An Afternoon with BelgianBoolean [pt2]
Last time we left off at a discussion of Mexican food and began to chip at the ice berg of Belgian Boolean’s battle with depression (find part one here). This week, Ben and Tanner discuss Ben’s own history with the illness and tools he uses to personally wrestle with it.
Ben: Oh, I see so you think of me when you think of Mexican food.
GT: Yeah, the Mexican food stands out. It was a really good carne asada.
Ben: Let it be known, readers, when Tanner thinks of me, his mouth just starts watering.
GT: I’m actually having Mexican food tonight.
*laughter*
GT: Anyways, getting back on topic — I wonder how much your personal work gets into your struggle with depression — not to get too deep, I mean, I don’t mean to get into it –
Ben: No let’s definitely get into it.
GT: Okay then. So, I’ve struggled with depression before — but not to the same effect. I’m curious: how did depression lead you to where you are now and how did acknowledging it change your work? Because you’ve definitely battled through some extreme adversity with that, and I’d like to acknowledge that more as an issue that people in this industry experience. More people deal with depression than we’re willing to acknowledge.
Ben: Yeah totally — let’s talk about it. So the reality is I’ve been diagnosed with depression for quite some time now. I come from a family that has a history of depression. My dad did two tours of Vietnam and came back with severe PTSD. He took some other high stress flying jobs where he would get shot at, or would be firefighting, etc. All these jobs are pretty tough and then on top of that, he had a family. There’s a lot of secondary PTSD in the family and depression. I really dealt with it a lot in college and I’d have these extreme mood swings.
It became harder through the years to deal with studio work. I’m very much the kind of guy to wear my emotions on my sleeve — so one day I’d be fine, and the next day I’d look like death. One day I would joke with everyone, the next day I wouldn’t talk to anyone. While I was working for 343, my roommate at the time, Jacob, talked with me and told me one day, “This isn’t normal.” He really encouraged me to get some help. Eventually, it hit a point when I was finally like, I’m going to go to the doctor. It was after the worst period of depression, when for months, almost daily, I had these feelings like I wanted to die. I genuinely just felt like, “I want this to be over, and I don’t want to do this anymore.” All those feelings from a chemical imbalance.
GT: Wow. So tell us a little bit about your particular depression.
Ben: So there are lots of different kinds of depression — in my case I have severe clinical depression, severe anxiety and secondary PTSD. Some of them are things I had to go to therapy for, which was a major help — so therapy along with the proper meds helped balance me out. And it was like having my eyes opened after 10 or so years of feeling this way — it was like, “Oh shit — I don’t have to feel this way. This is how everyone else feels — just getting through a day and not feeling like I’m getting crushed everyday.”
GT: Yeah so like a feeling of “normal” for most people.
Ben: Right, and it’s still a process. A lot of it is learning how to cope and how to deal with it right? Ubisoft has treated me incredibly well and been really great — they have a clinic internally where I’ve been able to get the medication I need. They have help lines for people going through issues. I started last year there in January. And we got a little into the year and about halfway through the year, my dad attempted suicide.
Ubisoft gave me medical leave for a month and they gave me a gradual return policy. So they did one day one week, two days the next week, etc.
GT: Wow, that’s really generous and really thoughtful.
Ben: Definitely, but a lot of it is also communication. One of the key things about the studio and the team that I’m on is that I told my boss, “Hey, just so you know, I struggle with depression and anxiety. So there are some days when I’ll need to work from home and other days when I’ll take a sick day and here’s why.”
GT: That’s amazing. So that worked for you?
Ben: Yes, because what I’ve learned after a while is you just have to communicate what you go through. Some people will get it; some people won’t — but it’s good to let people know where you’re at. Everyone I’ve talked to has actually been super gracious and helpful. It’s tough not to feel ashamed about it at times. There’s a huge negativity around towards it — where some people don’t see it as an illness. And then of course our culture just has this motto of — “Tough it out. Get over it.” — which is not the way to handle depression because that’s not how it works. It’s an illness like anything else. That misunderstanding is why suicide is so high among men — because people are like, “Just get over it.”
I think a lot of creatives suffer from depression — at least a lot of the ones I know. It being a creative industry then, there’s a lot of us who deal with this. On top of that, a lot of the projects we work on are really arduous. It turns out making games is a helluva lot of work.
GT: Oh definitely, it’s a black hole right. You have this point where you’re excited at the start — pre production. And then there’s the black hole the middle part — the middle part is awful.
Ben: Right — where you’re worried that this project just won’t even come together. And sometimes honestly — it doesn’t, haha. And sometimes, it does! But you see and feel that feeling and there’s a lot of pressure to NOT draw those personal boundaries for yourself and watching those hours that you work. So you have to be careful. I think the younger generation is getting a bit better about that — about drawing those lines of saying, “This is a job and I’m just working these hours.”
People will tell you, “Oh, but this is a passion industry,” — and I’m like “Come on, now; it’s a job.” And don’t get me wrong, you have to I love it. But still you have to draw boundaries about the amount of overtime you’re doing and what’s healthy for you individually — because when you don’t have a life or relationships outside of work, that can be a major contributor towards depression.
GT: So what sort of lines or boundaries do you feel like you’ve drawn for yourself?
Ben: These days, unless it’s an emergency, I have pretty strict rules about the hours I work. It doesn’t mean I’m any less passionate — I just know what I do to keep myself healthy, productive, and ready to do work again the next day. It’s really funny in art school I remember hearing about artists who get really depressed. I don’t know how you can make art when you’ree depressed! Because I think I can’t.
I think art became some way for me to cope with my depression. Because when you’re down deep in that depression you feel immobilized by it. You don’t want to get out of bed; you don’t want to see anybody. You feel really extremely useless to the world. For me what helped was being productive and making art helped me by proving to myself that I could still be productive and contribute something useful.
Ofcourse, there’s a very fine line because there are times when I’ve put some, if not, all of my self-worth into my art — which I will tell you — when you get burned out that wire snaps pretty quick and you feel like the most useless person in the world! But there’s a healthy boundary of making stuff to where you feel like, “You know, I don’t feel great but I made this thing, and I would love it if you looked at it.” There’s not a lot of me putting my personal feelings into my art other than that I just needed to make something. There are times when I’ve made things just because I needed a stable pivot point because my emotions were not anything but stable, and I just needed something there.
GT: I assume you’re in some leadership role now what do you find yourself doing differently do as a a leader instead of a junior — in terms of acknowledging that this is something that people feel ashamed of or ashamed to put a label on — what things do you find yourself doing differently as a result of that?
Ben: Well I’m not in as much of a leadership position now…
GT: Well but people certainly look to you or respect you. Regardless of title.
Ben: I think that’s possible
GT: Well to be clear — that’s why we wanted to talk to you, right? I think there’s a lot of power in your story. I think acknowledging and labeling depression and mental illness for what it is — there’s this weird societal shame there. That’s why we want to bring this up with people. Artist or not — you’re a good example of what it means to label it or how you approach that with people around you.
Ben: Sure. There are a few different things — outside of work and inside of work. Outside of work for me, Twitter, as much of a dumpster fire that it is — there are two good things about it and 1) is its networking capabilitiesand 2) is being able to talk about these experiences. For me, I talk openly about what happened with my dad or what I’ve been through. The reality is when they see that sentence that someone else is dealing with depression — they reach out right away. And that’s what shocked me is just how common it was. I mean, now you see people building Slacks for people who specifically deal with depression especially within the industry — and a lot of it worked. The throughline is, online or offline, at work or outside of work, the thing is transparency.
Ben: I remember really believing for a long time that, there was a line drawn that separated personal and professional matters. You had your personal self and your professional self and now… for me, personally, I just think that’s bullshit. The people that work with you become really close to you in a lot of ways. These are the people who are in the trenches with you everyday making it. So be transparent with them — you’d be amazed by how much people relate. The story might be different but there are a lot of similarities. And people’s stories are much more similar than we think. And so when you find those similarities — it’s a really empowering thing to find out, “Oh, I’m not alone.”
And “I’m not alone” is an extremely powerful phrase I think especially when you’re in the midst of depression because the depression convinces you otherwise — “You’re alone and there’s no way out of this hole.” The way I define depression is the absence of hope — you feel it so intensely that you forget there could be anything else outside of that.
Being really open is so important–I have a couple of close friends at work and I’ll be like “Hey this is going on today.” And they have the same where they can confide in me. Having that support network is really important. There’s no reason not to build relationships when we’re at work where you’re at the majority of time. I know some people might not agree with that, but for me that’s what helped a lot.
GT: Well it’s not a matter of agreeing, I think. Certainly, a lot of work cultures encourage this sterile work environment where HR would rather you not say anything to anyone — it’s not about you though — it’s the morale of the team. It’s okay to be friends, it’s okay to open up, and it’s okay talk to your team about it. I think that culture is constructive.
Ben: I think It’s powerful, and maybe, I don’t have the self-control to draw those lines.
GT: Can those lines exist when companies are really expecting people to work the hours they’re working?
Ben: To be honest I believe those lines are a mess. My personal belief is that they’ve always been. There are people who hold tight to that. I mean it’s interesting — for the last few months I’ve become much more introverted at work since what happened with dad. I’m not that social at work anymore except with a few people. I come in, I do the work, I go home, because that’s how I’m getting by for the moment. But it helps that even when I’m in that position I have those close connections at work where I can open up and talk. I mean, for me, those relationships are what make working on video games worthwhile.
Like, making video games is awesome, and making art is amazing — but at the end of the day those relationships, in a lot of ways, define your career more than the art does. I have no delusions that people in 10–20 years will even remember the games that I’ve worked on. But I do know that there are people that I have worked with who will remember those relationships and the impact that had, and I find that in the grand scheme of things, that is much more meaningful in the process.
AND THAT’S THE DEEP DIVE SON.
To find out more about BelgianBoolean and his work, check out his website and his Twitter. This blog is a publication of GameTextures , the largest online library of physically based rendering materials— “You build the world, we’ll bring the textures.”
Tune in next week for part three of Afternoon with Belgian Boolean! We’ll go over more practical tips and tools on depression as well as how to help your co-workers who might be dealing with it.
Thanks for reading!
