The Path - Tale of Tales.

The Path is an 'open world'computer game developed by Tale of Tales, in 2009.

It isn't a game in any traditional sense; there is no winning, no guns, no zombies. Success could be described as a longer bardo experience - a dubious reward - for a person who has explored more of the maps.

In the game I (the player) leave the path that goes to my grandmother's house and walk instead through the endless forests, where I soon lose sight of the path. As I walk, I see things that contain memories of my sisters, and I pick flowers. If I give up and stand still, a girl in white comes and plays with me before leading me back to the path.

Eventually though, I will encounter my wolf.
Each of us (my character and her sisters) have a wolf who brings the whirling deep in to their hearts.

The wolf could be a man hanging around the playground, a lumber jack cutting wood. The wolf could be a wolf...and if I interact with the wolf...something happens. Something awful happens, about which I am totally unaware.

I wake up in the rain.
I don't know what has happened to me.
I will never know.

And there is nowhere to go except into grandmother's house.

So I walk over the bridge and into the house where the air is full of threat, and I'm not able to make any sense, or have any choice, but as I move round the house I encounter the symbols that speak of my murder.

The music - Troll Lullaby - is in the game, and I had not caught the words before finding this film on YouTube this morning. Nor had I though very much about the nature of trolls as creatures of the imagination; how the troll can symbolize the presence of an unfathomable otherness that means to do me harm.

As the song says, be careful not to let the troll into your bed.
But no one would, no one, no one would.
The troll in real life will be unrecognizable

How useful could The Path be in helping victims of sexual abuse encounter traumatic memories and feelings?

I found playing The Path an unsettling experience because in the game I am responsible for what has happened to me.

As a survivor of real life abuse I blame myself and don't blame myself in equal measure. The game blames me absolutely except it was going to happen, the wolf is there. It was truthful and accurate about the flash-backs represented by the bardo experiences of grandmother's house. Flash-backs are messed up fragments of traumatic memory; nothing is clear, the triggered nightmare is a dream happening to me while I'm awake. The grandmother's house echoes the nonsensical nature of the feelings intruding into consciousness as shattered images.

I feel that the developers understand what this is like and that makes me feel that I'm not alone.

The song by Jarboe, is important, it re-frames my experience as if I was the victim of a troll - not a victim of someone who said he loved me.

Though I don't want to recognise myself in the game because I don't want to believe that a person I loved did this to me; that I let him into my bed. It helps to be able to borrow, just for a while, the idea, and see him as a troll.

But I find the sense of responsibility the game makes me acknowledge is difficult.

I didn't know he was a troll is what we all say and it's true!

The game says I was responsible because I let him in, and this feels so true, I feel as if I am to blame. I feel shame.

Shame prevents healing.

But now it is out there, the game has said  I'm responsible, it has named my worst fear, my total shame.

But this is a game, a safe space to think about what happened to me. The mix of Eros and Thanatos is too old and it can feel too powerful to confront directly.

As part of my effort not to feel I tag the feelings with intellectual understanding with #closed, #over, #finished, #don't bother with this again. But this process doesn't help.

Memories have to be felt, before they can begin to heal.

When I first played The Path, it let me look at how I felt and placed me in a safe environment, the game environment. I think it helped me to face the dark when I set out to recover all of myself, because it helps me to remember that the dark and the path are not real. That I can go back without being harmed because memory is so much like games. They are both virtual experiences, occurring within liminal space

And a game gives me control.

While the song reminds me
Trolls are trolls.
And I need to take care.

Some of the lyrics

He'll take your soul and eat your head....

He brings the whirling deep in your heart

Then sings the twirling demons of dark

To take you down beneath the ridge

To where is found his silent bridge

Still lies the water green and thick

He'll drag you under with his stick

Sink like some gold floats there through the mist...

Now don't let the troll creep in through your door

He'll take you asleep to his chamber of horrors

Are you dreaming?

No use breathing...

He'll soon be feeding