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@Ikar damn. That is deep af. I will remember that one. xD
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That is true. Even though I have to say that at some point, I blamed sugar as well as games for my bad situation. So maybe this is just something that humans do. But I think, if it hinders us to take action and to get into a stage of "there is nothing I can do since X has control" it is a problem.
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I actually wrote the outline for this reply some 10 hours ago, but I wanted some more input before writing more. I think Glover put it wonderfully by writing something in the lines of this: "A woman needs to know that you are willing to stand up AGAINST her, so that there is at least a chance that you might stand up FOR her in the future." Glad to hear all is good in the hood now 🙂
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I wonder if you could correlate that with the success of the members' individual detoxes 😄 Blaming and excuses never get us anywhere.
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Sorry I only saw this today for some reason. Thanks so much for your feedback. It's really made me feel okay with enjoying the process and not so focused on getting results asap. I like the idea of training long term. I'd like to be a strong dad that gives his children some heavy numbers to aspire to. Good point on your dopamine post to focus on meaningful activities. I find that's the best way to get my mind off games is to focus on something meaningful to pursue.
- Today
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Day 124 NF 93 Np 78 Med 64 Positive post: I drank some water, ate breakfast and did drawings. I'm doing this post way early today because its been crammed into my evenings lately and that's no good. I don't have much to say. I'm looking online for manga tutorials @Laurie Do you know any good manga tutorials online I could check out please? My mom's starting a caregiver job since she has mostly free time now. Guess that means I'll get to see her less. 😞 I think I'm going to go ahead and watch some Netflix, lift weights and go for a short walk with my mom. I'm checking out all the self help books on my list as samples and seeing if any are readable for me. So far I've got 'four habits of joy in a marriage'. Hopefully that one works out. I smiled at the trees outside. I accomplished getting out of bed at 845am. I am grateful for napkins, the nice weather, trees, grass, the sky, being alive, clients, macbook air, moms financial advice and hiking. God bless Erik
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It's so irritating. I'm very happy to be independent is all I can say lol.
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I just had my first online exam. Was kinda weird, but I managed to do it. ^^
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I actually know this by myself. My dad still likes to repeat his old jokes again and again. I learned to live with it. Many parents do that. You are not alone with that. Instead of being annoyed by it, I now am happy that he still is alive. This will not be the case forever. I don't want to waste my time being annoyed by his jokes.
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that is the only thing that matters. 🙂
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I don't think it's bad. I just don't like it because my dad used to tell me a funny story, then tell my mom, then call his friends up and tell them, then everywhere we'd go he'd tell them and look at me and make me laugh to help his effect and random people would say how funny he is. It made me so angry. Just a fake. Reminds me of bad times. I'm not trying to turn this journal into a research panel. After reading my posts I'm sure you know I study myself and experiment with how I feel for weeks and months at a time to see what works and what doesn't. I tend to agree with my therapist and the neurologists I've spoken to over the past 3 years that have helped me quit gaming and overcome major depression. I see your point because a lot of people spew bull shit information out there. I'm not an expert, but I don't fabricate things. I share what I've learned from experts that I've spoken with in person regarding my depression and addiction. It's helped me quit for over 75 weeks now and I'm not suicidal anymore. It works for me.
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Detox day 46. "Kiss and make up." So it took us about 24 hours of ignoring each other, but we got through the fight. I guess we love each other more than we annoy each other. I ended up running a D&D-game in the afternoon, while she spent the better part of her day in the bedroom not wanting to get in my way. Apparently she'd even ordered take out last night, in the middle of our fight, for both of us, because she knew I don't eat (like at all!) when I'm angry. How can you stay mad at someone like that? We talked it through and why we were so pissed at each other and how stupid and ridiculous the fight was and how long and stubbornly we kept silent. We were both suffering. I told her how I felt about the bike, she told me how she felt about my tone and how I forget stuff. We vented and aired our grievances, then we cooked together, watched a movie and had sex. We're all good now. Thank you all for your responses! I did feel like I needed to stand my ground and make it clear there are lines you don't cross with me, especially after I'd made a point in the past not to fuck with that. She also expressed some concern about how many hours I spend glued to my computer. For this forum, Reddit, reading the news, social media, ... I'm a bit of an introverted dude, so I'm okay with that and she mostly likes extraverted stuff like going out, seeing friends, doing stuff. But that's not possible, of course. That difference is okay, though. But it did make me realize I should try to live a bit more in the moment and a bit less via screens. I do that when I go to the park, no phone, pc or earbuds, nothing. Just me in nature. I should try and do that a bit more when I'm like cooking or something, when doing things I enjoy. I have a wonderful brain that comes up with funny jokes, silly sketch ideas, stories, ... Whenever I listen or watch something, my brain gets input but has not shot at making output. The best ideas are created in the bathroom or on the toilet, your mind idles and suddenly something just cliques. I'd like to try and to that a bit more. So to be productive, today I'm making proper sushi and cleaning up the bedroom. It's dusty and lots of things need reorganizing. Recent highlight: The moment we kissed after being angry for about 24 hours. Budget status: All good for now. Though I haven't heard anything from both offices I mailed about paychecks. My one goal for the next 24h: Clean the bedroom. Maintained habits: -Daily Japanese lesson - Just did it. -Make the bed - Left it a bit messy since I knew I'd clean the entire room later. -Drink enough water - Didn't drink any yesterday, I think. So a fresh start again today. -Brush teeth two times a day, floss and clean once a day - I'll do it before I go outside. -No daydrinking at home alone - Day 3 of no drinking for a week. -Meditation - Probably going to the park tomorrow. The weather'll be nice and I'll take a book with me to read. -Exercise once this week - Cleaning and groceries shopping today, walking tomorrow. My knees/legs hurt so I don't want to workout just yet. But they do hurt less, so upping my activity level slowly seems to be the key.
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The truth about dopamine Recently, I have checked the forum to see, how often people use the term dopamine. I found that it is used more than 500 times. Every single time, it is somehow used as an excuse. Like an external force that makes it impossible for us to resist certain temptations - may it be pornography, gaming, youtube or whatever. People call it the happiness neurotransmitter. I found this interesting and did a short research check. And I found a bunch of indications that what we believe today is not true. Here is the actual scientific consensus: Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and involved in several pathways, starting from movement regulation to motivation to some degree. But the actual pleasure, we experience, has nothing to do with dopamine; this is caused by other things like opioids for instance. Dopamine, despite several functions will cause you to do a behavior again. But eventually, after doing a behavior consistently, there is not always a noticeable rise in dopamine levels. Animals, which have dopamine producing cells removed will still feel pleasure and enjoy things - they just won't pursue it, because the pleasure system is intact (https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17169446/dopamine-pleasure-chemical-neuroscience-reward-motivation). This article explains the anhedonia hypothesis that people with depression show lower levels of dopamine. So overall, dopamine is involved in reinforcement, learning and motivation, but has nothing to do with pleasure. More articles on that topic: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/feb/03/dopamine-the-unsexy-truth https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19073424 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201701/no-dopamine-is-not-addictive Why is that relevant? Once again, someone starts to spread something in the internet and people start believing it and use it in there own argumentation. So therefore, people say stuff like: "I am addicted to gaming, because it triggers my dopamine levels." This is false. As a matter of fact, I think that it makes us more prone to look for external excuses: "It is not my fault that I am addicted, it is the dopamine and I am helpless." We should also get rid of the idea of dopamine fasting, because neuroscience is always more complicated than that. Instead, we are in charge. You are gaming, because you like it at that moment and have no better alternatives. As long, as there is nothing else to pursue, you will still go back to gaming. So therefore, just trying to stay away from gaming to magically cure yourself from dopaminergic effects is nonsense. The goal is to instead focus on meaningful activities.
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I decided that I want to still write in this journal. Today, I came to realize that I kinda miss to write things down regarding my own thoughts and daily life. I normally don't like to change my mind, but in this regard, it is something, I feel good about. So I will continue this journal. I will also put the information of the other post in this journal as well. Since this journal here is just to "precious" to me. Eventually, I might want to reread things, I said earlier. So yeah, I will also continue to put ideas and insights I have, in this journal rather than in an external one.
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I know what you mean. I am a sport junkie and I would never disagree with out that working out is not beneficial for us. Right now, however, I am very interested in the fact that many people, even lay people, who are not neuroscientists start regularly pointing out to neurotransmitters and chemicals as arguments for their belief system and daily routines. Especially the tendency to look out or to indicate that only singular causes are responsible for certain "facts". Even things in papers are often a matter of discussion and the things we "know" right now, might be very well outdated in 50 years. We now live in the time, where neuroscience is the new fad and everyone considers it the ultimate science, but studying the history of psychology and science suggests that one should stay critical. That is completely fine. I don't know you that much in detail, so it is not possible for me to say, what it the truth and what is not. And that is not really important. It is only important, what you think about yourself. The questions are: What hinders you then to fulfill your goal of expressing yourself through the element of humour? I think that the internet has many downsides, but it this sense, we have more chances than every to express ourselves. We can have our own blog, youtube channel, twitch, books, ebooks. Why is it so bad to repeat a joke several times?
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Kamil joined the community
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How are you holding up?
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@BooksandTrees Thanks for your support. I hope to find some other kind of group to join too. Once this is all over anyways. I haven't needed 12 hours my whole life so yeah maybe it will clear up. Day 123 NF 92 Np 77 Med 63 Positive post: I walked like 7 miles today, I chilled with my mom and I applied for jobs. Yay, four months. I've been wanting to game more lately and it's no fun to deal with those feelings, but I'm doing it. I've been feeling like I don't want to do anything lately. Maybe it's the quarantine, maybe I'm just walking too much? At any rate work week start tomorrow, I hope I do well enough. Drawing is nice, but it kind of makes me get stressed and my skin will get oily when I draw so I tend to avoid it. Except with clients when I do art therapy because it's such a good way to pass the time in a therapeutic way. I wonder if I'll continue with art therapy or just find something else to have people do. Lately I've been getting people to journal. Kind of like here. I don't like to talk about work that much. I tend to get upset at the clients when I talk about them outside of work so I'll just stop now. I don't really know any drawing techniques to draw from imagination. I only end up drawing anything decent looking if I have something to try and copy. Maybe I could learn somewhere. I'm so focused on just my sleep and energy levels that I don't really have headspace to care about hobbies or much of anything else. My life focus is just work and sleep right now. It's okay, I can't wait to get to sleep. I hope everyone's weeks and sleep go well. I smiled at the office. I accomplished meditating. I am grateful for my calendar, nose, job, clients, sleep, meditation, walking, mom, nature, and eraser. God bless Erik
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Day 31 >Game-free: 31 days >Gaming videos: 31 days Journal Getting back on the morning journal again. Also shifting my wake-up time back a while (6:45am from 8am). I've got a lot of work I need to do, and I need that uninterrupted quiet time in the morning to get this done. In the short term my work hours are going up a lot, but I know from experience it's not sustainable long term. Today I'm going to be reaching out to some people, getting started on my website, plan out my content, do a whole load of organization work, work on my social media, and go through some courses I've been doing. It's a pretty packed day, but my GF is going to be away most of the day if not until tomorrow, so I'm going to dial in and get as much done as I can. No time for cravings here.
- Yesterday
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I lived with my mom last year and it's well documented in the first third of my diary how terrible it went. I don't blame you. Just be patient and see this thing through. I think having an office space is great and you can always move stuff if he comes back. Be careful with the gaming. I'm glad you didn't binge it, but don't let that give you confidence into playing in moderation. It never works. Good luck.
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Dude, I agree. I would have sat there ridiculing her in the most diminutive way possible for as long as possible until we broke up. I think I'm too evil for a relationship. I give maybe 1 chance tops and then I'm so ruthless. It's something I'm working on. I'm avoiding relationships until then.
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I appreciate this. Thank you. I think I'd really enjoy the drums. I'll take yours, but if I get COVID19 we'll have a problem. Lol jk. You know exactly what I'm talking about with comedy. It's like a stress release. I don't want it to be a career, but I just thoroughly enjoy dissecting something and making myself laugh as a way to be less cynical. I really enjoy making simple, yet creative ways to laugh after being so serious all of the time. For instance, I took these online quizzes to see where I should live in America because I'm unhappy being cold. All of the quizzes were stupid and I started getting fed up. I finally found one that asked for my name, so I wrote "penis". It kept addressing me as penis and I thought it was so funny because I turned this "huge" crisis of mine into a juvenile joke. And the quiz was so stupid that it just kept addressing me as penis. Like, who would name their kid penis and why would penis want to be searching for a new home? Penis, what are your favorite hobbies? Porn. Lol. The thing I'm trying to quit. I think maybe I need to just blast music and exercise to get some adrenaline flowing and then I can just relax and do a hobby. I just get lazy and don't wanna do it.
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Sounds like maybe you burned out if you watched that much Netflix. Just a guess but that's what happens to me. The most important thing is picking yourself up again the next day. We all are going to have a shit day eventually, that's just human nature. 🙂
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I always feel like I could be doing more but you're right, the days where I've been really productive that feeling is certainly lessened.
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Lol I'm with Books, it's been so long since I've seen another human being that I've actually wanted to talk to. Tried chatting with a friend from the other side of the country on Discord but it just felt weird. I've never been the kind of person to talk on the phone, either. I need a face. I wouldn't be talking to people without the social distancing either, though, so it's really not very different. Lol.
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I agree. I have written about how I turn it inward often I think that's why porn has been so hard to quit since it's my main way of dealing with it. I'll consider giving it another chance. It's just expensive.
