Admore Tshuma Work - What I Will Never Forget In My Life

My story-

I feel like there’s a lot of negative stigma behind the internet and gaming. A lot of people because of the media get the wrong impression and feel as if playing games online or spending time on the internet is a negative and shouldn’t be done. A lot of people also think gamers are perhaps, homophobic and sexist too. Maybe some, but not all. Here’s my story of my experiences online and how I made the best friends of my life solely from playing one game.
    Truth be told, I was spoilt as a child, I had everything I wanted and couldn’t be happier in my younger years, something was always missing though. I never really had any friends, people would bully me and hurt me in school, steal my Pokémon cards till I broke down crying to my mum over it, and this never stopped either. All throughout primary school and high school, I was bullied. Even during the death of my father which made me take 6 weeks off of school because of the whole ordeal back in 2007.

Everyday I’d come home and just feel hollow, I never had any friends, I didn’t know how to interact with other people because I automatically assumed they just hated me because of who I am. I began to spend a lot of my time at my computer, playing silly flash games and games such as Runescape, Maplestory. Now, I know this doesn’t sound good, and well yes, a lot of it proves the stereotype people have towards people who enjoy games and playing games online. But without games and the people I met online, I don’t think I would be alive today.

Highschool had ended, I had no idea what to do with my life still, I failed a few of my gcses because of family life becoming even more divided amongst ourselves, I stopped speaking to my brothers, my mother and did my own thing. During this time, because of the situation I was in, I started playing a game called TeamFortress 2, its basically a first person shooter which arguably sounds pretty generic but it was so much more to me than that, it was where I made my first friends. I suppose they were an alright group of people, all my age or a little younger and we used to play on the same servers together. They used to all speak via their microphones and I would just sit there silent, nervous and quiet. We played a lot still together though, and my lack of communication was made up for in-game chatting and typing to them all.

A problem arose in my personal life though, and ultimately caused me to fall into depression as my health worsened. My mother had a new boyfriend and well, no one really liked him in my family. And for a good reason. He would hurt and abuse us all, hit my mum and call her names, smash glasses and plates in anger and even take it out on stuff like the telephone wire and cable. Before I knew it, all the people I spoke to and played games with were suddenly gone, I had no one anymore, not even my own family because of how bad things grew between us all. I grew more depressive and unhealthy and got into a really bad state in my life, despite my efforts to attend college and make an effort to be somebody or something, all fell short and I ended up leaving my courses early in the past 2 years and returned to playing games online with my friends occasionally when we actually had an internet connection.

I wont go into too much detail about my own personal life during that time, as that’s another story to tell. My friends online though were very supportive and there for me and I was finally able to chat and talk to them using a microphone, at first it felt weird and I was rather scared or nervous but by the evening we were discussing and talking back and fourth like it was just second nature. I finally felt complete with a group of people that I’d never met in person but just because of one game.

Now knowing all these people for nearly 4 years, having so many great memories and happy moments, I feels better than ever to say that my family life has improved a big deal, I have regular conversations with all of my family and still stay in contact with the same friends who pulled me out of the large pit I had dug myself, I am more grateful than ever because I know my story doesn’t start so well but I didn’t let that dictate my future and people I didn’t even know in person also sacrificed their time for me to help me out of shear kindness.

That is my story, and though it may come across as very geeky or nerdy, I love my friends and feel blessed for what I have been able to experience. I’ve been through the worst of it and I’m finally back to make a full recovering and name for myself.