Space

I felt a very deep sense of loneliness in the first year or so after leaving game development. I realized I had not built any deep friendships outside of the job, and while I valued the friendships I had developed at work, I didn’t know how to explain why I decided to quit. It felt all too personal, and I had convinced myself that my team would think much less of me for breaking down, for wanting to leave.

I don’t have a clear memory of what I ended up saying to the newly hired HR manager, but it would have likely have been along the lines of: ‘wanting to focus on my mental health’ or ‘wanting to explore other opportunities.’ In truth, I didn’t have much to look forward to when I left. I didn’t even go to therapy until almost a year later.

I loved my job. I loved it probably too much, so much so that I built my entire identity around it. I would often put it above everything else: friends, family, personal plans. I loved being able to say I worked in game development. I was a game developer. That was my life.

And then I quit.

“So who am I supposed to be now?” I didn’t know, and it took me a long, long time and a lot of ‘digging deep’ to figure it out.

I remember one of my mother’s favorite stories was of me saying how when I was a kid that I wanted to be a princess. Of course, when I was younger, and my world mostly revolving around watching Disney films on repeat, that seemed like a very valid ‘dream.’ Obviously, growing up in a country that isn’t even ruled by a monarchy pretty much rendered that dream moot. So what would I want to be, if I can’t be a princess? I had no idea.

I don’t think I ever even had a real dream when I was younger. I knew somehow I wanted to be an artist, but more in the sense that I wanted to just learn new things and make things. I had thought that maybe following a career in comics would be my path, but I realized that back then, the comics I loved were usually filled with backgrounds and perspective work that I still struggle with creating to this day. It was clear early on that I didn’t have the chops to follow that dream.

Somehow, later, I found myself in game development, and I realized I loved it. I was hired as an artist but over time I realized I wanted to do more and more: I wanted to learn more about game design. I wanted to learn how to code. I wanted to study whatever technology could help us make bigger and better games.

I would often be met with difficulty the more I expressed this. I was told to just stick to one thing, what I was good at. An art director told me once to just focus on the art and not care about what the other departments were doing. It was only much later that I felt any sort of validation for what I wanted to do, when I was given the title of Lead Technical Artist—until I realized I was essentially leading a team of one: me. It didn’t mean much, I realized later on, except that out of all the artists in the company that I was the most proficient in the use of the game engine we worked with. I got buried in more and more work, mostly self-assigned, to do documentation, research, teaching—all while still managing and looking after a team.

I got increasingly anxious about my job while trying to navigate my feelings about all the craziness I got into with blockchain and the cryptoart world. While my little dive into blockchain technology helped me with my anxiety over the pandemic and my finances, it also made me question who I even was as an artist. Even as I refocused all my efforts into work, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I made myself somehow both indispensable yet also obsolete. Seeing my team learn to self-manage and do well without me was a personal victory, but I struggled to manage myself. I gave myself more and more responsibilities: to look after the other teams, to learn faster, to teach better, to write better documentation.

One day, I made the error of airing out whatever I was frustrated with at work to my manager, whom I considered my best friend at the time. As much as I’d like to write about what happened next, it would do neither of us any good to dig that particular incident up from the grave. What I can say is that I ended up even more lost that day. The anxiety I built up over time became a full-blown panic attack, ending in me questioning my entire reality: everything I believed in and worked for.

I no longer felt safe at work. I was too anxious and too hurt, drowning in growing despair of not knowing who I was anymore. The company graciously offered that I take a sabbatical, but the time wasn’t enough for me to find the answers to what I was looking for. I felt a bit rushed, pressured to recover my mental health as quickly as possible so I could go back to work.

I did try, and I imagined what life would be like for me when I got back. But I had no idea how I was supposed to act. I felt abandoned by the people who were supposed to look after me. I felt alone and ashamed about how weak I felt. The uncertainty of being lost and alone felt more comfortable than going back: I was still going to be alone, but at least the new path might lead somewhere I can feel safe again.

In the months that followed after I turned in my official resignation, I continued to struggle with figuring out who I was and what I wanted to do. The loneliness continued as days, weeks, months passed without hearing from any friends from work. I found myself waiting and waiting for my former manager to reach out, catch up, see how I was doing. I was adamant about not being the one to reach out first, as I’d done repeatedly in the past whenever we’d get into a tiff.

Months and months passed in silence. It was getting increasingly obvious that I no longer mattered in her life and I was the only one holding out hope that she would realize how important she was to me and how she hurt me so badly, that I could no longer see myself working or even being in the same field as her. Even as I tried to enjoy my life and focus on my own growth, the memory of that day continued to haunt me.

One day, in my grief and in an effort to really move on, I decided to ‘end things’ by unfriending and unfollowing her on social media so I wouldn’t be constantly reminded of her silence, of being abandoned.

I thought that that would work as I felt I was finally doing better afterwards, until another friend brought her up casually in conversation, merely expressing his curiosity about whether or not we were still friends. What followed was yet another depressive cycle that got so bad that it finally prompted me to take therapy seriously.

I was prescribed medication that numbed any feeling at all, and for a while it worked. I no longer felt sad, but I was unable to feel any sort of joy at the same time. I felt lethargic and sleepy all the time: I wasn’t doing anything, unable to find any real motivation. All the while, I struggled to explain to my mother why I didn’t want to join any family activities. How could I explain that my own brain was working against me, feeding me thoughts of how I was never enough? How I was a terrible friend, a terrible artist, a terrible leader, a terrible daughter? Any sort of confidence I had was, once again, obliterated by demons of my own making.

It took many months of therapy, working through my cognitive distortions, journaling, and finding faith before I could find the words and the courage to really write about what I struggled with.

I write this to honor the part of me that still feels unheard after all this time, because I want to make space for the sadness: the sadness that reminds me that I cared, and that I have the capacity to care and love wholeheartedly even if it is never returned. In some way, I hope that writing this would give me the courage to take up more space for myself, as my previous way of dealing with negative emotions just involved hiding and making myself small.

I find myself missing game development still. Although I find myself on a very different path now, I still miss my former team. I wish I got to know them more while we were all still working together, but having different responsibilities does make staying in touch quite difficult. I am grateful with however little bonding time I get with them, though, when we get to share experiences over the games we play—even if it’s just through Facebook posts.

I suppose I am also honoring here the feeling of loneliness, for it helped me realize how much I still had to work on with myself so I can open my heart to other possibilities and avenues of friendship. I find myself longing more and more for interaction and deeper conversations with people, no longer really satisfied with just heart reacts and likes. Of course, I also realize that everyone is also struggling with their own things, so I make it a point to never demand other people’s time or energy, and just be happy with what they’re willing to give.

I’ve luckily found friends, old and new, that understand and accept me wholeheartedly with all my quirks. I’ve no expectations that any of it will last forever, but I have learned to enjoy what time I have together with them. I don’t feel so lonely anymore.