qmi

Hey there you beautiful people. I'm a 19 yo male from Finland who has played games all his life. I remember playing age of empires with my dad before I could even read any language. I got hooked on games pretty quickly and at around 12 years after my birth I was already a video game addict. Multiplayer games were always a great substitute for friendships, soon I became isolated from outside world and started to stay home and play all day. I can remember some gaming communities that were like families to me, I would meet my online "friends" and have a great time with them. I did not see the problem with playing and being antisocial, heck, I even thought I was being social when talking to strangers on internet. At around age of 18 I realized gaming had became a problem. I felt lonely and depressed instantly after being without my games. I tried to quit, many times in fact, but my breaks from gaming went from day to maximum two weeks. I started hating myself for not having friends or control of my own life. I became depressed, got diagnosed with moderate depression and started doing SSRI meds. This was the roughest time of my life, I hated every moment I played but even more I hated every moment I couldn't play, I was completely trapped inside my head. Then slowly after the medicine started working, I had the power to make greatest decision of my life: I destroyed my steam account, account that had over 10 000 hours of games played and thousands of bucks wasted. There was no turning back, I had finally found the route to freedom. It was still very hard, I spend the first month binge watching every series on Netflix I could find. I was not living fully and I think I was afraid of seeing what I was, how broken I still was from gaming. Last summer I met a girl that I really liked, and that came with realization that I can feel again, the numbness from all the ignorance and hatred that I had gained from gaming had slowly vanished away. We did not end together but I think it was a great help gaining access for addiction that was still somewhere there in my head. I became optimistic on life, started exercising daily, started reading more and filled my life with things that improve me. I also quit the meds and have been clear since, yay Now, at the present moment, It has been over 80 days without steam. I still miss some of my online friends. I'm still very lonely. But I'm way happier and I know it is normal to feel lonely sometimes. I'm much stronger mentally and physically than I have ever been in my entire life. It may be hard to stay without games but I promise you it is worth it. Hopefully you'll understand my English clearly enough and get some inspiration from my story