BooksandTrees

I haven't had time to read your diary but what are you getting from videos and games that life isn't providing? I'm sensing a mix of boredom and lack of accomplishment that's feeding the need to do 1 more or get entertained. Is that true at all?

I'd come at him with only empathetic and patient support for right now. He knows you're disappointed and frustrated. If you show vulnerability to him and tell him why you care, without raising your voice, cornering him, or manipulating him, he will talk. Right now, he feels at rock bottom on one side where he's just a mess socially and developmentally. But on the other side, he's very confident in gaming and might actually have a level of success on there involving fame, notoriety, and community favor. Those feelings with give him purpose and he'll put all of his effort in life into that game because of it. That has some benefits. He'll be successful at future jobs etc. But right now it's about you or a therapist uncovering why he's afraid of life, afraid to develop into an adult, afraid to change, etc. He's hiding from real life for a reason. For all we know, his parents and family could have neglected him for years and he was lonely and found belonging online. Some of his reasons will be your fault or significant other's fault. You have to listen to him and not be offended if he says this. If he's going to change, you might need to change also. Kids are fortunately and unfortunately a result of their environment. If you're in that environment, you've potentially impacted him in a way that steered him to gaming. I'm not trying to be rude to you, but I've been involved with helping people recover from addictions, gaming and more, and a high percentage have family issues that have not been resolved. Good luck, be his friend, but be his mother. Get on his level and invest that time in helping him. It will take years.

Most definitely. I think my balance had been big moments of good and big moments of bad at first, but now it's turning into average moments of each with more big moments of good at the moment.

Thanks! It's pretty special. I've been helped by a lot of people who have come and gone over the years. I'm pretty amazed by the success I've found and the people I've met. I hope your back feels better soon, too!

I'm feeling a little down today because my back hurts from an injury I sustained over the weekend. One of my managers also keeps requesting me for his project and not giving me anything to work on and it's pissing me off. But I don't want that to distract me from how good of a weekend I had. I wrote over 4,000 words for my new book, I finished a book I was reading, I planted apple trees in my yard, I cleaned my house, I got ice cream, and had a really powerful, positive conversation with my wife that really put a smile on my face. It's easy to look at these negatives but I'm gonna practice looking on the positive side.

I also wanted to add that I've been cleaning things around my house more often. A lot of environmental changes happen when you aren't dedicating hours to apps or games or porn etc. You start looking for things to do and they can have subtle, yet enjoyable impacts on your life.

This has been my most productive week at work in months. I got so much done and was motivated a good amount of time. I also finished writing the second chapter of my book. I'm up to almost 5500 words written. I'm still a little more tired in general but that's OK. I've also eaten healthier and has much better hygiene.

I think the brain fog effect of the apps and videos is similar to gaming brain fog. Typically go through withdrawal for the first 2 days then each day is better after that. It's been a lot easier to start work now. I can do a few hours without needing a walk or something now. I also started reading my book again and I rode my bike for...2 miles lol. But it's better than nothing.

I feel a lot better today. I've been extremely productive at work and enjoying it. I think I just needed a few days to clear my mind and get back in a better spot. I have almost no brain fog or anxiety now. It's a relief.

Also, sorry if I'm spamming anyone's notifications when I post now. I'm gonna get back to posting more than once a month again. The summary was exhausting to write and I'd rather get back to discussing current feelings and problems rather than summarizing.

Good job. It sounds like you've found great life balance during this time period.

I hear you. I think this afternoon I made good progress and feel more engaged with my job than I did the past few weeks. I think not deferring to distractions is helping. My mind feels clearer already and I want to make more progress tomorrow. Yeah I think we were right about porn. It's more of something I use for research on something I want to try. I find porn so unrealistic to real life and only a few things are true. That was a huge boost to my self confidence. I was just using it when I was lonely as a single person as a fake source of intimacy and I'd become disinterested immediately after. Now I'm deeply happy with love, affection, and companionship.

I tried listening to a podcast about something I was interested in and it derailed my work flow. This caused major anxiety and cravings for apps and former issues. I played an instrumental remix and feel myself calming down. I feel my body temperature lowering. I almost watched porn but realized I'm not into that and it was just my mind freaking out. I feel my thoughts slowing down. I feel more grounded.

What's the business? That's exciting.

Thanks for this advice. I'll try it today and drop in with how it goes. I'm really glad the reading has become a daily thing and that you were also able to find a podcast. Great job sticking with it for those 9 months also. Like anything, all of this change takes time and patience. I'll try to remind myself of that on this journey.

another thing that's been bothering me is I've been constantly watching videos or TV during work on the side. It's been really relaxing to have background noise when I work from home, but I feel guilty and zoned out. Like if I'm stressed I look forward to that quiet time watching tv. It doesn't impact my productivity at all. I think it calms me down, like listening to a podcast or music. At that old job where I was being harassed, tv and apps made me feel safe and I was on them all day to avoid anything to do with my old boss. This time around I'm enjoying the job and feeling like the apps and TV are becoming work themselves. Finishing a TV show is becoming a job since they're so long and I want to know what's next. It's stressing me out. I'm afraid to just work because I get stressed and feel panic. I also feel like I'm wasting time not multitasking and doing a hobby while working.

I feel very burnt out after all the huge life events in the past few years. I don't think I've been coping with the stress well. I'm exhausted. They're good life events and bad from the 2 old jobs as well. Lots of Rollercoaster riding. I think I'm going to take the next week or two to detox from junk food and tv and apps etc. I haven't really been watching porn at all which is good. Maybe like twice a month which is a huge improvement over the 3 time a day years ago. I feel like I'm just zoning all day long and I'm afraid to just face the day because I'm tired and don't want more stuff to deal with. Something that worked for me in the past is adding some exercise and creative outlets as well as reading. I haven't read much in 6 months.

I've got a lot of updates! I made some major progress with my book. I decided to transform my idea of creating a cartoon to writing a fantasy novel because, as you may have read my complain over the past few years, I fucking hate animation lol. So I've hired a writing coach and we've been working together each month to progress my book outline and start writing the rough draft. So far, I have a 25 chapter outline completed, the first chapter written, and mostly written chapter 2. I'm really enjoying this process so far. I haven't been as productive as I'd like to be, but with perspective regarding my past, I've been very productive. Regarding animation, I found a really stupid software called Animation Desk for the tablet. All you do is onion skin drawing, which is the traditional method of drawing over the previous drawing and creating motion through repetitive sequences. I enjoy this more than the new software for a few reasons: 1. I hate learning new software after work. I'm tired and learn too much on a daily basis. 2. This is easy and repetitive. I enjoyed repetitive gaming like runescape in the past because it allowed my brain to turn off and I could listen to music or something. This acts just like that for me. I can zone out and just keep going and not have to intuitively plan the animation in a software. I'm drawing my first little animation which I'll post at some point. I'm getting married this month! I've been so busy the past few months and haven't been on here. It's a dream come true. I have met the most wonderful woman and I'm very grateful to be with her. She has taught me so much about life, love, and myself and I'll forever be indebted to her for that. I'm excited for our future together. We make a great team and I've never been so happy. Work is going well at the new company. They treat me well and I get more PTO. The projects are interesting and my coworkers have been great. I'm starting to really recover from the abusive situation at my last job. Something I've been struggling with is eating too much food. I went from gaming addiction to porn addiction and now I'm dealing with food addiction. I stopped watching porn because I felt so guilty doing it, even once a month. I just felt like I was not being fair to my fiance and just stopped watching it almost entirely. I probably watch it once a month or once every other month now and still feel bad afterwards. I think having companionship and love has really helped heal my heart and made me non-reliant on porn. The issue is I crave food a lot because of my last two jobs. For some reason, it is super satisfying to just stuff my face with tasty food and have a moment of bliss. I also get very bored exercising and just don't want to work out or do anything. I'd like to play a sport maybe. That might help me get motivation to train, so i can be better at the sport. I just think training for the sake of training is really boring. I know it's good for you. I just can't get into it. I'd rather sleep. I'm hoping that this year I start to calm down and relax a bit with life. I'm probably stress eating from poor sleep and rest from all the major life events recently. So I'm gonna be patient and try to catch myself snacking. I also want to be more active with the nice weather and enjoy sunlight. I hope you're all doing well. Sorry for not being around. I just have too much on my plate at the moment to really be effective on this website and help others at the moment. One thing I learned is it's important to put yourself first regarding recovery because if you don't, nobody else will. Happy holidays to everyone celebrating stuff in April.

I'm glad my stories have helped! You definitely deserve a better life. I appreciate the support as well.

I usually get up and stretch my arms, legs, neck, and back and then go for a quick walk. Something unrelated to calling, computers, and social media will be refreshing. Maybe fill your water.

Things are going a lot better. I have been experiencing that all too familiar "pull" to do something when I'm feeling anxious or stressed. Instead of opening apps, I've been trying to go for little walks, clean something, change my position at the desk from sitting to standing, or stretching. I still find myself going to apps, but much less than before. I'm gonna view that as progress and keep rolling with it. This minor change has lead to me being more productive at work and my new bosses have been pleased with the effort I've put in so far. I'm appreciating that acknowledgment and trying to roll with it. One thing I'm struggling with, again, is the way to go about my damn story hobbies. It really pisses me off and I feel like a hypocrite because I tell people to stop ruminating and just do it and get something down on paper so you at least know whether or not you think that's a failure or a good practice to move forward with in the future. Yet, here I am just sitting there going back and forth between "should I make this story a book, keep it a screenplay and read it over a podcast, or try to make it an animated series and dedicate even more time to it?" If I were reading this entry as if it were one of your posts, I'd say that you need to find out what's preventing you from moving forward with it and then ask yourself what the goal is in general. Are you trying to do this as a hobby or a career change? If you're doing it as a hobby, are you trying to express certain emotions and ideas you have locked inside that you need to *SEE* or that you need to *SHARE* with others? Why not just try to get it out there? If you write it as a screenplay and end up wanting it to be a book, you can take all of the content from the screenplay and just add more transition writing between scenes to create a book. It's not like you wasted time. If you want to read it on a podcast then you'll have the screenplay written out and know if it sounds good. You might even have fun doing it and decide it needs to be something else or something bigger. One crazy anecdote I can relate to that last bit of advice is fixation and addiction. We can all get fixated on this idea of what something would or should be like to reach that certain feeling we envision or are fixated on. Let me explain. You search for the perfect porn to watch for like 20 minutes and then are so excited and finish in like 1 minute. The video barely played. Now you're unsatisfied and feel let down because you fixated for so long. That is the same theory that gets applied to our hobbies. We get fixated on what a successful story or piece of art, or song, would look, feel, or sound like. It can almost paralyze you. I think it's just worth doing it. So I'm giving this advice to myself to just do this and move forward. I gotta keep pushing.

The first week of my new job is over and I'm feeling a little settled in. Something interesting that I've been encountering is similar to a PTSD trigger. I don't want to minimize people struggling with severe PTSD, but I just want to relate these topics. I noticed that before I had my previous job, if I got stressed I had healthy outlets. But during this previous job where my boss often harassed me or I had nothing to do, I would sit there for hours being bored or afraid. I resorted to distracting phone apps, youtube, and other methods of escapism to get through each day. This built what I'm going to compare directly to gaming addiction where I was just hiding. Now I have a new job with identifiable work tasks and a supportive management network. The issue is when I encounter a difficult problem solving situation at work or have to ask a question that I'm nervous about, I tend to want to go back to those phone apps or youtube. This is directly similar to gaming addiction that I recovered from in the past. It feels the same. The brain fog, the lethargy, the dread of using brainpower, and anxiety. I will want to take a nap for my entire lunch break every day and just escape. This is leading me to gain weight, do less around the house, have bad hygiene, be less social, and do fewer hobbies. This is leading to my new wave of depression. As @Amphibian220pointed out above, I was able to get a new job and change my environment. That's the toughest part. Scratch that, it's the largest single part. But now that I have the new job, I'm still struggling with PTSD from getting screamed at or harassed. I still want to escape. It reminds me of what we all struggle(d) with before: just changing your environment won't solely fix the problem, but it will help big time. I still need to take the next steps to changing my habits and developing new queues. I can't get stressed about what my new project is and go watch porn and take a nap. That isn't helping. I can't read an internet article or watch a youtube tutorial or something. I have to start facing these problems. I have to start accepting I'm in a better environment and trusting that I can move forward and not need to escape. I feel like I'm back at the start of this whole journey again, but I know I'm not. I'm just tired and stressed. As I mentioned in the past when I stopped counting days, it's just keeping good habits and recognizing progress over time. I plan on resisting urges by taking more frequent breaks during the office day to stretch, move around, get away from the screen by doing some exercise, and not taking a nap or using apps. It won't all happen at once but if I can avoid binging a youtube series or something then that's a victory.

Thank you. I agree. It can be really difficult to overlook our capabilities. I'm feeling better overall now but still struggling with a daily behavior that promotes restoration. I'll touch on that in my next post.

I'm about 12 days into my 17 day vacation and starting to feel like myself again. It's been exhausting and I've been sleeping a lot. I'm not doing a lot right now, but just recovering from the abuse I've dealt with over the past few years has been exhausting and I'm starting to gear myself up to doing my hobbies now for the final few days. I started beating myself up a little tonight because all I've done for 2 weeks is sleep, eat, and watch TV and do nothing. I think I needed that though. I haven't been able to rest in months or years at this point. I'm very grateful for my family and my fiance. I'm very tired but starting to come around nicely.

Thank you. I agree, there's gotta be jobs out there that fit my personality and lifestyle best and this one seems like a great fit so far. I'm feeling optimistic and starting to recover from the duress of my last job.