I was somewhat taken aback to learn to day that Justin Carmical aka JewWario had committed suicide in January.  As I read his wife’s announcement to the community, including his fans from Youtube many thoughts ran through my head.  Many of them absolutely typical I’m sure.  Please indulge me for a few minutes.

You see, I wasn’t a fan of Carmical’s work.  I profess to have never watched an episode of You Can Play This because I’m not a big fan of Japanese games/animation styles however I did encounter him through the work of James Rolfe (aka The Angry Video Game Nerd) and of Doug Walker (aka That Guy With the Glasses).  You see just as we on Realms form communities, many of the early Youtube channel creators along the same theme have been aware of one another and sometimes collaborated.  I heard of Carmical’s death on a post about the AVGN Movie premiere next month.

What struck me is that there is a post describing a situation that I cannot imagine ever wanting to relate.  A human being I love locking themselves in a bathroom and fatally shooting themselves while I talked to them through the door.  Let that sink in for a minute.  Then imagine having to go online and tell the world.  That was Jenny Valentine’s experience and she handled it with a grace I can only wish for.

In the upcoming month I will be sharing with you some reminisces of a variety of people from the Realms to celebrate the 20th anniversary of our game.  I’m going to share a very quick one now.  As a run council leader in the Guild of Druids about 12 years ago or so I found myself counseling people from time to time.  One of these people was a regular who we thought was a pretty heavy drinker.  One night he told me that when he logged out he was going to kill himself.  I don’t know why he chose me, it doesn’t matter.  I took him seriously, not only because of the way he told me but because of the history.  I get a bit nervous calling police.  Calling police halfway across the continent to explain that someone I knew from a chat game on the internet was suicidal was a very strange call indeed.  Today police might be more prepared for that kind of call, 12 years ago it was a strange one, big time.  Through a mix of keeping him talking and asking careful questions I drew enough information out of him to get the police to his house.

I don’t know what ever happened to him.  I want to tell you he lived happily ever after but honestly I don’t know, I sure hope he got the help he needed.

If you or someone you know are feeling hopeless, like there’s no way to make your life better let me share this: it can be a hard road but there is help out there.  I spent a lot of time hiding away from my own problems and it almost destroyed the joy in my life.  I was very  lucky that I finally reached out for help, more than 5 years later I can tell you life is pretty good.

Find someone to trust, find a hand to hold.  The road is long, but you need not walk it alone.