Inna strona hobby...

Zbierałem się do "normalnego" wpisu w tym tygodniu, i niewątpliwie jakiś popełnię, ale zdarzyła się pewna rzecz o której nie mogłem nie napisać.

Jak kiedyś wspomniałem, na facebooku istnieje grupa wielbicieli Oldhammera. Dziś pojawił się tam wpis, który pozwolę sobie zacytować w całości poniżej. W oryginalnym brzmieniu, bo tłumaczyć mi się nie chce, poza tym języki obce trzeba znać ;)
Wpis ten skłonił mnie do refleksji. Zazwyczaj nie zdajemy sobie sprawy jak wielki wpływ może mieć nasze hobby (czyt. zabawa i malowanie małych żołnierzyków) na poważne, czasem nieuleczalne problemy które komuś zatruwają całe życie. Nie codziennie słyszy się historie ludzi którym hobby uratowało - dosłownie - życie.
Polecam lekturę, bo to ważny - moim zdaniem - temat.


"Hi all Oldhammers, I want to tell a little about how much miniatures and Warhammer actually have meant for my life. Im 34 years old now, and living in a small town in Denmark.

I have always been a troubled child, with various degree of socialising problems, my parents where not really the most caring parents, and a problems child where totally out of there reach to handle, I think they did all they could with there limited personal resources they had.

I remember a childhood of loneliness and boredom, luckily I befriended another boy, which became my friend in the pre-teen years. In short he introduced me too role-playing and miniatures, and eventually showed me the W40K 1st edition rulebook.
I learnt to read English because of all the books where English language only.
Continued with role playing and miniature gaming in the local gaming club, where I meet some new people, who became some would call friends.

I had serious problems with just handling school in my teens, had serious sleep pattern disorder, which I sadly have to this day and will have too live with. Had problems with learning things, and my social skills did not evolve, and I was in many things not mature.
I continued too collect and paint miniatures for most Games Workshop Games, and read all the GW fluff material I could get my hands on. My interest in Games Workshop games and miniatures was really the only secure point in my life, in the early and later teens.
Most of my life was quite depressed, but my gaming hobbys kept my alive.

In my late teens until my mid 20's I did not even have my own a computer, I could not afford to buy one. I had no job and could not handle an education. Again I sat many evenings and nights painting miniatures and reading all kinds of roleplaying and GW material.
Our local roleplaying & gaming club eventually closed, but I still had a good connection to people I have meet through the old club for some time.

As people I called friends from my local gaming club moved away too get education, I got very lonely again, tried to get an education myself, but every attempt failed. My life got chaotic at times, only my interest in gaming got me anchored.

As the years did go by, I lost connections with the people I used to knew, as there lives evolved, and my life seems to going down the sewer. In my rather chronic depression even my interest in Miniatures was on a very low point.
But I continued to read GW and role-playing material, and I'm quite sure the dream of gaming was the thing that kept me sane.

I don't actually remember much of the my life from I was early 20's to I reached 30 years, I'm quite sure my subconsciously mind choose to forget it.
I eventually moved town and got a low wage job I could handle to a certain degree, but after a few years I got sick from stress, both from the job but also from life and loneliness.
In my sick leave, I got into painting miniatures again, it was the only weapon I had against the loneliness. I got to get gaming again in the new towns gaming club, and had a day or two weekly with some social interaction, this got me too feel some hope for life again.

Eventually I got diagnosed with the following diagnose: "Infantile Autism - in a severe degree" and now on a disability-pension for the rest of my life. I kept buying and painting miniatures to give my life some meaning.

But my lonely life without friends and partly because it was to expensive for me to live in a large city, I had to "give up" a few months ago, moved back to my little boring home town, right next to my parents. Not really nice to be 34 years old and have too move back into my parents place.
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So now I'm trying too find myself a new life, accepting who I am, that I have no real friends, (not there fault really, my social skills are very weak and I need alot of time alone or I will get stressed). And writing on this wall is part of a process to find a new life, so please bear with me.

Now you have heard about my life story, and I can promise you that without my gaming hobby, I'm quite sure that things would have gone much worse for me.
When I had my worst periods I could disappear into the fictional universes and give myself a few hours away from reality.

I love the old Warhammer books and any old gaming material really, because you can feel the love and interest the authors had back then. Material which have given me much comfort in many lonely hours and been an strong factor in my life to survive mentally.

I have plans for saving up so I can visit Warhammer World and if this goes well I will maybe try to get too GenCon in the US. Don't know if this will do anything for my for me getting "full circle closure", but I don't think it will hurt.

But one thing is 100% sure. Im going to paint miniatures & read wargaming material in all foreseeable future! and hopefully get gaming a lot more.

Thanks for listening."