Desensitizing case (temporary full success)

I always experienced a big deal of anxiety and tension, even alone and without direct triggers like darkness, fire, storms, etc. And I had an idea once.

I googled all over Internet to find out which horror games are most scary. People said Fatal Frame, so I got Fatal Frame. I waited till the dead of night, turned off the lights, put heavy curtains onto window, donned headphones and plunged into the game.

At first it was ok, but when ghosts appeared there was such a sense of vulnerability and threat that I couldn't play. I had to find a flashlight and put it beside me, that made me feel like I could turn on the light any time and escape the nightmare. It was the scariest game I've ever seen. And pitch black darkness in my room felt more intensely threatening than normal, like I was physically in immediate danger of being jumped and killed.

I played for two days during the nights. On the third night my feelings suddenly disappeared. Like someone flipped a switch off. No fear, no anxiety, not even the slightest worry. Just nothing. Nothing in the game and nothing outside of the game. I literally stopped feeling the ever-present anxiety. I felt serene even in the face of strongest triggers.

That didn't last forever, but I felt normal and safe for about a month.

I wanted to share because sharing success stories is rare, but if you want to try this accessible method, I'd like to state that I'll take no responsibility. The amount of fear that game inflicted on me was extreme, the intensity of fear was a lot higher than normal anxiety, it was bordering on panic, and I have no way to know how you'd react to such levels of fear.

Other games I've tried out didn't have the similar effect. They were somewhat scary, but not to the level of out-of-your-wits terrifying. People who call Fatal Frame 1\2 the scariest games of all time aren't lying. So I recommend. Preferably with a PC emulator rather than a real PS2. Emulators have a save-anywhere function and that provides at least some illusion of safety.

Oh god, kudos to you for your strength and will power to do that. I could never do that in a million years. The screamer vids floating around the web are enough to give me a heart attack.

I hope someone else finds this useful in practice. I too always thought that I'm incapable of playing horror games. I just felt very adventurous at that particular time. And I had a lot of trouble keeping myself playing at first, what kept me going was curiosity about what happens as a result.

Too bad I can't figure out how to keep the desensitizing effect going. A month is a big time, and all environmental fears were gone, not just one, so it can be called a great success. But I wish it could be replicated. Afterwards I couldn't replicate the method. It permanently lowered my fear against video games in particular... So even though I played more games:

1) they were scary, but didn't cause the same "switch off" effect, so they were insufficiently scary;
2) some of them were probably sufficiently scary, but I couldn't force myself to play past fear!