MPieterse

Day 6 I joined the gym, did the best I could to be busy. Short journal today my minds spinning. Went out for a drive, nowhere in particular. I'm feeling a lot repressed feelings lately that I suppressed through gaming. I've been looking at the feelings online, trying to find the root of these feelings. Looks like my anger comes from the insecurities I have about myself. I use to blame others for this but I realize now that I've hated myself for years. I also discovered that I push away people from my life, because I am afraid of loss. I grew up alone constantly changing schools, with parents that spent most of their time working. I've gotten so used to people moving in and out of my life, that I'm afraid of opening myself up to avoid the pain.

Day 5 Writing this a bit earlier I feel a bit out of ideas and I figured I should just go to bed I spent the earlier half of the day cleaning my room and the other half shopping for clothes. Learned about fashion and dressing for men, and realized I've been doing it wrong. Spent the rest of the time doing some minor work, drawing, working out, and watching TV. I've been finding myself more and more on edge since I last played games. Excersice helps stem it, but I feel the anger from my past coming back too me. I also feel the compulsive need to take a shower. I tried to get a profile picture of myself on, but there's a file size limit. I could probably find a way around it, but I'm procrastinating.

Day 4 Decided to do this slightly earlier tonight as I plan to go to bed early. Its been a rough Christmas. I had an anxiety attack last night and I fell asleep around 7am. I tried meditating before bed as I normally do but my mind was a mess. Last night when my friend and I were talking and he said I should just fb message that girl. We both agreed that I should do it after Christmas. I remember laying that restless, and anxious. I used to go to bed at these unholy hours of the day staying up gaming all night, but right now it just feels weird. Its not that I am afraid of rejection that killing me, its happened to me before and I've gotten over it. The waiting is what is making me feel like my mind is a concert in the middle of New York. This Christmas started two hours later, when my sister woke me up two hours later. I tried going back to bed, but I couldn't. I got up to a minor hangover and sleep deprived So I ended up just getting up and opening presents with the family. Christmas is when I got my first console, and have nostalgia of the one day in the year as a kid that I could play games all day. Gifts and presents don't have that same sway over me as they used too. I ended up falling asleep for two more hours and missing breakfast. When I woke up, my sister and my dad where going on a hike and I joined them. Its been awhile since I was out in the hills. I didn't talk much to them, I more just walked down the trail. Being outside didn't feel that stimulating, but the air helped put my mind to peace. Afterwards we picked up my cousin, who came back with us for Christmas dinner. I had to squeeze in a shower, finish painting the shoes that were meant to be a gift for my sister, and cook part of dinner. I ended up overcooking the meat and the sauce wasn't reduced as it should be but it was edible. I found that once we started eating dinner that I wasn't that hungry at all. Right now my heads spinning and I want to lie down and sleep. I found that in the past couple days, I've become a bit aggressive towards others as I have snapped out a few times. Goal for tomorrow: get a picture of myself on the thumbnail.

Day 3 (technically 4 as this is 2:32am) Long day, started the same of the previous. Spent the morning with my family, did a bit of exercise, and continued painting shoes. Watched Game of Thrones with my sister who hasn't seen any of it yet. Then at 8 I got a text from my best friend who lives a few blocks down and he invited me over. I was a bit nervous at first, he's the person who introduced me into gaming and gaming is the thing we bonded over when we were little. We have also been friends since we were little, and this is the first time we have talked in awhile. I was nervous telling him that I was quitting games, as some of my best memories were about us gaming. Honestly when we met it went completely different then how I would have imagined. We drank a bit and the conversation turned to a multitude of subjects. We talked about the girl I just met, to school when I told him I was taking a serious break from gaming. He told me he experienced the same thing with gaming. He still plays a bit but he talked about his addiction as well, and its really comforting to know that I'm not the only person that I know personally that experienced this problem. We had a chat about life, growing up, and mental health. Its weird but refreshing now to talk about deep emotions that we both knew but didn't know how talk about when we were younger. It meant a lot to me that he understood that I went through a lot of my childhood angry and confused. I've never had anyone tell me anything like that and I feel so glad to have him as a friend. Merry Christmas every1 goodnight

Day 2 Didn't make a journal on the first day my mistake. Honestly this is fairly good time for me where my urges aren't that bad. Its Christmas and I have been spending the majority of my time spending it with my family. It helps being preoccupied with other things to keep my mind off games. Spent the first half of the day shopping and getting breakfast. I've spent the rest of the time trying to paint shoes (for the first time) as a gift. There not done yet and they are going to be finished tomorrow. So far there turning out fairly sub par as I didn't thin the paint beforehand. Whoops. I am constantly worried as I am off for a week longer that I initially thought. I've been trying to reduce/stop games before I joined the program and while I haven't been successful on my own, I have found that constantly keeping busy is the easiest thing to curve my addiction. I'm worried about the relapsing during this time.

Hey Everyone, My name is Misha, and I am 21 from California and I've been suffering from this video game addiction for almost all my life. Gaming has been a destructive force in my life, and recently it has caused me a lot of pain, self-hatred, and loneliness. I started gaming 13 years ago, at my friends house on the N64. I was hooked to video games ever since that time, I eventually got a gamecube two years later and I remember that it playing on it every chance that I could. Childhood was rough for me, my parents where strict, and I changed schools constantly. I remember how alienating it was trying to fit into a group of friends constantly, and trying to deal with the fact that I lost the friends I previously had. It was especially tough for me as I was a awkward and shy kid. Video games was one the few constant forces I had in my life and it helped me cope with life. But this coping measure started to take over my life. I burned out in High School. My first year everything went well, I was a A-B student that did all my work and didn't miss a single day of class. But the beginning of the next year I absolutely lost it, as my mother signed me up -without my knowledge- to a extra class that would "prepare me for college." Problem was my schedule was already full and I had to take a zero period (a class every day that started at 7:00). I had enough, of her, of school, and life in general. This is the time I first started compulsively playing games. It was one of the few activities that gave me pleasure. My grades dropped, I started ditching school, and experimenting with drugs and alcohol. But video games were always my main form of escapism. Senior year I woke up and realized that I should probably go to college. I had no clue what I wanted by my only goal was to leave. I had to pull two extra classes during my first semester and pass the ones I was taking that year, and I completed my first semester. It was a incredible feeling, that I had won, that I could leave, and all my problems would go away. Or so I thought. The final semester of senior year I started to slack off big time. Its here that I first had a feeling deep down that I had a problem with gaming. My friend introduced me to DOTA 2 and I became obsessed with the game. I played non-stop, as soon I started got home every day to about 3-4 in the morning. I started sleeping in school, half assing all the work I had to do. My grade dipped and by the end I got D (I needed a C for college) in the one class that I was mandatory. Luckily I had enough to graduate, but my plan had backfired. I spent my time after High School playing video games obsessively. Every single free moment I had poured into games. I went to a nearby culinary school just so I could avoid getting a job and devote more of my time to games. The few friends I had in my life left and moved on. The only people I interacted with where the friends I had online. But as I sunk all my times into games I found that the pleasure I got from them where few and far between. I tried to sink more and more time in, or changing the games I played but It didn't help. Deep down I think I knew that I had a problem. But as time went on, I started to feel shame, desperation, and hopelessness. As I played I found myself uninterested, with the same thoughts in the back of my mind; "Why are you doing this?" or "You can't do this forever." But the next day I would do the same as the day before trying to convince myself that it was alright and I enjoyed this. I decided to go back to school at the local community college. It went well at first, then I started to have problems. I kept staying up late playing games. Then I started missing class, and ignoring my work. I ended up flunking half the classes I took, and its a miracle that I passed the others. The feelings of Depression, Anxiety, and Loneliness got worse and I found myself playing at every moment I got just to try and suppress these feelings. These feelings climaxed at one point where one night I just wanted to die. In the end I didn't but it was the lowest point of my life. Since that time I was suicidal I have taken a look back on my life and accepted that I have problems. Gaming has been my way of escapism from life, and even though it brought me joy in the past, I know that I need to quit. It is going to be the hardest thing I have ever done.