life lesson I learned from a violent video game

I watched a documentary this morning on Silent Hill 2, a Crime and Punishment-esque video game about a man who killed his own terminally ill wife out of love, and finds himself in a town fighting off manifestations of his inner demons in coming to terms with his murder. It explores the themes of grief and how people cope with guilt through either giving up, staying stuck in the past (making excuses / delusions), or moving on. That moving on is hard because it means facing those parts of us that we are scared or ashamed of. And that people are never the same after trauma, but you have no choice but to choose one of the options.

I was scared of all horror media ever since I was a kid, but these days I think they are unique in being able to confront these taboo subjects and give us the courage to face our own demons. And the video game as a medium for exploring these themes in a way which places us viscerally in the shoes of these characters. These kinds of stories make me feel less alone.