Page 265 - Total War on PTSD
P. 265
It wasn't until around 2014 when the PlayStation 3 came out and there were actually a couple of devices that came out that allowed you to change the buttons. And with those devices that came out, I was able to write code onto the devices and change the buttons so that it made it a whole lot easier for me to play video games because if you put the buttons that I needed, where I needed them, and the ones I didn't need that often elsewhere, it worked out great. So, with that knowledge and with that equipment I was able to help other Veterans to do the same sort of thing.
Around that time when I got that device there was a recreational therapist at the VA by the name of Jose Laguna. Well, Jose suggested that we make this a weekly thing and we did. On Mondays we started from 1:00-3:30 and made it a thing where I would bring my console and we'd get all the equipment that I had amassed over the years, and I kind of made it into a gaming clinic that we would do every Monday.
In around 2015, I met a quadriplegic named Travis who introduced me to Hardline, an online multi-player game. I started playing that online game and at first I was horrible. But after a while I started working my way up the scoreboards up around the middle area. I got pretty good at it. I got picked up by a clan, which is a group of individuals who get together and fight other groups/clans. Because it was a first-person shooter game we would go ahead and do that. Well, while we were doing that, these guys were the elite. They were way up on the leader boards. They came in first through third easily. They would wipe the floor with everybody. They basically taught me what I was missing in online games, and when that happened I jumped all the way up to the top of the scoreboards. When they were on I was usually fourth or fifth place but when they weren't I was first or second most of the time when I played on my own. So, they
265 of 1085