Category Archives: Lifestream
World Suicide Prevention Day: You can change your normal
One of the best ways of preventing suicides may be by talking about just how many people have suicidal thoughts. The older I get, the more people I encounter who have struggled with suicidal ideation at one point or another. Some are in their youth and can’t see a life path for themselves, some are mid-life people grappling with too many responsibilities, others are nearing or in old age and are just fed up with life. It’s incredibly common.
So full disclosure: I’ve been one of those people at various times in my life.
When I was young, I constantly battled with suicidal tendencies and came close to ending things on a few occasions. I more or less lived in a constant state of depression and thought that there was just something chemically wrong with me. It often seemed like suicide was an easier choice than simply existing.
Things really reached their crisis point around the time I started university. I availed myself of the free counselling at the University of Western Ontario and it genuinely saved my life. The counsellor helped me to understand I wasn’t chemically imbalanced but that there were things going on in my environment that had contributed to my mindset. She helped me learn different ways of thinking and how to escape negative mental cycles. I’ll be forever grateful for that intervention.
A significant reason I persisted was because of family. I couldn’t abandon people I was responsible for, whose lives I might irrevocably damage through such an act. Of course, responsibility leads to its own stresses. Enough stresses without an outlet or relief and eventually it will all catch up to you.
That’s where the other reason comes in: my dream of becoming a writer. I didn’t want to leave this world until I had realized my dreams of publishing a few stories and maybe even a book one day. And now here I am. Thanks to all of you who have supported me in my writing career over the years. I am still here in large part to you.
I’ve gone to counselling often throughout my life, and I’ve almost always found it helpful to learn tools to cope with suicidal thoughts and other mental challenges. Hello, anxiety! The basic lesson has been more or less the same with each one: You can change your normal. The tools have varied — stoicism, mindfulness, gratitude, meditation, exercise, friendships — but they have always been about changing my mental state from a negative one to a perspective that sees the good in the world and in my life.
I still have suicidal thoughts from time to time even now, but they are very minor and increasingly rare. They’re more of a reflex left over from my youth than a serious consideration. And I have the tools to deal with them now, and the gratitude for all the good things that have happened in my life. So now my suicidal impulses tend to go something along these lines: “This situation is terrible and I can’t bear it. I should just… nah, this will pass as it always does. Those hard moments have made me what I am today and I’ve always been grateful for them afterward. This will be the same. Now let’s work on getting through this to all the great moments that are going to come next!”
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, make sure you reach out for whatever help is available: counsellors, family, friends, help lines, colleagues, whatever.
Remember, you are loved. And you can change your normal.
Change your normal this year
It’s the start of a new year and there is no better time to change your normal. Unless your normal state is working well for you, in which case carry on! Here is a list of 10 things I have found helpful in changing my normal.
- Choose a theme for the year. This can be anything — The Year of Fitness, The Year of Saying Yes, The Year of Saying No, The Year of Family. Whatever you choose will help give you a direction for that year and help inform your decisions, which in turn will help you change your normal. I’m opting for the Year of Creativity this year.
- Whatever your goals are for the year, put a system in place that will help you achieve them. Goals are great but if you don’t know how you are going to achieve them then you probably won’t. Put a good system in place and the goals will take care of themselves. Hint: The more enjoyable you make the system, the greater the chance you’ll be able to stick to it.
- Stop drinking. This was a life-changer for me, as I lost weight, became fitter, developed greater emotional stability and focus — and became more present in my life. I stopped drinking in 2019 and I’ve never regretted it.
- Exercise more. I don’t mean you have to go to the gym and throw a car’s worth of weights around — although power to you if that’s your thing. Exercise can be as simple as walking to work instead of taking transit or going for a walk at lunch with colleagues or friends. I find that whenever I’m stressed, I go for a walk and my mood immediately improves.
- Connect with family, friends and colleagues more. I’ve made a real effort to try to connect with people more, even if it’s just a lunchtime walk at work, and I’ve found the effects have been great for my mental health. I’ve rekindled old friendships and developed new ones, and all the social connection has simply made me feel better as a person. The stronger your social foundation, the stronger your foundation overall.
- Practice gratitude. I try to practice gratitude every day, ideally first thing in the morning to set the tone for the day. I find that if I can begin the day with something to be grateful for it helps me to see the good in other things or events throughout the day rather than focus on the negative. It makes me happy, and happiness comes with all sorts of advantages. It’s important to remember that gratitude doesn’t just have to be about the big things in your life. Often I am grateful for spending time with a friend at lunch or a beautiful morning. And sometimes I even grateful for the hard moments in life, for helping me to become a stronger, better person.
- Choose happiness. When we choose happiness, we are choosing to process the world in a certain way — to see the possibilities rather than the roadblocks. That gives us more opportunities and advantages — and more chances at greater happiness!
- Practice compassion – including self-compassion. I’ve found I’m less likely to hold a grudge or get caught up in negative emotions if I can manage some compassion toward the person who is causing me problems. Most people don’t set out to make life difficult for other people, after all. Sometimes it just happens because of challenges they are facing outside of their control. Practicing compassion helps me keep my inner peace and hopefully prevents me from becoming the difficult person. More importantly, I’ve learned to practice self-compassion. I used to beat myself up for not being perfect, for not having a handle on my anxiety, etc., but now I remind myself that I am a human being subject to innumerable stresses and forces outside of my control. And when I practice self-compassion, I am more likely to rest and recharge or otherwise take the steps needed to look after myself, which means I am more healthy and resilient in the long run.
- Focus on what you can control and accept what you cannot. Life will put plenty of challenges and obstacles in your path. They are neither good nor bad. They simply are. What they mean to you will depend on your own mindset, so develop one that serves your happiness rather than your anxieties.
- Always remember that how you spend your time is who you actually are. When you waste time on mindless activities or something you don’t particularly care about, you are actually wasting your life. Every action you take is a vote for the sort of person you will become.
I hope all your change is for the positive this year!
(Pic is of me changing my normal a few years back.)
Related Reading List
Here are some books I’ve found very useful in helping to change my normal. I hope they can do the same for you.
A Tiny Newsletter – The Heretics Edition
I’ve sent out the August edition of my newsletter, in which I discuss my latest writing news, a bit of life stuff, highlights from my D&D campaign, what I’m reading, why I’m taking spiritual advice from Dwight Schrute of The Office and other miscellany. You can read it online at tinyletter.com/peterdarbyshire or subscribe to have it delivered to your inbox so you can read it on company time. No judgement.
Happy D20 Day!
It’s D20 Day! This seems like a good time to remind people of the time I talked to DM and fellow writer James McCann about how Dungeons & Dragons is one of the reasons I became a writer.
Bonus feature: The Beholder ranch idea we talk about in the interview later became the adventure I’m currently playing with James, Arthur Slade, KC Dyer, Adrienne Kress, Kevin Sylvester and other writers!
A Beholder balloon on a string
The Broadsword Bandits are back for more sessions of Dungeons and Dragons! Join myself and writers James McCann, Arthur Slade, Adrienne Kress, KC Dyer, Kevin Sylvester and guest star Susan Juby as we try to return a wayward Beholder to its retirement ranch. Of course, it’s never that easy when Beholders are involved. Or writers….
How many writers does it take to escape a dungeon?
The Broadsword Bandits return for an epic fantasy battle with…. a rug…? Yes, that’s right — in my first foray into Dungeons and Dragons in a legendary amount of time, I decided to go check out a suspiciously nice-looking rug in a room full of ghosts. We all know what nice rugs in a dungeon are….
Anyway, watch how writers Arthur Slade, Adrienne Kress, Kevin Sylvester, KC Dyer and myself figure out how to escape James McCann‘s Rug of Doom!
Episode One Part Two:
Episode Two:
Stop drinking? There’s an app for that!
Back at the beginning of 2019, I decided to take a break from drinking alcohol. I didn’t have a bad New Year’s Eve that ended with me waking up in a foreign country or a disastrous Christmas where I found myself naked and covered in ornaments or anything like that. No, I just wanted to get healthier.
I’d found for the past few years that drinking was just taking too much of a toll on my mind and body as I grew older. The odd hangover when I drank too much had turned into headaches whenever I drank anything at all. I developed strange heart palpitations that my doctor said were probably caused by alcohol. I was getting bloated and uncomfortably heavy. I was frustrated with my constant mood swings. I wasted way too much time on drunken midnight descents into 1990s concerts on YouTube.
As the father of a couple of young boys, I worried about the toll of all this and something happening to me that deprived them of a functional father, or a father at all. Leave aside for the moment they were often the reason I drank….
So I decided to try to stop drinking again, at least until I could shed some weight and get healthier. I’d tried a few times in the past and been reasonably successful — I’d gone a few months here, six months there, etc. But there was always some social event or another where I felt it was time to take a drink, and then the cycle started up again.
This time I decided to try out a new app I’d read about on reddit’s Stop Drinking subreddit: NoMo. I downloaded it in early January and started using it, and I 100% credit my year of sobriety to the app.
It has a number of features that are useful. One I quite like is you can track how much money you are saving. Simply check your bank statements to see how much you spent on booze the year before, enter that number into the app, and it’ll tell you how much money you’ve saved each day by not drinking. I’ve saved the price of a holiday trip to another country in one year — that’s right, I was drinking away a vacation each year.
You can also connect with other people for support and that sort of thing, if that’s what works for you. I’m more independent myself, but do whatever works for you.
The feature that works best for me is the app keeps track of your sobriety streak — how many days you’ve gone without a drink. That alone is the thing that has stopped me from drinking many times over the past year. There’s always been some occasion or another where I’ve been at a party or event where there’s a table of open booze bottles, and the thing that’s stopped me from drinking is that streak. I’ve actually pulled out my phone, checked my app and thought, “Nah, I don’t want to break my streak of 157 days of no drinking just to have a beer or shot of rum.”
The effectiveness of this really struck home with me when I was on holiday in Iceland with some friends a few months back. We were staying in a hotel that had an executive lounge that offered free booze every night — good, expensive booze! What better excuse to have a drink — I’m on holiday in Iceland, and they’re giving away excellent drinks for free. I can just take a short break from sobriety and have some fun! I didn’t, though. I didn’t want to break that streak on the app. And I honestly didn’t want to have a drink, either. I liked the way I felt sober and I continue to like the way I feel sober. So I passed and went to bed early and got up early the next day and wandered Reykjavik and went for hikes and had a lovely, inspiring time that I still remember.
I’m not one to be an evangelist about sobriety or anything else. But I’ve been open about my reasons for not drinking and I’ve been pleased with the changes over the last year — I lost 35 pounds, I’m more fit, I’m happier and more level, and I feel I’m much better equipped to deal with stress. Many people have asked me about my experiences and what’s been working for me. It’s clear a number of my friends and acquaintances have their own struggles with alcohol and are thinking about taking a break. So I thought I’d mention the app and my own experiences here for those who are interested.
After all, it’s the start of a new year. What better time to transform yourself into that person you want to be?
Stay strong and have compassion for others but most of all yourself.
Peter
King of Tokyo: Or how I learned to stop worrying and love my extra head and poison quills
Do you like movies about giant monsters smashing puny cities and their even punier inhabitants? Do you like board games? Do you like the idea of snorting strange little green cubes for bizarre power-ups like extra heads and poison quills? Then you’ll love King of Tokyo.
Promo copy for the game:
Play mutant monsters, gigantic robots and other monstrous creatures, rampaging the city and vying for position as the one and only King of Tokyo!
Sounds like good, clean, silly fun? It is. I’ve played King of Tokyo many times and it’s become my go-to game (although Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert are still close seconds). It’s fun, it’s quick and every game is different thanks to the card and dice mechanics. Best of all, it’s simple without sacrificing strategy and tactics. In fact, you have to think through a strategy for your monster based on the random dice rolls – and that strategy can change quickly as you move about Tokyo.
The premise. You’re a horrible monster who wants to make Tokyo your own little sandbox of destruction and, well, destruction. That’s not a problem, given you’re a fearful creature such as the deranged Space Penguin, the malicious Cyber Kitty, the reptilian Gigazaur, the Godzilla-esque Mecha Dragon, the alienated Alienoid and the not-at-all-infringing-on-copyright-giant-gorilla The King. The problem is all the other monsters want to make Tokyo their own. The only choice is to fight it out.
The battleground is simple. A small board with a rendering of Tokyo in flames, and a red circle on the map to mark the home of the current King of Tokyo (plus another circle for Tokyo Bay for games with 5-6 players). The battle rules are also simple: roll six dice marked with various numbers and icons that allow you to attack, heal, earn energy cubes to buy special powers or collect victory points – first one to 20 wins! There’s a surprising amount of strategy involved in the dice rolling part of the game because you’re actually allowed three rolls. After the first roll of six dice you can reroll any number of them to build toward a goal for that turn – and the same goes for the third roll. So let’s say you’re badly wounded (all the monsters have limited health). You roll six dice and get three hearts, a 1 and two energy symbols. You keep the hearts and reroll the other dice and get another heart and two energy symbols again. Now you keep the four hearts, which is pretty good for a heal, and roll again because you’re pissed off about being wounded and don’t want to spend your time collecting energy. Two claws – great! You heal and wound your enemy!
The strategy can go any way you want. Maybe you want to collect energy cubes so you can buy cards that give you special powers – like the zombie costume that allows you to keep playing even after you’re dead (death normally results in a loss for you, but not always), or the wings card that allows you to escape Tokyo without taking damage.
What’s that? Escape Tokyo? But isn’t being king of Tokyo the point? Yes, but it’s not that easy. Some complicating factors: When you are in Tokyo, your attacks affect everyone outside of Tokyo. Yay – massive, wrecking damage! Also, when you’re in Tokyo, everyone’s attacks from outside of Tokyo affect you. Boo – massive, wrecking damage! On the plus side, you earn two victory points every turn you occupy Tokyo, so it doesn’t take many turns in the red circle to win the game. Victory is mine! On the other hand, you can’t heal when you’re in Tokyo. Death! Sweet, sweet death….
The games usually feature monsters stomping in and out of Tokyo, savaging their opponents and getting savaged, retreating to heal, then charging forward all over again. Thanks to the cards, every game is different – oh look, Space Penguin has an extra head and a robot suit while Mecha Dragon has poison spit and a giant brain….
If you ever get bored, there are plenty of expansions – I have the Halloween pack for King of Tokyo, which features two new characters, Pumpkin Jack and Boogey Woogey, plus evolution cards and new costumes. I also have King of New York, which adds to the basic game by introducing buildings and army units to be smashed by the monsters – and six new monsters!
I’ve played King of Tokyo with adults and young adults, who like the game just fine. My life being what it is, though, I rarely get out of the house for fun so I end up playing with my sons, 8 and 3. The eight-year-old loves the idea of wrecking cities and blasting his dad to death. The three-year-old just wants to roar and smash things. We play special rules with him, where he is only allowed to attack and heal and forget the strategy stuff. That makes him a real force of destruction – just like in real life, but with fewer trips to the ER.
So if you’re looking for a new game, check out King of Tokyo. Destroying the world hasn’t been this much fun since that book I wrote.
Keep calm and send the barbarian in first
My pal George Murray has written an essay for The Walrus about rediscovering Dungeons and Dragons in middle age and oh my God we have led basically the same life.
Things changed a couple of years ago, when I turned forty-three. I was well past cool by any stretch of the imagination. My wife and I had a ridiculous spread of four children between us, ranging in age from six to sixteen. Try finding a Friday night movie everyone can agree on. So I said, “What about a game?”
And suddenly, I was back. I unboxed my archives of maps and notes, all of it carefully annotated in a fourteen-year-old’s attempt at calligraphic hand. Drawings, stories, rules, maps; it was all there, waiting. And to my surprise, everyone loved it. Even my wife. The former track star was now an elven assassin. In fairness, she played mostly out of love for everyone at the table, but she played and had a great time. We all did.
Odd fact I just realized: when I play paper-and-pen RPGs I almost always play warriors, but when I play video games like World of Warcraft I almost always play mages or other ranged classes. I don’t really have an explanation for this other than maybe I’m antisocial and like to keep people at a distance?
It’s that time of year again
My latest newsletter is out just in time for the end! The end of the year? The end of the world? We’ll find out soon one way or another!
Anyway, you can subscribe it to it here. Check out the archive to see what you’ve been missing. Make your own newsletter! It’s really that easy.
peter darbyshire 