Skip to main content

Sims Therapy. Is that a thing? It totally should be.

When I was much younger, before the days of computers, I used to create floor plans on paper of houses I imagined. Huge bedrooms with private bathrooms, intricate pools with snack bars, cat rooms, dog rooms, double staircases, elevators, etc. Basically, anything my young, middle class heart desired.

I never lost that love of creating homes, but I did lose the...habit? of doing it very often.

Enter: Sims 4

My kids play Sims 4, and I love when they give me "house tours" of their creations.  Kid 1 prefers to focus on what a house looks like from the outside, and Kid 2' focus is on the the inside and the configuration of rooms, stairs, and hallways. Seeing both kids create these houses and buildings in a virtual world brought back that desire to make my own "imaginary homes" again, and give young-me a digital upgrade. About a year ago I saw that the game (just the base game, not any of the extras) was for sale for something crazy like $5, so I finally took the plunge. 

Yup, I'm a 39 year old, mother of teenagers, and I play Sims 4.

I'm not really into the "gameplay" aspect of it - relationships, telling the Sims to go to the bathroom, or practice their comedy, or any of that. While I do like the pets aspect, my main focus is building and decorating. It's just so satisfying (especially when my own house is a wreck)! 

One day a few months ago I decided to recreate a home I used to live in.  I looked at old photos, google maps, and search online for other photos, so that I could get the details as "right" as possible.  I would work on it a bit while watching TV, or listening to an audiobook, a bit here and there. 


About halfway through I realized something: I felt lighter in my mind. I felt like I'd worked through some issues from my past. Building the house constantly brought up old memories - the good, the bad, the boring, the ugly. I don't know the "therapy words" for it but...it is as though something changed by looking at memories through the lens of who I am today, now, currently.

I tried it again and again, "building" other houses from my past, and each time I had that same sort of mental shift. 


I don't know what kind of therapy type this would come under - play therapy? art therapy? - but whatever it is, I recommend trying it yourself.







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry by Mary Oliver

 I am reading poetry by Mary Oliver at present, at the suggestion by a very good friend. I have downloaded 2 books from my library account by Mary Oliver: "Blue Horses," and "Upstream."     It has been many years since I read poetry; like, REALLY read it to understand it, and ponder the meaning and discuss it with anyone in any literary capacity. It was back in college, really, but that was also a time when I realized that majoring in Literature was making me no longer enjoy literature (or other students in the major, if I'm honest). With that said, I was thinking about how I'd know if I was getting out of the poetry what the poet meant to convey. I don't think I can actually know that unless I ask the poet, and that won't happen, so I decided that all I can do is try it and see and be happy with what meaning I personally get from the poems. I've always loved quotes from books and bits of passages. I don't mean the kind of quotes that are fam...

The Search For My Uncommon Last Name, Part I

If you grew up with an uncommon, oddly spelled or hard to pronounce last name, you're in good company.  With a name like "Tscherne" you can probably imagine all the ways people have attempted to pronounce it and all the incorrect spellings people came up with. My siblings and I would typically have to have pity on the poor person trying to figure out how to make sounds consistent with a last name with 6 consonants and 2 vowels, one of those vowels only finally coming into the mix after 4 consonants.  I can't tell you how many times we all went through hearing things like "Next up is (first name) T...Tch...Tich....Ch....Sh...Tuh...Tech..." and us finally just standing up so the person could catch a break from having to settle on some collection of sounds that never resembled how we actually pronounced it (which is "Tish-ern"). I was always curious about our name and where our ancestors came from. The only people I'd ever heard of with our na...

Not my circus, not my monkeys, Not my...those, either.

Allow me to present to you, dear reader, an amazing coloring sheet courtesy of Bibliothèque municipale d’Angers.  I came across the image while looking through  Color Our Collections , a collection of art-as-coloring-sheets I found online. There are coloring sheets and coloring books to download from over 500 museums from around the world.  While there are some very lovely coloring sheets I plan to print and color, I couldn't pass this one by without sharing it with the world. Allow me to present our cast of characters: First up we have what I assume is a monkey. The name "David" is between him and the man, and probably refers to the man, but I prefer to think of the monkey (?) as David. Possibly because he looks like that National Enquirer creation of a boy covered in hair. So, David the Monkey. Next up is the angel with the sword. I don't know if she is supposed to be helpful in a "Mom" way, like "David the Monkey, you forgot ...