That Time The Gaming Industry Worked Me To Death

Enough Is Enough

Weeks later, one of the HR team (a wonderful woman who, to this day, I regard as family) stopped by my bedsit. I had been off ill for... well, I couldn’t remember. It was difficult to stand, and I remember struggling to breathe. It was around 8pm, which was much later than I’d expect visitors.

She opened the door and audibly gasped. She took my hand and led me to my couch, and took out her telephone, and phoned my family back home. I don’t remember any of this night, but do recall the stories she told me of it - apparently I was bright yellow with jaundice, an weighed less than 7 stones. I hadn’t been waking up every day.

I returned to Scotland to be treated for liver failure, then for a two years into rehabilitation for orthorexia, anorexia nervosa, psychosis and depression.

For the first half of that time, all I wanted was to get back to work, but the more time I spent away from it, the more I realised how dangerous that could be, until I had finally discovered the importance of a work-life balance.

Since then, I managed to return to work in a limited capacity (I suffer from brittle bone disease and atrophy to this day), and have since helped found my own game studio (with our first game out in 2020).

Cont.