It’s Not Your Fault

For most of my life, I carried the idea that the things that happened to me as a child were my fault.

I didn’t think I was a bad kid, but I knew and hung out with plenty of bad kids. My neighborhood growing up wasn’t a stranger to crime and drugs. Compared to many of my friends, I was an angel. But I was a child, and I did childish things as I experimented and explored the world. I swore, stole, lied, snuck out at night, and fought with my sister. But often the consequences of these actions were disproportionate to the severity of the infractions.

As a result, I began to blame myself for those consequences. It was a survival mechanism. I had to make it my fault because my developing brain couldn’t make sense of the idea that the people who were supposed to protect me and take care of me were hurting me.

As I got older, that behavior continued. It was easier to take responsibility for everything than it was to shift that responsibility to the other person. It was easier to feel that the work I had done wasn’t enough or wasn’t the right work, which is why the other person was angry or disappointed. The idea that I was enough, that I was worthy, and that I wasn’t to blame never seemed like an option.

The result was that I spent much of my life in unhealthy situations, convinced that if I could fix myself, everything else would fall into place. But no matter how hard I tried, it never worked.

I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing until a few years ago. There is a movie trope, “it’s not your fault,” that is a common line used to reassure someone who blames themselves for a tragic event. One powerful example is in Good Will Hunting, where Sean, played by Robin Williams, repeats the line multiple times until Will, played by Matt Damon, breaks down and cries.

It was a surreal moment to have that play out in my life. At the time, it was directed at my past. It took me time (and therapy) to realize it also applied to aspects of my present, too.

That realization is what will help me set my son on a different path, one where he doesn’t struggle with blame, shame, and worthiness, the same way that I did. I don’t want him to blame himself for his seizures, his condition, or especially the way the world reacts to him. I want him to be able to put the actions of others on them and not internalize them as what he deserves because of who he is. Most of all, I want him to know—now, not decades from now—that who he is is already enough.

As parents, we want our kids to have it better than we did. In many ways, that may not be possible given the challenges he will face. But if he can live a life without carrying the blame for others, whatever those challenges may be, he will have a freedom I never knew. A freedom to face what comes without the added weight of shame. A freedom to believe he is worthy of love and belonging just as he is.

And maybe, in giving that to him, I’ll learn to finally believe it for myself, too.

Neurodefender: Video Games and Epilepsy

My first video game console was an Atari 2600 that my sister and I received for Christmas when I was eight.1 It was magical to toggle the switchbox and have an arcade on my television screen. Within a few months, I had a collection of cartridges. Pitfall, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong. I even had that horrible E.T. game. But Space Invaders was my favorite game, and my mother’s boss and I had a friendly competition every time we visited his family.

I usually won.

As I got older, I became very interested in computers. My first computer was a Mattel (yes, that Mattel) Aquarius, one of the shortest-lived computers ever to go to market. It had a Tron game that I played constantly, even though I had never seen the movie. But it was the ability to program on the Aquarius that got me hooked and, for a long time, my world revolved around computers and my gaming followed suit.

My first online games were on a computer. That was back before there were high-powered consoles connected to the internet. I’m talking the days of dial-up modems. I would spend hours playing an air combat game with a classmate, but I was obsessed with the text-based fantasy role playing game Gemstone on GEnie, an early online service. It was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that connected people across the country in a virtual world. Eventually, I moved on to more graphical games like the World of Warcraft, but the ability to connect with other people in these worlds was life-changing and even turned into friendships in the real world. One of my groomsmen at my wedding was someone whom I had originally met in an online game.

My son developed a love for video games at an early age. We had a Wii and loved to play baseball and, especially, bowling. I have videos of him running circles around the house after getting a strike, a huge smile on his face emitting an excited giggle.

As he got older, we began to play video games together, especially sport games like hockey. We’d adjust the settings to give him an edge, and I’d occasionally have to pull my goalie and allow him to score to keep the game close, but it was a fun way to spend time together doing something that we both enjoyed.

Eventually, of course, I stopped pulling my goalie and boosting his settings because he got better. Today, he wins more games than me. The grasshopper has become the teacher. And we’ve expanded to other games. We finished the Halo series, one of my all-time favorites. We played MarioKart every night during the pandemic to get three stars on every course. Today, we play Fortnite and Rocket League together, with an occasional session of Minecraft mixed in.

But I’m not the only one he plays with. This era of powerful PCs and consoles with fast internet has opened up the world and allowed him to play with his friends. He has a friend in Connecticut who plays a baseball video game with him. And he hops on Fortnite after school to play with a few of his friends. Through them, he’s met other friends and he has a little network of gamers. Especially over the summer, it’s helped him stay connected as many families travel and it’s been harder to connect with summer schedules.

In this world of gamers streaming on platforms like Twitch, he has decided that it is the career he wants to pursue. Whether or not that is a viable path for him, it has been a great way for him to explore many aspects of a traditional career: schedules, consistency, marketing, and engagement. He learns by watching other streamers and then practices engaging with his audience, describing his actions and thought process as he navigates a challenge. He loves to teach the “noobs”2 how to get started and basic tactics and tips.

As a technologist and a gamer, it’s been fascinating to see how far gaming technology has come. For my son, it’s become a way to connect, express himself, and find his place in a world that hasn’t always made that easy. Watching him game, teach, laugh, and grow through this medium is beyond anything I could have imagined.

If you want to see what he’s building—and maybe learn a thing or two yourself—you can check out his Twitch stream here: @neurodefender.

Game on.

  1. Crazy side note, when the Atari 2600 was introduced, it cost $190, equivalent to paying $990 in 2024! ↩︎
  2. Slang for a newbie—someone who is inexperienced or new to a particular activity, especially in gaming or online communities. ↩︎

The Brave Face

As caregivers, we become skilled at putting on a brave face.

Every weekend, I play tennis at a club near our house. I’ve been playing there for a few years, and a group of us have become friendly. We ask about each other’s lives and families, even though many of us have never met their families. A few, though, met my wife and son when we first became members, including a few who happen to be doctors and know of my son’s epilepsy.

After my goddaughter’s surgery, I reached out to one in particular—someone I’ve gotten to know better than the others—for advice. Even though it wasn’t her specialty, the good doctor took the time to provide recommendations. Now, when we see each other on the court, she asks how my goddaughter is doing, too.

It’s weird trying to figure out how much information to share. With most of the group, a generic “doing well” is enough. For people who have met my family, I get a little more specific and use names. For the doctor, she knows milestones like recent surgeries or treatments.

But no one knows everything.

It’s the same at work. My core team knows about my son. I’m open about being a parent of a child with special needs, and it helps explain the time off I use to take him to appointments. A few also know that my goddaughter is living with us, and that I sometimes take her to appointments, as well.

But they don’t know everything, either.

I show up on the tennis court and at work with a brave face, a mask many of us use to avoid deeper questions. Some days, I wear the face to hide how hard it really is—because my reality might overwhelm most people, and I worry it would make things awkward. If this isn’t your world, what would you say or how would you respond if someone provided details of their challenges that represent the baseline they exist in every day?

Well, my son had extra seizures this morning, so I didn’t sleep because, you know, SUDEP. And we’re waiting to hear if we can get assistance to send him to the only school we’ve found where he thrives, or if we have to send him to another school and hope for the best. He’s feeling alone and isolated over the summer, but it’s okay because we have our goddaughter here and they get along really well. Unfortunately, she has her medical challenges, so what they can do together is limited. And that’s only when we’re not helping with her challenges, or worried about her, or juggling appointments. My wife and I are managing, but it’s put a lot of strain on us, too. My job is going well, though. Thanks for asking, how are you?

Even that only scratches the surface. Each of those threads is long, twisted, and knotted into a giant Gordian Knot with the other threads and it’s impossible to untie. Every day feels like we’re pulling at one of those threads, only to come to a spot where another thread blocks our progress.

Another reason that I put on a brave face is because it gives me an opportunity to not focus on an impossible task for a few hours. I don’t have to field questions about why I look so tired, or to catch someone up on the state of my life. I can just show up and play tennis. Or I can just do my job.

Because, eventually, the match ends. The meetings end. The mask comes off.

I walk back to my car or close my laptop and return to the full weight of our life. To the unanswered questions, the unsolved problems, the countless needs that won’t wait. The brave face helps me move through the world, but it’s not who I am. It’s just what I wear to make it through the day.

Underneath, I am tired. I am scared. I am trying.

The brave face isn’t a lie—it’s just not the whole truth.

And sometimes, putting it on is the bravest thing we can do.