Coming Home to Yharnam: The Importance of Catharsis in Stress Relief

If you’ve been paying attention to my social media lately, you’ll know I recently bought a PS4 with the pittance the US government has deigned to give to it’s citizens as a stimulus due to Covid-19. And because of that, I have been playing a LOT of Bloodborne.

For the uninitiated, Bloodborne is a 2015 action-horror game made exclusively for the PS4 by FromSoftware. It is built to be difficult, punishing failures and rewarding successes in timing and skill in a frenetic and hectic environment.

I’ve been playing Bloodborne for years now, it’s one of my favorite games and an important piece of stress relief for me due to it’s gameplay loop of high stress and cathartic release. However, in December of 2019 my PS4 at the time broke down due to the HDMI port receiving damage that rendered it incapable of displaying to the TV/Monitor, and I was unable to replace it. Since then, I’ve had to move out of my Chicago apartment due to poverty, move to another state, move into an apartment under the financial protection of some married friends, the Covid crisis started, I had to move again rather unexpectedly while looking for a job, started to explore and come out as Agender, suffered a nervous breakdown due to a (admittedly impossible) bomb threat, lost my job once again, then suffered a two month long depressive episode while struggling to once again find a new job. Needless to say, this was a poor time to lose a key part of my stress relief options.

Now I’m not saying that losing access to a single game made me incapable of relieving stress. There are plenty of other ways to relieve stress, and during brief periods where I was financially stable I was emotionally sound enough that I didn’t need much in the way of stress relief. However, the stress/catharsis loop of Bloodborne is something I wasn’t able to replace in any meaningful way during a time of global lockdown.

The stress/catharsis loop functions as the entirety of a stressful situation in concentrated microcosm. Being able to access that cycle on demand helps to give a sense that the larger issues one is facing will soon fade in the same way, regardless of how long it will actually take for the overarching situation to pass. This loop is, in short, it’s own form of catharsis.

As always, thanks to my wonderful Patrons who continue to put up with my abysmal release schedule.

John Beckelhymer
Katie Coker
Tyler Litton
Thaddius Goldner
William Moton
Brett Schoonover
Elliot Chapple