Sadly its the truth, all of it. Im here writing my story late at night because of how this game changed my life and not a second of it is a lie because these past months cant even be made up for how much of a struggle they have been for me. Anyways to clarify im 17 years old Everyone i play with on destiny knows me as 22 because they around the same age and only play with other adults (19+) plus i get along with them better than some of the 16-17 year olds i play with. This isnt the point of the story though that i lie about my age because this is about me telling the truth of the matter. Well to actually start the story...... In my freshman year i was diagnosed with ADHD. I never thought anything of it because my cousin was diagnosed at a young age and i just didnt really think it was bad because it isnt. The reason i was diagnosed was to find a way to help me concentrate more in school. I was prescribed vyvanse a stimulant that can be addictive but helped me alot. As a teen growing up in the neighborhood im from i got into drinking, smoking, and sex around that age or younger. I was addicted to nicotine and still am but i dont smoke cigarettes or smokeless tobbacco. I had a dark childhood with my father living 9000 miles and him leaving my mom when i was a child. I never grew up with a father really but i learned good morals and grew up alright so far. 2011 i was hit hard, my whole family was. My close cousin who i call my brother passed away because he fought for 9 months against a brain tumor. Losing him made me numb and changed me. I experienced deppression at a young age that i managed to bury but resurfaced. Back to my recent years, my medicine was helping me excell in school and my deppression was long gone. I couldnt have been happier. I bought my PS4 to play the new generation gta 5 because i loved playing it on my xbox. I bought the white destiny edition console with my cold hard cash even though i had not intention of playing destiny. I just wanted a white game system to be completely honest. Gta got old fast and i went back to my ways of being a reckless kid. I think this all recently started when i minimized my friend group from 30-40 to about 2 other guys. Right around my 17th birthday i quit everything i did. Drugs, alcohol, cigarettes. I was developing a daily habit for all of the substances i did and nobody believed i could go cold turkey for years now. I did and it wasnt that hard. Sure the first week of withdrawl was rough but that was the nicotine more over anything else. I was 2 weeks sober when i suddenly stopped sleeping. Not completely but i couldnt get more than 2 hours of sleep before i would wake up. At first i missed a couple days of school which was no big deal. But it turned into 2 weeks then 3 and i couldnt really miss any more school. We went to the doctor, therapist, psychiatrist, sleep specialist, etc and most of them said it was emotional and not physical. I didnt think i was deppressed but everything pointed to it. With more days passing i was feeling that getting out of bed in the morning was getting harder and harder not to mention the fact that i was going on 2-3 hours of sleep a night which isnt very good for my age. I have been prescribed 3 different types of sleeping pills 2 anti deppressants and many other things to help with my recently diagnosed deppression and sleeping issues. I had gotten to a point like a did years ago where i saw no reason to wake up the next morning but something in me decided not to do so. I could have done it easily, i was seconds away from overdosing myself to never wake again when i decided not to. Days still roled on and it didnt get better but it did gets slowly worse. Anxiety and stress kicked in and things werent looking like there was a light at the other end. I stopped going out and on days i went to school i would go right home. I lost interest in all hobbies and did something i never ever do which is play video games for hours and hours. At first it passed the time and kept my mind out of my dark twisted world i live in. Here is the part that i really wanted to share..... This game was all i played. Nothing else. I got to level 20 on my titan and started to meet people. I got to know my friends well and we played daily. At first all i wanted was legendary armor and i kept going for the next thing. Nightfall, exotic primary (The last word was the first i ever owned) to completeing vog for my first time. I loved my titan and i loved this game. Every aspect of it kept me going. It brought my real life back together because the amount of hours i put into this game made me see what i needed to put in my real life to get that to the point where i saw fit. I never imagined that a game would make me forget that i wanted to be dead but thats the fact. Im not over my deppression but i think that it will not get as bad as it was earlier in the year. Though i have become a bit tired of the game that saved my life. I have 3 32s and i dont get the same happy feeling from playing like earlier but i cant seem to put it down. I never agree with anyone who bashs this game for all the "issues" or "problems" it has with it. I love this game maybe more than halo (which is what i played with my cousin before he passed away). Though the social aspect and the fact that the raids and the mysteries and everything else was so enthralling that it became everything to me. I ate, slept, and tought about destiny non stop. Which made me forget my problems and my issues. **This is the truth the honest truth i hope all of you who read this believe me in this because it took alot out of my to share something as personnal as this. I hope to play with some of you soon because im counting everyday till HoW comes out even though we dont have an actual date yet. sorry for all my grammar mistakes, spelling errors, etc. bear with me here guys** Bungie you truely made a work of art. This game truely saved me and for that i owe you everything and im truely thankful for all you guys have done. -Timur