Silverlining

Day #69: 12/28/2018 Friday I don't like holidays. I mean, I like all those festive decorations and songs and lighting. But I don't like the parties and big dinners. I like having fun and spending time with people that I like, of course, but at this moment my life style is too fragile for all these fun. My schedules are messed up. I work out every other day at best instead of every day. I feel less motivated to study and I'm procrastinating. I lost control of my daily caloric intake. I haven't gain much weight thanks to all those exercises for the past 2 months but if I can't get myself together very soon, I may also lose control of my weight. And somehow I found myself awakening early in the mornings and couldn't not fall asleep again. There are a lot of things going on in my mind. I'm feeling stressed for sure. I hope all these are temporary. This is not the ideal status for me to welcome the new year.

I'm sorry that you have to go through this. On the other hand, you didn't relapse. You were trapped at home for a few days and feeling depressed, but you didn't choose to game. Instead, you wrote a diary to analyze your situation. Respect. We tend to focus on what we have yet to do instead of we have achieved. But progress matters. A little progress every day is all you need to reach the top. Also, if you want to, you can always post your paintings here or any other places online. It's natural that we want feedback for our work. If you feel painful while drawing, then just stop. Do whatever your heart desires. However, do not give up because it is difficult. It's supposed to be difficult. That's why artists are respected.

Day #65: 12/24/2018 Monday Happy holidays everyone!

Second this. And definitely avoid procrastination and cramming before exams.

Generally speaking, most coders start working late in the day and stay up late. Seriously, I don't see a lot of coders working efficiently before 10 am. I'm not sure how this happens, or does this mean that coding is not suitable for early mornings? Just so you know you are not alone.

Uh-oh, I see a lot of warning signs here. I understand that you are an extrovert type, so it must be very difficult for you without social activities. Given your work schedule, you probably do not have much time to make new friends, either. I remember when I just graduated and got a job, moved to the city, was cheated on and broke up, lived with 2 roommates who barely spoke with me. I was very depressed and got into a new relationship too soon. It wasn't healthy and I didn't enjoy it, so I broke up with that guy after 3 months and went back to games directly. Apparently I don't have much advice for you, because it would be tough for anyone in such a condition. I'm just sharing my experience with you, hoping that it would be somewhat helpful. And it seems that you are very depressed. That's why I mentioned exercise the other day. I would suggest exercising at least 10 min a day. You do not need to go to gym for this. Exercise is a natural treatment for depression. From time to time I also feel depressed, but after running or cardio for 10 min, the depression will be gone and I will find myself smiling again. It works like magic. I guess you are going to gym today, so I hope you can feel it, too. Good luck.

So how is it going with your hobbies? BTW, exercise is not only a way to lose weight. It's also very important for both your physical and mental health. Try to exercise a little bit when you feel down, mostly likely you will feel better immediately. It also boosts your immune system.

Exactly! That's the spirit!

Thank you! Tbh this job hasn't been a pleasure to me. For the past few years it has been the one of the main causes of my depression. Yet here is this opportunity just when I'm planning to quit. I'm not saying it's worth the suffering. I still should have quit this job years ago, but I'm glad that I have a chance to turn things around.

Day #58: 12/17/2018 Monday ?I have possibly some good news to share. Nothing is final yet but I'm just too excited! I might be involved with a new project at work, which is more challenging. And I will get a big raise if it happens. I have been practicing coding, learning and re-learning models and algos since I got sober, and it turns out these are all gonna be useful in the new project. Of course if it never happens, I am still proud of the skill set that I have been building up. And I'm grateful for being able to enjoy learning like a normal person. I would be lucky if it all works out. But my self-love is not dependent on luck. ?And I'm proud of that.

In our brain, this kind of fear is equivalent to physical pain. So forgive yourself first, because you have been literally going through physical pain. It's the same thing when you don't want to use a cut finger to touch hot water. It's totally nature. Everyone procrastinates. It's just some flaw of our brain. Fortunately, we also have a way to get around it. When you focus on the "product", i.e. an article written, a podcast recorded, a painting finished, your brain will feel the pain. However, if you focus on the "process", your brain will be fine. You don't have to get anything done. Just do something for 10 min. That's can't be too hard. And then extend it to 20 min, 30 min when you feel comfortable to. You don't need to think about the result. Just keep working on some hobby consistently and be amazed by what time can do. Do not label yourself. You do not hate yourself. If you do then you would never be in this forum in the first place.

People can be very different in terms of losing weight. With a 1300 net daily calorie (I eat about 1700 and exercise to take down 400), I've only lost 4 lbs for the past 30 days.?

Day #54: 12/13/2018 Thursday A few things. 1) I stopped tracking time spent on my daily activities. I start to feel that it might not be healthy for me any more. When I started this healing process, I transferred my obsession with games into this obsession with spending more time on studying, hobbies and gym. It totally worked. But on the other hand, I felt that I was more willing to spend time on the activities that I keep track of rather than those that were not in my database, e.g. chores. Also, now that I genuinely enjoy the things that I do, I don't think I still need the statistics to keep myself motivated. It's been fine for the past 3 days. 2) I stopped using my Pomodoro app most of the time. I still use the Pomodoro technique, but mostly using a 30-min hourglass. One reason is that the app is on the phone, and inevitably I need to check my phone to use it every time, which may lead to distraction. The other reason is that I don't want to be too strict with the time limit on each session. When I watch a lecture video, I prefer to stop at the end of the video, instead of having a 5-min leftover. And especially when I am coding, sometime I just can't stop when the alarm rings. 3) I have increased appetite. Probably a result of working out consistently. It's not really good news because I'm trying to lose weight. The way to deal with it is to exercise more. If I want to have a big dinner, I need to run longer to earn some calorie budget. As long as the net daily calorie intake is under control, I eat as much as I want. It's good because for the new me, exercising more is much less painful than eating less. It's kind of ironic that I used to prefer starving myself in order to lose weight.

Did you see the pic below originally posted to this forum by @karabas ? Feeling depressed or wasting time occasionally doesn't invalidate all your past effort. Learning not to beat ourselves up when we "fail" is very important. I would say that it's more important to be able to deal with setbacks than to keep succeeding. Real life will be full of setbacks. We'll be fine as long as we stay resilient. Good luck!

Thank you? I have realized that I finally have the courage to face my problems in the past. Courage that I have gained here in this community, through my healing experience. And I'm grateful for all of this. I have also realized that it's not only helpful but also necessary to examine my past. I need to learn from the mistakes that I made, and the mistakes that my parents made when I grew up. I'll be a parent some day and I want to be a good one. I wouldn't want my kids to repeat the pattern of my life in the past years. So I'll start practicing with parenting my inner child. And good luck to you, too.

Pomodoro is a technique, not a particular app. Of course you can use any clock.

I feel exactly the same way!

?This is not what I posted but it is very inspiring! Thanks for sharing!

Hey! You are back! There're plenty of things to do. Learn something new, get a new hobby. Get outside your room, exercise. Do some chores. Spend time with family and friends. Use a pomodoro clock. It looks simple but it is powerful. Trust me. Start with small steps. Read more journals here. People usually stop craving for games after less than a month. The key is to fill your free time with all kinds of things to do.

Thank you. Even if we play this RPG, it will take a couple of hours per week at most. Last time we did this was over a year ago. My husband played an RPG while I watched. After 5 months we still didn't finish half of that game and then we read about the rest of the story online.? We don't prefer this way of spending time together than other ways. It's just that I'm kind of emotionally attached with this game studio and I feel that I'll pay for the game anyway. It's complicated. Anyway, I'm not gonna think over this now. I'll focus on the important things in my life at the moment.

Day 49: 12/8/2018 Saturday They say that in a near-death experience, people could have memory flashbacks through their whole life, and they would accept all their past decisions and understand who they really are. I've never had a near-death experience. But I may have experienced similar memory flashbacks. Thursday night, my husband and I were having this conversation, and somehow we started to talk about life back in college. That was the moment when I started to recall my troubled, depressed, struggling life in college. I realized that for the past few years, I had buried those memories so deep. I didn't even dare to look at my transcript from college for once after graduation, until today. I do think about college from time to time, but only the good times -- my subconsciousness had hidden those bad moments so well: the finals, the grades, the anxiety, stress, shame and guilt. How I spent days and nights binge watching TV shows and anime series before I got into gaming. How I stared at the books without reading a line on the days that I was dragged to the library by my friends. How I prioritized gaming over study, thesis and friendship. I felt inferior the whole time. On the other hand, I tried to look as confident as I could. I was socially active. I had a lot of friends. I was even kind of popular. I believe few of my friends from college knew how bad my grades were. And I was exhausted living this double life. When I started to go through these fragments of memories, I felt pain and remorse. But later on, I felt relieved. I understood why I made all those bad choices. And that's OK. I'm not the same person any more. So I decide that I want to study Real Analysis again, the first course that gave me a hard time. I want to find out if it is just too difficult for me to ever understand, or did I give up too early. ----- In general, this week has been fine. Everything is normal. We didn't watch any movies. I exercised every day. Although an RPG that I had been looking forward to for a few years has released recently. I was tempted. Then we decided that after I hit 90 days, my husband would play it while I watch. It's supposed to be story rich so it would be like watching an anime series. I don't think I have a problem with solo RPGs. These is no social aspect like in an MMORPG. There are no daily quests. No "guild members" or "friends" expect me to get online every night. And there are no raids so that I can stop playing any time I want, without worrying about not being a "team player". And it's a one-time thing -- I have never played an RPG twice. And I have only played a handful of RPGs in my whole life. Although I'm not sure if it will be a trigger to relapse. But there are still 40 days so I don't want to worry about it now. And today my husband and I spent at least 1 hour in the kitchen to cook dinner together. I was never into cooking. My husband cooks most of the time. Before living with him, I used to cook for myself, but I always kept it extremely simple. My past roommates were all amazed at my ability to simplify cooking process out of laziness. ? So this is new for me. I kind of enjoyed it. And my hubby probably enjoyed it more. I guess he always wants an assistant in the kitchen ?

Awwwwww that is so cute! I love it! So drawing is not just a hobby for you. You are an artist! I look forward to seeing more of your work ?

I used to write. I haven't been able to write anything for the past few months even though I really want to. I have drafts of about 40k words over the years and most of them are just beginnings of stories. ? I am not giving up on them yet. Do you draw from life? I guess drawing in a park could be good for you if you want to stay out of your room and enjoy your hobby at the same time.

Wow! I never realized this but I also used imagination and reading to escape from reality when I grew up. I never connected them with gaming addiction until today, after reading your post. So, thank you! And I always wondered how I developed gaming addiction out of nowhere. ? Now I see that it was actually transferred from imagination and reading, but it was far more destructive to me than any other addiction. To be honest I don't mind getting a little "addicted" to reading or drawing, and I am planning on using my imagination to write stories -- I wrote a few before I got addicted to games. Anyway. Good luck! I can feel a positive energy flow from your words. ?

Good idea!