The Cat Lady and the Parasites of Mental Health | Monsters of the Week

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  @violetraven8323 · 7 years ago (edited) · pinned

  &quot;Why didn&apos;t you just leave them?&quot;<br>&quot;Why didn&apos;t you just stand up to them?&quot;<br>&quot;Why didn&apos;t you just talk with them?&quot;<br>&quot;Why didn&apos;t you do this why didn&apos;t you do that I would never end up like that why didn&apos;t you why didn&apos;t you why didn&apos;t you-&quot;<br>After leaving a very abusive relationship crisis, this bs is what I was asked by a few sideline third parties-who frankly has no business telling me how to feel and how to cope. So a word of advice to anyone who knows someone in or out of an abusive relationship;Never tell them those things, never instruct them on there thoughts and actions. Just let them know you care, just listen to what they say, and give them a home and real friend when asked.

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  @MarsTheBar9 · 8 years ago

  what i love about this game is how it blends horror with mental illness in a respectful and realistic way. its not about using &nbsp;the &quot;crazy and dangerous mentally ill person&quot; as a shitty plot device. its about susan as a person and how she&apos;s....more than her mental illnesses

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  @user-ef7el7cg8g · 5 years ago

  The coffee &quot;minigame&quot; in particular is the most accurate depiction of depression I&apos;ve seen in any media, ever, and as soon as I saw that bit I was fully on board with the game because the devs clearly GET IT. It so clearly conveys how fraying mental health turns a simple, straightforward task into a series of insurmountable and discouraging obstacles.

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• ST

  @stalelemonproduction · 6 years ago

  the main complaint of the anxiety chapter being &quot;how am I supposed to do this I can&apos;t predict everything and the only way to do this first try is luck or a walkthough&quot; is a perfect example of real anxiety. There is no walkthough for real life, and some people&apos;s anxiety is so bad that the potential for a panic attack can set them off. so it&apos;s perfect

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  @lightskinboi06 · 4 years ago

  This game came out the same month I was going to take my life. When I beat the game, I was bawling my eyes for the rest of the day. To say that this game changed my life is an understatement. The positive change in the game got me through my rut and I’m forever grateful to the developers.

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  @NostalgiaUnicorn · 8 years ago

  The portrayal of anxiety disorder is by far one of the best I&apos;ve ever seen and gives non-sufferers a taste of how utterly unfair and frustrating as well as how very touchy and unpredictable an actual anxiety disorder is. It doesn&apos;t make sense and is difficult to handle. You get called a &quot;snowflake&quot;, the very word &quot;triggered&quot; is such a meme that you can&apos;t even seriously discuss your anxiety triggers any longer or express them, people complain they have to walk on eggshells, and never once does anyone understand how terrible and destructive the internal struggle is. You just want it to STOP and it feels like you have to complete some RPG level quest to accomplish that.

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  @minhhoangoan5010 · 8 years ago

  &quot;Why invent monster when life is full of them&quot;

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  @FadedforFreedom · 8 years ago

  I remember when I played, I felt Doctor X was also metaphorically &quot;painting up&quot; his patients into the images he wants. Much like many bad psychiatrists will attempt to cover the superficial causes of mental illnesses, and ignoring the deeper parts of the patient. Like fueling the person with lots of medicine but not giving them coping tools or support outside of it. It only prevents the surface level stuff from showing, but doesn&apos;t help them learn how to live with it.<br><br> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Unfortunately, I&apos;ve met a few before, and most people I know can say the same about the doctors. Doctor X really hit that for me, and I felt like I was back in an office with an old man telling me to take the medicine and not giving me answers to any of the questions of what I could do to improve, and the woman who misdiagnosed me and pilled me up till I was cracking. The fact I&apos;ve had the better of the worst doctors is really screwed. <br><br>The Cat Lady has been one of my favorite games since it came out. I relate to it and Susan and ended up bawling at the ending, and I always end up crying at the end every time since, hahaha. It gives me hope and a sense of solidarity with Susan and Mitzi at the end. Like we all fight our good fight, and we&apos;re there doing it together, yknow?

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  @estelle5798 · 6 years ago

  I relate extremely to the anxiety puzzle. When I&apos;m having worse days, it&apos;s like nervously tip-toeing through a minefield of things that could break my composure. It&apos;s amusing to see people complain about it and call it unfair without realizing that&apos;s the reality for a lot of people.

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  @hat-eating-cthulu-goat3221 · 8 years ago

  Ragnar to me is just one of those YouTubers you forget over the couple of months it takes them to make a video, then they upload a new one and it´s like christmas just popped in early.

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  @alexbenavidez4500 · 7 years ago

  The reason why I loved this game so much initially, was actually Susan herself. As someone who does suffer from depression, I say the same others do about the accurate and respectable depiction in the game. Susan is a painfully human character, with far more depths than I would have thought; she&apos;s not conventionally attractive, which is rare for a female protagonist. She&apos;s not young, she&apos;s not friendly, she&apos;s extremely rude and difficult to handle.<br><br>And that right there is what makes the game feel so raw. Depression has been romanticised for so long now, and even when it is depicted without an attractive sympathetic stroke, the characters personality is never that realistically bitter. Well, unless it&apos;s a dark, brooding male protag, but still.<br><br>Susan is written as a person, acts like a person and even feels like one. Her terrible attitude is indicative of her mental illness and shows the raw, ugly side of the illness. You become short-tempered, impatient, constantly pushing people away and just generally making it hard to allow others in to help, even if you need that help. It often makes you a very unlikeable person who just allows their depression to fester The sequence at the start of chapter 3 where you have to prevent Susan from having a breakdown was brilliant to me, just through it&apos;s sheer accuracy of how the tiniest of things can truly set you off. In that sequence, it&apos;s only the matter of one wrong action, one tiny action that results in Susan breaking down, or keeping it together.<br><br>I often used to berate myself for suddenly crying over nothing, because it really was the stupidest and small things that triggered it for me; but I do recognise now that in this situation, you aren&apos;t crying over &quot;nothing&quot;, you are crying over everything that you&apos;ve been holding back. The &quot;nothing&quot; that caused the breakdown is just a catalyst more than anything

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  @MaryArts · 8 years ago (edited)

  I love the whole atmosphere in the game. And I love that they don&apos;t mention the mental illnesses all the time, because the characters especially Susan live their lifes. She is suicidal but still lives like a normal person. Other games or movies wouldn&apos;t stop mentioning the protagonists mental illness, while the cat lady is so real. They still live like they are not always thinking about death. Susan often acting more thoughtful and clever than the &quot;healthy&quot; characters.<br>Also I love how the characters are so real. That her suicide note ends with: &quot;thanks for nothing.&quot; And that the good end isn&apos;t all about being happy ever after but that she says that she feels better but that depression will always be part of her life.

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