003: Ben Nicholas and His Journey With Depression
“The last thing I want is for anyone to feel alone. No one should have to feel that way.”
We had the incredible privilege of interviewing Ben Nicholas back in March. After seeing such a positive response, and even before (re: during the interview), we thought — “Wow, this would be a great podcast.”
So we did just that. This is Ben’s story distilled into podcast form. We hope you gain just as much from it as we did.
PODCAST
LINKS
Ben’s Links
Website: BelgianBooleanCG.com
Email: BelgianBooleanCG@gmail.com
Other Links and Folks Mentioned in the Show
NOTES
0:57 — Post Intro
1:30 — Regarding the Previous Article
2:06 — “I wanted to be a journalist”
2:29 — Fun with Bryce5
3:24 — “I never considered myself an artist…”
4:16 — Embracing your influences
5:18 — Why I’m comfortable with Color
5:51 — “It wasn’t til halfway through Art School I realized, I’m an artist.”
6:03 — Politics would have made me miserable
7:09 — What got you into video games, what did you play
8:18 — The Mid 90s
8:40 — Telling Adult Stories with Video Games
10:20 — Wolfenstein, Doom, and Nirvana
11:34 — “I saw it as an art form very quickly…”
12:05 — The Perfect Storm of Inspiration: Family
12:22 — Owning Your Influences
13:15 — “Your problems started when you were a kid, and you’re constantly trying to undo what happened.”
13:50 — Returning to Childhood
14:21 — The Irony of the Need to Undo and Return
15:15 — “More of a Technician”
15:30 — Hanging Around the Hangar
16:15 — Old SciFi Books
18:20 — Owning What Happened to You as a Kid
20:10 — Growing Up In Church And Watching Alien
21:54 — Raised to be a Critical Thinker
22:23 — “My Journey with Depression”
23:30 — “Shell Shocked”
24:50 — “I always leaned towards being very sad.”
25:58 — I thought “That’s my normal.”
26:40 — Feeling Suicidal
27:38 — “I weighed 120 pounds.”
29:03 — The People Who Got Me Through (see links above)
29:30 — Starting at Adidas, Starting Therapy
30:14 — PTSD, Secondary PTSD, and Ben’s Dad
31:18 — The Repercussions of PTSD
32:30 — Why Am I So Insecure
33:00 — Leaving Adidas
33:33 — Getting Worse and Drinking
34:35 — “You Need to go to the Doctor”
35:24 — What It Means When We Say “Suicidal”
37:00 — New Medication & New Therapist
39:00 — Finishing at 343 and Moving to the UK
40:10 — Liz Edwards
40:40 — Going off my medication
41:22 — Regressing
42:04 — Sharing Depression Online
42:26 — Montreal & Ubisoft’s Supportive Structure
44:47 — Mental Health Today
45:37 — Another Pivotal Event
46:31 — Becoming More Vocal Online
47:13 — Realizing I wasn’t alone nor broken
48:00 — Why I talk about it
49:13 — The Problem with “Just Get Over It”
50:37 — Getting to know others’ stories
51:30 — Meeting other folks, Helping other folks
52:18 — Turns out being an artist in games is a rough business!
53:12 — Productivity while depressed
54:23 — What to do if you know someone who’s depressed
1:01:26 — “To Ben, who is not alone.”
1:02:55 — If You’re the One Struggling with Depression
1:07:00 — THE BLACK SARCOPHAGUS
1:08:25 — What’s Inspiring You?
1:16:20 — Making Game Art Representative of you and your inspirations
1:17:52 — THE GT PLUG! (We did not, in fact, pay him to do this).
1:19:52 — Contact Info
1:20:50 — The “other” Ben Nicholas
1:23:05 — Outro
