My pokemon obsession started when I was about ten years old.
My brothers got Pokémon Diamond, and Pokémon Pearl, for Christmas one year. They showed me the game, and within minutes, I decided that I had to have it myself. So on my birthday, I received a copy of Pokémon Pearl.
I was quite the outcast at school. I had no real friends, to speak of, and virtually everybody bullied me. Around this time, I had also just discovered the reason why I couldn't socialise properly with other kids, and why everything was too bright, and too loud, and why I felt like I wasn't like the other kids; I had Asperger's syndrome. In real life, I was a lonely, unwanted freak, who even the teachers didn't like.
But when I started playing pokemon for the first time, that all changed.
I got completely absorbed in the world of pokemon. For in that world, I wasn't lonely. I wasn't unwanted. I was a hero.
I became totally obsessed with pokemon from that day on. The kids at school made even more fun of me, now that I was into pokemon, but I didn't care. I didn't need them, when I had my trusty partner, Misty the empoleon waiting for me when I got home. Waiting for me to take him out on a grand adventure, where we'd save the world, and capture a legendary creature, and I'd become the strongest trainer in the land.
Even after I got bored of Pokémon Pearl, there were always new games to play, and new lands to explore. There, in the world of pokemon, I could escape from every last thing that bothered me; bullies, bad teachers, my many mental illnesses, my parents' constant arguing and impending divorce, the stress of my exams, none of it existed in the beautiful world of pokemon.
Even now, with these troubles far behind me, I find myself returning to the land of pokemon every time a new game comes out. And I await it eagerly, knowing that no matter what life throws at me, I'll always have pokemon to turn to.
So when I put the new game in my DS, and I start it up for the first time, there's always this warm flicker in my chest. I feel at ease.
It's like coming home.
My brothers got Pokémon Diamond, and Pokémon Pearl, for Christmas one year. They showed me the game, and within minutes, I decided that I had to have it myself. So on my birthday, I received a copy of Pokémon Pearl.
I was quite the outcast at school. I had no real friends, to speak of, and virtually everybody bullied me. Around this time, I had also just discovered the reason why I couldn't socialise properly with other kids, and why everything was too bright, and too loud, and why I felt like I wasn't like the other kids; I had Asperger's syndrome. In real life, I was a lonely, unwanted freak, who even the teachers didn't like.
But when I started playing pokemon for the first time, that all changed.
I got completely absorbed in the world of pokemon. For in that world, I wasn't lonely. I wasn't unwanted. I was a hero.
I became totally obsessed with pokemon from that day on. The kids at school made even more fun of me, now that I was into pokemon, but I didn't care. I didn't need them, when I had my trusty partner, Misty the empoleon waiting for me when I got home. Waiting for me to take him out on a grand adventure, where we'd save the world, and capture a legendary creature, and I'd become the strongest trainer in the land.
Even after I got bored of Pokémon Pearl, there were always new games to play, and new lands to explore. There, in the world of pokemon, I could escape from every last thing that bothered me; bullies, bad teachers, my many mental illnesses, my parents' constant arguing and impending divorce, the stress of my exams, none of it existed in the beautiful world of pokemon.
Even now, with these troubles far behind me, I find myself returning to the land of pokemon every time a new game comes out. And I await it eagerly, knowing that no matter what life throws at me, I'll always have pokemon to turn to.
So when I put the new game in my DS, and I start it up for the first time, there's always this warm flicker in my chest. I feel at ease.
It's like coming home.
