for me, some level of trauma related to being the least-favourite child is directly related to playing videogames and boredom

growing up my younger sister got handed the SNES controller and i didnt. she played with my parents and by herself and i watched but didnt play. sometimes this was because i wasnt allowed and other times i thought it was a choice, even though, my choice was because i didnt know how to play and if i asked my mom would have said "really? you want me to start a whole new save file JUST for you?" and i would have quietly said nevermind, and remembered not to ask ever again

when we got a wii, for my sister's birthday she got 2 wii games. for my birthday i got decorations even though i was too young to understand what a decoration is and i just tried playing with them (emphasis on try). sometimes i would come home from school and my sister would have a random gift (something i never got) - another wii game! because it was on sale at blockbuster, and oh sorry Luna, we didnt get anything for you because they didnt have anything you would like.

by the end of our wii, i had 1 wii game that was mine - i chose whenever i wanted to play it, for how long, and if anyone else wanted to play it they had to ask. that was the rules, because it was mine. my younger sister has 11 wii games.

when i was in middle school, i was not allowed to get a better (real) console. it was too expensive. plus, we have the wii, it works perfectly fine, just play on that. m...my one game? that i've been playing since i was 9? that i've 100%'d 5 times? yes.

when i was in highschool i wasnt allowed to have money, especially not to spend online. "luckily" i met an internet friend who was a hacker and sold what he claimed to be abandoned steam accounts. he gave me one for free. i played stardew valley and oblivion religiously, because my laptop was built in 2010 and could barely handle the lowest graphics settings of a game several years older than it. it ended up getting double-hacked so after a year of using it, i once again had no more videogames

now im an adult and i just... cant play videogames. basically none of them. after abut 30 minutes of playing i get so anxious that i have to stop. i havent played stardew valley in about 2 years, my favourite game of all time that i used to stay up until 8am playing.

the game loads, and im anxious because i forget the controls. i walk up to an npc and get anxious because if i dont pick the perfect dialogue tree, im failing myself by not being perfect, so i'll pause the game and go on my phone for 10 minutes to find the answer (i HATE doing this.) i approach a puzzle and im anxious because what if im not smart enough to solve it and i fail again? i need to check if anyone's in the room with me now because if anyone is watching me play they'll know i'm a failure too so i should stop playing. but, videogames are communal (they must be,) i have only ever experienced playing them with someone else there (watching sibling/parents play, watching youtube letsplays) but if someone else sees me fail i'm the worst person ever. and i mean, realistically, how do you even play a videogame for more than 1 hour? how do focus on 1 thing for that long? sounds fake to me

but... i want to play videogames. i know they're experiences. and i want to have experiences. especially because as a disabled person my only other option is youtube. so if i'm not playing videogames, i'm bored out of my skull laying in bed, doing nothing, staring at my youtube screen watching the exact same video essay for the 6th or 7th time this week because the algorythm's only other choice is "perfect damascus steel knife blade DIY"

other than youtube, what am i supposed to do? i cant play videogames - i'm not perfect at them, i cant focus, and i just dont deserve them. there is nothing else.