DaBest

Glad to see you're feeling better. Was that your first or second dose?

Thanks @Stev1989PL. Yeah, that's the thing. At least when I notice when the urges happen, I learn SO MUCH about why it happened as long as I can sit and think for a second. Nice try with selfrevealating, but it's not a word, lol. I think you're looking for "self-revelatory," and yes, it is self-revelatory. --- So far so good today. Baby headache for most of the day for not being able to use my phone or laptop for dumb stuff. Yet again, another really good day at work because I wasn't super distracted and I pretty much had to focus on my work because there was no better alternative. I took some time early on to write another mini-journal when I was feeling a lot of resistance to getting started. I realized the thought was really irrational and focused on fear of failure. Once I rationalized it away, I had much more focus for a couple of hours. My focus kind of waned after about 8 hours though, but that could also be due to a little bit of sleep deprivation. Neck still bothering me a little and because of the late work (to make up for Tuesday), no gym today. I was also pretty good at keeping to my word when I got home as well. I did finish watching a YouTube video on dating after my timer expired, but I started watching beforehand and if I'm spending my time focusing on the things that I've usually tried my best to IGNORE, the rules were made to bent for things like that. I just don't want to be on Twitter for three hours wondering why the heck I'm even there in the first place. Interestingly enough, I find myself "done" with Twitter after about 15 minutes. If I do one 15 minutes session a day, that's way better than 6 x 15 minutes sessions a day whenever I feel panicky. That's so much time back. Let's see what tomorrow brings. I wonder how long it's going to take to adjust to this. Regardless, I'm happy I've been on the right track for the past few days.

Congrats on the three weeks! Keep moving forward.

I'm very on-edge today. The internet restrictions I put in place are hard as heck. I'm so uncomfortable without distraction. However, I think this will be good as it will teach me to stay more present, just like meditation has been doing. As a result of basically banning all my normal vices, I got a lot done at work today--thankfully, at the office. Overall, I had more focus, but I also noticed a lot of the intrusive negative thoughts throughout the day. I had to take some time to handle those and think through them rationally. Just got finished hanging out with my friend and now I can't go on and do the dumb stuff I normally do, so I guess I'll read a bit and go to bed.

Good stuff. Those are good things you're taking up. Let the good habits thrive and the bad ones die.

Interesting 48 hours. I've been kind of cooped up at home the past few days, and I can't say I've done the best with it. Sunday I made it out to the gym and started a recovery week, and probably for the first time ever, one that was actually earned. I'm aiming for roughly three weeks on, one "off" to avoid injury. Ironically enough, I didn't even notice it right away but I tweaked my neck when I was golfing on Saturday. It's a recurring thing. It's nearly 100% at this point and I think I'm going to modify my warmup a bit for golf, especially if I want to get homicidal with the ball. Sunday night and Monday night was a bit of an internet binge, lack of sleep from the first helping the second. I did put in a full day of work on Monday though. I was watching the dumbest shit on YouTube, and reading the dumbest shit on Twitter and Reddit. This pattern has been increasing recently, and I'm not happy about it. I was dead tired when I got up today. I'm sick of this. I want my time back so I can craft the life I want regardless of Covid. I took care of some early work and then I had to take a few hours for myself to do the following: 1) I'm completely revamping my internet usage for the next week. Signed a contract to myself (hmm). I've done stuff like this in the past with zero success, but this time, instead of making it "Here's all the stuff I'm going to not do ever again," it's time-bound, and I identify THE THINGS THAT WILL REPLACE THEM!!!! I also give myself a little hour-long window every day to let the vice live pretty much unrestricted for now. I also identify the need that I think each thing services, and I was remarkably more content with the restrictions I'm putting on myself. There will be some hard tasks in here. Sparing yet another essay, I'm probably most afraid of "No laptop or phone (less music or podcasts) while eating, and "turning off router at 9/9:30 Friday - Sunday." The first one was already really hard, but I did it. 2) I cleaned up a lot and did some more cooking that I was postponing. I did do some more work in the afternoon, but fell well short of a full day. I'm going to get to bed early, so I can get up early, get OUT of my house tomorrow, and just focus and kick ass at work. I can make up the time over the next three days. No factor. Company is pretty flexible because nearly everyone is out of the office. Anyway, I'm a little hopeful right now. Felt like a good step in the right direction, and I'm not running off the deep end like I was last night and the one prior. I may fuck up a lot, and I may be quite the hypocrite at times, but I am NOT going to stop fighting.

Good job, keep going. What have you been doing in place of games? Besides drinking, or is that still a thing?

Working out isn't a question anymore, lol. If I can get there I will. I'm increasingly becoming obsessed with lifting big heavy things and becoming stronger. It's been in my personality for a LONG time, but this is the first time I'm really committed to doing something significant about it. Honestly, it was just lack of sleep from the week. That's the thing I need to manage better. Fuck yes. --- Today is a mixed bag, and I'm near going off the rails so now I'm going to set some direction. Recap so far: Passed out on my couch last night. Apparently I was insanely tired. Got up. Had a great workout. Hot damn I love squats and deadlifts! Went to the driving range, and kinda sorta figured out how to not slice my 3-wood, which is my nemesis. I was hitting it consistently straight, and then I started to try and murder the ball, and I was still kinda hitting it straight! It's only taken six months, but I'm happy as heck about this. Went to go grocery shopping but the store had a line due to the Covid capacity restrictions. I'm really getting over these restrictions, the majority of which don't do anything appreciable nor have appropriate peer-reviewed and controlled data to back it up. I'm going to get off my soapbox before I start ranting about science. Goals now: My apartment is messy. Time to clean. After get groceries. After meditate. After hit up Tinder and start studying because even though I got nothing going on right now, I can still improve myself.

Hey, glad to hear you are in a better place right now. I can understand how you might feel embarrassed and unworthy of a PTSD diagnosis, but that doesn't just apply to soldiers. It varies and can apply to any significant trauma, at least to the perception of the person experiencing it. Your brain isn't evolutionarily different from a soldier's brain. Abuse survivors routinely experience PTSD. I haven't been diagnosed with PTSD, but there's some aspects from that that I feel like I--or really anyone--could identify with. Oftentimes, I can experience some kind of a varying stimulus that puts me square back in my 8-year-old self's shoes, and it's weird because if you asked me an age for that shift, it's 8 and not any other age. That was also the same time where my world came crashing down in various ways. I don't think that's coincidence. Full-blown PTSD? Maybe not, but using the understanding of the multiple ways that the brain processes trauma is helpful in dealing with those feelings, at least when I notice it. The beauty of this is that you now know the nature of your enemy a little better, and that puts you in a much better position to fight it. I'm glad you and your therapist have been making progress.

Nothing remarkable to report. Got up early. Worked. Went to happy hour. Came home. I'm kind of tired. Think I'll go to bed early and hit the gym early. Oh, I forgot to meditate today. I'll do that before bed. Mundane day.

To answer your question, yeah it probably is. Any addiction or habit usually fills a need of some kind (comfort, connection, etc.), and your brain will try to do other things to fill that need. When I gave up gaming, I spent way more time on YouTube, Twitter, and other mindless time wasters. I still struggle with it, but it's better now, but I had to try and find stuff that filled that need--mostly connecting with others. The better I connect with others, the less time I generally spend on the internet, all things equal. Do you think watching YouTube is you just trying to cope?

Man, everyone's really feeling it right now aren't they? Fuck the winter, and fuck all the other bullshit going on. We are here for you and want you to get better. I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this right now. It sucks being on an emotional roller coaster like that. It sounds like you're working from home, so do yourself a favor tomorrow and get some time out of your house while it's sunny out to do absolutely anything. Walk, workout at the gym, buy something, whatever. Just appreciate being outside and leave all the negative thoughts in your apartment. Nature doesn't give a damn about your parents, or about your past regrets, and neither does time. It just is. While you're out, let that have time for you to just focus on whatever it is you chose to do, but tell your negative thoughts they need to take a break for an hour, and that you can wrestle with them when you get back to your apartment, if you want. It's your brain and you can choose to think about what you want, when you want, if that makes any sense. It's a hard skill but it's possible. Good luck bro, you will get through this. Fuck the haters.

Hey bud, sorry to hear you've been struggling. One step at a time. Your life might be messed up now, but there's always something to be said for striving for the ideal, whatever that is. No matter how bad things are going, as long as you are still aiming for whatever that goal is, no one can take that from you. Many people don't even have goals and don't even try to better themselves. You bust your ass every single day with all the stuff you have to go through, and even then you still push further. It's impressive as heck. Two questions, just curious, not necessarily suggesting anything. 1) Is it just in-person meetings that make you feel so badly? I mean, you interact with a bunch of us here on the forums. Would it be helpful if you tried more phone calls or video calls? 2) Have you considered lines of work that involve less in-person interactions, for example, being an author/writer, or doing sales over the phone? I'm not suggesting you run away from your problems, which never works, but your health is important, and maybe it might be beneficial to give yourself some mental space to breathe and try to figure out how to handle in-person interactions better. And you're in a unique situation with your disease, and I really don't want to actually suggest anything since I have a hard time putting myself in your shoes. Either way, chin up bud.

Quick post because I'm stupid and I have no idea why I'm still up. Fell asleep on my couch last night. I didn't realize I was that tired. I don't even remember lying down. Woke up VERY late by my standards, but not late by when I usually start work. Worked from home. Made good progress on the project. Didn't get much interaction with other people online though until late in the day. When my boss-boss called me and gave me another related task. He also gave me really good feedback on the work I've been doing, and that makes me very happy. External validation!!! And I was just happy to talk to somebody too. That's the only part I miss from my old job, the people. However, my mental health is way better with the new job. Oh and I generally did a really good job of not being on my phone and getting distracted. Got to the gym after as well. Overall it was a really good workout, and I had a nice chat with the really hot check-in lady, who apparently is married. All good though, but man, I sucked with that bar/club scene social interactions with hot women, but man, it was just fun. I'm grateful for how today went. Tomorrow, I want to get up when I set my alarm so I can get work done early and not have to work late.

@BooksandTrees, caveat: it's only been three weeks. Generally, yes. Mostly because I get to sleep sooner and when I do sleep, it feels much deeper. But then again, I'm also trying to prioritize sleep for recovery. I'll have a better answer in a few months if I stick with it. Why do you ask? --- Quick post. Car fixed. Found another problem. Fun. Fix later. Job. Good feedback on deliverable that I started. Still a lot more work to be done. Motivation lagged at end of day when I got home, and I still had some more work to do. Started to get really itchy for my phone. Therapy. Talked about how when it comes to things I'm not comfortable with, I view things more as risks and negatives rather than opportunities and positives. This is limiting. Also, I need to get back on the habit with Tinder and such, as I've kind of lagged the past week. Hung out with friend after, had fun. Peace.

Hey, glad you liked the links! Unfortunately, I cannot profess to be a language learning expert, especially since I haven't done it myself. I took 8 years of Spanish in school and all I can do in that is get myself to the bathroom and hospital. Keep going! You're doing great so far. Our experiences do seem similar. I'll take you up on that offer if I can ever get my ass over to Europe if and when they finally stop with this travel restriction nonsense, haha.

Quick post. Worked from home today. Got up earlier but still started a little late. Got a lot of work done today, though I ended up short of where I wanted to be by today, per what I discussed with the guy who asked me to help on this in the first place. First time doing this kind of deliverable, and I ran into some obstacles along the way. I'm much more forgiving of myself with the first time doing something. But yeah, today I was focused, not very distracted, hardly reaching for my phone, motivated. Again, all I really want to do is kick ass right now. I like this. Got to the gym after. Leg day. Added extra weight beyond what I was planning cause I felt social pressure. Still lifted it well. I love squats and deadlifts now. I feel so accomplished afterwards. Need to get up early tomorrow to get my car to the shop before I have a meeting. No messing around. Goodnight.

Today went much better than the weekend. I was generally quite focused when working, but got derailed by meetings and home BS today. Due to some car issues, I'm going to be without going to the office at least until Wednesday, and then I might have to put it in the shop again for another issue which I've delayed fixing for about a year and a half (story of my life). While I got nowhere near as much done as I would've liked on my deliverable, I'm going to bed at a reasonable hour tonight so I can attack the day tomorrow. Also taking care of groceries, cooking, and cleaning today took so much mental clutter out of my head, which will make the rest of my work week go better especially if I can't make it into the office much. Honestly, I didn't mess around too much today--was hardly on YouTube, Twitter, or Reddit. I'm pretty motivated right now, in general. Really all I want to do right now is kick ass and make stuff better. This is a good feeling and I want to feel like this all the time. Getting back on the meditation train really helped today. And that's about it for today, I guess.

Fuck yeah my dude! This is so good! This is presence and mindfulness--the opposite of escapism and distraction. I know exactly how you feel, and I've only just started really getting it and figuring out how to get it and why it's so damn important. It just brings this inner peace that I find I search for in games and the internet but never get. It's not easy, and it is fleeting, but practicing that via meditation has made it so much easier to reduce my internet time recently. Hey man, I like talking to you, and I'm happy you're posting. I identify with a lot of what you write in your posts and find them to be good reminders for me to stay on the good path. Not sure what you mean by "it" in "how long it lasted," but I'm guessing you mean gaming urges and/or depression. For urges, they go down with time and the better you construct a life away from them, but they never really go away. That's why some science says you can never really "break" a habit, and instead you have to layer new habits on top of the old ones. Your habits are all there because they serve or served a major purpose at one point in your life. Say, for example (not saying this is you), someone games because they are lonely and don't want to feel bored/worthless/whatever. The gaming strips the negative emotion but doesn't fix the problem, so gaming will be harder (but not impossible) to move away from as long as that person feels lonely. If that person can make good friends and hobbies outside of gaming, the feeling of loneliness goes away, and the gaming dies down. I've found this to be very true in my case. In terms of depression, I don't know, I'm still dealing with it, haha! If you assume depression is a pyscho-bio-social disease and not just one of the three, you are just going to have to experiment and really learn what puts you down the wrong path. Just embrace and learn from the failures and keep getting back up. I love gaming because it makes me feel completely numb like a heroin addict when I don't want to feel anything. Back when I was a kid, that was really key to my survival. Now I'm an adult and don't need that anymore, yet the habit is still there. Though it was never a habit where you hear people buying diapers so they can game for 24 hours straight, or ordering pizza all the time so they didn't have to cook, my version was generally a time sink where I could kind of do the bare minimum and never reach my full potential, in school or socially. About me? I'm a 100% pure red-white-and-blue American. 28 years old, engineer in the pharmaceutical industry. I'm glad you like my English, but I don't know about fluency in other languages since I don't have any others that I'm fluent in 😄 . Tim Ferriss and Scott H. Young have some really cool ideas on picking up new languages and achieving fluency. Right now, I'm just trying to get good at my new job, build up some new hobbies thanks to stupid Covid restrictions, and I'm honestly working pretty hard right now to be the best person I can be socially, physically, spiritually, and intellectually, because I'm tired of being some random dumbass who spends too much time on the internet and running from their own problems. The last bit I've been doing a lot better at recently. So, yeah. 🙂

100%. Yeah, I started to do this a little bit better last week. I was opting for more stretching, walking, going to the bathroom even though I didn't really need to, meditating, etc. My phone usage was pretty low last week with the exception of yesterday. --- I suck at being present, lol. This isn't self-hate, just it is what it is right now. The meditation has helped immensely but I fucked up hard this past weekend. Things were good up through mid-day Saturday, and then I saw an article on Google News about a different esport that I was interested in during the past and, HEY, there's a big event going on RIGHT NOW! So of course I caved because the alternative was studying since my house was relatively clean and orderly at that point. Then I justified watching LoL again. Then I justified another bad action and another and another. Meanwhile, there were some very important activities which I was postponing, which made the stress and shame much worse as time went on. I went to bed very late. This morning rolled around and I swore to turn over a new leaf and didn't do so good. Watched some of the other esport. Thank God I had something planned with a friend in the afternoon, and that helped to snap me out of it somewhat. I got home, and tried to maintain a semblance of focus and not watch esports, and instead do the things that made me feel better and improved my situation. I watched about 5 minutes of League before getting disgusted and turning it off, which was an improvement over yesterday. Here's the breakdown of why it happened: 1) Overwhelm. From work, from dumb corona restrictions, from lack of social life, from lack of romantic life. This turned me into a kid again, which is hilarious, because I've also been meditating with specific intent to cultivate my masculine energy and discipline, which has worked and was making last week pretty decent, all things considered. Out of anything right now overwhelm and loneliness are my biggest triggers. 2) No meditation. I didn't meditate on Saturday or Sunday morning. DUMB. This goes back to the presence thing. I got so stuck up in my own thoughts. There is only one thought I need right now--step forward no matter what. I was really happy with last week's progress--I hit the gym five times, my sleep was better, my diet was better, I was meditating--and I want my default mode to be constantly pursuing fixing my problems and being okay with just doing that. If I'm present, I can focus on that much better, and I don't turn into a kid. For a decent amount of last week I actually felt like a man, which is a big deal for me. The fixes to these are possible: 1) Overwhelm--continue to develop the habit of running to the obstacle. I think this habit is like a muscle, and I might have just overworked it a bit. Next time, just go further. 1B) Notice when this is happening by practicing meditation, and learn how to better appreciate and accept the feeling. 2) Meditate, meditate, meditate. I had so much focus this week compared to normal. This cannot be understated. BIG WINS. 2B) Get more present and out of my head. Yeah, so, this week will be difficult with the start I've given myself, but I will reel it in as best I can.

Yeah, that's a lot of gaming and a lot of habit to overcome. But hey, you're doing great so far! For me, it was basically all I did (and surfing the internet) when I was a kid and teenager. I would've played all day if my parents hadn't stopped me. The first time I knew I had a problem was when I got a trial Xbox Gold subscription with Modern Warfare 2, and on day 3 of the subscription I was so hooked I woke up, went to play for an hour, instead played for 8 without getting anything to eat or drink or go to the bathroom, and feeling just unstuck from time. I deleted everything off my Xbox and put it away forever in a box in a closet. That progressed to watching games to 3 AM in the morning during undergrad to get a fix. That then progressed to me trying to connect with a similarly addicted and depressed roommate over League of Legends, which I was INSTANTLY hooked to. I curbed that for about a year, but then went back to it when I had extreme anxiety caused by my lung bursting (yep), thinking it was a heart problem (your left lung holds the heart in place, and without it the heart kinda swings like a pendulum), to which I then played for about three 16+ hour days straight before going to the student health center and getting sent to the ER. Ironically enough, apparently that condition is more common with tall, skinny, sedentary, male individuals like myself. Apparently it affects esports players at a higher rate than normal too (it's still rare), which is ironic. A few months after that I found Game Quitters, and then I would periodically relapse a few times a year for 16+ hour stints. I've been good from not playing for a while, I willingfully relapsed a handful of times during lockdowns last year, and then relapsed a last time for about 8 hours during the summer. Now it's just down to curbing the distractions and the internet in general, since the desire to escape is still there, but it generally goes to less harmful outlets.

Yeah, that's probably a lot of just detox feeling. You're going from super dopamine highs with gaming, and replacing it with something relatively boring. It's going to take time for you to find ways to get more engaged and just get used to the lower level of stimulation. How much were you gaming per day before your detox?

Mixed bag day. Got up late and enough's enough. I'm going back to my old back of tricks and "practicing" getting out of bed so I can strengthen the cue-habit response. I also need to start going to bed earlier on a work night. On the good side though I still started work on time. I got onto a new project today and I have a tight timeline on some deliverables that I've never done before. I gave a first stab at it in the afternoon and I wasn't happy with how it turned out. I'm going to look at some similar projects and incorporate more things I like about them even if it takes me extra time during this first go round. If whoever did those did a good job, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to. I might put some time into it this weekend. I also had a hard time focusing since my brain was screaming "You're new to this so you'll suck, which means 100% of you sucks, so why even try? Just go on your phone." I fought through it better than in the past. I'm just going to keep meditating and challenging those notions until they're gone. It's just going to take time. After work I had the quickest happy hour with an old buddy, but he had to leave because of a work emergency. We will catch up next week. Still glad I went though. On the bright side, I had time to hit the gym after. I'm really motivated to get ripped right now. Tomorrow the goal is to be very productive and see if I can find a social outlet on Saturday. I do have something set up on Sunday. And no esports or other drivel like last weekend.

Overall good day. Got up late, again, but basically par for the course this week. I was not in bed as long as yesterday. Decided to work from home in the morning. Wasn't super-productive but I had no billable work so, eh? Went to work after lunch and found out I was going to get put on another project in the meantime, which is exciting since it's a cool project from what I've heard. I start on that tomorrow. It was funny though because the initial ask is something I haven't done before and is a little outside my skillset. Instantly, I was tired, cranky, and wanting to reach for my phone. Really, it was just loads of self-doubt and an irrational thought process. I recently started writing these thoughts down on paper after listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast that was talking about regulating one's "inner voice." It's actually a pretty powerful technique in the moment. What I'll do is write the irrational/negative thought I'm having on one side of the paper and let the "voice" say what it wants to. Then I flip the page over, analyze it rationally and realize 99% of it is BS, and then my focus comes back and I'm not acting like a child anymore. Afterwards I was hyper-focused and did a lot of development work since I need a) a run down on the project and b) software downloaded onto my laptop tomorrow so I can actually do the work. I stayed pretty late. I'm much more motivated to develop myself as an engineer now, since it seems to actually benefit me way more in this role than my old job. And to finish it all off, I made it to the gym and got a good leg workout in. Added weight, no injuries, good progress. Tomorrow's goal is to spend even less time in bed in the morning.

I was on fire today. Start wasn't the best. I was really tired from the past few days and slept in an extra hour. Started work from home, and was productive and motivated. Had an awesome meditation session. Went to work after lunch, killed it there too. Got home, went to gym, and then hung out with a friend online afterwards. Oh, and most importantly, I did a much better job not reaching for my phone at work today. The only time I did that was when I was bored in the middle of a meeting while my camera was off. In retrospect though, that's still building a bad habit so I shouldn't have done it. Food for thought for tomorrow. I think my one improvement for tomorrow will be to set my alarm clock back a bit. I will either show up to work at my normal time, or start work from home a little earlier, without sitting in my bed and NOT sleeping. Either sleep or don't. Don't just sit there. It's a little late right now so I'll make an allowance for this since I was just being social, but I'll leave this to Thursday mornings only because of that.