Parts of this story originally appeared in the article: What does gaming mean to you? which I wrote on June 20, 2023.

How Skyrim Helped Me Overcome a Brain Injury – 30 Years of Elder Scrolls

Hey, you, you’re finally awake. Those were the first words I heard in the Gold Coast Hospital.

Bleary-eyed, I came to. I was in a hospital bed. The nurse told me that I collapsed and they may have found a blockage at the base of my neck on the CT scan and we needed to investigate further. Confused, I looked over to my wife who was visibly upset but gave me a reassuring pat on my leg. I didn’t feel too crash hot, but I also didn’t feel like anything major had happened aside from fatigue and weakness, I was more confused and disorientated and was feeling a bit scared of what was happening around me with the Emergency room staff going about providing care for people who had been in car accidents or had visible wounds. I felt like I shouldn’t be there, but the nurse told me it was very important they could run their tests on me to find out exactly what had happened. The ordeal was equal parts stressful and terrifying, but the worst of it was yet to come, long after I felt the safety of the Hospital.

Weeks later, further symptoms of the event started to surface, and “The Brain Explosion,” as we call it, led to memory loss and confusion, as well as being in a constant state of anxiety and worry. I could remember some people, and some events, but like a corrupted hard drive, the data was incomplete. I would have visitors come and keep me company for a few weeks after I got home, but something they don’t tell you about when you’re recovering, people understandably have to continue living, and sometimes that means unfortunately you get left behind.

My wife could see me slowly slipping into depression as I was struggling with my memory loss and my very sense of identity. In one night, I lost most of my memories, self-worth, and confidence. I was unable to work and to try to get my hand/eye coordination back up to speed, I tried gaming. My wife knew I used to love Skyrim (which was still a relatively new release at the time, and she grabbed me a copy on PC in the hopes it would jog my memory. While it didn’t, I got to experience the joy of discovering the world of Skyrim all over again. I was so lost in the world which immersed me in the Nordic themes, political intrigue, and of course, dragons.

She brought me a couple of notebooks so I could jot things down, and as my hands didn’t work so well, I struggled with defeating Bleak Falls Burrow. I was disheartened for a while and went back to trying turn-based games as they didn’t need lightning-fast reflexes to get you out of trouble. I would constantly try to return to Bleak Falls Burrow and try as best as I could to make progress and eventually, I made it through the other side. On entering the city of Whiterun, I discovered I could be a blacksmith, and suddenly I could enjoy the game without worrying about a dagger in my back from a renegade bandit. I told my wife about how excited I was to level up my Skill and sell my wares across town. My wife would move my avatar across the land to unlock locations for fast travel, and help me plan out the materials needed to level up. Skyrim brought us closer together and she in a sense became my Lydia, sworn to carry my burdens and faithfully adventure beside me much like we did in real life.

I leveled my speechcraft and blacksmithing and became a Nordic weapons merchant, repeatedly crafting and selling my wares to help the war effort on both sides and surprisingly, I never bored of it. I was able to invest in shops and create even more profits, and Skyrim to me, became a tycoon-style game, staying safely within the walls of Skyrim’s strongholds and towns peddling my wares to whoever had the gold to buy them. Eventually, I got better and was fortunate enough to find a job so “Kodiak” my Skyrim Blacksmith, ceased to trade his wares, and that character was eventually lost to the digital ether.

I shared this story once with the Video Games Retailer “The Gamesmen,” who asked to hear positive stories about gaming to bring people together. They saw my story and made some calls to a person I’m still in contact with today who worked for Bethesda at the time, and one day I arrived home to see a huge Skyrim gift box full of wonderful things including a Special Edition Collectors shrine of Julianos. There was a letter that I still have framed to this day that brought me to tears. It’s because of these people, I got wonderful new memories to take the place of my lost ones.

I never got those memories back, even 12 years later now that I’ve been fortunate enough to make a full recovery… For a long time, I struggled with losing the memories of the person I was. When my son was born in 2014, I made the decision to stop trying to find those memories of the man I was and decided I could now focus on being the man I wanted to be instead. In a way, Skyrim has become a huge part of my identity and I honestly regard it as the greatest game of all time. I still get that familiar feeling when my Skyrim character picks up his hammer and tends to the forge. There’s a sense of comfort in knowing that familiarity. I still remember my first character “Kodiak” who taught me the ways of the forge and never got to explore the world of Skyrim outside of the city gates, but I like to think his adventure ended with him retiring in Whiterun and enjoying the comforts of a fully furnished Breezeholme, spending the rest of his days happily married to Lydia.

Thankfully, these days the world of Skyrim has opened up to me and my new character and I can venture outside of the gates of Whiterun and explore the frozen north of Tamriel, unlocking the secrets of this hostile and beautiful world. Despite easily having thousands of hours across my saves, I’m still discovering (or rediscovering) new things when I venture into the wild. With the Anniversary Edition, there’s a whole new challenge and element of survival with the new content and the expansions I was unable to play back in the day. Nothing is off limits due to my ability now. The Elder Scrolls Series celebrated its 30th anniversary this month, and I’m very grateful for it as a franchise and for the massive contribution Skyrim made to my recovery. I’ve been fortunate enough to rediscover Morrowind, Oblivion, Elder Scrolls Online, and of course, Skyrim in the years during my recovery.

The Elder Scrolls Series in the past 30 years has offered players freedom, exploration, and unique experiences that we’ve come to love. It’s brought gamers together as we discuss the sense of wonder and scale unseen in games, or work together in the PVP battlegrounds of the Imperial City in ESO. It’s a series that has offered something for many gamers, but for me, it allowed me to get better in my own time by having something to look forward to when I woke up in the morning.

While I’m under no illusion it’s just a crafted digital world, for this adventurer, Skyrim will always feel like home.