How a (virtual) Toyota Altezza helped me deal with Depression

We all have cars dear to our hearts for a particular reason, or those at define us as a person. From a particular life event to just childhood dreams we aim to fulfil, there are cars special to us in this way. I’m here to present a car that in my case, helped me through a particular tough moment in my life.

Establishing the context: It was the summer of 2012. School had just ended for vacation, I had completed Middle School (for me it goes from Grade 6-8), so it should have been a few months for myself to enjoy and relax before I entered High School. Unfortunately this year, it nearly became one of the most uncomfortable and rough times in my life had it not been for this car to appear.

The reason? I had depression. (It may surprise you, but even a 14-year-old can become depressed, not just through hormones). Long story short, I had been rejected by a crush I had since 6th grade, who went on to be in a temporary relationship with someone I considered a friend until then. (While it felt like forever, it barely lasted half a year). But I took it quite hard, and being the emotionally unstable, hormone-mad teenager I was, I was put in a not-so-positively reflective attitude right before a time of the year every student looks forward to from June to August. Imagine if anger, sadness, jealously, and confusion all mixed together in a bowl, with the resulting mixture shot at your face through a water pistol. That’s what ran through my head literally every day from when I woke up to when I went to bed.

I won’t delve into any further details, but the corresponding treatment for that dark period of my adolescent life constituted of visiting a therapist, 2 days off of school (long weekend yay), and..Forza Motorsport 4. I had bought the game as soon as it came out in November 2011, and was playing it any time I could. The AutoVista feature blew me away, the car roster extensively played me to my variety of tastes, or introduced me to new models. I was still playing it when my depression broke out, and it was one day when I was still in the begininng of recovering that I decided to build a car to reflect my state at the time. Something to take my mind off and let out all that internal rage (to ensure I didn’t punch another wall). My favourite car from the game and in real life then happened to be the Toyota Altezza (aka Lexus IS), so my ‘depression’ build was based on that car.

This is it. It was obvious that to reflect my low state, it would be pure black. Body, alloys, spoilers, and tinted windows. I also in-game, converted it to 4WD and changed the aspiration to a Twin-Screw Supercharger (later a Single Turbocharger), since I wanted the car to drive like it was mad and uncontrollable at first, but still trying to maintain control. I had also gotten into drifting using 4WDs (which were somehow easier for me in Forza 4), therefore I wanted this to be an accessible drift missile for me to use on any track.

Throughout my use of this car in Forza 4, every minute I managed to feel better as I distracted myself from whether I’d be forever alone, if I’d find someone, how would I deal with this etc. as I drifted the Altezza sideways through every corner or open space, and floored the throttle just to hear that supercharger and 3S-GE combination whine. I later made the decision to change the aspiration to forced-induction, which only continued to take my mind away from all this stress and eventually, allow me to get over my depression, all the way until that August. By then, my depression had largely subsided, and I was ready to take on high school on a clean slate.

I would not be here if this game, and this car weren’t available for me to access on my Xbox. That dark period led me to some dark thoughts and potentially dangerous situations (I’ll spare the graphic detail), but point is this car reminded me that life is too short to be angry over these little failures. So what if someone doesn’t like you? That’s like getting angry over the fact that your preferred car is not available at the dealer lot, and then deciding to get revenge on the person who got the last one. This little project turned into something more than I expected. It allowed myself to reflect my state at the time onto something positive and enjoyable, something which I had a passion for and which I could practically explore. It even reintroduced me to Initial D after I had forgotten my childhood days around it, and even was a first step in getting myself reinterested in Japanese cars.

I am grateful that this bad experience of my adolescent life happened, because I would not have ended up doing this at all. I am grateful this allowed myself to live and enjoy myself for once, despite all the bad things that were going inside my head.

Despite a new wrap, this is exactly what I got up too back when it was black.

I recently revisited Forza 4 ‘4’ years on, and loaded up this car again. Now that I am a senior expecting to graduate in June, my passion for JDM has fully ignited, and I no longer limit myself to just thinking about girls within my school as potential dates, I felt the car didn’t need to reflect my depressive state any more. So I decided to ‘lighten’ it up a bit with this TRD-inspired design. I even reverted the car back to using a supercharger, and had some more fun for memory’s sake.

Oh, and it’s also because someone I’m interested in happens to come from the prefecture in Japan where Toyota/Lexus is based in (I’ll let you Google it).

That’s my story. I’m interested in hearing any stories from CTizens about any experiences they’ve had with cars, which has helped them with a major down point in their life..