BooksandTrees

Are you going to do a monthly summary this month?

Dude, this is great coloring! You can tell that your technique and stroke is getting better.The coloring has purpose instead of just filling in the lines with color. Keep it up.

Today I'm 80 weeks free from video games. I woke up and had to talk to my mom and it really stressed me out. It went really well and I was about to get off the phone and then she purposely said something to get me angry and I completely blew up on her. I could have just ignored it, but she spent time and did a favor with someone who has emotionally abused her for years and it showed great weakness. It also showed that she was not social distancing and being ignorant. I didn't swear at her or verbally abuse her. I am proud of that. I held back and was able to just say how she hurt my feelings by talking about this guy. I tell her all the time about not bringing this guy up and she brings him up every fucking time I talk to him. I told her she doesn't respect me at all because she doesn't care that it hurts my feelings. Just a complete fucking loser in my opinion and doesn't care about my feelings. Instead of freaking out and watching porn I saw it was beautiful out and I hung up on her. I found a really great interview on my favorite podcast and sat outside for 2 hours and listened to it. I really enjoyed being out in the sun today. I got a little sunburn, but I just relaxed out there. I cooked lunch and ate outside and relaxed some more. I then had to talk to my dad for an hour or so but I ended the conversation because he's also a frustrating person to speak to because most of the time he does not give a shit what I have to say and just wants to talk to me about his issues. Same exact thing my mom does. I told my mom I had issues with gaming cravings this week and all she talked about were her problems. I limit talking to them to once a week or once every two weeks and it's never a plus. I'll eventually cut them both out of my life if they don't heed my warnings. I'm so jealous of people who enjoy their families sometimes. But jealousy is a bad thing. So I've accepted they are trash and that others get good families. That's just life. You can't choose your parents, but you can be grateful and appreciative of other things in life. So I've chosen to just accept that they're shit and limit contact for the most part. My dad was "OK" today, but you can tell he just says "yeah" and waits for me to stop talking. I'm just glad I have friends who listen to me and care. So I wrapped up my April summary. I lost another 6 lbs last month and already 1 lb in the first 2 days of May (residual from the week ending with April and May sharing the same week). The caloric intake was very uniform this month with not many skewed days of 2000 calories here or 1300 calories there. It was all pretty much in the 1400-1650 range. Sleep was a mixed bag this month. I struggled to find consistency due to stress. I was exercising infrequently, staying up later due to stress from work, staying up late from watching porn before bed, or other factors. I struggled a lot with porn this month. I averaged only 1 porn session per day for the month, but spent many days watching 3 times a day. I was not enjoying the porn either. I just forced myself to PMO so I could feel better and deal with stress. That wasn't correct to do. I haven't watched porn all week this week and you can notice my sleep log start to regulate around 6.5 hours a night once I stop watching porn. At this point I honestly think porn is way more detrimental to my mental health than video games ever were. Video games were time consuming and made me sick, that's for sure, but porn really sends me into a tailspin that can't be compared. I'm very done with porn and perhaps masturbation, but we'll see. I think you can see how I try to give up porn, then do it in moderation, then just get out of control within 1-2 weeks. All of those major spikes in porn usage are on weekends. So my strategy to spend my weekends has changed. I'm finding more relaxing hobbies and only doing the 3d modeling if I actually feel like it. Although I enjoy it, it's not relaxing or restorative and I find it very stressful. It's something I can only do for 1-2 hours at a time if I really feel up to it right now. That might change eventually, but I find the fun to work ratio is not there. I think with social media, porn, gaming, junk food, and drugs/alcohol can give you too much fun for little work and it fucks you over. As recovering addicts, we get angry at ourselves and try to take on these arduous tasks to find balance. I think we eventually get to where I'm getting where we just want to do something for 1-2 hours and feel good afterwards and not take on these 100-1000 hour projects that are unattainable and unrestorative. This realization came to me through being grateful, finding more forgiveness for myself, and self love. I don't have to torture myself to make these amazing things in my spare time. I'm already working in a career that I enjoy 80% of the time and am financially stable and independent. My career is essential and still open during the pandemic and I'm very fortunate for that. I think I've just accepted myself. I keep trying to have dreams of being famous or getting attention, but that isn't a life I'd enjoy. Realistically, I just want to work, enjoy it most of the time, see friends and talk to them during the week, meet a woman and fall in love, enjoy my spare time and enjoy life. Maybe I play tennis, hockey, and rock climb with them. Maybe I bike ride with them. (Them) being friends, family, and a girlfriend or wife one day. I cook what I want, eat balanced meals and don't turn to food for stress relief. I find comedy to be my biggest stress relief and I enjoy just voicing my opinion often in a funny way. I used to want to be famous off of it, but most of the time that's not necessary. There are going to be weekends like this weekend where I want to relax and do nothing. There will be weekends like in the past where I wanted to make that 3d animation. And you know what? I have the choice to do either of them. That's more than a lot of people have. Some people need to work 2 jobs. I don't. I have the choice.

Thanks. I hope you're doing well. I just find that nothing I'm doing is really restorative or fun. It's exhausting and a burden.

I don't think there is one. I just got angry that I couldn't do anything except game or watch porn.

Today I'm feeling defeated and it's hard to feel grateful. Nothing really bad happened. I had a boring day at work, was very hungry, ate my meals, got off the computer, dealt with kids running in my lawn, got stressed, calmed down without bad habits, and began to 3d model. I started a tutorial to learn hard surface modeling so I can make more intricate pokemon shapes. It's just difficult to learn stuff after work. I'm not doing enough stuff for fun in my life and it's wearing on me. 3d modeling and animation is fun right now, but it's only fun when I have finished products because I can't freely create art. I have to watch a tutorial for everything and ask tons of questions. It's so stressful. I enjoy it, but after work it sucks. So I did it for like an hour today and will do a few more hours this weekend. I'm trying to stay in a better mood. Nothing really bad happened at all aside from those kids. I'm just really anxious and stressed out because it's the weekend. I look forward to the weekend so much because I don't have to work, but I agonize because of how stressful it is to spend my time without video games or porn. I'm so miserable it makes me sad beyond belief. It's terrible. After 80 weeks it hasn't improved and I'm just torturing myself with how to live life properly. It's going to take a few months to get good at my software and then I'll be more comfortable. It's just a hobby, not a job. But I just wish I had some fun, mindless things I could do to pass time better that are somewhat interactive. Today I'm grateful for my friends having a video chat with me, losing weight, myself for getting through an emotionally difficult week, food, the people on here for helping, finding a good tutorial to encourage me to model more, and a movie to watch.

Good. Negotiating is key

Oddly enough it's been 5 days and I haven't eaten a bite

Today was a better day again. I completed my logs for April and will post another monthly summary tomorrow. I'm pretty happy with it. I finished more projects at work, exercised a few times when stressed or bored, and also did my second straight day of a 20 minute nap at 2 pm to refuel myself. I also initiated a discussion with my boss to do more exciting projects and get more recognition for completing things, which I need. One reason I loved attention in video games was because I never got praise or attention in real life. As a former pro gamer I enjoyed the feeling I got from success and friends. My video game cravings have subsided almost completely tonight. I spoke with friends, exercised, watched my show, etc. I had some major turning points as well. I'm trying too hard to make a cartoon. My friend and I discussed just making the shorter cartoons. I'm looking forward to those because they provide faster gratification, but not instant gratification, but also not impossible gratification. I mentioned before that our hobbies that we try are so fucking stressful because we get too lofty goals. I was trying to make a 10 episode show that has 25 minutes per episode with no art experience. That's stupid. I'm going to just make another 30 second animation over the next month because I enjoy it and want to share it online. Also, this weekend I'm attacking it by storm. I mentioned in @Erik2.0's diary that we must never hide from what stresses us and make it our strength. My weakness is the weekend. I never had severe gaming issues Monday through Friday. It was the infinite stress of Saturday and Sunday that got me. I wake up on weekends and immediately say "Oh no, I have nothing planned and nothing to do. Today is not worth living. My life is useless...etc." This is extreme anxiety talking. That's why I used to game so much on weekends. I had no plans, no friends, no hobbies or interest that were more interesting than gaming. So gaming and porn has been my weekends for decades along with social media. I've quit gaming and social media, and I'm once again 3 days without porn. I'm going to commit to this, but I can only commit if I plan. Planning weekends is difficult with COVID19 because we can't go out and rock climb, see a movie, travel, see a concert, etc. But I'm not letting that stop me. This Saturday and Sunday I'm going to wake up, eat, exercise and walk outside for 1-2 hours, animate for 1-3 hours, cook and eat lunch, watch a movie for 2-3 hours, draw and listen to a podcast for 1 hour, eat dinner, call someone on the phone for an hour, exercise again or read a book for an hour, etc. I can't do a single task for more than 3 hours because that's not correct to do to myself and is unhealthy. Self control is what my life is going to be about forever. Once COVID19 is over I'll supplant a lot of these with bike riding, tennis, rock climbing, concerts, comedy shows, eating at a restaurant, going to the beach, hiking, trail walking, sports, anything else on my mind at that time. I'm tired of suffering from depression because of the weekends. I watched porn 10 times last weekend and got so depressed I almost played video games again. It took me 5 days to feel better. I'm better than that. The cravings are gone now and the mental pull is over. I have won this difficult battle without relapsing although my whole week was miserable, but sometimes you need to sacrifice a little to gain a lot. This week I'm going to be 80 weeks free from video games and you're fucking right I'm gonna keep that going. I'm not letting this virus isolation crush me. If you're ever feeling like relapsing just do what I did. Keep reaching out to friends, family, people on here, therapists, and be strong. Just be strong and keep doing your best to occupy your time. Thank you for your support this week especially. I'm grateful for the communities, my friends, my coworkers, myself for having strength and awareness, my food, my apartment, my computer, and my bed. I am tired.

Thanks. I've really struggled the past week and began questioning myself and my daily activities.

Thanks. Honestly, I think it explains a lot. I try to do all my hobbies to attract attention and praise. My industry is thankless and doesn't congratulate you on finishing projects. Only major achievements and it's not emotional at all. It's so restrained and white collar. I think we should celebrate projects like scoring goals in a game or something. It makes me feel so empty that I try to get accomplishment out of other activities because work is less rewarding aside from pay and benefits.

I have written in the past few weeks about burnout. This is a really helpful article I found which highlights almost all of my symptoms and personality points. I'm applying some of these and hope to do more. Feel free to read if work and life is burning you out: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention-and-recovery.htm @DaBest

Today was better. I went to bed an hour earlier and woke up an hour earlier as well. I was having a slow day and not getting much done, but then I took a 30 minute nap outside in the sun and felt recharged. I got all of my work done without reading the internet. I think when we get cravings for bad habits it's because of an underlying problem. I didn't want to work today because I didn't want to compete my projects and I was tired, so I snoozed for 2 hours. But that made me more tired. So I napped and it worked. I got my projects done and was neither tired or stressed anymore. After that I was able to exercise for 20 minutes, shower, cook dinner, and research a cool project for animation. I also realized I try to turn all my hobbies into jobs to escape work one day, but frankly that's just longterm escapism and basically the same thing as video games. If I do hobbies for fun I actually enjoy my time out of work more and in turn enjoy my actual job much more the next day. If my animations make money on YouTube then that's great. If not, I had fun. A lot of the hobbies we're doing instead of gaming don't have fast enough rewards to make us happy at first. Maybe instead of learning an instrument just learn to play a song you love. I enjoyed making my voltorb, but didn't enjoy making objects for my cartoon. So this weekend I'm making a Ghastly and I'm excited. And so should all of you lol. Today I'm grateful for myself because I overcame my stress in a healthy way. I'm grateful for the community helping me out. I'm grateful for my friends and employer. I'm grateful for my apartment and food.

It's time for you to reel this all in and take a deep breath. I don't understand your financial situation at home with your family, but I'm interested in hearing why your mother rented out that room to those young girls. They're underage. That strikes me as odd. Is it a government thing? You had issues when your sister lived at home and your life improved when she left. What are these girls doing that bothers you? I know you're not wanting to talk about it, but what are they doing? You're almost 30. You can and will overcome this. Do your parents understand what's bothering you? I think it's unfair that your mom is renting rooms to these people. I'm not being rude by saying this, but your mother knows you have a very important condition with schizophrenia. She needs to respect your boundaries due to the complexity of your triggers and mental wellbeing. She's being highly irresponsible if she knows these things bother you. If she doesn't know it's bothering you then you need to sit down one on one with your parents and discuss the situation like you would with your employer. Explain the problem in a diplomatic way and explain the effect it's having on you. Moving out can create more problems. If you live in an apartment complex you might get multiple loud neighbors, poor living conditions, a crazy landlord, etc. Try to get your home life back. This is not the time to hide. Hiding will only hurt you. You have power and can overcome this. You must be patient and you must be strong. Sleeping the time away won't help you. Can you pick up shadow boxing or another activity to remove some stress? Can you get in your car and sing to loud music? Turn your frustrations and pain into strength and you will conquer anything in life. Just gotta manipulate things in your favor and if your mother is in fact not focusing on your wellbeing then take your time and find the safest and quietest place for your new home and don't rush it. I wish you luck. Don't sleep things away and don't ruminate with depressive thoughts. Remember my diary in April though June of 2019? My mom was abusing me and let me down she promising to support me after quitting my job and dealing with suicidal thoughts. I got so angry at her behavior that I got my job back, found an apartment, and told her to go fuck herself. I got depressed again in August and my new apartment made me nauseous every day. But I didn't give up. Opportunities come out of nowhere as long as you keep trying. I got my old apartment on a lake at a discounted price. I'm happy now. You gotta believe in yourself and fight for you by taking action, but not violent action. Nobody is worth your pain. I will never forgive my mom and I want her to always know I'll never forgive her for abusing me. That's something she'll take to her grave and I won't give her the satisfaction of forgiving her. You face the consequences of your actions. She is doing that now. So don't give up. If your family lets you down then pick up and move on because at the end of the day the only person who always has your back is you and only you.

Just write what you want. Format doesn't work for me, but my writing is structured very well in my opinion. It's your diary. It's not a job or template so don't go nuts or stress. I enjoy reading it.

I bought them as a small indulgence for enjoyment maybe once a week

Great post. This is something I've been experimenting with. I removed sweets from my diet for 6 weeks during the quarantine and have lost 15 pounds. I bought sweets yesterday and I haven't touched them once. I don't use them fit stress relief anymore. It feels great. I take more joy and relief from weight loss and healthy eating now.

That's great and an important transition. It kind of gets you thinking about how to spend newly gained time now on a more restricted level.

The music could be relaxing. I woke up 2 hours earlier today which should help. I'll try it. I'm almost there. I think I'll watch something more relaxing before bed too.

I agree. That 2 months off was terrible because of the way my mom was treating me and I'll never forgive her for the rest of my life unfortunately.

Another frustrating night. Been in bed for 2.5 hours. I didn't turn my phone on for 2 hours and haven't watched porn. Just can't stop thinking about anything.

Drawing looks good. I would not suggest working out 7 days per week. I just wrote a journal entry about this in a different way. I think I would find a new physical activity to do on weekends like maybe riding a bike on a bike trail or jogging or trail walking or something. Your body needs to relax and you might burn out.

Today was the first day in 5 days that I did not have a severe craving for games. I almost played them, but kept calling friends, family, and posting on here and talking to my therapist. There's a few things I've learned and want to experience: I'm not having fun and not looking at any activity at all to have fun with. I'm a chaser and not exhibiting self control I'm not setting myself up to succeed 1. I'm treating every activity or hobby like a job. I enjoyed making voltorb, but once I started trying to make furniture in 3d to practice hard modeling I got upset and stressed out. I really just wanted to make another pokemon. In that instance, I chose work over fun. I'm doing the same thing with the drums. I really wanted to learn how to play a few songs on the drums, but instead I thought about training to do all the beats correctly and then train as a drummer until I had the level of experience to learn that song. Once again i choose work over fun. I want to talk to my friends. Instead of talking to them I think about recording the conversations to make a podcast and make money off of it instead of relaxing and talking. Once again I choose work over fun. My friends ask to brew beer with me. I make 3 brews and everyone tells me they'd love to drink it. I day dream about making a brewery and selling craft beer. I then lose interest in it because it sounds like work. Once again I chose work over fun. I wanted to lose weight by modifying my diet and exercsing. Instead of doing that I daydreamed about making a YouTube channel where I track my weight and journal my experience. Once again I turn that into work. I didn't do that and this time around I'm losing weight and exercising for me. So that is something. I love hockey. Instead of just watching it to enjoy the sport, I tried making a podcast and a website to profit off of my knowledge. That turned into work and I got angry. Once again I chose work over fun. 2. When I played games I had no self control. I would lose 3 games in a row with a friend. My friend would log off and go outside and do something else. I would think I could win 5 in a row and make up for it. I'd end up going 0-8 and feel sick after. With RuneScape I'd keep chasing after more money, more exp, more stats, more levels. I also couldn't cap myself at a few hours even if I was winning. I had to keep chasing victory. I watch porn before bed every day. Sometimes it keeps me awake and gets me excited. I try to watch YouTube to calm down after and then I can't sleep for hours. I watch porn again and sometimes it does the trick, but by this point it's 3 AM or later and I ruined the next day. Instead of just enjoying an activity I try to chase it and make it into work or success or money. I also can't stop watching a tv show that has lots of episodes without binging it. 3. I'm not setting myself up for success. I leave my phone in my room at night and watch porn and YouTube on it instead of trying to sleep. I was not meal prepping and I would eat junk food instead. I'm now meal prepping and if you notice I've lost 15 lbs. This is an example of setting myself up for success successfully. I don't plan my weekends. If I planned my weekends to exercise for a few hours like riding a bike or playing a sport (hard to do during quarantine, but I struggled with this all of last year as well) then I would feel more satisfied. I tried doing this and it was working until I broke my ribs while climbing in February. Right now I wake up on weekends with extreme anxiety regarding how to be productive. I freak out and try to create jobs and work instead of relaxing and trying to do something for fun. I'll watch porn every 4 hours because I can't handle the stress I'm putting on myself. I used to play video games 18 hours a day on weekends because I didn't plan anything else to do and it made me very sick. If I had enough hobbies and interests to spend my day on I feel like I would never have developed the major weekend addiction issues I was facing. If I don't use the computer or phone for up to 1 hour before bed I won't feel the need to use it. I did this while raeding my books and it worked well. My sleep has been poor since finishing my books and I've increased my porn usage. I almost forgot to be more positive and grateful: I'm grateful for the grocery store today having everything I wanted. I'm grateful for my therapist, family, friends, and online community for helping me through my cravings. I'm grateful for work for staying open during the quarantine and providing me with tasks so I can stay busy. I'm grateful for myself because I did a good job today not calling out sick from work when i felt bad this morning and also solving more problems as well as doing a good job grocery shopping in an efficient and safe way. I'm grateful for filling my car up with gas. I'm grateful for a medical payment coming through for me. I'm grateful for my landlord.

Thanks guys. I have felt so depressed and terrible the past 5 days and trying to shake it. I'm going to work on being more optimistic and smile more. I watched a really interesting video about self hatred, anxiety, and depression and it was like the narrator read my personality profile like a book. Very humbling and I appreciate that this kind of information is out there. It says the only way out of it is practicing gratitude, optimism, and stop rumination every day until it doesn't become work anymore, but a lifestyle. I also appreciate you guys taking the time to help me. It means a lot and has immediate impacts on my mental wellbeing.

Thanks. I think I really want to have sex. I also want a relationship. I wish I could do hobbies for an hour or two and be fine with it and not make a second or third job out of it. I wish I knew how long to enjoy something and understand when to stop. I wish I could just accept life outside of work and enjoy it. I don't think I allow myself to have any fun. I reprimand myself for eating out or watching a movie or something. I'm so mean to myself. The only release I have is porn. It's not logical to date during the pandemic for safety reasons. But idk. The dating app also really hurt my feelings. I got very angry last Saturday and haven't been able to shake it. This girl matched with me for the soul purpose of picking a fight. She made fun of anything I said and wouldn't unmatch with me. So I told her off and unmatched her. I really wanted to make her feel bad, but restrained myself. But I can't stop thinking about how angry she made me even though I won and got the last word. Now it's 3 AM and it's the 3rd night in a row ove been up this late or later. It's amazing how powerful my temper is. It scares me. Luckily, I have therapy today. 14 hours away. I'm also going grocery shopping in 11 hours. I think I need to get over my anger and just be a friendlier person. I try to make my mom and dad feel like shit as often as possible because if my past. I'm jealous of friends and resent myself. I enjoy belittling people in order to go on power trips. I want to appreciate people and life more. I think Erik has a great outlook with his appreciation journal. I don't. I look for reasons someone is pathetic and just ruminate on it. Why do I enjoy that? It makes me feel like a criminal to be honest and that worries me.