When I discovered EVA I was caught up in severe post-trauma depression. It helped a lot to realise that someone else had been there.

But also it was a means to tackle issues indirectly rather than head on, by displacing emotion onto the characters, by seeing metaphorical similarities between the story and my circumstances.

This was not at all like running away, but more like facing up to fighting the fire while wearing an extra layer of protective clothing. Still very difficult, but somewhat easier.

It also gave me a new hobby (anime) to pursue and distract myself with when previous hobbies felt "contaminated" because they were active when the traumatic experiences happened.

Likewise, I also reinvented myself in a new field of expertise careerwise (moved from biology to software development).

EVA was not the cure, but one of a number of things that helped, an encouragement to make other changes.