How Therapy Helped a Reporter With His Witcher 3 Romances

Therapy can bring with it all kinds of surprises. For games reporter Nathan Grayson, one of those surprises was that the same issues that were complicating his relationships were also complicating his video game playthroughs.

For Valentine’s Day, Grayson bared his heart to Kotaku readers, delving into the ways he sabotaged a recent romantic relationship. He also got into the surprisingly similar ways he sabotaged his romance with The Witcher’s Triss Merigold. With the former, he began an emotional affair on the question of what else could be out there. With the latter, he rolled back 20 hours of game progress on the question of what might have been. Both were ultimately cause for regret

Yennefer’s arc was dramatic and new, but once again, I began picking at that ugly old sore: “Is the relationship the right one?” I started having even more powerful second thoughts than I did the first time. All that grief, and it turns out I just went on to make an even bigger mistake.

Recently, I bit the bullet and finally started seeing a therapist. My therapist and I have been examining the underpinnings of these bad habits, of my anxiety about choices, especially when relationships are involved, and the ways I constantly sabotage myself and other people. We’re only just getting started, but it feels good to actually confront this instead of chalking it up to Another One That Just Didn’t Work Out.

 
The whole article is insightful and entertaining, so check it out. It’s also a great look at how therapy doesn’t always lead us down the paths we’d expect. It seems mighty unlikely that Grayson ever sat down in his therapist’s office to talk about Geralt of Rivia’s love life, after all.

[Kotaku]