In My Friend Carrie's Car

"In My Friend Carrie's Car" is an autobiographical text-based game. While driving one town over to buy some plants with a friend, you find yourself thinking back on some things that have happened over the last few years.

Content warnings: eating disorders (including some representations of unhealthy and damaging eating disorder thought processes), obsessive-compulsive disorder, intrusive thoughts, depression, reference to sex via discussion of birth control, self-harm mention. I want to really stress here that the representations of damaging eating disorder thought processes could especially be triggering to folks. I pretty directly wrote out versions of some of the thoughts I had during these periods of my life, many of which are from well before I was in recovery from my eating disorder.

This game discusses some of my experiences being mentally ill. Everybody experiences mental illness differently. This game is meant to be representative of some parts of my experiences, and no one else's. I am not claiming or attempting to represent a universal experience of mental illness (because there isn't one), but, rather, just one manifestation - my manifestation. Maybe our experiences look totally different, and that's fine. Both our experiences are valid, even if they look nothing alike. This game is also not an attempt to represent the whole of my experiences. It's just showing little parts.

Press the highlighted keys to choose your routes. You can press ESC or Q to quit at any time. Please play the game at an aspect ratio of 16x9. The game is best played with sound. I prefer it with headphones in. It's up to you, though.

Here are some resources and little things that have helped me. Maybe they'll help you, too.

• information on the symptoms and triggers of misophonia
• OCD Center of Los Angeles has a website with some descriptions of manifestations of OCD that I've found really helpful on a few occasions
• bedroom pop band Adult Mom, which I reference in the game and just generally love

This game was part of an undergrad thesis project that looked at the autobiographical representation of experiences of mental illness in games as a potentially therapeutic practice. This game was influenced by therapeutic exercises in journaling and narrative formation to aid in the processing of traumatic memory. The other game made for this project is Escort Yourself Out.