The Cat Lady and the Parasites of Mental Health | Monsters of the Week

[Music] [Music] when the cat lady came out in 2012 it quickly garnered an avid cult following rendering and one of the most successful indie titles in the following year it also caught my attention pretty much right away as many people recommended this grotesque and unconventional psychological horror adventure to me and it was apparent at first glance that the cat lady was a game that was made by a small passionate team whose work screamed labor of love all over from the mind of someone who grew up with classic adventure games Silent Hill in a love for the Gothic subculture came a take on the point-and-click adventure rendered with a strikingly weird and unique art style and an unmistakable underdog charm for someone like me what's not to love [Music] now I gotta admit that I was initially a bit on the fence about even trying it out and that has a specific reason the gaming press or rather how the game was talked about at the time the ratings were great but so many reviews and articles on the cat lady at the time seemed to sensationalize the games more sensible themes especially the fact that the game starts with the literal suicide of the protagonist a little too much for me not to be a bit wary now pointing out how the gaming press sensationalizes sensible themes in a video game for exposure is about as groundbreaking as pointing out that the earth is not flat but in all honesty it was what kept me initially from giving the cat lady the chance it deserved as I subconsciously projected expecting the game to approach the topic of suicide and suicidal depression with a similarly problematic and exploitative mindset but you know he shouldn't judge a book by its cover because when I eventually played it of course I found out that I was wrong about it very wrong the cat lady quickly became one of my favorite adventures of all time and yes this list includes all the good old LucasArts classics i won't ever stop raving and being nostalgic about and even though there are many in my eyes genuinely admire well aspects about it ultimately it was exactly the way this game deals with heavy sensitive and deeply controversial topics and media that turned it into more than just an ordinarily enjoyable video game story in my eyes because it started to mean something to me personally and I respected it a lot for that the cat lady is written with a genuine understanding of topics that most video games won't even touch with a 10-foot Pole that alone managed to treat with respect and empathy without [ __ ] it up it's a game of how things like suicidal depression trauma abuse social anxiety and it manages to weave these themes into its narrative with a degree of awareness and respect that can only come from someone who experienced it in their own lives in some way and with a rare degree of curious attention while at the same time avoiding to come across as a preachy condescending lecture on said problems it achieves it through a genuinely grotesque creepy emotional and kick-ass psychological horror tale [Music] so for those of you have never seen or heard of the game the cat lady is a psychological horror adventure game developed by the london-based indie studio harvester games and when I say adventure game I mean that in the very traditional point-and-click adventure sense a game that tells a mostly linear story progressed through object or sometimes logic puzzles as well as dialogue the only exception is that you don't actually point and click with your mouse but you control the protagonist entirely with the directional keys of her keyboard while interacting with the objects in the environment through pop-up prompts so it still plays in the spirit of a classic point-and-click just control with the keyboard the game's creator REM michalski stated that after starting with a traditional mouse controlled adventure interface he felt that this input method didn't perfectly suit a horror adventure so he incorporated a control and camera scheme in which the characters take up a major part of the screen and are directly controlled moving horizontally across the screen the system for instance allowed him to circumvent the age-old problem of pixel hunting in adventure games and it is according to Michalski significantly better suited for playing on a laptop since most controlled games are just inconvenient to play with a trackpad but first and foremost this unusually close perspective of this change of interface brought about allowed him to startle and surprise the players way more easily than in traditional adventures for instance by having things suddenly appear in front of the protagonists perspective wouldn't let you see before this reminds me of how horror games in the ps1 era often had terrible camera angles because of the hardware element a ssin of the time and their bias on what accidentally resulted in being some of the most effectively scary games of all time in the catlady the Creator consciously chose to restrict the camera angles and controls - technically revert to the efficacy of a more fruitful era of video game horror it is the many little details like these that make the cat lady an exceptional narrative experience because it not just tells a captivating story Whedon - a disturbing horror tale it also attempts to evolve the age-old adventure game mechanics in a way that supports the game's central themes it's what good games do tell stories through mechanics I'll get to more examples for this a bit later when we take on the role of Susan Ashworth a solitary mid-30s woman living in an apartment complex an unspecified British city to her neighbors she's mockingly known as the crazy cat lady since her door is always and pretty much exclusively open to the cats of the neighborhood susan has been struggling with suicidal depression for a large part of her life a spiral that as I mentioned earlier eventually culminated in a suicide attempt the game's opening sequences narrated by Susan reading her suicide note right after having swallowed a large amount of sleeping pills thanks for nothing goodbye but instead of the sweet release of death she had hoped for Susan mysteriously finds herself in a surreal fever dream strolling through windy field of straw and meandering through colorful autumn thickets until she eventually stumbles upon an old shack in the woods there she's already being awaited and greeted by an old lady who makes Susan an ironic gift immortality what this is the last thing I wanted the old lady who introduces herself as the queen of maggots sends our protagonist back to the living with a monolithic task to punish and kill five so-called parasites in her description evil people who thrive on the suffering of others the queen of maggots a mixture of an anthropomorphic characterization of Susan's innermost fears and they divine harbinger of death turns her into something of an involuntary vigilante super heroine you will become my hunter serving punishment for their sins a tool of destruction a Dark Angel walking through the river of our Susan just wants to be left alone this is basically the central narrative propellent through which the story unfolds even though Susan is initially extremely reluctant and rather coincidentally stumbles over her supposed victims and it takes quite a while until she finally fully accepts her new role as a dark Avenger of the tormented and mistreated horror depending on your choices ultimately rejects it I'm gonna get into this part of a narrative a bit later because I believe in order to put this part the cathartic and violent revenge fantasy into perspective and what it stands for in Susan's story and life I'd love to focus on the other side of her quest first Susan's underlying attempt to build a ladder to try and get better and hopefully permanently improve her well-being her attempt to find a way out of the dark and depressive pit that had led her to take her own life in the beginning because even though the game is a grotesque roller coaster ride of the dark and surreal and best Silent Hill fashion with weird and gruesome things happening left and right disturbing and metaphoric imagery scattered everywhere in a sometimes excessive amount of violence at its core the cat lady tells a very down-to-earth tale of a woman struggling to fight the inner demons that keep her down that sometimes gets scarily real especially for people who can relate through personal experience it's in part a story about the many hurdles that society can often put in the way of people who struggle with hardships of social isolation and clinical depression in my opinion that's when the cat lady truly shines not when it presents itself from its most visceral and gory side which it does quite frequently don't get me wrong but when it's subtly and relatedly thematize as the perils of depression and mental illness in our society let me show you what I mean [Music] when Susan wakes up from her visit to the passage between the world of the living and the voyage she comes to in a hospital though suicide ward to be precise make sense of first suicide attempt right our health care not catching a suicidal patient in a dark place caring for her physically and mentally monitoring her in her vulnerable state making sure she doesn't try it again and providing stability cognitive behavioral therapy medication and moral support until she gets better and is ready to get back on her feet and reenter society with a newfound perspective and strength almost evokes the impression that our society is well-equipped to support those who suffer from mental illnesses doesn't it the reality is of course a lot Bleeker in this chapter subject Susan to a lot of problematic aspects of life under the mercy of mental health professionals condescending and patronizing hospital staff chronically overburdened and incapable of the necessary empathy and patience to care for the individual patient everyone in an official capacity treats Susan with little to no respect belittling her treating her like a child like some nutjob who doesn't know what's good for her the psychiatric nurses are rude ill-informed and hot-tempered forcing medications on her without consent while her psychiatrist who initially appears to be well intentioned ultimately turns out to be only superficially caring while abusing his legal authority over her to hold her against her will now you might argue but Susan attempted suicide so she clearly does not know what's good for her that's where the whole problem starts the opening monologue clearly portrays Susan is someone who is fully in charge of her senses and thoughts and who ended her life as a result of a conscious informed choice that's how she should be treated there is this narrative in our society that people who do or try to end their lives are seen as cowardly for being too weak and choosing quote on quote unquote the easy way out which is an infuriating misunderstanding that resolves from ignorance and a systemic lack of empathy survivors of suicide attempts often describe their seminal moment as their final and only option at that point in their lives a well-known metaphor for this is standing on the windowsill of a tall building on fire you're still fully aware and mortified of the fall should you decide to jump all of its brutal consequences just like anybody else would it's just the flames behind you have become the far greater threat the crucial point here is that the way susan is treated by the staff in this suicide ward is anything but uncommon it's much simpler and easier to treat suicide patients as if they're a devoid of rational thought and agency over their actions effectively degrading them to lower-class human beings which is the cat biting its own tail in relation to the original problem isn't it the systems in place and society in general is oftentimes really terrible at making people with mental struggles feel like they belong this chapter in my opinion does a great job of establishing this feeling of being misunderstood over talked trapped and imprisoned without having committed any crime it's not just sad depressing and infuriating but I think it's remarkably written in a way that employs these very real very disheartening struggles people out there are often subjected to on a regular basis because the systems that are supposed to help often fundamentally fail to accurately support them and the cat lady uses these issues as a vessel for horror I love how some of the puzzles are designed around social interactions and the struggles of mental illnesses and depression the one person who seems to actually do care about Susan Liz the psych ward nurse engages her in long conversations and chairs a big deal about her own personal life but it's not just empty filler banter the game eventually turns the tables on us when we later find her on the roof of the hospital when it's revealed that she's herself been a suicidal patient who had disguised herself as a nurse and now wants to jump from the top of the building to take her own life in our dialogue with her when we attempt to talk her out of jumping she complains about how nobody in her life ever really listens to her how nobody cares I've made up my mind I need to end this suffering now besides I have no one to live for anyway no one ever listened to me no one ever cared the game requires us to show that we actually did pay attention when she told us about herself and her worries in life dialogue puzzles in adventure games in and of itself are nothing out of the ordinary but I really respect how the game attempts to create interpersonal moments of tension that underlying the games themes in a meaningful way through traditional adventure game mechanics with a little twist problems that society creates through failure and empathy and communication are solved with empathy and communication and not by just combining random objects with each other that can textually have nothing to do with the topic I mean you still do solve very adventure typical inventory item combination puzzles but this aspect of the cat lady is probably the weaker pillar of the gameplay and when I say weaker I think of it as having two pieces of magnificent cake a sweet and juicy carrot cake and a fresh and creamy key lime pie if I enjoy the key lime pie it had more than a carrot cake is technically the weakest of the two even though both are extremely satisfying in their own way so don't think I'm saying that the object puzzles in this game are bad they're fine the social interactions and through problems they arise and the way they are woven into the adventure gameplay to create meaningful social puzzles you know fittingly for a protagonist whose biggest struggle in life was always dealing with society socialising I just think those words significantly stronger and way more unique aspects of the gameplay as I mentioned before Susan psychiatrist dr. axe also turns out to be only superficially interested in her personal struggle brushing over her psyche assessment without ever elaborating on personal issues when she chooses to open up and reach out that all starts to make sense as soon as we find out that dr. X turns out to be the first of the parasites and his questions in retrospect were obviously primarily meant to probe her life and personal situation for how suitable she would be as his next victim because he all along was a serial killer who abducts female patients nobody would ever miss to torture and kill them and then recreate famous paintings with their corpses yeah as I said the game is not exclusively cerebral in horror you're gonna get a lot of ultra violence but even if it might be a bit absurd grotesque the case of the serial killing woman abducting doctor is in my opinion mostly horrifying not for the inventive display of brutality and gore but because his modus operandi is grounded in a frightening ly common abuse pattern in society abusive predatory behavior primarily over women by men in positions of power is a far more common occurrence than many would like to believe and it recurringly happens in a wide range of settings the case of dr. X is frightening because his premise is relatable if it can empathize with being at the mercy of someone who methodically exploits his position of power over you Susan and his other victims are helplessly exposed to his authority over them he's a respected medical figure and the head of the psychiatric department of this hospital all the employees follow his orders and respect him as the highest authority while his victims the patients of a suicide ward are deliberately selected by him as outcasts of society officially declared insane while his meticulous and methodical approach and abducting his victims already makes it almost a place for them to escape in the hypothetical case they would escape the system would even support him because nobody would believe the victim they were going to the authorities it's already a very common fear of rape survivors and women at the receiving end of abusive relationships of all sorts the fear of going public about seeking help because people tend to methodically doubt their word on the perpetrator in most cases has the bigger leverage in this case there's the added layer of dr. X's victims being patients of a psychiatric institution and their work would be easily discredited as the fabrications of a loony bin nut case against that of a well respected established medical authority figure and publicly respected paragon of psychiatric care they be treated as an escaped convict rather than someone who just survived attempted murder and the authorities would very likely just bring her back into psychiatric care they would help him so yeah while dr. X is superficially gruesome his methods are eccentrically graphic I always found this aspect about him the most frightening that it is based on a very real threatened problem the prevalence of abuse histories in the mental health system dr. axe is of course an extreme example of artistic exaggeration but it's based on a very real phenomenon in Hawaii he's a personification of the absolute worst case and that makes him a terrifying villain and that very reason is also what makes Susan's invincibility powers and her god-given ability to perform brutal vengeance against him so incredibly satisfying and cathartic it always felt to me like the cat lady delivers unfiltered blood justice against abusers murderers rapists misogynist and the likes which is ultimately what the parasites are a personification of the worst of the worst and mankind the way the cat lady makes you exert symbolic revenge for victims of real people that employ similar abuse patterns as dr. X I always felt that Susan shared a lot of DNA with Lisbeth Salander Stieg Larsson's queer autistic and gratifying revenge fantasy for survivors of violence abuse and rape they're both in their own way kick-ass female Avenger characters who put up against terrible odds in a society that systematically rejects them anyway the point is that the cat lady is great at creating terrifying situations not primarily through the use of gore and creepy imagery but by grounding the horrors Susan gets exposed to in very real fears and problems of our society [Music] the third chapter in the game and my opinion brilliantly encapsulates and makes the cat lady so powerful in the way tackles its overall themes the anxiety puzzle it's a wonderful microcosm of how this game engages with depression and anxiety as a mental condition through its gameplay without treating it with kids claws and equally without being preachy and condescending now let me be clear it is not a perfect flawless representation of experiencing anxiety disorder but it does a few things that I find pretty genius and its execution and simplicity so in this chapter Susan's goal is to avoid getting a panic that's it she's at home and her two bedroom apartment and has to live she has to do everyday things that improve her physical and mental well-being a relaxing bath a hot meal a cup of coffee a cigarette on the balcony Oh at the same time avoiding anxiety feeders like the devil now honest I'd know it you might point out that coffee and cigarettes for instance are far less than ideal of Isis when you're prone to panic attacks and that's very true but addictions and bad habits are often a part of the vicious circle in and of itself while cigarettes a bad diet terrible sleeping routine caffeine and so on and so on can all increase the likelihood of anxiety attacks at the same time attempting to break an addiction is just as likely to drastically decrease the general well-being of the sufferer are at the moment so in many cases is a daily trade-off indulging in advice will temporarily reduce the stress level but it has potentially bad long-term effects on dopamine and serotonin reductions for instance it is a tough fight every day for a video game task this situation might sound banal compared to what you're usually used to in your average power fantasy right but an execution it turns out to be a lot trickier than it appears at first glance in Susan's state of mind every little thing can become an additional stressor and drastically increase the chance of a nervous breakdown a sudden power outage accidentally ruining the coffee with bad milk or messing up food in the microwave seeing a pile of unpaid bills or stumbling upon things that evoke sad memories I often hear people criticize this chapter for various reasons specifically many of the events that increase Susan's panic level are next to impossible to anticipate and it takes almost nothing to push her over the edge resulting in a complete breakdown so that in order to finish it flawlessly but you need to achieve the game's perfect ending you virtually won't get around replaying and memorizing the right way to do it it feels unfair tedious and ultimately frustrating when you end up screwing up and Susan ends up losing it despite you really trying to avoid any anxiety trigger and tiptoeing around to do everything you can to make her feel better you see what I'm getting at here yes it is very frustrating and unfair but that's exactly how anxiety disorder can feel like it's not bad design it's a game mechanic metaphor to illustrate the ridiculous struggle that can come with clinical depression anxiety disorder and other argues mental conditions that can turn everyday life into an unforgiving gauntlet of mental hazards now personally as someone who has both experienced anxiety disorder firsthand as well as lived with close ones severely affected by it I can say that this chapter reminded me structurally of how incredibly frustrating and unfair it often feels if your or a loved one's well-being is chronically threatened by a clinically irritable state of mind the anxiety puzzle and how it portrays Susan's struggle with panic attacks just as the whole game is nowhere near perfect but it manages to illustrate in very important aspects of the whole issue that are so rarely even attempted to be tackled in video games it attempts to illustrate the apparent futility and irrationality your own mind can go through when your mental Constitution is so vulnerable that seemingly irrelevant little things can tip the scale out of nothing and turn a great date into a hellish nightmare for other people it can be so terribly hard to comprehend without experiences firsthand and or a great deal of empathy because the things that can cause a panic attack in a state of heightened anxiety can seem so ridiculously trivial and petty to outside observers and often even to the sufferer themselves that this condition can appear completely hopeless and out of one's control living with anxiety or it can feel like on a tightrope with a blindfold potential stressors traps and triggers can literally come up from anywhere at any time and completely out of nowhere this chapter always gave me the feeling that has been written by someone who understands it shows a degree of respect for a very uncommon topic in media and the people who have to deal with similar conditions on a daily basis in their lives when you're in such a dark place simply functioning without getting struck down by your own mind can appear virtually impossible excruciating ly difficult and daunting every day nobody ever even sees or acknowledges the hardship you put up with the bottom line is the anxiety puzzle in the cat lady is one of my favorite parts of this game for this very reason because it at least somewhat successfully attempts to turn this into a video game puzzle with classic adventure mechanics with a little twist it is not fun it's designed to make you fail with almost guaranteed certainty and that is and ultimately should be exactly the point [Music] the nature of Susan's psychological torture chamber meaning the other world as well as all the surreal and grotesque happenings in and around her life is never explicitly specified is she in Hell in some kind of purgatory is all the weird stuff really happening or that just part of her psychological gauntlet there is something about the way REM makovski writes his stories that weirdly reminds me of the works of under a Tarkovsky quite comparable to films like stalker a story where we never really know what exactly happens what is real or if it just witnessing manifestations of the protagonists psyche the projections of an eID machine and while you might think this comparison is far-fetched it kind of is there's something about the metaphoric language of the cat lady that always strangely reminded me of the way I enjoy Tarkovsky's works crafted with a deliberate emphasis on the feeling of the moment Tokarski always knowingly chose metaphors over symbolism a symbol contains within itself a definite meaning a certain intellectual formula while a metaphor is an image an image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents an image as opposed to a symbol is indefinite in meaning it leaves the interpretation to the viewer or player in this case as a matter of fact ramekins be confirmed in several interviews and also in a private conversation I had with him about the making of the cat lady that he never rides scenes with a fixed interpretation in mind but that his mode of operation is strongly led by gut instinct his intention is to let people come up with their own interpretations it means what it makes you feel which is why the approach of basing all the flashy gory horror on real relatable themes is so effective it gives Susan's ordeal meaning beneath all of the blood and surreal imagery the cat lady is the story of someone who is fighting against oppression and dealing with a stone society puts in her way as with the examples I showed before Susan's hell is other people much of the game's horror is drawn from bat [ __ ] that people do to each other quite often by the ones who should care the most another magnificent example for this is Susan's flashback to the traumatic days of her marriage in which her husband becomes increasingly self-absorbed and grows ignorant to Susan's situation with her baby at home the unavoidable conversation she is forced to have on a daily basis with him an increasingly aggressive and abusive partner are in my opinion far more anxiety inducing than any of the games more graphic moments any attempt of communicating is futile if Susan tries to appease him he accuses her of laziness and weakness if she confronts him he reads it as confirmation for his frustration with her when people end up in situations like these those on the sidelines often common with remarks like well why didn't you just leave but it's really that simple especially when it comes to abusive relationships situations like these don't just emerge overnight and people who engage in sustained abusive behavior in relationships are almost subconsciously very effective at systematically isolating their partner from friends and family over an extended period of time often more than one way at the same time in Susan's case making her accept and commit to give up her job to become a stay-at-home mom which not only imbues a massive responsibility on her but it also makes her and her child financially dependent on the husband at the same time he repeatedly devalues her hard work and efforts methodically degrading her while denying her situation that deserved empathy and respect pushing her in a position where she's categorically forced to make excuses for his oppressive and destructive behavior because she and the kid have simply no viable way out I've always found this part extremely uncomfortable to stomach because the patterns at work here are as the other examples shown before based on very real relationship patterns and I've actually had conversations with to my taste far too many friends who at some point in their lives found themselves subjected to very similar abuse patterns in their relationships some of them who actually played the cat lady even ended up telling me how extremely uneasy this segment of the game had made them because of how close it hit to home now let me say this if you have an ongoing traumatic relationship with experiences of abuse in your past and are considering to play the cat lady for the first time I recommend to consider this before you play it but in the end ultimately this is yet another testament to the author's ability to effectively draw horror from real world issues most games wouldn't ever dare to tackle because why invent monsters and life is already full of them [Music] now after all of this you might get the impression that the cat lady is an endless ordeal of suffering it kind of is if it weren't for Susan's immortality and her punishment tasks this is easily the most polarizing aspect about the cat lady's story of many people finding it just too much overdone and to easily drifting off into splatter and gore and the other side of the audience specifically enjoying the satisfaction and empowerment this revenge fantasy brings with it I don't think it really matters which side I'm on here but if it subpoena me I'd probably say that I'm in a second gap but the reason it doesn't really matter is because I've never really took this part of the story very literal as I've said before it means what you feel it means and I agree that if you take this revenge spree across a shitload of ridiculously gruesome and sadistic mass murderers that all just so happened to live either near our protagonists apartment complex or in very close proximity if you take this literal you're gonna have a hard time taking the game seriously in any way now that's really stupid fair enough that didn't really happen I've always seen her fight against the parasites I mean the name alone suggested that these people represent something that feeds on Susan's force of life I've always regarded as a metaphor for the immense hardship that comes with trying to get herself out of the depressive figurative swamp of her life getting one's life back on track from a dark place like Susan and then is an argue assist fest task it's ugly it's nasty and it requires drastic violent changes in pretty much every aspect of one's life it's an ordeal that can appear next to impossible when you've been stuck in it for so long and that is in most cases not achievable without external help without breaking out of the debilitating comfort zone this is where Mitzi comes into play Susan's sidekick character Mitzi hunt always represented this side of the healing process for me she literally breaks into Susan's comfort zone and she turns out to be exactly the catalyst Susan so desperately needs to turn her life around Mitzi his entrance in Chapter three in many ways is a significant change of pace both for the game when she quote-unquote interest the stage and for Susan's life when she becomes a part of it the game still deals with a lot of dark [ __ ] but Mitzi's presence is the ultimate embodiment of Hope she has every right to be just as hurt and devastated by other people as Susan as yet her constantly positive and optimistic demeanor in the face of terminal cancer and the recent loss of her loved one gives Susan the perspective she so desperately needs the relationship once Susan overcomes her intuitive social barriers and brings herself to let someone in on her life for the first time in many years quickly develops into a genuine friendship both women find themselves in the darkest place of their lives but by opening up to someone else they begin to genuinely care for each other and help each other to achieve something they both could not achieve on their own their bond is a symbiosis each on their own contributing a part of themselves so that their synthesis becomes a stronger unity that the sum of the two lonely individuals Mitzi hunt is literally the antithesis of the parasites and in the same way Mitzi's role in the game to me is both a very enjoyable literal story of friendship and hope between two people in the darkest spot of their lives as well as a metaphor for the healing power of community friendship and the will to care for someone else that Susan so dearly requires to fight her inner demons for parasites that is what Susan both metaphorically and literally does in the cat lady she fights parasites it's a very empowering metaphor for the fight against the crippling effects of mental illness and unlike large parts of society when mental health struggles get regularly misunderstood mocked belittled and scapegoated for every wrong in the world that people are too lazy to critically look into the cat lady does never shy away from at least attempting to portray this very struggle as brutal and violent as it really is in the end no matter which of the four endings of the game you reach Susan's inner growth and her attempt to overcome the darkness in her way ultimately comes from her finding the thing in life that she enjoys with a passion helping others as she finds out is the motivation she needed in life to break out of her isolation chamber that gets her to over time slowly but actively open up more and more what might appear to an outside observer like a trivial step for some people it marks the end of a long and arduous road of repeated attempts of self-improvement cold and hard reflection and the iron will to work towards a more healthy more happy or stable and hopeful life here's this game that begins with the literal suicide of the protagonist and that after an arduous gauntlet of struggle and suffering ends with a genuinely hopeful and positive message a game that acknowledges the immense hardships of conditions like clinical depression anxiety disorder and social isolation and that ultimately comes to the conclusion that despite everything it's not hopeless that the fight is not absurd but worth it and that's why I respect the cat lady so much is it a perfect game a flawless portrayal of mental illness and depression of course not but it is a tale that acknowledges the struggle of the from a point of personal experience and it attempts to paint the invisible struggle that few people even see in an empowering light it helps those who silently suffer like Susan not just that attempting to fight her inner demons is worth it but that you're seriously [ __ ] kick-ass for trying [Music] [Music] thank you so much for watching this channel is made possible through the generous support of my patreon backers these videos take a long time to research write and produce so if you'd like to help out with a small donation I'd be very grateful to find a link to my patreon in the description under the video or in the card that just popped up in the top right this month my special thanks goes out to these top-tier supporters swag am John boring SL moccasin Canton padam Nicholas serosa pooch Chuck Taylor Evan Tico Kira Starr Haku and vu Dominic head haibach hope Edinburgh Vladimir Bachchu Kaspar on chu'lak Ariel Guzman Robin Claussen and Ray Kroc ocean Jonathan Arwen Adele Garcia Liam Jones Lucas Muraki Sardis James Lynch Clichy a Garrett Lacey Vita daily Nicola Zell melon Matt Davis Julia David Nadeau the melting squad Sean Quigley anthem home invasion Mira Nathan the grand alex lake Carlos Volare Siri Ignasi learson Agostino Tara Maxwell brown max pervert broseph Jones David's Ellen act Kailua Martin Schmidt Bryan Viera Sonny Maillard Michael spina the fourth Denis peppercorn mr. 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Channel: RagnarRox

Views: 406,076

Keywords: The Cat Lady, Rem Michalski, Harvester Games, Psychological Horror, Mental Health, Susan Ashworth, Video Game, Point and Click, Video Essay, Monsters of the Week, RagnarRox, Ragnarox, Analysis, Plot, Mitzi Hunt, Parasites

Id: epo7s0S32yU

Length: 43min 6sec (2586 seconds)

Published: Wed May 30 2018