i’m m45. My current wife and i decided to separate a few weeks ago - we have simply drifted apart, no hard feelings, it can happen over 15 years which weren’t easy because of illness. We currently still share the home and will probably over the next few months - She said she could never make me leave the flat until i have a safe and stable home for myself.
Me and my siblings relationship has been devastated by the alcoholism of my dad and the uncaringness of my mom, grandparents are dead except the worst of the 4, a venom-spitting vindictive bitch; my aunts - well one is a nazi, the other one tramples over your personal borders even if told not to, so i’m NC with both. My first friend circle in my 20s was consumed by drugs, the second by separation from my ex, and that will probably happen now again.
I have AVPD (Avoidant/self-insecure personality disorder, meaning i have low self esteem, low tolerance for making mistakes, a lot of fear to do new things, and cope by avoiding both) and social anxiety (which is much better now than a few years ago thanks to a lot of therapy, which also helped with my depression, but it’s not gone)
So, i fear to become completely alone now, for the first time in my life. I’m on disability, so at least i have a stable if low income, and 2 times a week i am in a center for group therapy settings, which means i will at least talk to someone once in a while, but i fear that i might become a crazy cat man.
I have no experience with your disorder so this may be poor advice, but in regards to the video games, a few I can think of that might be forgiving are some of my favorite factory games. I recommend these because they all allow you to pretty much bulldoze and rebuild without penalty, except your time. It’s actually a pretty good way to play, to not get married to your beginner setup and to nuke+pave whole new sections when you realize you’ve set things up in a way you don’t like.
Shapez 1 and 2: literally zero resources or opposing forces in the game (that I’ve encountered). You’re just setting up little assembly lines to produce ever increasingly complicated shape patterns. Very chill, lots of fun.
Dyson Sphere Program: has a game mode with an opposing force now, was introduced in an update and I haven’t played with it much but I think you can disable it. I love this game, and there’s a bunch of great QoL mods. A few hours into the game you can pack up and zoom off to another planet and start a new base. As the game progresses you need to make new setups on many different planets.
Satisfactory: some combat but it’s all pretty weak sauce. Very hard to die in combat, even if you do you can just go get your corpse. Only time I died and it was a pain to recover was actually because I went too close to radiation before I knew that it would jack me up, so getting my corpse was tough. Don’t do that and you’ll be good.
Factorio: the game that started it all, at least for me. Has a peaceful mode without bad guys. Game is amazing, nickname is cracktorio because it’s so addictive if it hooks you. Giant map so if you don’t like your base you don’t have to start the game over, just move to another spot.
There’s no failure in these games. Rebuilding is part of the game - as your logistics get more and more complicated you realize you need to rebuild things to make new stuff fit better.
I’ve started factorio about 20 times, but i can’t handle the complexity after a while - it becomes too big in my head around the beginning of the oil cycle. :-/ I love the idea, but i am not tolerant enough to my own mistakes.
I know that feeling. Oil, liquids in general is a SUPER steep learning curve. Game goes from hum dee dum to omgwtfchallenge in 30 minutes.
I got through it by watching let’s plays and mimic’ing some designs, I think it was KatherineOfSky. Helped me out a lot, I used to restart a lot also. But at some point I stopped and just kept moving around the map. I never really liked to play with biters.
The other games I mentioned don’t feel as unforgiving as factorio, that’s actually why I put it at the bottom of the list. I’m glad you’ve tried it, the game is awesome, and if you like it even a bit I’d recommend shapez. I’ve only played a bit of the 2nd one but it really seems like a great sequel so I recommend them both.
If you like factory games in general you should try the others! Factorio, satisfactory, and DSP are cut from the same cloth. The latter two are much more casual.