BooksandTrees

Thank you very much. I appreciate this a lot. I think I'm finally starting to feel recovered enough to pursue hobbies again and relax as well. I'm starting to really look forward to the new job.

I think this was a huge step for my healing. I wrote a lot about how much I hated my family in my first couple years of posting on this website. It wasn't until about 2019 that I started to fix that. It's strange how I hated my dad and never wanted to see him again and how that evolved into the relief of not feeling hatred anymore, having a father again, and being able to have contact here and there. It was also relieving to see him change. It's a lot to change yourself, but it means a lot when the others who have pained you at times can also change. Some can't change and we have to accept it. Sometimes people change and it can mean the world.

Yeah, @Yan, for some reason I just found that the days did not matter. I remember being the best in the world at a video game in 2013 and nobody cared. I was so proud of the rank and not one person gave a shit. Then I did not give a shit. Once I started hitting 500+ days on this website I realized it didn't matter. Most people on this website end up quitting completely within 30 days and never come back. If I told people I hit 500 days it might be more intimidating to a newcomer than it would be inspiring to them. They'd feel they need to climb a mountain to recover rather than seeing the possibility of them hitting 500+ days of relief and growth. I also felt like it was dragging on me. If I fail, that huge number of days was for nothing. Holding onto that number was stressful. I think just saying "it's this day and month and I had these good and bad things happen" was a better format for my mental health and success with improving as a person.

Alright, I haven't been around very much because of all the stress from work, but I have some big updates to share. I got a new job, gave my 2 weeks' notice, and am officially out of that company. It's been an ordeal. I was dreading waking up each morning, getting depressed to the point of crying and eating food all day to deal with that stress, and then sleeping for hours after work to hide, only to stay awake late and have anxiety attacks because of the fear of starting another day at that job. My boss was harassing me and treating me poorly. He would yell at me, criticize me, never apologize, and he never did any work himself. It was a terrible situation and I knew this job was going to suck after only 2 months. I managed to stick it out for about a year and a half. I don't know whether that was the right thing or not. My previous job was depressing and I was overworked, but this was just a combative and hostile environment. Maybe I should have left sooner. Who knows? But the important thing is I am out of there. I'm now at a larger company and will have more anonymity there. Being at a small company can suck because you're always under the microscope and if your manager underperforms there's only you to be blamed for it if they can't accept blame. It's very toxic. I'm taking the next two weeks off to heal mentally and physically. I've gained 50+ lbs at this job in just one year. My health is not good because of it. I plan on doing things around the house that have fallen behind, exercising, meal prepping better, and trying to engage in more creative activities again such as writing or playing music. I'm proud of myself for leaving that job. I was so depressed that I never even wanted to talk about my problems. As you can see from the amount of journal entries I have on my diary, I write a tremendous amount and always have something to say. This job crushed my spirits so much that I frequently wait 2-6 weeks between posts because I can't stomach writing about my pain from day to day anymore. It had become too much. I'm proud that I was there for myself. I'm grateful for myself for looking after myself. I'm grateful for my fiance for taking care of me and I'm grateful for opportunities. I'll try to be around more and meet more of the community as I did in the past. This past year I've really fallen out of touch with the community on this site and it's because I did not have the strength to solve my own problems head on. If I can't do that then I can't be reliable for others in that moment. Maybe I can, but my heart doesn't have the capacity to do both so I chose to protect myself and give myself the support as the main focus.

I really like the template you have for these summaries. You could make a book out of these and sell them lol.

It's tough because I enjoy my personal life so much. I'm so grateful and comparing it to my past is night and day. I found a few job opportunities recently and had a great interview yesterday. We'll see what happens.

I agree. I really feel writing helps fuel me and relieve me of stress and pain. I feel such joy in it.

I recently confronted my management again and had a big issue unfold. So I hear you there. Company did a good job overall though.

Welcome to the community! I'm glad you're here and glad that you're working on yourself. Keep up the good work. It takes some time for people to start posting on other diaries so be patient on that aspect. That's something I struggled with was posting so much and not receiving much feedback at times. It comes when you need it. The act of journaling is very beneficial so I am glad you're practicing now.

I haven't been around much lately and it's for a few reasons. The first reason is I've been severely depressed about my job. My manager and I do not see eye to eye on things and I get severe anxiety even working on a project out of anticipation that I have to have a conversation with them at some point. I just panic and then do nothing for a little and then do a sloppy job on the project and it becomes a self-fulfilled prophecy. It's terrible. I've gained a lot of weight. Whenever I get stressed at work I go downstairs and eat. I sleep at lunch and then after work. It's terrible. I recently applied and interviewed at a few different jobs this week. I can't take it anymore. I talked with management about the issue and I think the company handled it very well. I'm impressed with how supportive they are of me and my manager to help them deal with stress. The only issue is I don't think it will resolve anything. I think my manager's personality is very proud, very correct, and very pointed. This leads to sharp conversations and they become combative. I don't see this improving whatsoever. I just feel like they'll hire a project manager as a buffer between the two of us. The anger and sadness I get during the day at work leads me to hype myself up in panic. This leads to panic induced depression to calm me down. Then I just become a zombie. I will say that I've worked on writing short stories as a stress outlet and have really enjoyed it. I have finally found a creative hobby, writing, to take my mind off of things. It stinks because I want to cry and I can't. My mind uses depression to calm me down before I reach the point of crying. So I just sit there with sort-of watery eyes and then feel heavy and blank after feeling flighty and panicked. The jobs I applied to are all busy. The industry is busy so I think no matter where I go I'll have overtime. I just feel stressed here to the point of breakdown. The old job I had was bad because I was getting paid poorly for doing a lot of work and budgets were an issue. Here, though, budgets are an issue, I struggle with my boss, and I'm not enjoying any of the projects. I haven't been happy here for about 9 months. It's too much. It's so disorganized and hectic day in and day out. I need a place with standard processes. I need stability. I've been avoiding writing about it on here because it just leads me back to hyping myself up out of anger or sadness and then I get depressed again. But I'm trying today and it felt good to write about it. I think this is a large reason I haven't written on here as much since getting the new job. It's just miserable and I try to avoid the topic altogether. I'm very happy with my family life and home life. I feel very blessed and am grateful for this. I'm just tired of getting a new job again. I just don't feel like this place will work out.

Thanks. I think I'm just gonna keep plugging away at little tasks here and there and hopefully get to a point this month where I've done all my errands. I personally doubt I'll do a ton of hobbies til January at this point. But that doesn't mean I've failed in hobbies either. Life comes first.

It took me a long time to just separate exhaustion and depression. But when you can do that I think it's beneficial to rest more at different times in the year.

I think I've finally hit burnout with a lot of things such as home improvements, work, socializing, and planning. My fiance and I decided to not plan as much or do any more house stuff for a few months since we got all of the larger items done. It's exhausting. I'm fulfilled from it at least. But I realized I'm exhausted and want to sleep. Not depression sleep either. I know the difference between those. I'm just tired and want to do a lot. I spent this past weekend relaxing and going outside. I feel rejuvenated. But I want to do like 3 more months of this lol. I'll add in exercise here and there too.

That's a great change of course and I think you're really going to benefit from it. I'm proud of you.

Keep up the good work and if you feel 90 days isn't enough then keep going. That brain fog of addiction didn't go away until 6 months for me and it helped posting here.

This sounds very restrained. Are you finding success with it?

I learned something important today. I don't like drawing, animating, video processing, or 3d modeling. I only like writing and voice acting. I feel free now. I realized that I write the script for my shows super fast and then take 2 years to animate stuff and never finish. I've decided to turn each episode of my cartoon into a chapter of a book and create a book. I'm loving this idea. I also have a podcast and will create audio books for comedy. For all of you struggling to find hobbies, it took me 4 years of quitting video games to realize that I don't like to fucking draw at all. So be patient lol. I got glasses recently. I've been getting headaches from the computer. I think all those years of gaming caught up to me. But they look cool and I feel better so I'm happy. I painted this weekend as well. Made some fall art. I like to paint every 3 to 6 months for some reason even though I hate drawing. I don't know why. It feels more finite and set in stone. I just enjoy that process more than drawing on a tablet. Hope you're all doing well. I'll update more soon. Been very busy at work and it's just slammed me mentally. I've just wanted to relax. I took Friday off and watched bladerunner 2049. I liked it but it was slow. I think ad astra did a better job of the science fiction slow pace. I also started exercising again and feel good about it. I haven't done as much because I've been overwhelmed with house stuff. My fiance and I realized how much progress we made and cut ourselves some slack. We're very proud.

Today was one great day. I successfully spent 1 hour playing drums, 1 hour drawing, and 1 hour reading. I exercised for 30 minutes and had an extremely productive day at work. I had a very wonderful night with my fiance and enjoyed the day. I am grateful and think it's because I stopped overthinking hobbies and just did it.

I agree. Social media has really put and impact on amount of friends rather than quality of life and friendship. I kind of relate certain friends to when the main character of an anime visits a town for the first time in a while that they remember him or her for their heroism in the town. They don't necessarily keep writing to the hero for the rest of time. But the hero has companions who are always with them. Those are the real friends.

Today's been better. I've been too tired to write here over the past few months just with how busy I've been. I promised @LostRiverI'd write a little more. Something I'm dealing with is socializing again. I think the pandemic was actually nice for me because I recall writing in 2020 and 2019 how I thought a lot of my friends provided surface level friendship and nothing deeper. Barely any of these people talked in the pandemic and now they're coming out of the woodwork asking to catch up. I have tried socializing a lot since July and I'm a little tired of it. At this point, I'm only going to see people I care about. There are some people trying to talk to me to catch up and I'm tired of it. The pandemic has given me the confidence to realize I can be fine on my own and with my fiancee. I don't need to keep seeing people or need to see people. It doesn't matter. A good example of this is I was the best man at one person's wedding. I was one of his only friends because he puts zero effort into friends. I hated everyone at the wedding except for a few people. I don't talk to any of them anymore. It feels wonderful. I've made it a point to stick to seeing about 5 friends and keep those friendships strong. The others are going to stay acquaintances. Another update is a finished reading 2 more books. I'm really enjoying this time to myself when I read. This one was about someone battling addiction and overcoming it. It felt very familiar to read their ups and downs.

Congrats on 60 days!

You might want to make a singular diary and post new days within your forum post. That way you can measure your progress and build your profile.

Things are going a lot better. The director of my department was fired and I got a raise. I feel like we have a better department environment now and the work culture is better. I've made some recent progress with my cartoon, reading, and drumming hobbies. I haven't really felt like writing in here for months now. I think I've been so burnt out from the house and job that I just kind of relax after work and zone out when I can. I spent the past few months doing something around the house after work and just the past 2 weeks I've finally gained some freedom. This newfound freedom is really helping me spend time on hobbies. I've been able to drum to random songs. I'm not trying to master any songs in particular. I just want to get better at understanding the music so I can just play songs on my spotify list. My cartoon had been stagnant for 6 months but I drew a background the other day and only need 5 more drawn. I've also been reading a great book about overcoming addiction when it's ruined someone's life. Very powerful book.

Welcome to the forums. There's a lot to unpack in your post, not just for the readers, but for yourself as well. Shame is probably the strongest emotion in the world and can lead to both good and bad reactions. Coming here was a good reaction. Beating yourself up over addiction is a bad reaction. Keep that in mind. It sounds obvious but it's easy to look past how we care for ourselves. For hobbies you should find out why you're playing video games in the first place. What are you looking for when you play? Then find replacement activities. You could yearn for social interaction, progression in something measurable, competitive environments, etc. When you crave a game, welcome the craving and pretend it's your stomach craving dinner. Sure, you could eat candy bars, but you'd feel like shit. If you ate a balanced meal then you'd feel better and be full longer with fewer cravings. Try to use that anecdote for game cravings. A balanced life reduces cravings. You'll never escape cravings just like you'll never escape hunger.

I find it interesting that you've highlighted another addiction and am proud of you for that. My second addiction was porn and that's been harder to quit than gaming even though I'd only watch for a few minutes compared to hours on end. I think gaming is like a longterm drug that is a gateway addiction to other addictions due to the need for instant gratification from games being so taxing on our dopamine levels.