fawn_xoxo

I don't really enjoy staying indoors is the thing. I cook and stuff, I watch series, but ideally I'd prefer to go out. Imagine if you were indoors for days, looking at the same four walls. No bueno right? xD

Quick update, no sugar, no games. On Monday I forced myself to start working and it resulted in feeling better, significantly so. Today, Tuesday, I did the same and I feel well, neutral if not positive. I'm aware this process will take a while, finding myself and being consistent in so many things, but I don't give up, ever. I'm not doing anything artsy these days, I don't feel like it and since I put effort to work, I don't push myself to art too. It's okay, I'm still not gaming nor wanting to game. I'll find the way, sooner or later, as long as I don't go back to gaming. And I won't go back to gaming. I'll be happy with my everyday life again, probably when half my awake hours are spent outside the house, doing active things. I think that's my problem right now, too much of my same environment and no sensory stimulation to offer any novelty. But it won't be more than a few weeks until it's no longer freezing outside, and I'll start walking and running. I am still unsure about swapping to a laptop, and I won't make that change unless I try the exercise first to get me out of the house.

Hello. I feel like you could benefit from pausing, a lot. Whenever you get urges or feel lost and overwhelmed, remind yourself that you don't need to take action or a decision at that very moment. Take a pause, consider things. Write your thoughts down, extensively, until there's nothing left unexpressed and then try to understand yourself by reading what you wrote. Write down your ideal day, how you would love to be, if you could be the director in a movie about yourself, describe everything. Then compare what your urges are telling you with that you desire from your life, and if the urges are not helpful to you becoming closer to who you desire to be, then do an activity that is helpful instead. We are our actions, because actions involve choice. You do not choose your thoughts, your urges are a consequence of your past. But what you do today will have a direct result on who you are tomorrow and what urges you will or not have then. It's a tough thing to accept that this process hurts. But discipline hurts in the moment you do it, yes, it does. But if you say no to the urge today, tomorrow you will get to experience the pride and satisfaction for doing what is good for you. Otherwise you will experience another pain, harsher and heavier than discipline. That's the pain of regret. I ask myself, do I want to experience the pain of discipline now or the regret later? It helps me decide. Maybe it will help you too.

I might fill up the dates etc later. No sugar, no games still. But I feel like the hard part begins now, 50+ days in. Or I just need to reread my helpful books and get some motivation through them. I haven't been feeling like doing anything. I had a headache for the first time in my life, yes really, and I'm pretty sure it was part of my sugar withdrawal symptoms. That's gone now, I'm past that stage. I am doing well with my diet, my weight is dropping steadily. This satisfies me. But other things don't. I know I'm not happy with my everyday life, but I'm not sure what things I should do to be happy and fulfilled. I went back mentally to the last time I was happy, before I numbed my brain with games, and my life was full of socializing back then. I have tried meeting up with friends before, but I found it boring. But maybe back then, talking two years ago, the gaming influence just wouldn't let me see things clearly. I am emotional about my situation. I obviously have a lot of feelings. ( https://tenor.com/view/how-imet-your-mother-himym-feelings-crying-cant-contain-gif-4473793 ) I am starting to contact old friends and trying to go out with them. I hope that I can find myself, my true self, through this process. I am never going back to games, hard or easy, this should do it, right? I have been living the majority of my adult life in self induced isolation and only socialized online, but I really don't like staying glued to my computer all these hours, I really don't. I don't feel like I need people and this makes me so confused, but at the same time if I don't like being alone, then that means I'd prefer company, no? I don't know how to read myself, what my needs are, so that I can satisfy them and feel better. It's not that I feel bad right now, these days, just unmotivated to do my two things, work and art. I have been spending a lot of time consuming content. I know that there isn't much need for me to work, there aren't urgent bills for me to pay so to speak, and that doesn't help my complacency the last week or so. I am still considering when to start the gym, or whether to skip that cost and do the couch to 2k program once the weather allows using municipal facilities etc. I don't know if lonely drawing is good for me, and in that I also don't see the point. At least with fitness I'm motivated by my vanity and desire for health. At the same time, I don't want to give it up. I don't want to be the person who picks this hobby up a third time only to give up on it AGAIN. I don't know. This is just a period for me to think on these things, try to be open with myself and listen to myself. Yet I need to repractice discipline in work. On the other hand, I have taken on a lot of challenges at this time. Not only have I given up on my biggest crutch which was gaming, but also all processed sugar. I also have been trying to eliminate fats and dairy and meats and fish from my diet for better health, replacing them with vegetables and starches ( all the while losing weight ) and I have been eating one fruit per day ever since. And even though I'm satisfied with myself for these achievements, I choose to focus on what I didn't do. And when I started writing this journal entry I already had the inkling of an idea that I'm just being pessimistic but.. I think it's true. I am doing quite well in the healthy eating part of my life, being hella disciplined in it. Maybe that has something to do with wanting to let loose in work and other things. It would make sense. So maybe I just need to recognize I saw myself through this very demanding lens, not paying proper attention to my achievements and making myself feel bad as a result, only focusing on having been lazy with work etc. And how do I fix that? I recognize the good and the bad and tomorrow morning I take action to , even if I don't feel like it, do work. Then do some more work, like I would do if I worked for a boss. I have to practice discipline. I have to act differently to feel differently , but I don't need to feel bad for the past, lazy week. @Silverlining I have the impression that you understand me very well, any comment or advice is more than welcome.

I think you'll feel better if you pick any one task and do it, my 2 cents. Don't linger with the bad feelings, because your feelings will only change if you engage in a different action, not if you sit still.

You can do it, it's always harder at the beginning but slowly, gradually, if you take actions you will get adapted to living life differently and it will fulfill you. All the best, have a good start!

January 12th 2019: Day 71 , No gaming day 42- No sugar day 14. 2000ml waterI have been doing work and drawing today, those have been good - did that till the late afternoon then stopped to relax. I am focused on doing these changes in my diet and my exercise, and still observing how I behave and trying to work with that. Both yesterday and today I ate more than I needed to, to the point of feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. I know that it's a combination of a logical fallacy of not throwing food away and gluttony, no lies about that. I also know that with sugar out of the equation, it's far easier to eat the right amount of calories, but my mental state and the way I approach food haven't changed. It's still an answer to boredom and such for now, even if my daily calorie intake doesn't get affected by it. But I know I am doing wrong to myself, my body, stuffing it with bigger amounts than it can digest and so I have decided to change my eating pattern and help boost my weight loss by eating a big lunch and then a small dinner so I don't have problems falling asleep at night like the past couple of nights from the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. I am going to try and limit the hours that I spend preparing/eating/expecting food to just lunch-til-dinner time and thus not obsess over food the rest of the hours I am awake, what people call intermittent fasting, others might call it one-meal-per-day or similar. For me ever since I stopped sugar I just.. don't feel like eating as much as I used to.. Which is weird. I didn't expect that. I didn't think that this could be me. I thought I'd always crave and suffer in that state. I also don't feel the cravings for junk food and such foods as much I researched it and it seems the better you eat (more vegetables and fruits and such) the less you crave bad foods.. which is interesting. So now as I go my goals for my life are getting updated. I will try to mostly eat those good foods, vegetables, legumes, fruits and grains and avoid sugar and fat and all those foods that give me that high, try to be consistent with that so I made a list of all the foods I like that are in that category, all the legumes and vegetables and fruits and grains I enjoy eating so that I don't quit just because of inconvenience. As far as scheduling goes, I find that some days I need to just linger for an hour or so and 'waste time' until I feel ready to start being productive. It might only be an hour wasted before I start work and the like, but I feel like I need that, it puts me in a better mood. Other days I am fine with just waking up and working first thing in the morning. I am not the same every day, it goes in circles or such, and that's okay. I don't need to be the same every morning, I don't need to fit into any category. Still, I like to keep a close eye on how many hours I spend each day doing productive activities and learning, or I might slip away and I don't want that. I am this type of person that the more I let go of a schedule and routine, the harder it is for me to go back. And so I don't let it go for more than a day or two, I keep reminding myself of the tasks I need to do and go back and do them and get back in the flow. I don't ever wanna go back to gaming, it's a waste of my most precious resource, time. But by now it's rather obvious to you who's reading this that my journal has stopped being about games for quite some time. Some times I wonder if I should even write here since most of my stuff has to do with weight and hobbies and work but at the same time it is relevant to my journey after I closed the door to gaming, so I keep writing here. I read in someone else's journal that they can't enjoy anything, they don't feel like doing anything, and I know that for the longest time I felt like gaming was the only thing I was passionate about, everything else was dull. I tried and still try, despite not always feeling like it, to do all these other things and the feelings do change gradually. And that is such a fortunate thing, that we can adapt. Slowly I also am adapting and this forum thread is about my adaptation of life goals and progress once I quit gaming. At first I went for moderation, then I stopped it completely, and that was the right choice for sure. Not every day do I feel powerful and motivated and on top of the world, no. I have had a couple of duos of days that I felt low and desperate, and why do I feel this way etc. But it's alright, I trust in the process long term, and it got better both times. I have made plans with deadlines for when I will start gym, which times of the day, as well as for my eating, and a plan of how to get better at my hobby. I try to live in the present, as is my natural tendency, but with goals for my betterment. So that my future self will be satisfied with my past self's actions. So that I like myself more tomorrow, because of today's decisions. So that if I lay low and be lazy today, I will not beat myself up tomorrow, so that I respect my feelings without being bound by them.This is another entry that feels like it will be hard to read for anyone else than me but what can one do. ? Thank you guys for the suggestions and information, they've been helpful.

January 11th 2019: Day 70 , No gaming day 41- No sugar day 13.Trying to explain my mood fluctuations is hard, I can't be sure about it yet. But yesterday was good, and the day before yesterday was good as well after I wrote down my thoughts here. I think I'm just not satisfied if I have a lot of thoughts but don't tidy them up. So, journal helps with that greatly. I am considering the gym as a temporary solution to going out of the house more now that it's really cold here. My weight is stuck for the moment and it would give me a boost to do some cardio and burn some extra calories per day. Though truth is everything starts in the kitchen when it comes to weight, and I really haven't been feeling hungry after I cut the sugar out. However the mental connection is still here and tortures me every day lately, seeking an answer to boredom via food. I ordered a pizza yesterday and even though I was full with half of it I ate the rest too. This is problematic, cause I both had this bad physical feeling afterwards and I know that it probably rendered the day useless when it comes to a calorie deficit. There's a lot of boredom for me in staying indoors, I think. Maybe I should try to change rooms when I'm done with work, move to the living room? Then again my house isn't very big and there's not enough space for me to do that comfortably in the living room with the rest of the people.. We'll see. Last night between plans regarding my work and drawing I envisioned myself in a better fitness state and that made me smile. I would love to lose the fat I got around my torso and limbs, and look younger and more capable. Fitness is about beauty to me but it's also about being more able to walk longer, to run, to carry groceries etc. I would be more satisfied with myself, taking care of myself that way. As far as drawing goes, I am still unsure whether it's the right hobby for me, because of how it keeps me indoors. I do it on a graphics tablet and not on a notebook, though I tried doing it on a notebook with a pen and although I couldn't get everything I was drawing right, I didn't feel the frustration. I still draw every day, despite all these doubts, because it's also about the goal, about not giving up, it's about clinging onto the direction I chose when I tried replacing games with other things. I will see what place it will have in my priorities when I go out of the house more, that will tell me a lot. And it's not that I don't like drawing but it's lonely in a way, and my work from the home is lonely already, so it's in that sense that I'm not sure if it's the right hobby for me right now. But it's okay. This is life, not knowing is okay. I'm free of gaming and I don't intend to go back to it, it's been a lazy, easy solution to my boredom with catastrophic results to my self esteem and focus, so no thanks. With that said, I'm now trying not using my phone in bed at night and only using it if I'm not lying down in general. I would like lying down to be equal to sleep and so I'm trying this to see how it will affect it. I have been trying to stick to a schedule even if I don't feel like it but I'm not sure it's good for me 100%. I am keeping the obligatory part of doing things first thing in the morning when I get out of bed, but not necessarily the same thing every day. I can get so tired of that, of repetition in general. So right now I'm going for "getting up and doing things from my list of productive activities" until early afternoon basically. Then I pause and see what I feel like doing. That often leads to boredom, cause I've been sitting on a chair all these hours, which leads to thoughts about eating, and I hate that. Then some other times I've chosen to go back to doing productive activities after 6-8pm , and that leads to feeling burnt out. I don't know what to do about it now when it's winter. I hate the cold. Everything points to the direction of going outside more though.

I went to bed at the right time and got waken up by my alarm. For some reason, the sleep doesn't feel enough and I don't feel like getting up from my bed yet. The frustration came back a couple days ago, starting from my lack of skill in drawing, but I'm not certain it's the actual problem. I wonder if I have cyclothymia, uncontrollable changes of mood that is, which are too mild to be considered bipolar disorder. Then I look at my past actions and see how once more this emotion comes to me three days after the last time I left my house. The weather is horrible and it's dangerous to go outside. So I stay in, but the past two days I've been feeling very down. I had a break in my bad mood from yesterday noon till night after talking with someone close to me. Half of yesterday was okay so. But today as I woke up and didn't want to get up, I started wondering why I'm not happy. Why I haven't been happy ever since I decided to be consumed by gaming, around seven years ago. I was enjoying life before, I was going out so often, I was having a great time. Maybe the answer really is in ditching my computer and getting a work station laptop to go work from coffee places and treating house like a relaxation location only. I lack interaction with new sensations, sight and smell and sounds, and my current observations say that this recluse thing has been a constant all through my bad habits and unhappiness period. I went on holiday with my partner last summer, every day was filled with walking and exploring and being together. I felt my best during those active times, I felt my most alive. Maybe this work from home thing is eating me alive. Comfort might be the reason but maybe I'm sacrificing mental health for it. In a couple of months I'll be able to start couch to 2k, weather allowing. We'll see how I feel about it then if I'm getting out to do that every day. No sugar day 11 and no gaming day 39, what I have to report is that since I cut out all the sugar in my diet, eating really is not very interesting any more, it's no longer a fun activity, no longer is it a good answer to boredom or frustration or sadness and so I'm dealing with it all on my own. It's hard, but it's better. I want no such crutches, I want no shackles and I surely don't want the associated health side effects that sugar has. I am 40% fat, even if I don't look it, and I decided to treat sugar intake like a forbidden substance as if I already had a disease. No more insulin spikes in my blood from it, the sweetest thing I eat now is oranges and they taste pretty sweet to me now to be honest. What if my moods are a result of the sugar detox? I don't exclude that possibility either. All the times in my life that I was doing well, I didn't care about food beyond eating to satisfy hunger. All the times I felt alive where times filled with activities and food was only a small break between them because I needed it, not to fill up any gap. I feel no urges to go back to gaming. I write this journal for myself, exploring my situation, trying to dig into it. Writing and exploring possibilities helps me, takes me out of the helpless state of mind and reminds me I have to react and fix it in some way.

How long have you known your girlfriend? It would be a shame to say and believe such words if there isn't real meaning to it, and meaning comes with time in love's case. Years. Being in love comes easy and fast, but it's dangerous to exchange potentially empty words. Be careful with your heart, and hers. Be cautious and realistic.

I struggled with self esteem, I think we all do until we do something about it. Self esteem is about us liking ourselves, forget about what other people believe as a measure of self worth. I needed to learn in order to understand how self esteem works, so I read the book in my signature and started slowly making changes in my actions based on what I learned. I highly recommend it, if you practice what it explains you'll feel so much satisfaction gradually. On the subject of the date I think it's great that your woman also initiated contact, there are so many women who usually expect the man to do all the work. These are all good signs. With that said, as a woman who would also have the confidence to do that in someone I'm interested in, I would still appreciate a man more if I knew his time was limited and yet he chose to spend it with me. I don't like mind games in a relationship, but I can't deny they play a part when you're starting out and you don't have a lot of info about the other person. Ideally for be it would be great if people could just openly talk about what they want from one another, but most prefer the game at first. So I don't know where the balance is, how much you should play difficult or not, but taking turns and paying attention to how much attention you receive vs you offer is a good indicator to assess the situation.

The problem is you're doing a job you hate and that's poisoning you day after day like an abusing partner, it holds you back. When you have free time you try to find ways to cope with that, so you don't do anything creative, just killing time. There's not much to tell you we haven't discussed before. Good luck coping, or good luck finding another job. I don't see any other alternative given your personality and situation.

Welcome to the forums Katsudo. You can write anything you want here and of course start a journal for keeping yourself accountable, expressing your thoughts and getting feedback from other people on the same journey. You have the power to make better choices in your life, nobody is stopping you, remember that. You can achieve your goals as long as you don't stop trying when mistakes happen. All the best.

There is nothing wrong with having a lot of goals, on the contrary it's a good thing, you have a lot of options to do things with your newfound free time. You will find that free time is the death of progress when it comes to replacing bad habits. You need to be proactive. What stresses you out about them? Life is, at best, two steps forward and one step back. Perfection is an illusion and mistakes are often part of the process. Set high but achievable goals for your days and be forgiving but not forgetful with yourself when things aren't perfect. Ask yourself if your today was better than your yesterday. See if you are any closer to your goals today than you were yesterday, that should be your compass imho. Embrace the hardship this change comes with, take responsibility for your actions and their consequences and you'll have it easier than if you didn't! All the best.

There is nothing stopping you or holding you back from doing it, Brian. You can do it and you will do it if you choose to remain consistent every day. Everyone who puts one foot in front of the other and takes action gets there, some people get there sooner, some people get there later. But if you understand that there is no failure in life and only feedback we can learn from, then you will see that anyone can achieve their goals as long as they put in the time and effort. There is no reason to be anxious, at all. Just like every artist who started by drawing stick figures and ended up being paid for realistic paintings years later, the only thing that stood between them and that end result was time - this applies to any goal. Arrange your every day life in the way that works for you, that makes you feel good about yourself, that makes you a happy and healthy person. There is no doubt that you will get to your end goal, so there is no reason for stress. Embrace the fact you need to be patient, good results need time. It's how things work, real things in the real world. If you aren't persuaded by my word alone, feel free to search about the habits of successful people. Feel good, because now you are in control of your circumstances. You already made that good choice by coming here. Keep making good choices and you'll arrive where you want to be faster and easier. "Do as I say and not as I do." The death of our dignity and self esteem, if we're being real. The first book in my signature opened my eyes to this and ever since I read it I've been trying to do exactly as I say and be an example of my ethics, live a life in accordance to my beliefs. I went from rock bottom self esteem to trusting and liking and accepting myself more. Especially because you're in this job, I highly recommend it.

You're doing great, continue taking action and looking into yourself. You're gonna progress really fast imho!

Welcome back and it's good to see you not giving up. I want to underline a few things we have in common, and how I deal with them. You'll see that most of us start our quitting with content consumption, series or YouTube. That's really problematic and it was what kept me going back to gaming. You need to force yourself to take action by planning tasks for you to do every day in your free time. Don't expect much, your goal should be to do something, anything, that isn't self destructive. And watching and eating is self destructive. I used to do it as well and I stopped. No it isn't easy, it's just a habit though and like all habits they can be replaced with better ones. Gaming, eating, binging, they are often coping mechanisms and so what we need to do is find better coping mechanism. Find creative hobbies, find relaxation methods and stay with the process. Do things, try things. Don't stay inactive and passive, and be proactive, plan things ahead of time. Don't worry about your focus- the more you stay away from the content consumption and do things without distractions, the less you will want to get away from your task at hand. Everything gets better as long as you're consistent. Feel free to read my journal, maybe you'll find something useful there. You are in control of your life, don't forget that. You aren't your urges, or your feelings. You are what you decide to do and if you take good decisions for yourself today, you will feel positive about yourself tomorrow. Jim Rohn

What stops you from taking action, doing things?

January 4th 2019: Day 63 , No gaming day 35 - No sugar day 7. So, what have I been doing? Well, I have been keeping to my routine: drawing and painting, and working! The more I paint and draw, the more I understand about it, the less lost I feel and the higher my hopes are for my progress. I have gone from not being able to stay in my drawing software for more than 50 minutes to now doing 2.5 hours plus (with breaks) of total drawing exercises etc, my brain is slowly adjusting to the process. I feel like I am headed to the right direction, doing things that are good for me, even if my inner chaotic child screams against the chains of discipline. During the holidays I had to stay at home a lot and that definitely doesn't make me happy, alas given the weather and the circumstances I can not get out as much. I hope to get out more, draw and paint outside the house during spring, maybe draw people as they move around or in coffee houses, I am not sure yet. I am still an addict in recovery, and so even if some days feel more like progress and some feel less like it, I continue. I might procrastinate doing things here and there, distract myself with 30 minutes of youtube or such, but having my tasks for the day planned helps me be accountable to myself and, even if postponed, get them done.I feel good about my life and hopeful for my future. I hope for more discipline and focus in my activities, more awareness in my emotions. As far as food goes, I forced myself to abstain from sugar again and I intend to keep this with only one, singular dessert per week (as known as cheat meal, but in my case it's not a meal, just a single sugar-containing food portion, ie an ice cream or three cookies). A lot of times I found myself 'wanting to eat' but in truth it was either that I was restless with staying by my computer or that I wanted a change in my current, usual physical situation (aka would have loved to go for a walk instead), or even when I was plain tired. So when I realized I needed a ' state change' , what I did one time was I went to my bed, picked up a book I haven't read yet from my little pile, and started on it. It worked. I know when I am hungry, when my stomach makes the sounds, and I know when I just ' want to eat '. For my health and looks, I am doing my best to listen to my body's needs regarding food, and not my bored/tired/frustrated mind. For that, I gotta go and do something else, relax etc. My weight is dropping again, no complaints here. I just need to be consistent. With everything. I also noticed how much more emotion I experience, in strength and how often it occurs, now that I am not distracting myself with gaming. I have a lot of feelings, I love deeply and I care deeply for those few people in my life - and that is okay. Just my observation post-abstinence from games. I guess in a way, for some emotions (like missing someone you love), gaming worked as a numbing pill, a drug, right? It could be. I feel like this post is all over the place and if I'd written it at night before I close my eyes it'd have been more to the point and precise (cause that's when I sum up my day somewhat in my mind and think to plan for the next) but what can you do. ?

Day 57-62,  December 29th 2018- January 3rd 2019No gaming day 29-34 No sugar day 6 Hoping to fill this out tomorrow if I'm not busy BUT just wanted to quickly update my timers! I've been kicking it with sugar, accepting the pain of withdrawal as part of your process does wonder for me!

Don't be disappointed, be a student; learn from your mistakes, and you'll get better by implementing the lessons learned through them. Kudos on the gym membership, that's a step in the right direction for sure. You do need to take action, because by sitting still after you're done with work, a work that doesn't fulfill you for the most part, what you do to yourself is forcing him to suffer in restlessness and boredom. It's a remnant from sitting still because of gaming, I get it, absolutely, but nothing changes if you change nothing, yeah? Stop procrastinating, embrace the hardship of change and then the change will reward you with feelings of accomplishment and self affirmation. Force yourself to a sleep routine, it isn't fun, but fun shouldn't be our guide tbh. What will future me thank present me for? That's what we should be guided by, that's how I find deeper satisfaction with myself personally. Cause in 8 or 16 hours that future me will have become present me, so it's literally treating myself with good choices. Hoping you had a good rest! And remember, any activity that doesn't destroy your self image is better than boredom, or the bad habits that used to occupy that time slot after work. Pick one, act on it.

The more you 'let loose' , the harder it is to be disciplined. Force yourself to study tomorrow, go through the pain. There is no other way, but this is the way that works, guaranteed. All my past attempts at quitting games failed, I relapsed because I would spend the whole day lying down in bed, on the phone, watching series, aka doing nothing productive/creative/progressing. Just my 2 cents as a probably harsh reminder, though I have no other way to say these hard truths. ? As Nike says, just do it (whatever it is you know you should be doing).

This is your brain screaming at change, if you play now you're gonna do another half a year relapse. This is your turning point. Watch a class online and you'll fall asleep probably. Quick reply cause I'm off to do work stuff sorry

Your feelings are not irrelevant. Your feelings are not shameful, because they are neither good or bad, they are just an indicator - like an alarm that rings. Your feelings are not you. Your feelings are the way you respond to some things. Feelings are not worthless. Feelings have worth but feelings are useful for only one thing in our lives: they tell us when things go right, or when they go wrong. They are here to inform us, not to guide us. When you feel happy, this is a very useful piece of information that comes from yourself to yourself, telling you that what is happening in this moment should continue. And when you feel angry or sad, it is a piece of information that tells you that this situation should not continue. Do you take your feelings in account? Do you investigate what is going wrong, when you feel bad? And another thing. Your feelings are not what make you, you. Your actions are what make you, you. Your self image, your self esteem is based on the sum of actions you take, whether those actions align with your morals, beliefs and desires or not, whether you are responsible for the things that are in your control and whether you are assertive and honest with yourself and other people. Those are the things that define you, and when you live in harmony with them, you end up liking yourself. Take it from someone who loathed herself a year ago too. I highly recommend you read two books, they will give you a realistic and not distorted perspective like the one that's been accompanying you so far : Mind over Mood & Six pillars of self esteem. You deserve to be in control of your thoughts about yourself, you deserve to be happy - take action!

Recently I went through a 2-day-long emotional period in which I wasn't feeling very well about my situation - and erupting and venting and getting it out of our system feels like a necessary step, a way to figure out what is wrong now and how we can change the situation based on what our bad emotions are informing us of, what stuff is not working for us and making us unhappy. If you already know what's wrong, it's time to plan on how to change the things in your control! Please don't allow yourself to linger in the emotions and do not assume that your emotions should dictate your actions. I spent a long time "not feeling like doing" anything and I thought it defined me. But what I did different this time and have remained clean from games so far is, I acted despite not feeling like it, I trusted the process of forming new habits day by day, knowing what discipline means for a person's goals. I kept and I keep thinking of the future results and push myself to accept the potential pains that come with saying no to <insert bad habit> now, so that in the future I will be a different person, a better person. In the book Atomic Habits, the author says that we can look at our actions as if they are votes towards one or the other trait. I, for example, do not eat healthily and that behavior casts a vote towards the label "unhealthy" for my identity, an identity that in and of itself makes me feel like I'm not 'meant to' be healthy, that I'm doomed to always eat junk. I might not feel like eating veggies and fruits, but if I do it enough, if the votes I cast for myself being "healthy" are equal or more in number with those of the 'unhealthy', then that is the new identity I will have for myself. Because in the end, it is what we do that matters, not what we think, not how we feel, not..anything else. Our logical side of the brain collects information based on actions and facts and from those it makes conclusions about ourselves. And this message, supported by another book that helped me greatly (Six pillars of self esteem) made me realize that we hold the keys, we are in control, as heavy a burden as it is and difficult a right to exercise. You choose how you act now, thus you choose who you will be tomorrow. It's gonna feel uncomfortable at first, but a week or two after it will be less and less painful.